By Azly Rahman
Mara means “to advance (forward)”. It is the opposite of “retreat” and the declaration of defeat. It does not mean Undur.
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) must live up to its name. So must its younger brother Maktab Rendah Sains MARA. It is in the interest of the public to suggest good ideas for reform – and to advance.
In my lifetime I have been affiliated with both organisations. I taught in the former institution and I was schooled in the latter. Whether a product of historical accident or not, I am proud of my experiences in both. Maybe, there is a reason for things to happen. I came from a poor family and was given the chance to have an education I wish many more Malaysians had, my parents included.
But I wish to share my view on this troubling phenomenon that is plaguing a certain segment of the Malays. My argument will be largely linguistic.
What is the Malay view of the recent protest of UiTM student – of those young “men-in-black” whose are mourning and calling for the death of reason and rationality and for critical sensibility?
I think Malays in general are angry at the protesters. I think they are embarrassed that those few thousands of Malay students were displaying their ignorance of what a Universiti Mara means.
While other universities have advanced (sudah mara ke hadapan) and are proud that they are embracing diversity and sharing resources for the benefit of deserving children of all races, those protesting UiTM students are experiencing the opposite.
They are yelling with pride the word “defeat” and “retreat”. Instead of Ayuh Mara they are actually saying Jom Undur. While thinking needs to advance, these students are saying that they need to digress (Ayuh… mari mundur ke belakang). Mundur is the derivative word.
Should a university embody the philosophy of mundur rather than mara? Should it even be proud of being and embodiment of that philosophy? I doubt it. Only a misguided leader will be proud of being a guide to ‘defeat and retreat’ while the world around ‘advances’ and moves.
But these students are not entirely at fault. It is the ideology and perpetrators of the ideology of undur itself that’s at fault. It is the leaders implementing the retrogressive ideology that are at fault.
It is the systematic indoctrination programme of ketuanan Melayu run over the decades that are advancing this UiTM philosophy of retreat.
It is an overdose of the work of government-sponsored Biro Tata Negara (BTN) that is making the mass retreat and defeat possible. It is the work of Malay-dominated agencies like these that are imprisoning the minds of the Malays. This is an anti-Malay-progress establishment that is using deformed arguments on race and ethnicity to pursue an educational ideology that has gone bankrupt.
Docile Malay intended
This is an anti-Malaysian mode of thinking that is still allowed to shackle the mind of the Malays. The idea is simple: make the Malay mind docile and afraid to think and you will divide and conquer them.
UiTM students need to instead protest against the continuing oppression they are experiencing through the work of their own institution and through BTN. They should demand that multiculturalism instead of blind nationalism be made the foundation of their college experience. UiTM students are more intelligent than those who protested against the suggestion.
In the 1980s UiTM’s (then ITM) orientation programme used to be conducted using the tactics of sheer humiliation and stupidity; meant to stupefy the young, bright Malay minds.
The ROTU (Reserve Officers Training Unit then) was part of the week-long organisers of the orientation to create an awareness of how ITM students must learn to live in a tough and challenging environment.
Senior students would prey upon the incoming freshmen to make them ‘tough’ through humiliation – name-calling, physical threats, psychological abuse, etc. Minggu Orientasi (Orientation Week) is a week for the seniors to have control over the mind of the Malays; oftentimes in a gangsterish way.
Of course, it is also the time for the senior boys to show toughness to the young girls in this ‘big brother-little sister’ game of tough love. Many of them fell involved with each other in this ‘Master-Slave’ relationship. Even senior girls prey upon young boys, acting rough and tough on them. Pathetic paternalistic philosophy in progress.
At times the freshmen would be roughened up by students in army boots and told to just follow instructions if they are to survive in ITM. They will be screamed at for trying to speak up. This is the ideology of ketuanan Melayu at work; how to enslave the mind of the young Malays and continue to do so through the hidden curriculum designed by those who wish to have control over the mind of the bright young and eager-to-learn Malays.
