Even Dr S Subramaniam, the former health Minister is of the opinion that there is no reason for UiTM to open its door to non-Bumiputera students to address a shortage of cardiothoracic surgeons in the country, because that is not the issue and there is actually a simpler solution.
The issue is that the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) does not recognize the FRCS Ed programme, which was created to address a shortage of cardiothoracic surgeons. The program is supported by many medical organizations, and a solution to the problem could be worked out in a much simpler and more effective way, if MMC would just move to recognize the FRCS Ed program graduates.
Rather than get a few doctors who had completed their training via the FRCS ed programme to do a credit transfer programme through UiTM’s masters programme to enable them to eventually become cardiothoracic surgeons, which is not only long winded but causes unnecessary racial rhetoric to arise, the problem could simply be resolved by the health minister, the director-general, and MMC, who have sufficient powers among themselves to collectively resolve this issue.
So how did this become a racial issue?
Well, it became a racial issue because as always, some misguided people have chosen to use this particular problem to force UitM to open its door and include non-Bumiputera students, by shaming it as an “apartheid” and racist regime that cares more about racial supremacy than saving lives.
Rather than push for a simple solution, which only requires MMC to recognise the FRCS ed programme, they decided to push for a complicated solution, that required UitM to shamed as racist organisation and brow beaten into breaking its legal framework and charter as an institution was set up to meet the educational requirements of the Bumiputeras.
As they say, the road to perdition is paved with good intentions.
I think that it is about time that we recognise that some misguided people amongst us, out of a desire to anoint themselves as a non-racist, righteous and saintly people, are causing all sorts of mischief to occur by fighting monsters where there is none.
Like Don Quixote charging at the windmill because he delusionally believes it to be a fire breathing dragon, these people are also charging at us for being racist at the drop of a hat, just to fulfil their misguided desire to be seen as a knight in shining armour.
Rather than be a part of the solution that they see themselves as, these people might actually be the source of the racial problems in the country.
By complicating simple matters in order to push their agenda forward, they are causing all sorts of suspicions and doubts to arise in the heart of the people. When a simple issue is made complicated, can you blame people for suspecting ulterior motives?
Rather than bring the races together with their antics, the seeds of doubts and suspicions that they are sowing, together with their penchant to shame those who do not share their point of view, is not only tearing the different races in the country apart, but causing all sorts of ill view to brew in their heart.
The races in Malaysia are not and have never been supremacist in outlook. There has never been a period in the nation where any of the races here saw another race as inferior or sub-human as how the whites in the west used to see the non-whites as inferior or sub-human.
It is only in the west that to view another race as different is equal to viewing them as inferior or subhuman. In our part of the world, seeing another race as different has never been equal to seeing them as inferior or subhuman.
When people in our part of the world want to be with their own kind, it is not because they view any other races as subhuman or inferior. It is because wanting to be with your own kind is just a natural preference, that all of us have and understand.
Because we have never seen any race as inferior or subhuman just because they are different, we do not need to be rehabilitated from our supremacist view, by being forced to co-mingle and accept others into our fold.
The whites in the west needed to be rehabilitated and be forced to co-mingle with other races, because as recently as one to two generations ago, many of them were incorrigibly racist and supremacist in their racial outlook. But just because they need to be rehabilitated, it doesn’t mean we have to be rehabilitated too.
It's only criminals that need to be sent to jail to be rehabilitated. To force a law-abiding citizen to go to prison to be rehabilitated, although they have never committed a crime, is the height of stupidity and insanity.
In the same way, to force the races in our country to co-mingle and become one people, although we have never committed the sin of being racially supremacist, is also the height of stupidity and insanity.
For thousands of years, races in our part of the world have always made their own arrangements. without anybody complaining that this arrangement was unjust or prejudicial, as how the Jews and Blacks used to complain as to how the being forced into ghettos was prejudicial and unjust to them in Europe or America.
The races here never used to have a problem mingling just because they prefer being with their own race either. We generally never had any problem interacting or connecting with people of other races in a manner that was comfortable and convenient for us. It is only when some misguided and quixotic people started to force the races here to co-mingle, or shame them as being racist if they did not comply, that the different races here have started to put up their guard and assume the worse in any attempt to force them to co-mingle, as can be seen in the protest by UiTM students to allow UiTM to open its door to non-Bumiputera students.
Forcing people to do something that they are not ready or comfortable to do, has never been our culture.
Rather than see themselves as a part of the solution, maybe it is time for those of us who are recklessly shoving the rest of us to become one people, to look in the mirror and ask themselves why do they insist that all us must be forced to be one in the first place?
Why do they act as if they are so sure that we are and have always been racist, so much so that our racism must be exorcised out of us by forcing all of us to be one? In which part of our history have the different races in the country been racist? When did we ever commit pogroms or built segregated ghettos or systematically developed a supremacist ideology?
Why are they so insistent on forcing us to repent from a sin that we have never committed, as how Don Quixote was charging at the windmill, to slay a dragon that never existed?
Could it be because of their stubborn insistence that we repent for a sin that we have not committed, that they are causing racial issues that never existed before, to arise?
The road to perdition is paved with good intentions.
Whenever you try to solve a problem, but the more you try to solve it, the worse the problem becomes, it might be time to take stock of yourself, and ask yourself whether it is you that is the problem.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, The Star, Malaysia-Today, MalaysiaNow, MalaysiaKini and Focus Malaysia.
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