Description
There are few Malaysian scholars more prolific and independent in commenting on the affairs of the nation in the past few years than Azly Rahman.
Not just providing the occasional sound bite or article on current developments as is wont among our academic colleagues - the most prominent operating as court scholars rather than as objective scholars - whose sanctioned works in our mainstream media are often pathetic apologies defending the official orthodoxy.
But conscientiously, diligently and to use a much hackneyed but in this case appropriate phrase - without fear or favour. The excerpts below serve as one example of what may appear to be politically incorrect writing but in fact is more than that in its pointing the way toward a vision of a future less chained by the racial (and religious) insecurities and devils rampant in Malaysia.
While children of the privileged in urban areas get first-class education through private and international schools or even in high schools abroad and get to master the English Language (so that they can be given places and sponsorship in English-speaking universities abroad), children of the rural poor are left to become victims of policies dictated by research findings that hardy make sense in the realm of educational futurism.
Retired professors, poet laureates, die-hard Malay nationalists who themselves are well-educated in the English language having tasted the successes and given national accolades become incoherent and hypocritical spokespersons to a government policy that will make the myth of the lazy native a reality.
