Allow me to explain to your readers just how bad the racial polarisation is in our local universities. I have successfully gone through 13 years of government school education but I have never seen such education atrocities as in our universities before.

This has to with a racist practice which was made familiar to us freshies during our orientation week. It goes by the name of being a ‘tradition’ but it is a ‘tradition’ which has no meaning, and is practically nonsensical.

During our orientation, the unity I saw was tremendous. It made me proud of being a Malaysian in a public university. But all that came crashing down soon after that. It soon became obvious that all the activities during orientation was race-based.

Yes. Race-based. The question is why? Well, let me give you people a brief intro about this one ‘tradition’. I am uncertain as too how long ago this started but I know very well that it should come to an end soon.

Under this ‘tradition’, a new student will have to go under a period of orientation, which I have no objection to. The new student gets a senior called a ‘buddy’ which will pass down his or her study material down to them.

Now, the most important part of this study material if the collection of past years’ exam questions. This may seem like nothing much to your, dear readers, but it is one big help when it comes to our exams.

Then comes the stupid part which I cannot understand and do not intend too. The seniors are not allowed to hand down their material to a junior student of another race. WHY? Well, according to this ‘tradition’, you must be part of their ‘buddy’ system of a certain race. Apparently, this is because the seniors of that particular race have worked amazingly hard to memorise the questions so that their juniors have the privilege of being better-prepared for their exams which many yet miserably fail.

The reasoning continues that as such, they have to ‘safeguard’ this intellectual property so that the other races do not ‘infiltrate’ their domain. So basically, the bigger number of students from one race has managed to get this record of questions while the students from the minority races are left out in the cold.

I will have to say that I sincerely thank all these committed seniors who are thoughtful of helping their juniors. But why can’t we all work together to help our juniors? Why must it be race-based? Why must the minority students be victims of this baseless ‘tradition’? Since when have we future doctors come to the level where we cannot even help our friends of a different race?

Due to this stupid tradition, we barely even sit at one table during lunch, a fact which I cannot understand. I grew up going to government school. I and my friends comprising all races always used to be happy. We never once looked at what race we were. But the sad case here is that this is what is happening today.

Back to this ‘tradition’. If any senior were to be caught helping a junior of another race, he or she will be treated as an outcast. Believe me, that is no way to spend your university life. But it is not all bad. I give credit to the seniors who have helped secretly.

There are some of us completely against this practice, but yet we do not have the support to stop this rotten ‘tradition’. All in all, the students want to follow orders like donkeys and continue this ‘tradition’ because they fail to see what a huge mess it is.

All I want to say is this must stop immediately. I wrote this in hope that the rakyat in this faculty will start to realise that what they are doing is totally wrong. I will also urge all Malaysians to voice out against this and for parents to discourage their children from participating in this ‘tradition’.

This ‘tradition’ was started by the students, and should it should come to an end by them too. There is no finger-pointing at any one particular group. All are equally doing the wrong thing. Let’s all be one and tackle this issue. I hope the seniors and the new students will realise and stand up for what is right.