Khat (or turun) the racial polemics

IF I ran a school for bright Malaysian kids, its curriculum would contain classes on khat. This calligraphic art form would come after an introduction to the Jawi script, in a module about languages important to Malaysia and the world, including Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese dialects, Tamil, Latin, and ancient Greek.

My students would then appreciate many common etymologies of Malay and English words, and understand that knowledge has always been shared and developed by the world’s great civilisations.

For top students I might introduce Portuguese, Dutch, and Japanese to enable them to better understand relevant periods of our history.

Finally, I would ensure that the children understand that many dialects and languages are spoken and written in our diverse country: from the ‘o’ vowel endings in Negeri Sembilan to the ‘ng’ consonant endings in Terengganu, and the many dialects spoken by Bidayuh community, to the existence of the Portuguese creole of Kristang. The point of all this is not in making the children recreate flawless brush strokes or achieve perfect enunciation; rather, it is in opening young minds to the fact that the world is made up of many different communities with interconnected histories and cultures. Alas, I do not run a school for bright Malaysian kids, and unfortunately, the merits of khat have now been obscured by polemics of race and religion, an all-too common recurring problem in our country.

Specifically, this episode was triggered by an attempt by the Ministry of Education to progressively impose the teaching of khat from Primary 4 to Primary 6 in Bahasa Malaysia classes.

With proud defenders of race claiming that khat should – or should not – be equated with an ethno-nationalist agenda, and rapidly escalating rhetoric complete with accusations of racism, the compromise ‘solution’ that was announced was to reduce the number of pages and turn it into an elective subject.

And so, the ministry arrived at what, to me, should have been obeyed at the outset of this scheme: that if the Ministry of Education thinks there is value in adding or amending something in the already-agreed curriculum, schools (and by that I mean in consultation with parents) should have a say in deciding whether and how to take it up.

I often rail against centralised decision-making in most areas of public policy, since our country was conceived as a federation. But over-centralisation and authoritarianism in education policy is particularly disastrous.

There are few things parents get as passionate about as the education of their children, and this passion is amplified in organisations that represent parents. In an environment where schools are already hotbeds of racial sensitivities, it is obvious that any modification – however tiny – to any aspect of the curriculum or pedagogy will become politicised and polarising.

One possible way out of this quagmire is to recognise a phenomenon that has been expanding for years, which is that where choices are available, parents actively use them.

This explains why there are Chinese vernacular schools that have a majority of Malay students, or why there has been a mushrooming of private educational providers.

Leveraging on our federal framework is a natural step to expand these choices and make them available to more Malaysians. Canada, Australia and Germany have done it, achieving better educational outcomes while maintaining national unity: why can’t we?

Unfortunately, the ‘solution’ to the khat controversy was too little, too late. Confidence in the ministry (and the government as a whole) has decreased, and the narrative of racial and religious disagreement has since been amplified following comments attributed to Zakir Naik in which Malaysian Hindus, and then Malaysians of Chinese descent, were allegedly disparaged.

Tunku Zain Al-Abidin is founding president of Ideas.