A well-meaning attempt to bring English back into the Malaysian mainstream is now mired in opposition, anger, doubt, fear, threats. The prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, said it would not be forced down one's throats.

But as opposition hardens and strengthens amongst Malay, Indian and Chinese Malaysians, his government panicked to now threaten to use Malaysia's catch-all law to curb dissent over the teaching of English: the Internal Security Act.

It reiterates yet again the Barisan Nasional government is uncomfortable with reasoned debate and genuine concerns which conflict with its worldview. It decided, without debate and argument in Parliament and outside, to bring English back into the curriculum, modified it when the Umno supreme council wanted it restricted to Science and Mathematics, decided, for no rhyme or reason, to begin from January 2003.

Undecided is where the teachers would come from, how learning English in Science and Maths would make one proficient in it. If I were to learn both subjects in Swedish or Swahili, would I, at the end of the day, be proficient in either? I could have a formal nodding acquaintance with either, possibly to make myself understood, as a tourist, in Sweden or South Africa, but of value nowhere else. So English to a majority of Malaysians.

But it can be learnt with proficiency if the government and citizen put their minds to it. The former DAP secretary-general and now a town planner of note, Goh Hock Guan, once told me how he mastered Malay in a little over a year. He read only Malay newspapers, with a good Malay dictionary. At the end of the year, he could participate in debates in Parliament and eventually read and write it well.

If this is reversed, and those wanting to improve their English, read English novels, newspapers and magazines, with a good dictionary, the result would be as dramatic. For this to work, there must be an incentive. That cannot be forced down one's throats. There must be an equal desire to learn. That desire cannot be legislated or made compulsory, as the former cabinet minister, Shahrir Abdul Samad, noted.

Dustbin of colonial imperatives

But English is brought back into the curriculum as abrasively and politically as it was forced out three decades ago, then and now in a climate of racial tension and opposition. When once English was taught as a language of literature and lingua franca , it is today as Esperanto, useless in formal debate or sensitive, especially technical, negotiation, or where it is required in circumstances, like when negotiating a complicated contract or treaty.

Mahathir as education minister in the 1970s decided English, when taught, be debased; he consigned it to the national dustbin of colonial imperatives. It wrought havoc on Malaysia's diplomacy, commerce and trade.

The Malay it replaced is not a universal language, like French or German, to force foreign countries to deal with Malaysia in it. Even these two languages are not, in diplomacy, universal languages. English is. We pay the price for hobbling it.

Malaysian diplomats caused havoc when they did not understand the nuances and meaning of what they negotiated with foreign countries. Much of Malaysia's problems with Singapore, in the final analysis, is a byproduct of learning English for everyday commerce.

In other words, for Malaysians to speak English fluently, the government must first reverse its dog-in-the-manger stance on it. The mindset of this policy must change. The internal revolution, amongst policy makers, must first come before it is let loose on the Malaysian body politic.

The government assumes a policy forced by fiat would work. Especially if the prime minister decides it is good policy. But this cannot be done overnight or when the prime minister wakes up from his sleep to decide English must return to the centre of Malaysian policymaking.

It would take decades for English to be taught in schools for it to make any sense. There is no interest in the Malay body politic for English to return to a central role. Even Umno, whose president is the prime minister, is up in arms. Assuming this new policy on English teaching is genuine, the ground work for it must be laid now for it to be imposed perhaps a decade later. It is Umno that decided on it, and its coalition partners opposed it.

Skewed policies

But the government has so skewed its education policies that change is resisted. Every official change proposed so far is to the detriment of Chinese and Indian schools. Fresh from its fiasco of Vision Schools, which the Chinese schools saw as a threat to Chinese language education, it is told to accept English for Science and Maths.

Similar concerns exist amongst Tamil schools. They are convinced the government has not disabused them of it that aim of all these policies is to ensure the disappearance of the non-Malay languages as media of instruction.

This time around, even Malay cultural, political bodies and NGOs oppose this.

Language is linked to culture and race. In Malaysia, it is also political. Once the dominance of Malay as the national language, and the consequence diminishing of English, had a clear political motive: to disadvantage the non-Malay. That did not work. It was the non-Malay who became bilingual where it mattered.

Today, it is a political weapon more to force the Malay into a modern mindset, so ineptly it awakens the sleeping cultural tiger in all communities. This opposition to the new role of English is grounded in cultural strength, compounded by a burgeoning middle class and the young fed with being told what to do. And know why English is introduced into the curriculum so hamfistedly.

As Singapore finds out, when cultural mores are thrown to the winds to make English the republic's lingua franca , it brings forth two contradictory political stances: the lurch into Chinese chauvinism amongst the cultural Chinese and a more vocal opposition amongst the English educated. It is not without reason Singapore universities discourage, though they teach, political science and philosophy as undergraduate disciplines.

This is not lost here. English is to be taught so as to keep him ignorant in the political and philosophical ideas that if they take root could put the government more at risk than it already is. It wants to be accepted as an English-speaking nation, but it would not develop critical thinking amongst Malaysians that could challenge it.

The opposition to English is based on sound principles well articulated. And the government cannot rebut them without looking stupid. So it looks for red herrings. It has found that in what the prime minister calls "Chinese extremists".

But by his definition, the extremists also are in the Indian and, let him not forget, the Malay communities. If the government detains the critics of the new policy on English under the ISA, it is a fair bet that a good number would should? be from the Malay community. And it loses ground if it is or is not.

MGG PILLAI is a freelance columnist. He also runs the Sangkancil discussion group.