First published in The New Straits Times on 3rd September 2008.

BY the end of the year, there is a strong likelihood that the government will decide to ditch English as the language of instruction for Mathematics and Science, and revert to having them taught in Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin or Tamil again.

Anyone keeping track of the many arguments in favour or against the policy would have sensed a growing tide to reverse the 2003 policy.

The most telling development is that I have yet to hear any major current politicians, from either side of the aisle, speak publicly in favour of the policy.

Is the policy so bad that politicians could only talk of its weakness, or has politics got their tongues? Did we not believe in it when it was introduced six years ago, or has lobbying and politicking got the better of our policymakers, and chipped away the good intentions of the policy?

Is it not ironic that many of our prominent politicians would likely send their children to private or international schools, where English reigns supreme?
Many people smarter than me have suggested that instead of teaching the subjects in English, perhaps, if the idea is to improve competence, more emphasis should be given to teaching the language.

I suppose so, but I do not see anything being done in that direction. In fact the most determined effort to get more pupils exposed to English has been the current policy, but alas it is now in danger of being made redundant.

A Berita Harian news report yesterday said the national teachers union, NUTP, fresh from their meeting last month, was for the reversal of the policy for primary schools beginning next year.

The union, which represents 135,000 members, however supported the policy for secondary schools.

The NUTP secretary-general said delegates spoke of their findings that the policy was not working well especially for kids in Primary One to Three. The children were having difficulty grasping scientific and mathematical concepts in a foreign language.

The few times that I wrote on the subject I was inundated by reports and studies that concluded children do better in the two subjects when taught in their mother tongues.

Well, I am the last to argue on research, but I tend to believe that our children's fate is not determined by how they do in the first handful of school-going years, or how they do in their primary school examinations.

The fate of our children is determined by how they conduct themselves later in their lives, and that includes mastering the most popular and widely used of all languages.

Nevertheless, I do not remember school kids having a choice many years ago when the subjects were taught in English. Kids, I have always believed, were better adapters and adopters than adults.

I also am concerned that the government would arrive at the correct decision, using flawed conclusions.

A friend told me how students in a Tamil school where he volunteered were scoring As and Bs in the two subjects only to have crashed to Ds and Es when the subjects were taught in English.

A casual inference would suggest that English was to be blamed. But what happened was that it was the teachers who failed them; they continued teaching the kids in Tamil because they were not proficient in English, and yet expected the kids to sit for their exams in English.

Similar experiences were also reported in national and vernacular schools.

A parent who attended a roundtable organised by the Education Ministry to discuss the issue told me that those in favour of the current policy were outnumbered by those who were against it. I am more hopeful than optimistic that a flip-flop would not happen.

However, the ministry said it will only decide on the matter by the end of the year, after taking into account the opinions of stakeholders, as well as studies and findings.

It will also look at the results of this year's Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah examination, which involves the first batch of schoolchildren who went through the policy.

I say let us have a referendum of sorts over this issue. Let the parents of each school decide. If say, more than 70 per cent of parents in a school favour English as the medium of instruction for the subjects, then it stays. Anything less, then the school reverts to Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin or Tamil.

Let there be choices. I know it is a poor solution, but we have seen what many "perfect solutions" have given us.

Let parents have a say and not just leave it to politicians.

That way, each of our schools can keep their identities, while our children's future is not subjected to political opportunism and narrow chauvinism.

First published in The New Straits Times on 27th August 2008.

THE outcome of Permatang Pauh notwithstanding, we are in for an interesting ride from here on. Incidentally, it comes not because of changes that a politician promises, but because of the changes that would invariably come, regardless.

Sparked by a political process -- no doubt, the 12th general election -- such changes came about via a tectonic shift in generational attitudes, especially among the young.

Ours, after all is a young country. At 51, as nations go, we are not old.

The more telling statistic however is that a third of our population is under 15, or that more than 60 per cent are under 40.

The histories of our many generations differ, and hence, since histories tend to define us, our outlooks differ, too.
Old guys, though opinionated and presumably wiser, but more likely to be comfortable with the status quo, are getting less in number.

From now on, the game is to be dictated by what the majority young people want.

By young, I subscribe to the political parties' criteria for youth to be someone below 40.

What youth brings, apart from vigour and vim, is the willingness and openness to new ideas.

Youth is also blessed to be without historical baggage, and without fear

A wily politician, with his ears cupped to the pulse of a generation, would have detected a common dominating trend, and may surreptitiously decide to make it his, and run away with it.

