AUG 15 — Victoria Institution (VI) is a rare accident which has left a sustained mark in Malaysian life. It turned 120 yesterday.

Readers may ask, how is talking about one school in a nation of thousands of schools and hundreds of districts, attractive? Because within my alma mater’s walls I find values that Malaysia should be celebrating, for they cemented my faith in Malaysia.

The iconic school tower — every Victoria Institution boy has a memory around it.

These days, many Malaysians are looking for reasons to fight their disillusionment with their country, I remember VI, its traditions and history, and how they continue to instruct me on how to be a better person. When there are enough sensible people next to each other, a functional society is inevitable.

Indeed, VI persevering despite being an accident makes it worth reading to know how things can be sensible. Despite the school’s trials and tribulations over the last quarter of a century as authorities tried to force it to abandon its past.

Founders’ Day

While it was formed during the infancy of British rule in Selangor, it was not the brainchild of the colonial masters or any particular community in a heavily plural Kuala Lumpur. Queen Victoria had been on the throne for 50 years in 1887 and “her subjects” from the East wanted to give her a present.

Somehow due to the delay or inappropriateness of a tardy gift, the fund organisers decided to build a school instead, thus the first English institution for the state in 1893.

So it was, indeed “duit rakyat” (people’s money) utilised to construct the school. The donors, who are remembered elsewhere for the city roads named after them, were Kapitan Yap Kwan Seng (the Australian embassy), Thamboosamy Pillai (near PWTC station) and Loke Yew ( the major artery connecting south KL to the city), among others.

The people decided they needed an English-medium school and went about constructing it. The Sultan also chipped in with 1,100 Straits dollars, which is why there is the Sultan Abdul Samad sports house.

Other than not being the idea of the white man, it was also not the project of any missionary group which all other English schools in the state thereafter were initially. The school was secular and driven by education. It was incidental that anyone was Muslim, Christian or Buddhist, they only had to pay school fees after passing the entry examinations to be a student.

Therefore the multiculturalism experiment was not hindered by any real or imagined hidden agenda.

As the second economic engine after Singapore, many students from north, south and east found their way to VI before and after the war, making it an even richer melting pot. The day school then had to have a hostel to accommodate these representatives.

Including Indonesian former presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto and Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, but not limited to just high-profile individuals — for above recognisable names is the broader substantive diversity which reigned in the VI.

During my years there were the Selangor, Sabah and Felda foundation boys sent to KL to know the world, and in knowing them, I knew my country better.

Realising a country

From the get go, there were VI boys in both the lead up to independence and the administration of that new nation.

The MCA’s Omar Ong Yoke Lin was in the first Cabinet.

The Victoria Institution original foundation stone was laid at the first campus near Jalan Tun HS Lee in Kuala Lumpur.

But more importantly, Ong hatched the idea of the Umno-MCA partnership which has been the bedrock of the 62 years of political ascendancy Alliance and then BN have had. He worked it with his schoolmate Yahya Abdul Razak, who was a senior Umno leader in Selangor in 1951.

Being in Pakatan Rakyat, I’m spending my years to undo the monopoly of that structure. And so have many old boys before me and with much better contribution like the late opposition leader Tan Chee Koon and the present MPs of Wangsa Maju and Subang, Tan Kee Kwong and Sivarasa Rasiah.

I suppose everyone is trying to do their best for the country, that means you too Nazri Aziz.

Traditions and confidence

“You call yourself a Victorian? Well, do you??”

Being a 12-year-old standing inside a square tile while a 17-year-old kept screaming at me after school for wearing a green pair of shorts for sports training probably is not the best way to explain peer group powered discipline, but that was how it was. And it worked. (You can only wear black or blue shorts.)

There were two things always drilled into us, that traditions matter and respecting seniority is not optional.

Traditions like polishing brass hinges and marching up and down wherever-whenever was not “maximum fun” but it instilled a sense of continuity, connection and respect.  Those 15-year-olds supervising their juniors had their characters chiselled long before adulthood or shaving blades hit them.

The seniors did have fun with the juniors, but seniors are raised to realise that those under them are their obligation and not playthings. And everyone was obligated to each other because they wore the same badge irrespective of how they looked.

Isn’t that what we want our children to learn and experience? A bit of respect, looking out for those who need the help and not seek a thank you for doing what should be done by any decent person?

However, as everything else in Malaysia post-Tunku Abdul Rahman, they had to fix everything even if it was not broken.

In the mid-1980s and Dr Mahathir Mohamad was in his early years of power, the school systems were under strain to comply with a different vision and version of education. The flaw being they were not sure entirely into what then, this change.

They were clear on what it should not be about anymore — British, Western, English or pre-war, you take a pick.

Break from the actual past, connect with an intended past and celebrate the brilliance of the present regime.

Peer-group reliant disciplining through prefects and student body leaders was frowned upon as teachers wanted to be in charge of everything even if they did not want to take on the additional responsibilities. Societies and clubs were dismantled, altered and reorganised to become more amenable.

I might add that the late ‘80s and early ‘90s were probably the last time the students openly challenged the re-engineering. But when there is a national agenda backed by the ministry it is only a matter of time. So many of the traditions have collapsed since.

Therefore I can’t claim wholly that my time in school had the same level of colour-blindness as a decade previous. Neither can I state that none of the senior boys after leaving school have been caught up with the relative madness that has gone on for too long in Malaysia.

A country’s ailment no person or school can escape.

You start at the schools

It is said that education is the silver bullet, and it is veritably true for the state of disunity in the country today. Schools have to raise men and women, not opportunists waiting to work the system for self-aggrandisement.

VI was both academic and personal growth at the same time. While there are debates about what type of subjects and when they have to be taught, there are human persons being nurtured within the system at the same time.

My school’s strength was encouraging young men to mature by realising they can be stronger and wiser by following the example of those before them, and in simple terms doing the things they did. From there to rise even higher.

Talent and application mattered more than your ethnicity or whose son you were.

All our public schools can leverage on that ethos today.

Happy birthday, you old gal!

So it is time to raise a glass to my favourite accident, Victoria Institution.

A school born without baggage, only to find its traditions and history a bane to policymakers and historical revisionists who never realised how close its past was to its present.

The reconstruction might take a generation, but the memories are real. It still is a symbol of the rakyat’s funds from long ago with multiculturalism its enduring theme.

Perhaps in the years to come, Malaysia might return to that ideal. Another accident of history might be the answer.

For now we toast to the legacy.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.