Dong Zong recently confused the Chinese by having them think that the introduction of jawi was a form of Islamisation of the education system.
The group even claimed that the ‘majority’ of Chinese were against the move despite not having conducted a survey of any magnitude to assess sentiments abound.
If indeed the group is so efficient that it can gather sufficient responses in a matter of just hours, it goes to show that teachers and parents of school-goers are constantly in touch with its leaders and are able to give feedback at lightning speeds.
So how is it possible that the group was not aware the previous time Barisan Nasional made it policy to introduce jawi to the primary school curriculum.
How is it possible that Kit Siang can claim that PH only recently came to know of the policy but fail to ask the well-informed Dong Zong why it kept him in the dark?
USJ SUBANG JAYA: Lim Kit Siang, currently under heavy fire, has resorted to shifting the blame onto the previous Barisan Nasional government for making it policy to introduce jawi to the primary school curriculum.
According to the man who claims that learning jawi actually made him “more Malaysian,” Pakatan Harapan (PH) came to know of the policy for the first time when controversy erupted over the teaching of jawi in vernacular schools last month.
But that’s a load of tongue-twisting coming from the man who also told a forum in Universiti Malaya that the government was “Islamising education and other aspects of natural life.”
On the 13th of August 2019, the Dong Zong and Jiao Zong educationist groups flew in the face of government by insisting that the learning khat calligraphy and jawi would not help pupils understand the Malay language better.
Dong Zong was later branded racist by the Prime Minister himself when the group added that the introduction, made compulsory, was a form of Islamisation and pointed to a statement by Putrajaya-backed missionary group Yayasan Dakwah Islamiah Malaysia (Yadim) to defend its accusation.
But the group was quick to add that its concern was anchored purely in suspicion and not fact.
That immediately shrouded the group in irony, given that its leaders, who claim to be distinguished educationists representing the Chinese community, failed to conduct proper research to back their claim.
Any well researched educationist would be able to tell you that jawi just so happens to be Quranic in that the script is used in the Holy Al Qu’ran.
As with the Roman alphabet and Chinese script, jawi too helps linguists pen spoken words and allows them to convey those words from one individual to another through visualisation, not speech.
There is absolutely nothing Islamic about the whole affair just as there is nothing “Buddhist” about the Chinese script even if the script is used to spread Buddhism in China.
However, jawi is very much intertwined with the phonetical development of the Malay language in that the early Malays used the script to pen spoken words.
The Portugese and British changed all that by introducing the Roman alphabet and encouraged locals to read and write the Malay language in Roman script.
This gave rise to an informal way of spelling words in Malay which was heavily influenced by the Western-Christian way of articulation and sentence construction.
The return to jawi script would help pupils understand differences in terms of pronunciation and articulation if one were to reconstruct a sentence built on the Roman alphabet in jawi.
Dong Zong understands this just as much as it understands that the Chinese language too can be learnt using the Roman script.
But the group chose to lie instead and ended up confusing the Chinese by having them think that the introduction of jawi was a form of Islamisation of the education system.
The group even claimed that the ‘majority’ of Chinese were against the move despite not having conducted a survey of any magnitude to assess sentiments abound.
If indeed the group is so efficient that it can gather sufficient responses in a matter of just hours, it goes to show that teachers and parents of school-goers are constantly in touch with its leaders and are able to give feedback at lightning speeds.
So how is it possible that the group was not aware the previous time Barisan Nasional made it policy to introduce jawi to the primary school curriculum.
How is it possible that Kit Siang can claim that PH only recently came to know of the policy but fail to ask the well-informed Dong Zong why it kept him in the dark?
Can you now see how Lim Kit Siang lies through his teeth, or do you need me to spell it out for you?
RJ RITHAUDEEN