Those less inclined or less tuned in, on the other hand, would still talk of conventions and ideals that may be half a century older or more, which of course would be greeted with mass head scratching by the largest group of the electorate.

The understanding of nationhood, how it is perceived, and what it means are also different between generations.

It is unfortunate that the sacrifices of generations ages ago are only remembered as facts of our history that have little bearing on the here and now. But that is the way it is.

The entitled generations have no firsthand experience of events that shaped the political experience of those before them. Merdeka is a fact, and not an ideal.

Let us consider the several challenging periods of the country's history. No, this current drama in our self-obsessed political navel gazing can never even hold a candle to events of the past.

There were threats and mischief from within and without that raised doubts if Malaya, and then Malaysia, would survive at all.

In the early days of the idea of Malaysia, and its subsequent formation in 1963, the country was physically threatened by Indonesia, volleying artillery shots across the borders of Kalimantan, and dropping paratroopers in Johor.

Those were perilous times for the new nation, and Sukarno's ganyang or crush Malaysia campaign exposed our armouries to be bare, and our barracks to be small and empty. But it got the people together, and the national service call up was answered by all for the spirit of nationhood was strong.

Now, it seems, we only get together to celebrate sporting achievements.

Consider too the national Emergency of 1948-1960, and many years beyond that, when communist terrorists killed, maimed and terrorised the population, and the economy.

Chin Peng's Communist Party of Malaya attempted to take the country by force, with a sly nod to Red China's plan of making Malaya its 19th province, brought about laws and political awakenings that now seems anachronistic.

In 1969, after the general elections, a racial riot broke out that brought into question the whole idea of a mixed bag of races trying to cobble a country together. Those who predicted the demise of Malaysia, would have seemed prescient then.

But of course, our forefathers worked it out so that we are still around. But while May 13 left scars, it seems exclusively to those in their 40s and beyond. The political sensibilities that came from them, seems not to be shared by the young. We cannot really blame them for that.

Thus the newly found freedom of expression that we enjoy, by way of the new media, allows the young to widely share their socio-political belief, and allows them to be a force of change.

The generational gap, it seems, is not only in our choice of music or the proclivity for bodily art or piercing, but also to what the country is to be from here on.

To say the times are changing is of course redundant. Fifty-one years on, Malaysia is getting to be very different, all of a sudden.

As we approach yet another milestone in our country's history, we should be congratulated for the maturity in handling these changes. It is indeed progress.

Anyway, it feels rather strange to be wishing each other Merdeka now, ever since it has been co-opted into a political rallying cry. So, happy birthday Malaysians, and surely, many more happy returns.

First published in The New Straits Times on 20th August 2008.

I HAVE my one-third rule of thumb for anything. It divides the whole world into three equal parts. In almost any circumstances, a third of us would be supporters, another third, detractors, and the final third, the undecided swing voters.

For example, a third of us love our roti canai, and another third, hate it. It is the final third who allow it to be a Malaysian institution. But being the political animals that we are, we would naturally politicise the dish first.

The operative word for my one-third rule is to simplify my life, and it is not the route to absolute truth. The truth, after all, is something precious these days.

In Permatang Pauh, if my rule were to be applied, Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat would have in their pockets a third each of the electorate, for whom nothing you do or say could change their minds.

The battle would be for the final third, the swing voters.
Similarly, I believe the one-third rule applies to the statements below, which for the record, come not from the figment of my imagination:

I was informed a couple of days ago, with all the earnestness and confidence of a person having just peeked at a classified document, that former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is Malaysia's fifth richest person, and that details of his offshore accounts are all over the Internet.

Similarly, the member of parliament for Rembau Khairy Jamaluddin is worth several billions and that he has cornered the nation's gold market, for he believes in times of trouble, gold will be king.

We all know of course about the deputy prime minister's wife Datin Rosmah Mansor being an alleged accomplice in a murder, and that the DPM himself is in a complicity of a tryst that led to the aforementioned crime.

We also know that former DPM, and Permatang Pauh favourite shoo-in, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is being charged with sodomy, yet again. And of course, there are also threats on his life, yet again, but not when he is on the campaign trail.

I have also heard of Indians being selectively and ethnically cleansed, and that their only saviour is the Queen of England, who would curb the murderous rampage of the Malays.

Now some of us may laugh and declare bunkum at some of them, but based on my one-third rule, I would assume that no matter which political side of the bed you wake up from, you will find that a third of us would see some truth in the above.

Incidentally, our nays and yeas would likely almost always reflect our political leanings.

But life is such, you take what you need and leave the rest. Some call it being selective with the truth, others may call it real politik.

