In the Malay lexicon, the phrase “kurang ajar” indicates the utmost contempt someone could have on another person. That other person—the perpetrator—could have done or said something utterly improper, disrespectful, or way out of line. Then again, there is no one English word that I know of that accurately reflects this Malay phrase.
Most Malays do not use “kurang ajar” indiscriminately. They reserve it for those rare and special occasions when they are closed to the peak of their anger. You see, readers, “kurang ajar” is not one of the nicer things to say about someone. It indicates that the perpetrator lacks proper upbringing, which reflects badly on his or her parents. Malay, being traditionally polite people they are, would loathe using terms like this. Other Malay words that belong to this category would be, “celaka”, “biadap”, “haram jadah”, “laknat”, “derhaka”, etc. You do not hear the Malays use these words every day (except for some Malays from Melaka).
So, it was surprising to hear two Malay men discussing the PPSMI issue over breakfast at a mamak restaurant a few days ago. Not knowing their names, of course, I will use Johan and Zaidi. The conversation took place mostly in English. By the look of it, I can venture that the two gentlemen were western educated, what with their silk neck ties and RM500-onwards leather shoes. Must be some bank officers or hot-shot engineers from the offices nearby.
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Johan: Did you watch the news last night? So, after six long years the government decided to ditch PPSMI.
Zaidi: Yeah. I saw that. This is the thing about Mahathir. How dare he…how dare he bulldozed his way through. Just because he was in power, he thought he could get away with his whims and fancies. He brushed aside everybody. Kurang ajar betul! He didn’t even consult the academicians or the people in the Education ministry. This is the danger of this one man, called Mahathir. Bukan sahaja dia kurang ajar dengan Melayu, dia kurang ajar kepada seluruh rakyat Malaysia.
Johan: But he did it with good intention.
Zaidi: Agreed. But, why didn’t he consult the others? Why, he thinks he’s the only smart person in this land? The least he could have done was to commission a pilot program. That way, if it were to fail it wouldn’t have been on such a grand scale.
Johan: Yeah, how much was it? Five billion, six billion ringgit?
Zaidi: For a failed experiment! The worst part was, three million school kids were used as guinea pigs, with no positive results to show.
Johan: But he was reported as saying it wasn’t the failure of the policy. The implementation was bad.
Zaidi: Another classic Mahathir! How can you build a cart without knowing where the horse would come from? What is he trying to imply? It wasn’t his fault? It was the education ministry’s officials that screwed up? I have had it with this Mahathir. It is always never his fault; always someone else’s. I think this is part of the reason Lee Kuan Yew had been successful in building Singapore. On any issue, he gave Singaporeans the full solution, or close-to-full solution, not a bit here, a bit there.
Johan: You know that Mahathir has put on a poll on his blog to see how many people support the cancellation of PPSMI? He seems satisfied that only 15% support the latest government move while 85% support his original idea.
Zaidi: Bangang punya Mahathir! Or is it that he’s smart and he knows that most visitors to his blog would fall for his sleight of hand. Poll macam ni mana boleh pakai. Statistically useless! Talk about biasness. Oh, I remember some books I read sometime back, “How to lie with statistics”, and “Damned lies and statistics.” Mahathir ni, putar alam betul. Somebody must put him in his proper place.
Johan: Ya lah! I think so too. If you balance his achievements and his screw-ups for 23 years, I wonder how he’d come up. Cases like Perwaja, Bakun, MAS, Renong start to resurface. And now the six billion ringgit PPSMI. In some other countries, all these would have been criminal!
Zaidi: You see the danger with people like Mahathir. He treats the masses with contempt. He believes he knows best. And he operates on the credo, “As long as it’s not my money; it’s other people’s money.”
Johan: Rightly said. That reminds me of another chap…Khir Toyo and his mansion.
Zaidi: Well, that’s our topic for tomorrow’s breakfast. Come on, it’s almost eight. I don’t want to be late for work.
1 response so far ↓
Wenger J Khairy // July 11, 2009 at 5:53 pm |
Zaidi is spot on. However, I choose to ignore the poll on his blog. That is a sideshow.
So they say its a mistake in its implementation. Thats like saying, in theory I could create a perpetual motion machine, but then again, I just couldn’t engineer that.
Why is our implementation lacking? PPSMI aside, its a known fact, this is not rocket science. We know what level we can expect from the Government. Is it the fault of the individual Government Officers and officials or “the man” who created a system where it is not what you feel is right, but what the boss feels is right and to cross him is to invite a slow and painful death.