Throwing the baby out with the bath water

No, we should not abolish the NEP. We need the NEP. And we need the NEP because many Malays, Chinese and Indians, as well as Natives of Sabah and Sarawak, still need help. But the NEP needs to be revamped while the implementation of the NEP needs to be improved.

Raja Petra Kamarudin

This was what NancyL wrote in the blog under my article in this same column, ‘Elementary, my dear Watson ’:

RPK......AUWWWWWWWWWWW.....how could you did that to your baby.....giving her plain water bottle so that she didn’t ask anymore milk at nite ....her stomach was too small then to indulge bigger amount of milk.....babies get full and hungry quickly.....you are cruel!!!!...HUH!!!...MAN!!!...THAT REMIND ME I WILL NEVER EVER AGAIN LET MY HUB LOOK AFTER MY BABY!!!... Since I had my first baby 6 yrs. ago until my third baby which is 3 now...I had....not even once slept for a one whole full nite...not once....well....

There was a story....when a man approached Prophet Muhammad...asking him..."Who does he have to answer first when both his parents call him?"...then Prophet replied...."Your Mum"....and he asked again...."After that?"....answer was again.... "Your Mum"....and he asked again.....for the 3rd time...and it was still his Mum...until the 4th time...then Prophet said..."Your Dad"....
And the love of a mother is soo high in Islam that it said...."Heaven is under the feet of your mother"......mum loves is different from dad's love...the bond is too strong....only women will understand this!!

A mother will only try to stop her baby from crying for milk at nite ..only when she realised that she is big enuff....that is when she start proper weaning....that is when the time is right...she will wake up at nite no matter what until her child no longer need her to...that’s the love and sacrifice of a mother....

I understand why ur mum didn’t give you the bottle but to agree why you didn’t give ur baby the milk that’s a different issue......

I know that the main point you want to make here is that "Your love for Malays is like the love of a father"...that’s what you want the Malays to know ...and that no matter how bad you said of them is actually just like an act of a father to his child....

written by NancyL, April 02, 2008 20:21:53

NancyL was referring to my act of feeding plain water to my first-born, my daughter, the first week after she was born. Within three days she no longer woke up at 3.00am for her milk feed and I got a good night’s sleep thereafter.

All this talk about my first-born brings back memories of my younger days. They say if you keep reflecting on the ‘good old days’ this is a sign that age has crept up on you. I suppose, at 57 going on 58, I would certainly qualify to be in the category of dunia kata pergi, kubur kata mari, or, as the English would say: having one foot in the grave.

I was 23 and my wife was 19 when we got our first child within one year after we got married. Our daughter was actually due slightly later but my wife was extremely large because the baby was quite ‘over-weight’ so the doctor told us that there was no danger to the baby if my wife underwent an induced birth. It was already past Christmas and if she were not induced then the baby would have been born in January. We decided that December 30th would be better so that she could enter school a year early. Malaysian schools calculate your birthday as at 1st January so even if my daughter were two days old on 1st January it would still be considered as one year. Therefore, just because of two days, my daughter could enter school a year earlier. And of course my income tax for that year would enjoy a deduction though she was born two days before the year was out.

My daughter spent her entire school years in Terengganu until she completed her form five after which she went to MSM in Cheras for her matriculation. Unfortunately though, after her two years matriculation, all her friends were offered scholarships to the UK while my daughter was not.

Naturally my daughter was devastated. She worked hard but she was not offered a scholarship to go to the UK. Her friends, children of Tan Sris and Datuks, were. My wife and I tried explaining to our daughter that her friends’ parents are rich and people of power and position. Even without scholarships they could afford to send their children to the UK, what more with scholarships. We could certainly not afford to do the same.

Our daughter was in tears at the prospect of having to either take a course in one of the local private colleges or go out and work for a living. My wife is the tough one in our family who takes no shit from the children. As for me, however, I am softer, especially as far as my two daughters are concerned. The irony of the whole thing is, my wife ‘spoils’ our sons while I do the same to our daughters, until today. My wife was very firm about the matter and she told our daughter that we can’t afford to send her to the UK, and that was that.

It broke my heart to see my daughter shattered by the realisation that all her hard work for the last 13 years will eventually come to nought. She saw all her friends happily go off to the UK, US, Australia, etc., while she had to suffer the ‘shame‘ of staying home. Yes, peer pressure does this to you. When all get to go except you that is an embarrassment that is hard to endure.

