Ketari by-election - manifest Lim Fong Seng spirit to spearhead a national movement for  21^st Century Charter for comprehensive system of  mother-tongue education  from primary to tertiary level in Malaysia

(Bentong,  Thursday):  On 13^th March 2001, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad gave an  unprecedented interview to seven Chinese newspapers and declared that the government has never had any plans to close down Chinese primary schools in the country, that such fear is unfounded, that  in fact such a move is against the law and that the Chinese community could take the Government to court for closing down Chinese primary schools.  

On the same day, the Chinese community and Malaysian nation lost a giant in the cause for mother-tongue education and human rights, as Lim Fong Seng, former  chairman of the Chinese School Committees of Malaysia (Dong Zong), passed away the same day.  

Would Lim Fong Seng, who had led the  national movement for the protection and promotion of mother-tongue education spanning more than two decades from the seventies to nineties, have been assured and satisfied  by Mahathir’s assurances in his interview with seven Chinese newspapers  that Chinese primary schools and mother-tongue education in the country are here to stay and that there is no basis for the concern of the Chinese community about the place and future of Chinese primary schools and mother-tongue education in the country? 

Lim Fong Seng is not with us to give an answer. But we have the spirit of Lim Fong Seng to tell us that the answer would have been a firm and loud “No” if Lim Fong Seng is still alive to respond to Mahathir’s interview with the seven Chinese newspapers.  

It was Lim Fong Seng who spearheaded the campaign from the seventies to defend the existence of Chinese primary schools and preserve its character from Section 21(2) of the 1961 Education Act which,  until the 1996 Education Act, was a Sword of Damocles hanging over all Chinese primary schools waiting only for the time to close and convert them into national primary schools.  

However, although the Sword of Damocles of Section 21(2) of the 1961 Education Act vesting the Education Minister the full discretionary power to convert Chinese primary schools into national primary schools had been removed, it had been replaced by another  Sword of Damocles in the form of the ultimate objective of the government for a single stream education system. 

It is precisely because of the refusal to repeal this “ultimate objective” and the  new Sword of Damocles  that the concept of the Vision Schools is regarded as suspect, as to whether it is in fact an  instrument to bring about the eventual realisation of the ultimate objective of the national education system of having a single stream of education system - although no one objects to the mixing and interaction of Malaysian students of different races and religions. 

Mahathir’s argument that the Chinese community could take the Government to court for closing down Chinese primary schools is no assurance at all, after the failure of the Merdeka University legal suit all the way to the  Federal Court in July 1982 despite such high hopes of the Chinese community.

Mahathir’s  reference during the interview  to  the “Social Contract” reached by  the three communities during Merdeka is not calculated to inspire confidence, when on September 29, 2001 at the Gerakan national conference,  he could unilaterally abrogate one of the most fundamental  principles of the 44-year  “Social Contract” and 1957 Merdeka Constitution of Malaysia, which was reaffirmed by the peoples of Sarawak and Sabah in 1963, of Malaysia  as a democratic, secular, multi-religious and progressive nation  with Islam as the official religion but not an Islamic state by declaring that Malaysia is an Islamic state!  

As Mahathir’s unprecedented interview to the  seven Chinese newspapers last week was clearly designed to influence the voters in the Ketari by-election, the question is how much credibility it deserves to be given.  

Malaysians can still remember that before the 1999 general elections, the Cabinet expressed support for the Suqiu general election appeals but which were denounced by Mahathir inside  and outside Parliament in the following year as extremist, chauvinist, communist and even fanatical  like Al-Maunah.

When asked in Parliament for the inconsistency, Mahathir told Parliament in December 2000:  

"We were threatened then as elections were just round the corner. That’s why they came up  with the memorandum as a threat to the Barisan Nasional, and that if we didn’t entertain their request they would tell the Chinese not to support us.  This was deliberate and the timing was well-planned. What could we do then?" 

The people of Malaysia, and in particular the voters of Ketari, should not easily forget the lesson of Suqiu, as the Barisan Nasional has established that it is capable of giving all sorts of assurances just for the sake of votes during elections but which they have no intention whatsoever of honouring.  

The people of Ketari has a historic opportunity during the by-election to manifest the spirit of Lim Fong Seng to spearhead a national movement for  21^st Century Charter for comprehensive system of  mother-tongue education  from primary to tertiary level in Malaysia, which for Chinese education in Malaysia, should include the following important elements:  

• Build 50 new Chinese primary  schools a year;  

• Re-open the original  Damansara Chinese primary school in Petaling Jaya as a “community school” for the pupils in the immediate locality.  

• Suspend  all Vision School projects until the repeal of the “ultimate objective” preamble in the 1996 Education Act.  

• RM1 billion special allocation for the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools and the 1,200  Chinese primary  schools to be paid out in the next five years in recognition of their contribution to nation-building.  

• Allow building of new or re-establishment of previous  Chinese Independent Secondary Schools.  

• Government recognition of Unified Examinations Certificate (UEC) of Chinese Independent  Secondary Schools.  

• Make Pupil’s Own Language (POL)  a compulsory subject for all pupils in national primary and secondary schools.  

• Establishment of a  university  using Chinese as a medium of instruction as the goverment has asked the Japanese government to set up an university in Malaysia  with Japanese as medium of instruction.

(21/3/2002)