Hence, a man swearing in the name of the Almighty in what is essentially a strike-me-now-if-I were-to-use-your-name-in-vain gambit is being ridiculed by those who see him as tool in a conspiracy to deny Anwar his return to politics and the promise of utopia in Putrajaya.

On the flipside, the same oath taking is used by others across the divide to goad Anwar into doing the same, if he has nothing to fear, and in all their exhortations for him to do the right thing, lay upon us a broad hint of the man's guilt.

The final third of us are of course still on the fence, figuring if the truth is as important as the implications of all the heady dramas on the nation.

I think more than ever we have breached a point where we could now willy nilly dismiss or admit anything based on our political agenda. That is not only sad, but a dangerous trend.

The wrath of God for some of us, no longer worries, let alone scares. Politics and political exigencies have made us suspects as the purveyours of the truth.

A lie should be a lie, and the truth should be just that, too, regardless if it were to be repeated in the presence of a mufti, or not.

Is it any wonder that many, perhaps more than a third, are of the opinion that politicians are such unsavoury characters, even if they are just a notch lower than hacks like yours truly.

First published in The New Straits Times on 13th August 2008.

THERE is, of course, a thin line between upholding one's rights and being dismissive of others' opinions. There could also exist a major gulf between reality and perception. But, often times, we know that, unfortunately, perception rules.

That was the case last Saturday when a group of Malay demonstrators protested against a Bar Council forum that discussed the complications arising from conversion to Islam as well as the implications to the Constitution and non-Muslims.

The Bar Council held the forum against the advice of many that it would offend.

What happened was unfortunate, to say the least. Saturday's protest would also add to the litany of stereotypes of a Malay. Unfortunately, stereotypes stick.

What's with the Malays and their religion?
I cannot explain, of course, apart from stating the obvious, which is, religions call for blind faith and that most believers would fight to defend the sanctity of theirs.

Following Saturday's incident, there have been many shouting from their moral perches, describing the demonstrators as uncouth, dangerous and unwise to the ways of democracy. They included politicians, including those attempting comebacks from disgrace, or enforced lay-offs.

Boo! to the regressive souls who cannot take intellectual discourse without taking to the streets. Boo! to you, the zealots who cannot be engaged in constructive fora. So it seems.

Of course, the demonstrators could have conducted themselves better. But often, the mob has its own mind and often it defies social graces. Not all of us could be legalistic and dispassionate when dealing with matters like race and religion.

I believe the Bar Council, in all its righteousness and believing the virtues it was bringing to our consciousness -- supported, of course, by legal minds it was blessed to have as members -- erred when it failed to consider that there could have been some merit in the advice it received not to hold the forum.

It also failed to appreciate the possibility that the forum could be hurtful and cause anger among Malays.

Its biggest sin, for lack of a better word, was to dismiss the people's feelings by brandishing matters of rights and Constitution back at the detractors. The Bar Council might be right, but did it make the correct decision?

I am sure its leadership was neither naive nor unschooled in the ways of the world not to have thought that such a provocative topic would stir some negative sentiments among Malays.

It should have taken heed of the warnings and noted that all who opposed, from friends to foes, were consistently Malays. But it continued, regardless.

It seemed to have served as its own counsel, or sought opinions from those who shared its views.

The council president was quoted as saying in the aftermath that the controversy could have been avoided had the title of discussion been more "Muslim friendly". Perhaps.

But such a statement shows how shallow her understanding of the Malay psyche is on matters of their religion and how trivial she felt the protest was -- it was something that could be avoided if she was more savvy in her choice of words!

Was it arrogance, or just an attempt to show that it can, that the forum was held?

Unfortunately, what the incident did was to give credence to a growing perception that the Bar Council has been, of late, less sensitive to Islam and the Malays.

Obviously, this cannot be true, but the smart people at the Bar Council know that while there is no right or wrong in perceptions, they nevertheless rule.

The Bar Council said that it would not be cowed by the mob and would continue to speak on matters in the quest to resolve conflicts of law, even if they were to involve Islam.

The forum, such as the one on Saturday, was necessary to resolve conflicts and was part of the democratic process of freedom of expression.

It can claim that it was doing society a favour by not sweeping problems under the carpet. But by being so dismissive of others, it did a disservice to its ideals.

Some segments of society would also question the sanity of the Malay populace, while the latter would seek motives in the former's agenda.

We all know that our lives should be filled with the best of intentions. We must also agree that discussions and discourses must continue.

But there are ways to do things -- and ways not to.

Last Saturday, unfortunately, the Bar Council chose the latter, which was not very wise.