The excuse often bandied about to shut down vernacular schools is that they don't help to foster unity among the races.
The truth is that it is the often toxic racial and religious politics and politicking politicians resort to to gain support and stay relevant with their constituents that give rise to unease, distrust, suspicion and disharmony among Malaysia's diverse racial, cultural and religious population.
If we were to shut down or abolish vernacular schools, what we have is the national-type schools where, as everyone knows, the quality and standard of education dished out have deteriorated over the years.
One of the reasons why more and more Malay parents are sending their children to study in Chinese vernacular schools.
And also in growing recognition of the importance of China as an economic power.
In fact, a growing number of countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, even the west, are paying more attention to Mandarin as an important language to master.
Forced assimilation, to put it in in a not so nice way, is cultural genocide in a sense, where one's culture, ethnicity and language are subsumed in favour of the majority populace for the sake of 'integration'
Here in Malaysia, with its diverse population, with Malay as the official national language which is taught in schools as compulsory, including the vernacular ones, most everyone who has been to school can converse in the language.
There is no problem of unity among the races here in Malaysia if politicians cease exploiting race and religion as their political capital.
We had no problem with unity among the races during Tunku's time up till Hussein Onn's.
It is only with the dawn of Mahathir's time that things began to change with the play on race and religion taking shape.
Yes, Malaysia should not be like Indonesia!
Let's be truly Asia!! as our tourism Malaysia slogan goes 'Malaysia, truly Asia!'
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