a letter to my malaysian millennials
First, an address to my colonisers.
To start on a positive note: thank you. Thank you for establishing a good administration and civil service, even if our implementation of it right now isn’t the best. Thank you for setting up a connective road system that has given me countless memories of road (mainly food) trips across the country with friends and family. Thank you for building up the production of our natural resources, namely tin, rubber and oil palm, that have made a significant contribution to our economy. Thank you for the good command of English that has allowed me to engage in global discussions that a non-native English speaker may not necessarily be able to.
But, and I apologise for nitpicking, I do have a qualm about the last thank you.
Because despite my appreciation for my proficiency in your language, it’s yours, not mine. Suddenly your language became mine, and not knowing mine automatically became fine. What I find worse, however, is that there is no expectation to know either fluently, something that we have accepted rather foolishly.
Now, to address my fellow Malaysians.
It is easy to feel resentment towards our colonisers and blame them for this, but the situation is not as simple as it seems.
I would like to think that the problem with the languages arose as an effect of colonisation, but after conversations with older generations, specifically my parents, I have come to realise that the problem lies more with the education system implemented by our government rather than the British. If you look at not just my parents, but my friends’ parents, they all speak immaculate English. They were all brought up with the Cambridge education system, where there was an expectation to be fluent in both English and Malay, never compromising either. However, you can see once that system was taken away and our government introduced a new one, there was an evident decline in the standard of language proficiency and along with that the expectation too diminished.
However, do not let our weaker education system fool you. There are still very visible effects of colonisation in our country that we have turned a blind eye to for far too long.
Being able to speak English at a an advanced or fluent level in this country for some reason equates to being educated, a concept that I’m still trying to grasp. As a result of this social construct, Malaysians unintentionally render respect to Westerners rather than locals despite both individuals having the same qualification. I’ve seen this deference evident in schools where Heads of Department were selected not by their competency but rather their nationality, when there were equally if not more competent locals already present in the department that suited the position perfectly.
Rather than denying that this is a subconscious reality we live in, I think it’s time we acknowledge that it’s happening and do something about it. By accepting its existence and talking about it, we automatically raise awareness on the issue and therefore make ourselves as well as others more conscious about it in the future.
Another thing I have come to notice is that my level of fluency in English is on par with many second language English speakers, commonly among the Europeans. (I understand that this is a blanket statement I am making as it is an observation I’m making from the few Europeans I’ve met, but the fact that they have such opportunities in their education systems is something to applaud in itself.) This leads me to question, what is the emphasis our education system is placing on language acquisition?
Yes it is true that it is partially my fault and not the national education system that my proficiency in Malay is weak by nature of spending my secondary education in an international school. However, why is the importance of learning Malay at a more advanced level not imposed on all schools in Malaysia, regardless of being public or private? We are so blessed to be surrounded in a society filled with so many cultures, yet there is no importance placed on uplifting and implementing these cultures into our lives. If it was up to me, all Malaysians should have to learn English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil from primary so they would achieve some level of fluency by the time they graduate high school. It never seizes to amaze me how many Europeans I have met at UWC, despite growing up in monocultures and with minimal opportunities to practice, have come out of school fluent in 3 or more languages with high degrees of fluency. The emphasis placed on language acquisition there is mind-blowing, and there’s so much potential for us to implement it here too. It’s saddening to think that a majority of us (myself included), even with the abundance of opportunities to practice, have limited ourselves to fluency in one of them and seldom more than that.
I am guilty of it too, having gone to a national school for my primary education, I was taught English, Malay and Mandarin. But we were taught for the sake of teaching, and were not advised to learn for the sake of learning. Such heavy emphasis was placed on exams at such a young age that the pressure of attaining a good grade forced many of us to memorise the content, vomit it out during the exam and forget it after. As a result of this, we picked up the temporary grade rather than the lifelong skill.
At home, my grandmother spoke to me in Tamil. Being ashamed of my culture and made fun of due to racist jokes hurled at me by friends, who disgustingly had such views imposed on them at such a young age, led me to constantly respond to my grandmother in English. For fear of being made fun of and not fitting in, I missed out on such a valuable opportunity to pick up a key skill. Only after I left Malaysia and discovered the value of languages did I realise I had missed out on the advantageous position I had been placed in and a truly missed opportunity.
In a world that demands us to be not just citizens of our own countries but global citizens too, it is vital that appropriate emphasis is placed on the English language. However, in no way should this compromise the acquisition of our native language, as to me it is equally important.
We see a lot of youth today, myself included, beginning to reflect the culture of the West more than our own. And I’m not denying that some of our more conservative ideologies are best left in the past, but why are we leaving the rich culture we have there too?
It is one thing to love our country and another to love our government, and I think it’s time we realise that. It was really an eye-opener going to UWC and seeing how proud people were of their countries, not just parading with their cultures but with their languages too. It was to an extent rather saddening to think not only do we not speak our native language, we aren’t very well-versed with our cultures and origins. Our pride in our culture seems to be somewhat lacking, but that’s a rant for another time.
If there was one thing I hope you’d take away from this article it’s this : take advantage of the opportunities to learn about the different languages and cultures we have in our country. Stop focusing so much on our differences and instead look at all we have in common. I promise you that with this outlook, we will become more ‘1Malaysia’ than ever before.