By C C Pung
Justice of Peace
CONFUCIUS teaching is 1,400 years old.
He endlessly expounded on subjects such as human character, governance, I ntegrity and morals.
The great man is still frequented quoted to this day.
Lessons in character, honesty and why rape is evil and killing is inhuman have since perhaps before Confucius were taught to mankind.
So when Malaysia’s education minister (I shudder to mention her name) declared this week that she was going to start introducing teaching about character and morals in our schools, the banality made my skin crawl.
It’s obvious that she operates in an alternate reality.
She coined ‘karaktor’ as the Malay equivalent to the much studied English word, prompting me to speculate that if such a key word doesn’t exist in the Malay vocabulary, what’s there to teach.
Yes, the subjects are of universal values (like don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you) and every thing calling itself ‘school’ teaches them.
But our minister seemed to referring to something different from what Confucius, and the Divine, have in mind.
Our less-than-clever minister has fresh takes on morality and humanity after schools under her watch saw bullying, stabbing, rape and suspicious deaths in recent traumatic weeks.
While the tone deaf minister (she thinks that spending millions to produce pins of the national flag and requiring school children to wear them will develop patriotism!) searches for cues to appear smart, I can picture Confucius turning in his centuries old grave while God scratches His head sighing “Oh Anwar, look what you done!”
After 13yr old Zara Qairina died last July at an Islamic school hostel in Papar sparking nationwide outrage and questions, our minister showed video of her rallying little school children shouting birthday wishes to her benefactor Anwar Ibrahim.
After a Malacca school girl was raped by four schoolmates, our minister, facing inquisitive reporters, had no sympathy for the victim, but was all compassionate about the future of the four rape suspects by giving assurance (that nobody, not even the 4 boys, asked for) that they will be allowed to take their SPM exams in November.
The boys have been expelled. Their crime could put them away for 30 years.
And our minister (what’s her name again?) Is worried about the future of the boys!
What a loving menteri! She’s stupidity personified.
I’m bursting with love for her.
Paraphrasing a US politician: “the brain is a miraculous thing.
It starts developing before birth but strangely dies after joining Congress (Anwar’s government)’.
A certain minister in charge of that thingy called MCMC convinces me of the presence of a stupidity contagion in the Cabinet.
Having fun. God bless Bolehland.
Editor: The views expressed here are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of the talantang.com
