Kula pans former Education DG and ex-top judge

Terence Netto 11:14AM May 15, 2013

DAP national vice-chairperson M Kulasegaran blames "the rise of the mediocre in our society and their insistence on weighing-in on the national debate" for the rabid slant of recent pronouncements on issues like mother-tongue education.

Commenting on calls for the abolition of Chinese and Tamil schools and on the fault-finding that rounds in on alleged Chinese ingratitude as the cause for Umno-BN's sliding electoral popularity, the re-elected MP for Ipoh Barat said:

"What we are seeing are the after-effects of the decision made a few decades ago to allow the mediocre in our society to rise to their level of incompetence.

"Now they are weighing-in on the national conversation and, as you can see, their opinions are not worth the vapour they make."

Kulasegaran said he would hesitate to describe someone of the stature of Abdul Rahman Arshad, a former Education Ministry director-general, as mediocre but he observed that "after Murad held the post, his successors have been on a descending order of capability and comprehension of the sensitive role of DG of Education in our polyglot society."

As DG of Education (1976-85), Murad Mohd Noor navigated, with humour and panache, a host of treacherous shoals in Malaysia's never-ending debate on the how to educate the young for their future roles in society.

Earlier this week, Abdul Rahman, a DG of Education after Murad, has been on record as urging the government to abolish Chinese- and Tamil-medium schools because, he said, their existence hinders the evolution of a Malaysian identity among the populace.

Hard put to remember judgments

Of former Court of Appeal judge Mohd Noor Abdullah, who also like Arshad delivered himself earlier this week opinions on national unity issues that were only a shade to the left of Perkasa firebrand Ibrahim Ali, Kulasegaran said:

"You would be hard put to remember a single written judgment of his that is significant in its findings and striking in its reasoning."

Kulasegaran said he did not intend to denigrate these people but "low quality-in results in low quality-out," maintained Kula.

He elaborated: "Take a look at Harussani Zakaria (right), the Perak mufti who has been spouting sensational nonsense for something like seven years now, ever since he raised the alarm of mass Christianisation of Muslims in Ipoh in 2006."

"Indulged by the powers-that-be, this man has gone on to level one false charge after another," said Kulasegaran.

Harussani's latest bloviation is that non-Malays were bigots who are out to use Pakatan Rakyat leader Anwar Ibrahim as a tool to colonise the Malays.

"An opinion like that certifies the speaker to be a dunce because he has not only denigrated a leader of proven drawing power but also stripped a people of any power of discernment they have," asserted Kulasegaran.