Instead of teaching the in-coming students how to take good notes, listen to lectures, speak up in public, pay extra attention to English Language, and be open to new ideas, respect each other, and learn from other cultures, the Malay students are subjected to humiliation in a place that called itself a university.
Retrogressive ideologies
In MRSM as well, a predominantly Malay-elite secondary institution for the best and brightest young Malays, similar things have been happening since the 1980s as well. Kursus Kesedaran (Self Awareness Courses) are conducted to instill the questionable idea of Ketuanan Melayu, making the children afraid of “Malaysian boogeymen and boogeywomen” and their own shadows.
sekolah menengah high school girls uniformOpen-mindedness is rarely encouraged and students take control over each others’ lives transplanting retrogressive ideologies into each other’s head, with the help of ultra-nationalist and anti-multiculturalist teachers.
Even if these children survive the ideological ordeal and experience ‘tough love’ and go on to get their degrees from top American and British universities, they will still be Malays with a shallow understanding of multiculturalism or become more sophisticated Malays with more complex arguments on Ketuanan Melayu.
They will then design policies to affect the needed sustenance of ideology in order to protect the interests of the few. Neo-feudalistic cybernetic Malays are then new creation of the political-economic ruling class. They run the country and many are now running it down.
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As an educator wishing to see Malays progress alongside in peace and prosperity with other races, I call upon us all to put a stop to all forms of indoctrination held especially by the BTN; an organisation that is of no value to the advancement of the Malays they claim to want to liberate.
It should be taken over by progressive Malaysians and replaced with a systematic effort to promote not only racial understanding through teaching respect and deep reflection on the cultures of the peoples of Malaysia, but also teach conflict resolution and mediation through cross-cultural perspectives. All must question the presence of BTN on campuses. All must reject BTN’s programme for indoctrination.
Let us no longer allow any government body of that sort to set foot on our campuses or our schools. As Malaysians we have to demand an end to the further dissemination of racist ideologies.
Open up, not only UiTM and MRSM but also Umno to more cultures. We will have a great celebration of diversity and respect for human dignity in decades to come. I speak as a silent reproduction and capitalised human of both MRSM and UiTM; a product of the human capital revolution of the Mahathir era.
MARA means progress. Malays are now sick of contradictions and doublespeak. They do not wish to Undur. Let us all protest against the stupefication of the Malays. Let us dismantle racist institutions.
Mara has “advanced (forward)” so much that it purchased laptops costing RM42,000 each which others can buy at RM2,000. And its director has yet to be “interviewed” by the macc. No jumping off the 14th floor in this case
Nothing wrong, in principle, with Mara, UiTM, n MRSM – 2 advance d poor n disadvantaged
What’s horribly wrong is the narrow racist mind of their so-called leaders
I wonder where are the other “products” of ITM/UiTM/MRSM. Come on guys, be brave to come forward with your truthful first-hand experience. Have you been irreversibly brainwashed that you just can’t speak up? Tq Mr. Azly for sharing that with us. Nazri, you should not let PM to shut your mouth.
Stop debate on BTN, I will decide, said NR
Harlo, this is not a frivilous issue 2 remain silent, n silence is not golden
It needs discussions n debates, d more d better
Open n transparent, 1Malaysia lah you know, silly
Not 2 b simply decided by NR n RM, C4 style
Ragging during orientation is not the issue here. There’s not much brainwashing you can do in one or two weeks. It’s the mediocrity of the teaching staff that begets poor quality students – the vicious cycle where good teachers get frustrated and leave the profession, leaving behind the incompetents, the racists, those who play politics to please UMNO. They in turn churn out poor quality students who can’t think for themselves, and who believe that the UMNO way is the right way.
Mamakthir knew the teaching mediocrity in MARA but he thought that as long as they produced students who are pro-UMNO, then the end justified the means.
Hey A Rahman,most of your opinions were noble,I appreciated them.Problem is ,you are addressing them to a great concrete wall. It’s like a wolf crying for the moon. I would suggest you to turn to new avenue for real,to walk the talk,not hiding somewhere,come out and face the enemy.
