When I was a television producer some many years ago, I produced the drama series entitled 'Anak Metropolitan'. It's about our young who were involved in gangs.
This serie caused an unprecedented polemic in the Malay community. We were accused for airing our community's bobrok-ness publicly. It stirred our community leaders and our fellow Malay citizens and we were congratulated as well as fired for creating such a show. The show was not merely about our creativity but based on some research that we have done about our community. We showed what was really happening out there but our community could not accept the truth.
Now, sweeping things under the carpet is not going to solve the problem. And again, the hot news these days in the Malay press is about the state of bobrok-ness of some of our Malays. And it was not because of some television programmes, but the airing of grief by our minister for Malay/Muslim affairs, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim. He was grief-stricken at the tragic death of a young innocent child rotting near Kallang River and the bitter truth that our Malays are still underachieving in mathematics, and not sending their kids to preschools.
And of late, in order to balance the dirty linen of the community, Berita Harian has reported some news of success - like more Malay students going to post-secondary education and more Malay scientists in our midst. However, should we shout and rave about these? Are we still trying to mask our tragic shortcomings by proclaiming these minutiae successes as compared to the other races? I would probably rave about our Malay scientists but not about the higher rate of Malays in post-secondary education.
In the first place, when it is shown that there are more Malays in post-secondary education, what does this really mean? I may be wrong, but I think it meant there are more Malays who go to ITE instead of dropping out at secondary school. There is nothing wrong going to ITE but is this the kind of success that we should be really proud of when the other races have gone to secure higher than just bachelor degrees?
And also of late, another problem in the Malay community is the high incidences of dropping out at ITE.
Malays don't attend preschools, Malays drop-out at primary school, Malays drop-out at secondary schools and now dropping out at ITE. So what's the bottomline? Financial prblems? I dont think so. I believe some of these Malays are not resilient enough. Some of us just gave up too easily. And when the problems get tough, they blame it on the lack of money and what-have-you. Our leaders and self-help group are now dangling $$ to retain the ITE students in school, but I believe the problem is deeper than that. The problem is the mind.
We are not resilient enough. We are not kiasu enough. We believe that it is fate. We just don't think like Nadim.
This mindset is the cause of a lot of ills, and a lot of self-defeating beliefs in ourselves. We believe that we cannot do well in mathematics just because we are Malays. This has got to change, and it has to change really fast. We need a mental revolution! We need to brainwash and hynotize our Malays to revolutionise their thinking towards success. We need accelerated programs!
I've also read in the press about what community leaders planned to do - stepping up their efforts in tackling these issues. I don't want to seem cynical, but I would really like to know HOW are they planning to go about doing it. What does 'stepping up' their programs mean?
Because we have done it for over 20 years, and we have still not achieved the results that we wanted. Even if we don't compare ourselves with the Chinese who are way in front of us, but the Indians have done much better than us. What do we have to say to that? I'm sure they have similar resources but something is just not happening right with us.
Let's revolutionize our minds now!
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