A divide so hard to bridge

From the UiTM dispute to the annual matriculation issue, Malaysia seems caught in a loop of racial controversy. But there are those who give us hope. 

THE SPM results are out. So, we can brace now for the annual lament of non-malays who will have top scorer children unable to get places in the public universities’ matriculation programmes.
It’s likely to be worse this year with more students scoring straight As and the number of matriculation places likely to be unchanged.

A Malay politician has already rushed in, telling the Malays who did not do well that they have nothing to worry about.

He is offering places in Giatmara, Mara and several other universities and colleges, promising them free education – and allowances to boot!

This, while other parents who are even willing to hold down two jobs to see their children get an education, are pleading for places. It must be frustrating for these parents.

The race divide in our country is very real.

The majority community and the minorities seem to be living in two different worlds, albeit in the same country. There’s already that controversy about Universiti Teknologi Mara and the parallel pathway programme for training cardiothoracic surgeons.

Despite close to 70 years of independence and more than 100 years of the various races and religions living together, we tend to know – or care – little about each other.

We even see “the other” as a joke to be laughed at, mocked, even bullied.

Take that teacher in Ampang. Four boys had thrown water bottles at each other. It is something quite ordinary – boys will be boys. So will teachers. When we were in school, we did not throw bottles, but teachers threw dusters. And they were unerringly accurate! They did not care about what race we were, that duster would land smack on the forehead of the errant lad.

This teacher in Ampang, though, does not seem so colour blind. He sent the four boys out to stand under the sun – no problem with that – but then called in three of them, reportedly of a different race, after just 15 minutes.

The other boy was left to bake for hours; he suffered a heatstroke and mental health problems. He has now been declared a disabled person and is unable to go back to regular school. The incident happened at the end of April, and as we go into June, we are told that no action has been taken against the teacher.

The boy’s mother, pregnant with another child, is devastated.

There was another mother who was devastated late last year. She had forgotten her two-year-old child and left the toddler in her car while she went about her work. That was on Nov 8. The grief-stricken mother was charged in court on Dec 22. It took the cops just a month and a half to charge a mother who had accidentally left her child in a hot car.

But the Ampang case was not an accident. It was malicious, as far as reports go. Yet, there seems to have been no real action so far although, according to the Ampang Jaya district police, the probe into the case has been completed and the investigation papers have been referred to the deputy public prosecutor.

What’s worse, the boy was served with warning letters for being away from school while he was getting medical treatment. Did the headmaster know that?

And there is that big question: Was the teacher racist? Was the difference of punishment due to the difference in race?

It should not be. Remember our current Prime Minister’s famous speech about “anak Melayu, anak Cina, anak India, anak Kadazan, anak Iban”? It was Gettysburglike, something we should all hold him to.

There can be no racism in schools. We don’t need people like that teacher in the system. What we could do with are people like Michael Tong Wai Siong.

For the last 16 years, the now 55-year-old has played father to three Malay boys. He first saw one of them when he was a 39-year-old visiting an orphanage in Gombak, Selangor.

The boy, who had learning difficulties, was sitting alone. Tong took him under his wing, putting him through tuition classes to make school easier. He also took the boy home.

Not only that, he also “adopted” the boy’s two brothers who were in a different orphanage.

He raised them as good Muslims, getting them an ustaz for religious classes and even preparing the early morning meals for the boys during Ramadan. It is heartwarming.

There was also Chee Hoi Lan, who was given the Ikon Ibu Sejatikeluarga Malaysia award in 2022. She raised a child who was abandoned at the age of two months by her biological mother, an Indonesian citizen.

Chee, a kindergarten teacher, adopted the child and single-handedly raised her as a good Muslim for 24 years now.

Both Tong and Chee are true Malaysians who understand what multiculturalism is.

I would love it if we could get more such heartwarming stories, especially the other way around. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to also hear of a Muslim who raises a non-muslim child in the religion of his or her birth?

There is also hope in people like 20-year-old Chinese lad Jeremy Wong Jin Wei and 24-year-old Malay-pakistani Zubir Khan.

Wong is Chinese but is as Indian as they come. He loves Tamil movies and Tamil songs and speaks the language fluently. He even has a couple of Indian names he has given himself – Jerogunathan Wongasamy, and Jerthalaiva Wongbeng, his Tiktok moniker.

While Wong may love Tamil songs, Zubir has become a huge Tamil singer with his hit single Macha Macha Nee Ennoda Macha, which garnered 3.5 million views on Youtube in just over five months. He, too, is surrounded by Indian friends.

In a country wracked by apartness, people like Tong, Chee, Wongasamy and Macha Zubir show us one thing – in the midst of all the bleak news, there may yet be hope for our country.

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