Unfair attacks on UiTM?

Since the posts on UiTM have been mostly negative, actually all negative, I thought that we should have an alternative view for the sake of balance. The following is a letter / email sent from one of our readers. I'm sure that some of our readers will be tempted to 'flame' the writer for his views but I'd like to make an appeal. Please try to write informed comments / criticisms rather than just lash out with knee jerk reactions. For example, the writer says that affirmative action is needed in the Malaysian context. But does the policy of affirmative action require a publicly funded university to be 100% Malay / Bumiputra? Does allowing a quota of 10% of non-Malays mean that affirmative action is no longer practiced in UiTM? I leave our readers to judge.

Following the public demonstration by the UiTM students, we have been bombarded with popular assumptions made by people from all walks of life concerning their idea of what education is, the evil of isolationism and the importance of English. Let us list down all of these popular assumptions with a special reference to UiTM, the favourite punching bag of the day:

Firstly, UiTM is the only university in which the culture of racial chauvinism thrives. In other universities, both public and private, both local and abroad, there is a cosmopolitanism atmosphere in which differences are tolerated, and the multiracial students and faculty members are oh-so-very friendly with each other.

Secondly, the UiTM students are so unfriendly to other people, particularly to those of different races. In contrast, the students from other universities are very warm, jovial and extremely helpful and friendly with everyone.

Thirdly, the UiTM students and graduates are the only ones whose command of English is putrid and atrocious. On the other hand, all the students from other universities could speak English like the native speakers. Why, listening to them, it is very difficult to believe that they are not British, Americans or even Australians. To take this even further, the command of English of all foreign graduates is impeccable and flawless.

Fourthly, the most important commodity that a university student must acquire out of his student life is the ability to communicate well in English, since success in life is solely determined by how well you could express yourself in English.

Most people have never thought of the concept of structural inequality, at the same time they have also chosen to disregard the multitude of elitism producing factors in the society. Most of these critics still believe fervently in the simplistic assumption that if you work hard, success will be in your way. When challenged, these same high priests of meritocracy would point out to some individual examples of successes and hence the conclusion: “you see! without any crutches, only with hard work, you would and could succeed” . This view automatically assumes that the poor are poor because of their own inability and weakness. While this could normally be harmlessly allowed in an academic discourse, to firmly juxtapose this assertion on the predominantly poor malay and bumiputra communities is nothing else other than racism. Hence it is funny to notice how some people tried to portray themselves as liberals yet end up on the dung heap of racism.

The next point of attack concerns the time frame of this policy of protectionism, that is to say, how much longer should UiTM enjoy its special malay/bumiputra nature vis-a vis the affirmative action policy. Well-intentioned critics would see this as a numbers game , that taxpayers have given enough time for UiTM to enjoy its special nature and that the Malay/bumiputra sectors have considerably improved their lot in life, thereby the status quo should be changed. This writer has no qualms in accepting the imperatives of helping the poor. However this must be viewed from a particular context.

Have the malay/bumiputra improved their economic standing? A knee-jerk answer would be in the affirmative, with the ASLI’s findings thrown in to bolster such claims. Unfortunately, there exists considerable ambiguity in such findings since we still are in the dark as to whether the so-called wealth has been spread around the community as opposed to it being in the hands of a few elites. Some would argue that this would not be relevant since if it is shown on paper that the Malays have achieved the specified percentage, then theoretically, the Malays as a whole are now richer. Another argument would be it is every man for himself , and this would be an incentive to spark and sustain future growth, whereby if a man gets RM1 million, it is his alone since it is a reward for his effort and he alone has the absolute share over the spoils. This would then be an incentive for others to work as hard as him, if not harder, and the others would surely obtain similar success . All of these so-called libertarian arguments strategically disregard the power of monopoly, historical and structural inequality of the community together with the greed factor in economics. Justice also has a social dimension to it, whereby it is unjust if the wealth of the community is in the hands of a few elites. There is no problem in supporting the move for wealth to be spread around equitably, that the use of taxpayers’ money should be done in a just manner, that there should be transparency and accountability in the policies of the government. Any reasonable person would be ready to champion such clarion call.

