APRIL 16 — There is never a dull moment observing what makes it to the national news in Malaysia. If it isn’t the sight of bomohs fully equipped with boats and coconut binoculars helping find MH370, it is Utusan Malaysia claiming that that the CIA could be behind the aircraft’s disappearance much as it apparently was behind 9/11. Less sensational but equally inept seems to have been the initial handling of the crisis and the management of the media after.

While the scale of the tragedy of MH370 might account for the confused response by those in charge, but the same people seem to be making the news all the time for their equally confused responses to other issues. If it isn’t for waving the keris and meeting cow head protestors, it’s for refusing to follow court orders and arresting kidnappers walking around in plain sight. Newspaper licences are refused because too much information can confuse people but the contradictory statements coming from all quarters of the government on the Allah issue are termed consistent.

It’s not just political leaders who seem to be living in a previous century. There are also the now famous examples of army veterans shaking their booty in protest outside the house of an activist and others relaxing in the cosy ambience of the Polygamist’s club while their better halves bone up on their domestic skills at the Obedient Wives Club.

Newspaper licences are refused because too much information can confuse people but the contradictory statements coming from all quarters of the government on the Allah issue are termed consistent, says the columnist. — AFP pic

Actually this hankering for times long past extends to racial supremacists, religious scholars and historians alike. Social Darwinism or the idea of racial supremacy through the inheritance of acquired characteristics debunked over 100 years ago is enjoying a huge revival in 2014 Malaysia. 

Religious scholars are in a frenzy banning everything that does not conform to their increasingly medieval viewpoint, including superheroes and the poco poco, while espousing a return to a legal system reminiscent of pre medieval justice.

Dodgy notions of science are used to reframe history as irrefutably claiming the superiority of one race throughout time as well as establishing them as the earliest inhabitants of Earth. All this would be good for a daily laugh if the powers that be were not taking all this drivel seriously. The fact that they are is what is causing all the hand wringing among those old enough and wise enough to see where all this is headed.

This can be construed as a deliberate strategy that begins with the manipulation of the education system to create a world where all these acts seem perfectly reasonable.

A system where students from minority communities are regularly told by their teachers to go back to their home countries, wherever that might be. A system where teachers are transferred for their political beliefs. A system where the slaughter of animals is demonstrated in schools while some students are made to eat facing toilets. A system where the global language of education is discarded despite vehement protests from parents and educators alike. A system where institutions of higher learning back out of debates where opposing viewpoints may be represented by the likes of Ambiga Sreenevasan and Tony Pua.

So the situation is one of declining rankings of local universities, declining scores of local school students in PISA evaluations and local graduates who are increasingly unemployable. Those who can afford it, send their kids to private or international schools and then overseas, often never to return.

Those left behind are the products of an education system that is focused on rote learning, the suppression of higher order thinking skills, chopping and changing of syllabi every few years and an undue emphasis on notions of racial and religious superiority.

The results are what is seen on the national stage today, a generation of adults who feel that they are way superior to accept any kind of menial work, yet too ignorant to be employed in competitive industries. Adults who believe that piety trumps integrity, honesty and hard work every time and that it’s who you know that trumps over what you know every time.

When the Government Transformation Plan (GTP) report states that Malaysia’s education system is fast becoming the world’s best, is it referring to its attempts to produce a pliable, indoctrinated populace that has never learned to ask critical questions, that is never exposed to global trends because it is handicapped by language and that will be eternally grateful to the powers that be?

To the extent that ridiculous statements by apparatchiks and supporters of the ruling coalition are reported and defended on a daily basis by the mainstream media, they are succeeding. A country with impressive infrastructural hardware and bounteous natural resources is squandering the most critical component towards becoming a developed county; its human capital. Oil will finish, cronies can and will siphon away the wealth already accumulated, and if human software is left to live in the ideas of the past, the result will be no laughing matter.

However, the rise of the alternative media has allowed a platform for saner voices from across the political, academic and economic spectrum to emerge. Voices who are willing to debate each other with respect, agree to disagree and compete on the basis of reason. Voices that are not beholden to any political coalition but demand that politicians listen to them rather than the other way around.

If the funniest guys win, sodomy is all set to be the most serious of crimes in Malaysia.

** This is the personal opinion of the columnist.