What's Madani's agenda of streamlining preschools?

 

"This means that in discussing justice, we are actually widening the gap between urban and rural areas, urban rich and urban poor, rural poor and remote poor.”

- Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim

The title of this piece is an important question. PAS has warned that it does not want the government to interfere in its Pusat Asuhan Tunas Islam (Pasti) programmes.

I can understand that. PAS is a political party running a preschool outreach programme. This in itself is controversial because imagine if DAP was running preschools, PAS would claim that the DAP was indoctrinating children.

By that same measure, we can conclude that no matter how well those preschools are, there is indoctrination going on. This indoctrination would be the kind of interpretation of the religion that PAS promulgates.

Religious indoctrination in preschools by itself is not as controversial as it sounds, although in my mind it should be.

There are many Christian, Hindu and Buddhist preschools in the country all merrily indoctrinating young children. This falls under religious freedom and educational freedom in the country.

Indeed when it comes to religious indoctrination, even what PAS is doing as a religious party through preschools is not really that controversial.

The religious bureaucracy on a federal and state level, runs their preschools throughout the country and truth be told they may not be as effectively run as Pasti.

Hence when Umno was running things, the agenda of the political party seeped through the religious bureaucracy and finally to the impressionable minds of preschool-going children.

So when various PAS personalities and political personalities warned the government not to interfere with Pasti, we have to ask ourselves three questions.

The first is what kind of religious education is PAS teaching in these preschools?

The second is what kind of religious agenda does the federal bureaucracy have when it comes to preschool-age Muslim children?

The third and most important question is, is there a difference between the religious teachings of PAS through these preschools and the religious teachings that the religious bureaucracy comes up with?

If you think that PAS does not have to be concerned or that this is not a political or religious issue, well you would be misguided.

State the religious agenda

As reported in the press, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said, “For curriculum involving religious education, the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim) would look into the matter.”

So what this means is that the federal government through the religious bureaucracy is carrying out the government's agenda.

Again, nothing wrong with this in the context of local Malay/Muslim politics. But what is the government's religious agenda when it comes to preschool education?

Former deputy minister Mohamed Hanipa Maidin said that although he had reservations about PAS, Pasti has been very successful. But what has it been successful at?

Hanipa said the education programmes are run by professionals and some of them are PhD holders.

Here is the thing though, PAS has one of the most tech-savvy propaganda organs and political base in the country but this does not mean that its agenda is doing the country any good.

Amanah leaders, Hanipa said, can vouch for Pasti, which I suppose means that the so-called progressive Amanah leaders can vouch for the kind of religious education PAS exposes preschool children to.

But again, there is no mention of exactly what kind of religious curriculum Pasti carries out nor is there very much sunlight between the religious agenda of Amanah and PAS beyond the former's political bromides.

Inclusivity

For instance, if you go to a Christian, Buddhist or Hindu-run preschool the religious education they expose the children to is by default inclusive. They have to be.

While I think any kind of religious education is bunkum, the reality is that any non-Islamic preschools would ensure for political and legal reasons their religious curriculum is inclusive.

But more importantly, as minorities, we want to be inclusive for self-preservation reasons and this is imparted through the religious curriculum of preschoolers.

This does not mean that bigotry and ignorance which is part and parcel of religious dogma are not imparted to young children, only that the political aspects are subdued for self-preservation reasons.

Now some folks think it is great that PAS is worried about the government's efforts to streamline preschools especially when the perception is that PAS indoctrinates young children in these schools.

Fair enough but then we have to ask ourselves - what is Madani’s religious curriculum when it comes to this issue?

Jakim’s involvement

What is Jakim’s idea when it comes to the religious curriculum of preschoolers? Keep in mind that the Madani government's efforts to empower the religious bureaucracy further are to strengthen the position of Islam in this country.

There are various reasons for this and most of them involve politics but the question remains - is Jakim the moderating force to counter the religious dogma of the far right?

And that is the problem, Jakim is not a progressive religious body. We have no idea what kind of religious curriculum they would come up with or even if they would have an issue with the religious curriculum that is going on in these Pasti preschools.

If they have no issue with these preschools then what exactly is the difference between the religious agenda of the Madani government and PAS?

The people who fund these bureaucracies should be the ones shaping policies. However, after decades of letting these entities run riot, these entities think they are above the law.

They certainly believe they are above secular law and actively campaign for syariah laws to trump the Federal Constitution.

The great irony is that all these corruption cases which captivate a certain section of the voting polity are not going to have much of an impact on the trajectory of the theocratic state.

What could stem the tide of extremism are initiatives like these but it all depends on what kind of religious agenda the Madani state brings to the table.

The devil is truly in the details. - Mkini

---

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.