The argument that all her friends are able to go because they have money, plus they obtained government help, is hard to comprehend for someone who has built up her expectations and worked very hard at trying to meet them. Here you are looking ‘failure’ in the face. How can you explain failure? How can you justify failure? How can any argument be acceptable if it means you have to accept failure as the final option? My daughter could not accept the fact that she will have to be denied her university education in the UK. She looked at it as a failure on the part of her parents. Parents are supposed to guarantee their children an education. Why are her parents not able to do that?

I relented and told my wife we will send our daughter to the UK even if it kills us. I spoke to a friend who was also our family doctor in Terengganu, Dr Menon, and he advised my daughter to take up medicine. But my daughter can’t stand the sight of blood and when she dissects a frog she feels geli and closes her eyes. No way can she perform brain surgery with her eyes closed. The second option then, Dr Menon advised, would be to do biochemistry.

I told my daughter to go to the British Council and speak to the career guidance counsellor for advise as to which university she can go to which offers biochemistry. She had to do this entirely on her own with no help from me. I was not going to get involved and she would have to make her own decision on the matter.

She finally decided on the University of Kent at Canterbury, which was able to offer the course she wanted to do and which had vacancies for overseas students. My wife and I scrounged every cent we could get our hands on. We also sold the few lots of Amanah Saham that, thankfully, we had and gave the money to our daughter. That would pay for her tuition fees and lodging, at least for the first year. We shall worry about the second year when the second year is upon us. We then bought her a one-way plane ticket and dropped her off at the Subang Airport.

That was it. She now had a university to go to and a plane ticket with which to get there. From hereon she was on her own. We will not be able to bring her back every year for her school holidays nor will we be able to escort her to the UK or attend her graduation. We just did not have the money for all that. We will see her back in Malaysia three years later, after she graduates.

We said goodbye at the Subang Airport, told her to take care of herself, and promised to be at the Subang Airport in three years time when she returns. She would be the only student whose parents did not proudly witness their children's graduation. I could see the worry in my wife’s face. “We should have sent her to the UK to make sure she is alright. How is she going to manage?” We then went home and had a good cry. It was the most irresponsible thing any parent could have done. All we could do was pray that divine intervention will ensure our daughter will be okay.

I told my wife that our daughter is a tough girl. She will be okay. She will find her way to Canterbury and in three years’ time she will come home, a biochemist. Her toughness was demonstrated during my ISA detention when she counselled my wife, who was in desperation and at the point of a mental breakdown, to psychologically prepare for the possibility that it may be a long time before I get to come home.

Well, that was a lifetime ago and is all water under the bridge now. At that time I just wanted to mend my daughter’s broken heart and allow her to live her dream of going to the UK for her university education. It was financially painful for my wife and me but is that not what parents are for, to take the pain so that their children can be assured a bright future? And that was what kept me going during my ISA detention when I did not know whether it would be a mere two months or many years. I am doing this and am suffering for the future of my children, I kept telling myself. It makes the unbearable bearable when you can convince yourself that this is so.

I did not think, in all that time, that if the children of Tan Sris and Datuks could get government help to go to the UK then my daughter should have been allowed the same. I did not think, in all that time, that since I could not afford to send my daughter to the UK then the government is obligated to extend help to me. I did not think, in all that time, that since I am Malay then my daughter is entitled to government help to go to the UK. I did not think, in all that time, that the NEP is supposed to help all Malaysians, regardless of race and religion, as long as they are deserving of help. I did not think, in all that time, that political leaning does not count, and even if you are on the opposite political divide to the powers-that-be this does not disqualify you from government assistance. I did not think, in all that time, that the NEP is merely a weapon to ensure that you support the ruling party or else you face discrimination from the powers-that-be. The only thing I was thinking, the only thing on my mind, was that I was going to send my daughter to the UK come hell or high water.

Yes, I would be the worst candidate to convince that the NEP in its present form works. Yes, I would be the worst candidate to convince that the NEP has not been abused. Yes, I would be the worst candidate to convince that we do not need some form of NEP. Yes, I would be the worst candidate to convince that the NEP does not need a major overhaul to ensure that Malays, Chinese, Indians and the Natives of Sabah and Sarawak will get assistance if they are deserving of assistance.

No, we should not abolish the NEP. We need the NEP. And we need the NEP because many Malays, Chinese and Indians, as well as Natives of Sabah and Sarawak, still need help. But the NEP needs to be revamped while the implementation of the NEP needs to be improved. And this needs to be done to ensure that others do not break out into tears like my daughter when they are told they cannot go to university because they have the ‘wrong ‘skin colour or support the ‘wrong’ political party. This also needs to be done to ensure that others like me do not need to pawn everything they own to be able to grant their children a university education.