The Colour of Scholarships

ARCHIVES 2010

By admin-s On Jul 19, 2010

Malays as a community celebrates mediocrity. The concept of fear, self-guilt, insecurity and excessive emotional response is propagated through the most dangerous of tools: religion. Even places of worship; such as the surau and mosques are not exempt from political intrigue.

By Azira Aziz

Considering the function of academic scholarships and thereto just who should be entitled to scholarships.

When Najib proposed opening scholarship opportunities to all Top Scorers, particularly 9A’s and above, I saluted the move and thought nothing more of the matter. A politician buckling to popular titbits is nothing new, and at least he’s heading towards the right direction. However, it irked me as the usual Malay-rights groups, the Perkasa-led Malay Consultative Council (MPM) responded to it with “constructive” criticisms, claiming that it should instead reflect 67% of the Malay community in Malaysia.

My response to this is this: firstly, Professor Datuk Dr Kamarudin Kachar, not all 67% are Malaysian Malays. Some of them are actually assimilated Indonesians whose parents holds red MyKads. Many Malaysians are denied opportunities on the fallacy that they are of the wrong ethnicity and that they are less likely to be “loyal” to Malaysia. Instead, as long as you are a “Malay,” “imported” or not, you are entitled to a scholarship, and admittance to heavily subsidised boarding schools.

I am not saying that despite Malaysian-born students of Indonesian parentage are intelligent enough, they do not deserve scholarships by virtue of their parents being immigrants. Quite the contrary, hard work and diligence should always be rewarded. I know some of these kids – they’ve studied hard and they should be awarded where deserved. I am simply pointing out how our education system discriminates Malaysians.

I think it ridiculous that descendants of immigrants are awarded privileges denied to generations born and raised Malaysians by basis of race and religion. The argument that affirmative action policies are meant to help the Malays falls here. Right to education of citizens of Malaysia distributed on basis of race and religion is sanctioned by the State on no moral or ethical grounds, but on purely the in-group and out-group mentality. Why develop descendants of immigrants while neglecting and disparaging our own purely because they are different from the acceptable “original” settlers of Malaya?

Secondly, many people view further education as the only way to break the cycle of poverty and as a means to social mobility. In short, education is the only way to help provide for your parents and your siblings. It is the only way you can protect the rights of your family and your properties against bad people. It is that golden gateway to a better life. The cycle of poverty is not specifically restricted to the Malays in the rural areas.

There are the rural and urban poor, and despite the differences in skin colour, private religious beliefs, and dietary preferences, they are no less human than your average Muhammad. Everyone is the same; we worry about grades, food, shelter, girlfriend/boyfriend, parents, allowances, and etc. It is our political parties that continuously indoctrinate us into thinking in terms of “Malay” and “non-Malay” as “human” and “less human,” or “us” and “them.” There is no reason whatsoever for racial quotas for scholarships to be sanctioned as we are all homo sapiens, humans who are essentially the same.

Thirdly, as I have observed before Malays as a community celebrates mediocrity. The concept of fear, self-guilt, insecurity and excessive emotional response is propagated through the most dangerous of tools: religion. Even places of worship; such as the surau and mosques are not exempt from political intrigue. I am sick and tired of watching and listening to beautiful scriptures of the Holy Quran literally taken out of context and manipulated to suit the purposes of the elite, wealthy, and privileged to maintain their power base. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, the scripts are all written and approved by the state’s religious body, but it does make it more questionable, does it not?