'Muhyiddin claims that they were minor. Who should know better how to spell words on Indian ceremonial matters - non-Indians or Indians?'
DPM: Interlok walkout due to misunderstanding
Kit P: When authorities say a problem such as the Interlok issue is to be handled by an ‘independent panel', there is a reasonable expectation that the panel will be allowed to do its job without undue interference, and its recommendations will be accepted even if Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin may not really agree with it.
Otherwise don't call it an independent panel - that amounts to a public relations fraud or a whitewash.
Wira: I remember the ‘Malay' entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica drew frenzied protests from the community because they were stereotyped as lazy. I don't understand why a novel published locally which insulted the sensitivity of the Indians be allowed to be used in our schools. Have our educators lost their common sense?
Jimmy Ng: Muhyiddin claims that they were minor issues? Who does he think he is to decide whether they were minor? Why not leave it to the committee to iron out and decide whether they were minor or not?
Who should know better how to spell correctly words on Indian ceremonial matters - non-Indians or Indians? My bet is that he is putting political considerations first and foremost above other things.
Gerard Samuel Vijayan: The solution is very simple - withdraw ‘Interlok' and replace it with another text by some other Malay writer. Why can't it be done?
What is wrong with amending minor words and phrases since the entire book is under review? If there are spelling mistakes, grammatical and contextual errors, shouldn't these be corrected? Or is the review only confined to the word ‘pariah'?
‘Interlok' is not a suitable book to be made compulsory reading in schools. It contains many factual and cultural errors, racial profiling and stereotypes, and derogatory terms to refer to Indians and Chinese and even the Malays. So why keep such a controversial and divisive book as a compulsory text?
Teacher: I agree. It is a good novel but it is not suitable for schools. Will the teacher who has to teach it be able to handle it with all the negative publicity it has received? Students will tease each other and this will not create unity in class. It may be a cause for a fight outside the class.
Please withdraw the book. Don't create more problems for teachers.
Brij Jayaram Kathiravelu: Dr Mahathir Mohamad would be very happy to read MCA president Chua Soi Lek's 'admission' of 'master-servant' relationship. In his book; 'A Doctor in the House', Mahathir laments that the Malays were not respected, appreciated or consulted by the colonial powers and the various ethnic groups.
Now, Umno's relationship with its BN coalition 'partners' is one of 'master-lap dog' in earnest. Umno repeatedly employs its 'arm-twisting' tactics to remind its BN coalition 'partners' of its mastery position behind closed doors, but portrays BN as 'arm-in-arm' coalition in public to dupe the rakyat.
I would even go as far as to say that the respective racially-based coalition party leaders are just representing themselves (read: one and one's family, relatives) rather than the rakyat the purportedly claim to represent.
Lim Chong Leong: How come MCA Youth chief Wee Ka Siong did not talk to his boss Muhyiddin Yassin, who is the education minister and deputy prime minister, to have the matter resolved? Or did Muhyiddin slap him and tell him to shut up?
Why are the Education Ministry's two top heads bypassed so that their taikos have to meet? What is the ministry doing such that Prime Minister Najib Razak and MCA president Chua Soi Lek, who is not even a cabinet member, have to decide on education policies?
Guest: Read between the lines. If Chua Soi Lek (CSL) tenders his resignation to MCA, it's just another internal issue within the party. Now if CSL went and saw the PM to tender his resignation, everyone would want to know why. If the PM accepts CSL's resignation, of course the press (mainstream and alternative) would want to interview him. And then of course, he would have to tell them.
CSL is playing a game that has only two outcomes, win or lose. He knew it and I think the PM also knew it.
With 13th general election coming as well as the Sarawak elections, it would be interesting to see how this would eventually play out. In any case, the real winners would be the raykat in the long run.
Concerned Citizen 1e05: Chua Soi Lek buat betul, you people mahu hentam. Dia jadi porn star pun you people mahu hentam. Give him credit where it is due. He did good here.
To resign as MCA president after what he had to go through to get it is huge. And him bringing the resignation letter with him is to inform Najib, who is the chairperson of BN. After all, MCA is a component party of BN.
ONG: I cannot believe that Wee Ka Siong did not try to inform the ‘ketuanan Melayu' officers of the agreement reached at the political leadership level. Obviously the Education Ministry officer concerned would talk to Wee to sort out the problem only when instructed by Najib.
It is abundantly clear that the officers at the Education Ministry do not treat Wee Ka Siong as the deputy education minister. When Najib blames the problem on miscommunication, it is just to give Wee a little bit of face.
Not Confused: MCA is irrelevant and totally subservient to Umno and BN. What Chua Soi Lek should have done, however, is not to resign as party president, but to remove MCA from the BN coalition. That would have been more appropriate.
Don't Play God: "That this archaic formula of rule has persisted half a century on under the same anachronistic coalition until today has undoubtedly made Malaysia a museum piece in this modern age."
That is so because Umno wants it to remain so. And there ain't nothing that the component parties can do about it.
Swipenter: MCA is not a subsidiary of Umno. That would be a understatement. It is a stooge of Umno and these two stooges have no dignity. No principles, no pride and no class. You do not threaten anyone to get what you want. You fight for what is right and not defend what is wrong.
Gen2: The deputy education minister's post is just for window-dressing. The little Napoleons in the ministry issue their own circulars and if the deputy minister is unhappy, he has to seek higher authority outside his ministry to get his ministry's little Napoleons to withdraw their circulars. What a joke, but then that's a reality.
1warganegara: This tantamount to saying that the lowly civil servant can do anything at his whim and fancy and it falls on the party heads of the respective races to run to the PM with resignation letters in hand to ask him to give a call to the civil servant.
What a dog's life for the so-called party presidents.
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