The young and the youths are the natural targets of indoctrination because they have impressionable minds during this formative period to internalize the values/beliefs sought to be inculcated. To be sure we get indoctrinated – all our lives – from all quarters. These quarters seek to propagate not just political beliefs, but religious and social beliefs. The difference between teaching and indoctrination is that the former ideally should just impart knowledge but also the methodolgy on how to think critically; whereas the latter is just to teach, inculcate and propagate a system of beliefs and values where recipients are expected to imbibe these uncritically.
It is unsurprising that the ruling party’s propaganda tool – BTN – will reach out to the MARA colleges first. It is not just to indoctrinate the ruling party’s ideology of “Ketuanan” (which underpins its entire reason for existence) but to filter, in that process, who amongst the students have potential to be nurtured, given scholarship and to return after studies to carry on the ruling party’s banner and serve its interest in terms of perpetuating its power.
Whilst serving the ends and apparatus of power what is pernicious in such political indoctrination of youths is that it violates every principle of education. Teriary education in colleges and universities is supposed to instil intellectual values, the foremost of which is a habit of mind to examine issues objectively and critically free from sectarian and partsan bias and to courageously embrace the inexorable conclusion of that examination, whether pleasant or otherwise.
Political indoctrination is diametrically opposed to this end. Students indoctrinated will, when they come of age and hold responsible positions as future leaders, perpetuate the same ideological beliefs and unquestionating values that they imbibed when young to the next generation through their own versions of BTNs and so forth, so that generation after generation we get supposedly educated people and leaders with manacled brains and twisted values! In a word this is self perpetuating of a debilitating mindset.
In the contrary case if one “indoctrinates” the youths with system of beliefs based on freedom of thought, importance to think critically and rationally and not just accept whatever others teach you, then this will yield better results of future citizenry with more open and critical mind to dare think and implement new and progressive ideas to uplift that particular society to a higher level of organisation.
Why BTN’s efforts are uphill and destined to be futile in spite powerful personalities like Tun Mahathir advocating it is two fold.
First, the theme of indoctrination is racial. One cannot indoctrinate a group of youths on racial supremacy when the trend in the world is indoctrinating the other way – that one should not be discriminated on grounds of race alone. To persist in doing so is to walk against the march and tide of history.
Secondly, what BTN could achieve (say) 20 years ago cannot be repeated now because of the present power of Internet and the proliferation of web based citizen journalism, blogs etc. Children here at 5 years old onwards access the Internet for computer games and then, as they get older, reading other things that “indoctrinate” them the other way against racial discrimination….
By the time they reach 17 and go to college, they will think whatever racial supremacy you teach them in BTN as garbage. The World wide web gets to them at the tenderer age faster and earlier than BTN. Hence thats why many who were subject to this brainwash spoke against BTN’s courses today.
So even in the delicate task of propaganda and brainwashing, don’t promote a subject like racism or supremacy of race where countervailing influences from elsewhere preaching the opposite values of racial equality are much stronger and ubiquituous, getting to young malleable minds earlier. One just cannot win this battle in the longer run.
A. Rahman – know that the Msian Malays graduating from universities (both local and overseas) are of sub-standard quality. Put simply, we know for a fact that one university in Australia has been advised to mark up the results of these sub-standard students so that they could graduate. I know of a thesis done by a PhD student that was so poor in standard that it is not funny. The irony is he has been conferred a doctorate.
It is a tragedy that these half-goods are sitting in Msia corporate bodies. Now you understand why they are being cowed by the politicians. When a person is not good enough to hold the post given, they just can’t stand on their own feet. Decisions made are flawed. This explain why Saudi Govt has appointed someone from Singapore to head their university. Am I surprised ? The short answer is no. Those with a little bit of knowledge knew fully well the slippery road Muhathir and his successors had taken Malaysians – A dead end.
This comments is not targeted at all Malays as there are smart ones. But those BUMI’s on scholarships, I can assure you they are all doubtfuls.