Historical amnesia is always deployed in trying to argue that the history of this country started in 1957/1963 and that every community was born in the said period, with no community having precedence over the other. It is also assumed that the natives of this land had no qualms in accepting any person to be part of the community without any conditions. Hence it has been bandied around that the idea of Malay/bumiputra special positions/rights/privileges is just a constitutional fiction, that the Malays readily accepted the immigrants to be the citizens of this country, embracing them with open arms even, with no prior conditions whatsoever. Some have even gone the extra mile by asserting that the Malays are not the true indigenous people of this country vis-à-vis the Orang Asli, hoping to prove that the Melakan empire together with the pre-islamic malay kingdoms were just a myth. Some of these critics have not even bothered to analyze the British colonial policy papers on the Malays, particularly on the Malay system of education. All of these ridiculous assertions could not hide the inevitable conclusion that the contention that there was absolutely no social contract made between the different races in this nation upon independence is certainly unacceptable.

This writer supports equality and also the call for the affirmative action policies for the malay/bumiputra to be reexamined , which is similarly contained in the Reid Commission’s report. But to do so by disregarding the social and economic disparities of the malay/bumiputra is truly a tad too fanciful.

The main purpose of a tertiary education is not to produce graduates whose command of English is fantastic. It is to educate the student so that he could be a better person and to be instilled with good values such as empathy, trustworthiness and honesty. It is hoped that he would leave the university with a supreme conviction to do good for his family, society and the nation. This is certainly not to deny the importance of the English language. It is however a tool, rather than be seen as an end in itself. Sadly, there are numerous examples of people who got to where they are right now simply on the basis of their command of English. It does not matter if they have no work ethics, it also does not matter if they cannot be trusted to handle the key organizational issues. To the guilty employers, image is everything. As long as the “English factor” could be used to prop up the company’s image, then, why not. It has also been assumed that a good command of English would ipso facto instill some good values in the individual. This is as absurd as the assumption that a good command of Arabic would transform the person into a rabid terrorist. Our society still has an unhealthy obsession with image. As long as the person dresses well and speaks English well, preferably with a genuine sounding accent, then everything is fine although the person might be devoid of ethics altogether. We still have a long way to go in trying to get rid off this “sarong party girls” mentality from our society.

Concerning UiTM itself, many pointed out to the alleged highest unemployment rate of its graduates. What many have conveniently forgotten is that the bulk of the graduates of UiTM are made up of diploma holders. So, what would a good diploma holder do? Why, enroll in a degree course, that’s what. Hence many of these diploma holders then enroll further in degree programmes not just in UiTM, but in other universities as well , thereby earning them the title, “unemployed graduates”. This baseless criticism also assumes that all the graduates of other universities have no problems in the job market, and that they are truly in demand like hot cakes. This is again another nonsensical assumption. This view further assumes that all of the employed graduates are employed based only on merit, not on some other criteria eg, nepotism, cronyism, family connections, etc, etc, which is far from being the case as the job market is rife with such practices. As for the command of English, most Malaysian graduates suffer from this malady as a result of the education system in the schools. Even if you were to walk into the Law Faculty of UM or the law departments of any of the private colleges, you could still find some students with a poor command of English and it goes without saying that not all foreign graduates have a good command of English.

As for unfriendliness and/or racial chauvinism, this writer would be the first to say that not every one is a friendly person. With different personalities and different levels of reasoning and feeling, there would always be people who are different than us. But to simply label ALL UiTM students and graduates as unfriendly and chauvinist and at the same time to assume that all the students and graduates from other universities are virtuous role models and perfect citizens is nonsensical, beyond comprehension. In fact, to say that all of the above problems are uniquely “UiTM” or even worse, “malay/bumiputra” is definitely racism by any other name and therefore inexcusable.

This writer implores all commentators to use logic and good faith in dealing with this subject. Otherwise what is intrinsically an imperative discourse would turn out to be a just a mundane arena in which we display our true persona.

-MOHD NAZIM BIN GANTI SHAARI