Tuesday, February 16, 2010

MALAY or NON-MALAY, and Muslim or Non-Muslim - is this the new way of classifying students in Malaysia?

Apparently some(if not all) schools are now classifying students as MALAY or NON-MALAY, and Muslim or Non-Muslim. Is this a new policy of the UMNO-led BN government? of the Education Minister?

Previously, students were classified as Malay, Chinese, Indian, or Others...Previously, students were also classified as Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and others...

Now, it seems that this new classification is a 'simplification' - but it certainly goes against Najib's 1Malaysia - as it still tends to instill 'differences' into even the minds of little children. Should not these ethnic distinctions in particular be removed once and for all? Should not we be talking about just being Malaysians?
Religion - well, there is an argument for still having this - possibly for religious education, etc - but really respect for the other religions must also be shown. It is so disrespectful to classify the rest of us in Malaysia as just being non-Muslims, is it not.

The problem with the classification of Malay-Non-Malay. Well, non-Malaysian Indonesians could also be Malays. 

Example:
* Announcement: "All Malay students go to class A for religious classes, and all non-Malay students go to class B for Moral Studies.." But some Muslim students ends up in Class B. Why because they are not Malays - but Indians and Chinese Muslims. 

Origins of forefathers seem to be a concern with the UMNO-led BN government, but not for all. There seem to be a concern about those who originally came from China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka (Ceylon) - but really for those who came from Indonesia, Phillipines or Thailand. Surely, and most reasonably, the largest group of persons  would be those whose forefathers came from Indonesia (or other countries that share borders with Malaysia). But we do not see statistics about how many Malaysian Indonesians, Malaysian Thais, Malaysian Filipinos - but only statistics about Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Indians, etc.. Why? Discrimination?
Finally, UMNO-led BN have reached the stage of acknowledging that we are one Malaysia with one Malaysian people - 1Malaysia is the slogan of the latest Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak.

Is it just only a new 'slogan'? Or is the UMNO-led BN finally going to acknowledge and do things right?
But classifying people as Malay or NON-Malay, or as Muslim or NON-Muslim is really not the way forward...




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