We have known all along the manipulations by TDM to churn out students wearing square hats. Try talking to them in a major function and you can see for yourself their delivery. A classic is Suliaman Taib who at one time was the Chairman of RHB. If you have heard him in corporate meetings, the man just don’t have it at all. And he is slated to take over from his old man to run Sarawak. How far down does Msia want to sink ?
Malaysians – It’s your call. I suppose fools never learn.
well written jamal! The truth hurts but personally i too have noticed this overseas, that Mara students are giving a bit of push to help them.
This is what happens when mahathir wanted to artificially create a superior race from nothing. It’s a frankenstein project, he should have allowed for natural selection and then there would have been quality instead of the current quantity but monkeys in suits. LOL
UMNO has successfully shackled the minds of the Malays at all levels with its wide racial-supremacist- net.
Some like Azli, Bakri, Farish, Din, Sharom etc have – thank God- slipped through the net. Thank God,because they used their God-given conscience.
Go to any government department and sit through any meeting and you will see total obedience, subservience from the ‘lesser beings’.
Dare you raise a view contra to your boss’ and you land in trouble or a demotion and possibly a transfer.
The lesser beings prefer to nod their heads and let the boss have his way.
The lesser beings prefer to nod their heads and let the boss have his way……..dap man. It’s because of this attitude by both parties,we see GLC such as MAS,PROTON,RHB AND OTHERS needed government bailout.The weird thing is these fat cats have not change their behaviour and still want to hold on to their high salary and fat bonus .
It all actually has to do with Mahathir’s so-called ‘practicality’ which in reality was an old idea of ‘the end justify the means’. Sense of entitlements are dangerous things, they have a way of breeding real bad stuff and it only take a small number of those to spoil the entire barrel.
What goes around, comes around. In the end we end up as dirt in the ground anyway.
http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=41285
First the son, now the papa….
Look at the umno gobermen’s list of grand failure:
(1) english
(2) 2020
(3) msc
(4) biotech
(5) heavy industry
(6) car manufacturing
(7) petroleum
(8) nep
(9) btn
(10) knowledge-based economy
(11) high-income economy
(12) “Bersih, Cekap, Amanah”
(13) “Cermelang, Gemilang, Terbilang”
(14) “1Malaysia”
(15) crime
(16) corruption
(17) cronyism
(18) fdi
(19) university
(20) the malay race*
(21) alien invasion
(22) orang asli marginalisation
(23) zoo negara
(24) “instant noodle” wealth and success
etc etc etc etc – endless.
*Comforting to see some malays picking themselves up and moving on in this real world.
Still, we can hear kassim and friends screaming “hip hip boleh”. I honestly hope that they are only doing that in jest.
Mamak is screaming too. Not in jest certainly. And that is totally understandable because 80-90% of the failure are attributable to him. For God’s sake he has to defend himself and his outrageously flawed and bad and eccentric policies. And that is in itself an outrageous and in fact extremely stupid act by the old man. Wot is really beyond the silliest of all my fantasies is the old man actually has supporters.
Because of so many BTN-trained “experts” propaganda there are a lot of fools around thinking that Malaysia is as great as America and China is 20 years behind Malaysia. In terms of education, China has one of the top universities in the world. and Malaysia has non on the top 200. In terms of economy China is the third largest economy power in the world and Malaysia is no where near. In terms of technology, China has sent a man into space and Malaysia has sent a tourist into space. In terms of so many things Malaysia is not listed and yet there are BTN-trained Malaysians believe they are the chosen human beings.
At last, one of the MPs in BN has woke up. We hope whatever he have said and criticized esp on that IBM(International Big Mouth) mamak kutty and that garbage reporting media UM are sincere. He is behaving like what an MP should in a multi-racial country like us. Hope he will keep it up and make this country a better place for all irrespective. Frankly i believe most non malays agreed and willing to help the poor malays. but there again there are also plenty of poor non malays that needed help too. Its not an easy job for everyone esp being a MP.
It felt real good at least that Nazri gave a shot and pumped some sense into those racialistic politicians and media.