If the Malays are serious about change, there are some unpleasant truths they need to acknowledge.
If you are Malay, and speak to members of your family or friends who attended religious schools, you will learn that their experience of being beaten has left them traumatised. They retaliate by disrespecting authority. Others become jaded by religion. They are mentally scarred because their concerns were dismissed when they sought their parents’ help. They feel twice betrayed. For many Malay parents, religious teachers can do no wrong.
The Malay carries an enormous amount of emotional baggage. On one hand, he is told he is the master race, but the children feel they are treated like slaves, especially when they are beaten-up.
The other baggage piled onto his shoulders, is that to disobey a religious teacher is tantamount to disobeying the word of God, or of insulting Islam. Our indoctrination is so strong.
The Malay may recognise the need for change, but he is held back by a massive mental block, introduced by the religious men, by his political leaders and by his elders. The Malay is hesitant about using logic and reason, as the effect of tribalism, and hell-fire talk has reduced his mind to a pulp. He is warned against questioning authority figures.
When 11-year old boy Mohamad Thaqif Amin Mohd Gaddafi was admitted to hospital, we were given daily updates on his condition. His legs were amputated. His right arm turned necrotic. He was put into an induced coma. We were told the grim reasons behind his hospitalisation.
You would have thought that the interested parties, like the Welfare Department, the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, as well as the Education Ministry, Islamic Development Department of Malaysia (Jakim) and the various state religious departments would take a keen interest.
Did their spokespersons try to reassure the public that the tahfiz schools would be inspected, to check and see if the welfare of the students and running of the schools were fine? There are around 1,200 of these types of schools in Malaysia. No, they did not!
The various ministers only crawled out of the woodwork on the day Thaqif died; then they made numerous promises.
As this was a school, albeit a tahfiz school, you would have expected the education minister to suspend the school, send the pupils home, inspect the records, quiz the principal and other teachers, and issue a statement to reassure the public. The minister’s response was too little, too late.
In the week in which the nation was praying that little Thaqif would pull through, we did not hear from Jakim, the body which monitors and manages Islamic issues in Malaysia? Nor did we hear from Jamil Khir Baharom, the Minister for Islamic affairs.
Scrambling for cover
Everyone scrambled for cover and only emerged after Thaqif died. The education minister said the ministry would have a chat with Jamil, to ensure that private tahfiz schools are listed under Jakim.
Why Jakim? If it is an educational establishment, let the education minister sort it out.
Don’t tahfiz students learn anything apart from memorising the Quran? How are they to become model Malaysians, integrate into society and learn to respect their fellow Malaysian, some of whom may be of different faiths?
Thaqif’s death exposed many serious shortcomings in the ministries, like registration, lack of procedures and absence of staff vetting. Perhaps, the issues in the Education Ministry are the tip of the iceberg and other government departments are just as badly managed.
Many taxpayers disagree with their hard-earned cash funding private institutions, especially ones which are neither officially regulated nor registered.
In today’s Malaysia, religion is to the Muslim what a good business idea is to the venture capitalist. Even water which has been ‘blessed’ by an ustaz sells for a premium. No one dares to object. Religious education as a preserve of parents is a thing of the past. Schools are forced to play the role of parents. For some, it is lazy parenting.
In the decadent, capitalist and liberal west, when a child dies from an alleged beating by a member of the school’s staff, the kay-poh-chee citizens will hound the authorities and demand that heads roll.
By that, they do not mean just punishing the person holding the whip, but also bringing into question the suitability and professionalism of the person at the top, who should have overseen the workings of his department or ministry.
They demand that the systems are revamped, before the schools are reopened. Which is better? To protect children’s lives, or protect the officials’ jobs and pension?
In peace-loving, increasingly conservative Malaysia, a Malay child’s death is greeted with “God’s will” or that it was fate, accompanied by the apparatchiks’ bland statements like “we will make more checks”, which only fuel a deeper sense of outrage.
Despite the disclosure of serious breaches of safety and procedure, no parent has apparently withdrawn their child from tahfiz schools.
If the Malay is serious about change, God is not going to do it for him.
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