Hey, MP, leave our youths alone
By Hafidz Baharom (The Malaysian Insider)
"I’m a little bit rebel. I’m a bit patriot. I can see they’re both sides of a coin."
Those are lyrics from a song called “American Dream” by a New Orleans band called Better Than Ezra.
With those three lines in mind, I can’t help but wonder how the MP for Pasir Salak, Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman, can come up with the following statement, which I translated from the Hansard (June 16, page 36):
“Secondly I’d like to enquire why many of today’s university students, even though they are products of the national service, are ungrateful, unthankful with the chances they have received to further their studies, and instead choose to waste their time, getting involved in politics, demonstrations, anti here, anti there. How could this happen? And a lot of them have forgotten to love their race and nation. How could this happen? Where did this PLKN programme go wrong? Aren’t there nationalism and history courses that can be fitted in so that [PLKN] can be more successful in the future? Thank you.”
I find this amazingly irrational coming from an MP.
Particularly someone who was kicked out of Umno in July 1995 for money politics by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for using “a lot of money” in division polls.
And to think then Umno Youth leader Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz had spoken up to have such people referred to the ACA.
I’m sorry. I thought the National Service programme was one that was to shape the youth into patriots and to instill some discipline. Or to quote the dad in those Calvin & Hobbes comic strips: “It builds character.”
I had no idea that there were MPs who thought that this programme was a three-month brainwashing session that would basically create a youth base of drones.
I thought those sessions were hosted by the Biro Tatanegara workshops which I had to attend while I was in UiTM.
And since when are youths getting involved in politics categorised as a “waste of time”?
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