A HEADMISTRESS OF EXAMPLE

Sunday May 2, 2010
Cocooned in our comfort zone
Sharing The Nation
By ZAINAH ANWAR


Our obsession with control and conformity in thought and behaviour discourages the young from embracing diversity.

MY much loved, much admired headmistress, Mrs Dawn Parry, passed away last week. It’s been almost 40 years since I left the Sultan Ibrahim Girls School in Johor Baru. Yet, to this day, my school mates and I still think of Mrs Parry and the school she led for 28 notable years with much fondness. She was a teacher who made the difference to our lives and our future.

To me, her most precious gift was to expose us to a world beyond school books. Academic excellence alone does not make a good student, nor a good human being, she used to say. She wanted us to be all-rounders, who studied hard and played hard as well. She favoured those who excelled in extra-curricular activities, and sighed at those who only wanted to bury their noses in textbooks, disinterested in sports, music or debates.

She got us to raise money to build the school band, which went on to win the first national-level brass band competition in 1980. She loved music and formed the school choir, which won the national level choral festival in 1969. She introduced us to opera and got us to perform Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice for our annual speech day in 1970. She travelled during school holidays and when she returned she shared with us stories of a world different from ours during school assembly.

School was a wonderful journey of learning and discovery. Yes, we had our share of uninspiring teachers, but Mrs Parry made up for it by touching all those under her charge. She opened our eager hearts and minds to new ideas and experiences.

We were privileged that our school years in the 1960s and 1970s introduced us to literature, poetry, debates, music, drama, dance, sports, and community service in the uniformed bodies. These were all integral to our growth as thinkers and doers.

Nowadays it seems that only those who attend expensive private schools get such a liberal education that expands the mind, while those in government schools are too often dumbed down by an education system obsessed with producing students with straight As and led by teachers unaware of a world beyond textbooks and examinations.

I met a few of these top performing Malay­sian students studying at a university in the American Midwest a few weeks ago while I was there teaching a course on Islam and Women in South-East Asia.

What gave me hope was their excitement about the new knowledge, ideas and experiences they were exposed to. As we sat for almost four hours, chatting about religion, women’s rights, politics, sex and marriage, the words kept tumbling out that their life there was so interesting, so challenging, so different, so refreshing. They could feel their minds stretched and their prejudices and stereotypes challenged.

They attended a talk by an imam and a rabbi about the Allah debate in Malaysia and went away agreeing that Allah is not the monopoly of Islam or Muslims.

One of them had attended an Islamic society meeting, and was startled by the different kinds of Muslims she met there. She said this was the first time she had encountered Muslims who dressed and thought differently and it dawned on her that this was the real world. And she liked it this way. There is not just one kind of Muslim who all believe that Kartika should be caned for drinking, she discovered.

It is ironic that despite growing up in a country that is multi-ethnic and multi-religious, their exposure to diversity came by studying in the United States. This is no surprise to those of us who know that our education system has become mono-ethnic and our obsession with control and conformity in thought and behaviour has left little room for the young to explore and embrace diversity.

They pounded me with questions about the Islamic state, Islamic law, and equality and justice. If Kartika wanted to be caned, why was it anybody’s business to stop her from undergoing her punishment, one of them asked. Well, I said, Kartika was a first-time offender, she pleaded guilty, and there was no violence involved in the offence she committed. Yet, having met the criteria for all this under the sentencing guidelines, she was given the maximum sentence.

Why? What about the fact that the Constitution forbids women from being caned? Why should Muslim women be the exception? And why the double standards? We know so many of the rich and famous who drink and yet nothing ever happens to them. Poor Kartika went on holiday to Pahang and found her life turned upside down because some religious zealots wanted to turn her case into a lesson for others.

As they pondered on these facts, they looked at me and asked why they had never heard these arguments before.

As we talked, it struck me how smart and thoughtful these students could be, and that what was missing from their early life was an education that encouraged and nurtured inquiring and critical minds. It was only when they arrived in the West that they were able to learn, digest and think for themselves about what was right and wrong, what was just and unjust.

But they are among the lucky few, able to win scholarships to study in top universities that provide them with an abundance of opportunities to learn differently.

I know many Muslims who discovered the beauty and justice of Islam only in the United States when they studied with professors, many of whom were non-Muslims or converts who showed respect for the religion.

But what about the thousands of students who never leave Malaysia, who move from a closed school to a closed university and then to a closed workplace, cocooned in the comfort of their own small world of certainties?

This brings me back to Dawn Parry and the importance of a mind-expanding education. The impact of such an education is a lasting gift for living. It is not that Malaysians, in particular the Malays, are inherently close- minded and unable to move with the times.

Like everyone else, their world views are shaped by their education and upbringing. If the environment discourages critical thinking and punishes anyone for non-conformity, why on earth would anyone dare to be different?

Some years ago, I met an Egyptian Islamist leader and an Indonesian activist who studied with Malaysian students in al-Azhar Univer­sity in Cairo. They were both puzzled that a country as modern and developed as Malaysia could produce the most close-minded students they had ever met. While the Indo­nesians were studying with the more reform-minded professors in al-Azhar, discussing the newest ideas and latest books on Islam, the Malaysians chose the most conservative and least challenging teachers and refused to join any of the discussion groups.

As wont with activists, my Indonesian friend committed himself to engaging with the Malaysian students. He spent hours discussing and debating with them about democracy, women’s rights, differences and diversity of opinion in Islam. He concluded that the problem was not so much that the Malaysian students were ideologically conservative, but that in the schooling they went through, they were never exposed to diverse sources of knowledge in Islam.

However, when challenged with different sources of knowledge, many of the Malaysians were open to the new ideas and the possibilities of change – so he felt that all was not lost.

But the closing of the Malay mind is a systemic problem that needs more than individual effort to undo the long-term damage already done. It calls for a comprehensive solution and a radical overhaul of our education system.

The Prime Minister in his speech on the New Economic Model (NEM) talked about giving our children the best education, the need to produce and compete for the best talent to drive the economy forward, and the importance of innovation and creativity to turn Malaysia into a high income developed country.

To do this, he would have to build a new national sense of purpose that can mobilise all Malaysians, including the Malays, to meet the real challenges ahead.

As it is, the National Economic Advisory Council report on the NEM confirms the mess we are in. In spite of the high capital outlays, our education system is not producing talent, and whatever talent we have is leaving the country, it states damningly. How did it all go wrong is not difficult to answer. So how can we set it right again?

The likes of my late headmistress Dawn Parry would have provided answers because she once guided us through an education that built our capacity for critical inquiry, developed our passion for life, and cultivated our desire to make a difference in the world.