So when I read today that “many object to making English a must pass subject for SPM”, I thought, “Oh great, here we go again”.

Someone needs to buy a “Survey Basics for Dummies” book.

They say that most out of the measly 500 views they got object to it. But how many are “most”? And what in the world is 500 compared to the entire Malaysian population? Someone needs to teach them how to properly conduct a survey and report survey results. Either that, or the powers that be are bullshitting us and riling us up for another round of debates. After all, they’ve run out of things for us to debate in the media – Perak, teaching Science and Math in English, Altantunya…. etc

But, education is a sore spot for politics. As much as it sucks, the truth is that students are neglected most of the time by the politicians unless it involves officiating things with the media involved. Politicians typically try to appeal to voters – none of which are primary or secondary level students. Our Education Minister said that “he was also shocked to learn that national schools no longer taught English grammar”.

I take away two things from this. Firstly, our government is obviously not placing enough emphasis and importance on the monitoring of our school syllabi. Secondly, he either does not have any children, or if he does, they are probably educated overseas or in private institutions. All of our politicians should take a step back and take off their political-mind-game caps and just momentarily replace them with parent caps.

Learning English is not easy.

And I’m saying this from the perspective of someone who grew up in a primarily English-speaking environment and mingled among people who speak English as their first language. I can honestly tell you that aside from Mrs. Leong in Std 6, I learned nothing about the language during my 10 years of public schooling. I attribute my fluency wholly to my mother and Mrs. Brohier, my English tutor of many, many years. From them, I learned proper pronunciation, grammar, sentence structures, essay-writing and analytic writing, among others. That makes me one of the lucky few of my generation who can afford having a tutor in the first place and who are blessed enough to be born into a family who uses English daily. How many students are blessed enough for all that?

Many of my friends speak good English and write decently, in fact. But not many of them are aware of what nouns, pronouns, adverbs, synonyms, antonyms or even homonyms are! I can’t really blame them since I have never heard them my entire 10 years in school! Without my mother and Mrs. Brohier, I would never have known about the intricacies of the English language either. What I learned in school consisted mainly of reading passages, how to answer comprehension questions, how to write essays of different formats, etc. etc. But nothing of the sheer basics of the language. So our government can spend the next few months (or years, who knows?) debating on whether or not to make passing English compulsory and do nothing meanwhile. Or, they can do something about the way English is taught while debating (if they really need to).

At the end of the day…

They can play mind games all they want and use education as a gambling point to gain more votes.

They can even rely on and applaud “Malay supremacist” views that say that giving English so much importance in Malaysian education makes us “victims of the English Language colonisation” or that our “national unity” will be affected.

But let’s be realistic here. Backward and narrow thinking does not take us anywhere. It does not take a rocket scientist to be aware of the fact that English is the dominant International language in just about any field there is, and its reach is truly global. Unless Malaysia is as self-sufficient as Japan, in order to become truly competitive, our people need a working knowledge of the English language. An almost 70% pass of English at SPM level is an appalling statistic – someone needs to teach the powers that be to be aware of the actual meaning behind that of that thrown-around statistic.

You often notice that our politicians make a large number of observations about many different topics on education that are basically the same thing – that the nation’s teaching staff is under-qualified. One of the reasons why education is a stagnant sector is because our government spends a disproportionate amount of time on politicking and making obvious and completely unhelpful “observations”.

But at the end of the day, what are they doing about it? How many more generations of students will continue to lose out on opportunities simply because our schools are not prepped enough to promote excellence?

He being current (not for much longer) Prime Minister, Badawi

The thing is… when Pakatan won, they won by the vote of the people – pure democracy. Barisan’s current “support” comes from “defected” politicians who are independents but “BN-friendly”.

How is that the same thing?

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“Our hearts go out to her. We understand her predicament. Her resignation is a good step forward as not all Malaysian could accept the issue.

“Now, it is better for PKR to accept her resignation, as it will stop all the harassment she is facing. We all hope the harassment will stop and all parties involved will give her space,” he said.

(The Star, 2009)

He, in this case, being Khir Toyo.

Just a question, dear sir – how do you know that:

1. Not all Malaysians can accept the issue? I mean, no one even knows what the photos are about and the question flying around now is “How bad are they, really?”.

[update: Further proof that the photos really aren't "that bad". Thanks to a certain someone, I just saw the photos and my God, she isn't even nude in 3 of them and in one, you cannot even conclude that it's a nudie because all you can see are the tops of her shoulders while she is sleeping on her side. The other "embarrassing photos" are upskirt-shots of her while she looks like she was sleeping - they weren't even tasteful and were taken by a low-res cell phone camera. Jeez. This is a gross invasion of her privacy, politician or not!]

2. How do you know that when PKR accepts her resignation, all the harassment will stop?

Most of all, I do feel that if the people of Selangor, or at least those in her Bukit Lanjan constituency, are accepting and sympathize with the incident (she is the victim after all), I personally do not see why not. Her private life has nothing to do with her career, and most definitely has nothing to do with the public eye. I’ve seen a banner up in BU by BU residents (I’m not sure if there are others) pledging their support for Elizabeth Wong. I don’t see why she cannot continue.

After all, this whole scandal is very obviously politically motivated… and if it isn’t, can BN really blame the people for believing so?

Two by-elections coming up and one of them caused by a bigamy charge.

The Perak uproar, with the Sultan involved no less (this makes me extremely grateful that Penang has no such monarchy system. I doubt many of us know who the Yand di Pertua Negeri is, even)!

BN suddenly claiming “democracy” when they actually have the same number of seats as PR does with “friendly” independents.

This reeks of corruption, gutter politics and slander.

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Who am I, really to be complaining about all this and what can I do? I am a concerned citizen, that’s what. We all have a part to play in all this and we should not be looking at this froma  detached point of view. Reality is that this is the situation our country is in now, and will possibly be in for the next few years. The use of the word “democracy” in our is alread treading a fine line. With recent events in Perak, I think we can safely assume that our voice, the PEOPLE’S voice, has been effectively thrown out the window in a power struggle.

I can only pray to God and ask Him to guide the hands of those who lead our country, our states, our constituencies. After all, I strongly believe that it is the good who prevail at the end of the day.

I would like to do a whole lot more, truly, I would. But for now, I can only pray, leave it all up to Him, and in the next general elections, take my vote in hopes that it does count.

What do you think?