Chinese schools: the dedak of the Chinese
Even Kuan Yew realised that banning Chinese schools and Chinese education is political suicide. That is why DAP, MCA and Gerakan champion Chinese schools and Chinese education. If they do not champion Chinese schools and Chinese education then they would not win Chinese votes. So Chinese schools and Chinese education is merely about vote-buying: the only dedak that the Chinese want since they do not need RM500 or RM1,000 cash like the Malays do.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Lim Guan Eng’s ABC-GST song-and-dance (literal as well as metaphoric song-and-dance) is similar to how the Taliban, IS, ISIS, Boko Haram, and so on, indoctrinate children. You catch them at a very young and impressionable age and teach them how to hate. The biggest ‘market’ for recruiting potential extremists are schools. Schoolchildren can very rapidly be turned into extremists with the right indoctrination.
That was why soon after Singapore’s independence in 1963 Lee Kuan Yew was against Chinese schools. Kuan Yew said the Chinese are the most difficult race to rule and they only understand feudalism and the politics of warlords. In other words, democracy is wasted on the Chinese.
The problem with the Chinese is they regard themselves as the superior race and all non-Chinese are considered inferior. That is why non-Chinese are called ‘devils’ or ‘foreign devils’. And the Chinese are very much into the hierarchy system where you have the ruling class, which can do whatever they like, and the lower or working class, which what the Indians would call the pariah class.
Chinese schools in Singapore bred anti-government extremists
You may say that may have been a thing of the past but it is still very much Chinese culture until today. All you need to do is to attack one Chinese business or political leader who has acquired godlike status and the entire Chinese community, regardless of political leaning, will gang up on you. Certain Chinese who have acquired Godlike status are sacred cows and attacking them would be just like attacking Prophet Muhammad to the Muslims.
And that was the problem Kuan Yew faced. He was considered a banana (yellow on the outside and white on the inside). Kuan Yew’s parents were English-educated and they gave Kuan Yew the English name, Harry. So, he was known as Harry Lee and not Lee Kuan Yew in his younger days. Only when he went into politics and needed to look more Chinese did he drop Harry Lee in favour of Lee Kuan Yew.
Harry Lee went to the Telok Kurau English School and then to the Raffles Institution. He joined the Boy Scouts, played cricket, tennis, and chess, and debated for his school. After the war, Harry Lee continued his education in the UK. In short, Harry Lee was more English than Chinese by far and that is something that does not help one’s political career when one needs Chinese support.
Lee Kuan Yew knew that Chinese schools were a threat to Singapore’s security but banning them outright would have been political suicide
So, in 1963, when Singapore gained independence, Harry lee, who was now Lee Kuan Yew, could not afford to allow Chinese schools to flourish. At that time Chinese schools in Malaya and Singapore were where the CPM (Communist Party of Malaya) recruited members. Many Chinese students disappeared into the jungle to fight for the CTs (Communist Terrorists).
The CPM was so strong that Kuan Yew had to enter into an alliance with them to face the general election and even gave them half the seats to contest. If not, PAP would have been wiped out in the election and Singapore would be under a Communist government. Of course, later Kuan Yew arrested all the Chinese education activists under Operation Coldstore on the excuse that they were Communist Terrorists. Actually, he did not want anyone talking about Chinese schools and Chinese education.
Events of the 1950s to 1980s have proven how powerful Chinese schools can be to Chinese politics. For more than 100 years until today, Chinese tycoons have been funding Chinese schools. Chinese money is very crucial to Chinese education. And Chinese education is very crucial to Chinese politics. And that is why you attack Chinese tycoons at your own peril because indirectly, through Chinese education, Chinese tycoons are funding Chinese politics (although they do so directly as well).
Chinese schools funded by Chinese tycoons are very crucial to DAP’s future
Chinese business and political links must not be underestimated. This was what The New York Times reported on 30th March 1997.
Harry Lee, the man these misguided Americans think of as their friend, must be transfixed by this summer’s takeover of Hong Kong by China. He realises that China will permit no serious competition from Singapore as Southeast Asia’s main connection to the West. As a realist, Lee is positioning his island to be a pilot fish to China’s whale.
So, saying that Singapore is to China what Israel is to the United States would not be an exaggeration. Kuan Yew saw this more than 20 years ago and that is why Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak knows that one does not ignore China if one wants any future in Asia. Pakatan Harapan, however, is taking an anti-China stance and that would be suicide if they get to form the next federal government. All this anti-China rhetoric from Pakatan Harapan is going to destroy Malaysia’s economy.
Madrasa to the Taliban are what Chinese schools are to DAP
This was what Singaporean physicist Zhun-Yong Ong said:
LKY did not insist on mother tongue education in the 60’s and 70’s. The greater emphasis on mother tongue and the concomitant bilingual education policy only came in the early 80’s when he felt comfortable enough to mount his social engineering campaigns. Singapore had two parallel tracks in education for Chinese Singaporeans in the 60’s and 70’s – English-medium and Chinese-medium schools, similar to the situation in Malaysia. English-medium schools taught very little Chinese in the 60’s and vice versa. For instance, the inclusion of the mother tongue subject in secondary schools was only made compulsory in 1966.
LKY did not abolish the Chinese-medium schools because many of his political opponents and the left-wing of the PAP were predominantly Chinese-educated. Most of PAP’s supporters were themselves from the Chinese-educated working class. The Chinese tycoons, like Tan Lark Sye, who founded Nanyang University, were hard-core supporters of Chinese education. So, if LKY had tried to abolish Chinese education, he would have been outflanked politically from the left by the Chinese-dominated trade unions and from the right by the Chinese tycoons.
LKY wasn’t really concerned about how it (mother tongue education) would be useful for building Singapore’s trade and economic links with China. That rationalisation only came much later. Note that Malaysia has been our biggest trade partner for a long time and no one ever has ever insisted that that everyone learns Malay. Same goes for Japan who is also one of our biggest trade partners. Do you see everyone studying Japanese?
Without Chinese schools DAP would cease to exist just like without madrasa the Taliban would cease to exist
Even Kuan Yew realised that banning Chinese schools and Chinese education is political suicide. That is why DAP, MCA and Gerakan champion Chinese schools and Chinese education. If they do not champion Chinese schools and Chinese education then they would not win Chinese votes. So Chinese schools and Chinese education is merely about vote-buying: the only dedak that the Chinese want since they do not need RM500 or RM1,000 cash like the Malays do.
DAP, MCA and Gerakan are in competition as to who is more Chinese. And Umno must be seen to be in support of Chinese schools and Chinese education for the sake of MCA and Gerakan. If not then MCA and Gerakan will be totally wiped out. And MCA and Gerakan must also be seen to be opposed to Umno if it says anything that may anger the Chinese voters.
DAP boasts that 90-95% of Chinese voters will vote for them. MCA and Gerakan’s job is to try to reduce that to 70%. With 30% Chinese and 60% Malays voting for Barisan Nasional then Barisan Nasional will get to form the next government. And the only way MCA and Gerakan can get 30% of the Chinese votes would be if Umno is seen as supportive of Chinese causes.
