There is something fundamentally flawed when we ask Malaysians to rise above the rest of the world while simultaneously inhibiting their ability to become part of the collective consciousness. The collective consciousness which primarily transacts through the usage of the English language.

It’s far easier for a child to acquire language as an infant and toddler than it will be for the same child to learn say, Hebrew at the age of 19 or 29. Our children are however pushed into the scary world of higher education with elementary school level of English proficiency year after year.

Linguists now say that a teenager’s brain effortlessly picks up and makes transformative use of a language far better than an adults brain does. That, is a beautiful and efficient process. Thus, an education system that fails to emphasise on the acquisition and application of English language is comparable to a system that blindfolds us, imprisons us in a cave of ignorance and then throws us into the brave new world demanding that we excel.

By then, we have lost so much potential and are forced to start a new a struggle against all odds. That is almost sadistic. In my earliest years of debating, I had to sit down with a dictionary and quite literally make notes all over my hand while looking back at it all day to make sense of a language that eventually shaped not just my life, but me, into someone better.

English is critical for our ability to access the world’s knowledge. Our generation learns its best things from the Internet. Khan academy, YouTube, most global newspapers, most Wikipedia pages and almost any fun source of knowledge is in English.

It’s a shame when most high school students never get to exploit all of those options and make their education better. Almost any important book or journal is authored in English or translated immediately to English. A low level proficiency in English means our options are exponentially limited. All of that makes the Malaysian tale of knowledge a grim one.

The amount of books in the world and the amount of books in BM is a lost comparison. The problem is acute when it comes to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) subjects. It is unfair for us to ask our children to learn a script which the world does not create any of those fields in. If they ever do learn, they lose valuable effort and time that was better spent mastering those areas.

Hegel’s ‘The Phenomenology of Spirit’ or Sartre’s ‘Existentialism and Humanism’ or Rawls’s ‘A Theory of Justice’ is available in English. I never saw anyone picking up a BM translation and I am not even sure it exists. Even if they do, and somehow they happen to be of fantastic quality; no one in the universe can possibly translate the thousands of papers and books written on those books and the spirit of these books will be largely lost.

Being able to use English effectively allowed me to represent Malaysia around the world. Mastery of the language was the first of many steps and allowed me to spend countless hours learning things I would otherwise have never learnt. It allowed me to make friends I will forever cherish and meet people I will forever be grateful to for teaching me things that changed my life.

Looking back at all that, I can confidently claim that a significant level of proficiency in English is instrumental to simply being able to connect with the rest of the world. It’s like loading a good software in a floppy disk and hoping someone has a drive. Newsflash: no one does.

Moving beyond archaic constraints

We are a nation of people and the people have unique and important things to contribute to the world, but the world will never know till we move beyond archaic constraints we have chained ourselves with so far. I know that Malaysians can give the world a run for their money in every field but so long we fail to make the road easy for our kids, that day will never come.

Some point to how China, South Korea or Saudi Arabia have a national language based high school education. China is always an exception. If Malaysia was as large or as influential or as wealthy as China, maybe we could make that claim. If Malaysia was a country where leaders are constitutionally allowed to design whatever they want, maybe we could say that.

None of those are good examples of nations to begin with. Malaysia is not a country that has most of the world’s oil reserves and can therefore afford the luxury of whatever they wish. Most importantly, Malaysia is not a country that is owned by any single race. It is a proudly diverse country with hopes for democracy and hardworking people. Malaysia is and has the capacity to be, better.

Moreover, we have already seen market shifts in South Korea which privileges fluent English speakers. Hyundai employees are expected to have a commendable grasp over the English language. English tuition centres are sprouting up across the nation.

Common language of instruction will become an influential tool in the hand of the next generation. Some claim that it will dilute our culture. That is outrageous. First, it assumes that our culture is so shallow that simply aligning ourselves with the way most advanced nations acquire knowledge will dilute ours. Secondly, a world where our kids realise they have been cheated is one where they lose their faith in their archaic culture.

Someone needs to start listening to what the new generation feels. Look at the alarming rates at which our most brilliant minds are leaving the country in droves. They would rather be anywhere but here. It’s about time we become introspective and analyse the toxic atmosphere. Thirdly, promotion of a culture necessitates only steps towards the same direction. That means paying our BM authors to write great books, creating institutions.

A high school education in English will still have BM as the national language. Perhaps it’s time we learn not to force but inspire our kids to love their culture. Worse, under the current system people from other races are forced to dislike the National schools and straightjacketed into attending vernacular schools. An education system with English as the medium of instruction is rather inclusive by any comparison, any given day.

The appeal to culture is a scare tactic in a country where politicians incessantly play them and divide us. Whereby they want us to become atomised by separating our identity from that of our peers simply by virtue of race. Race becomes from something people were just born into, to the primary guiding ideology in one’s life.

Politicians in Malaysia, Indonesia and any country that can but hasn’t realised its full potential have one thing in common, it’s the fact that their kids are almost always sent to the most expensive and sophisticated schools in the country if not abroad.

It’s paradoxical therefore how they claim to be fighting for the good of the rakyat while encasing their most beloved in privilege the laymen do not have access to. It is paradoxical how our prime ministers and beloved leader are so eloquent in English but the people they ought to cater to are not.

Perhaps it isn’t paradoxical at all. Perhaps, it’s just another card in the hand of race-based politics Malaysia has nightmarishly gotten used to. Malaysia is more than that. English should not be the language of the privilege, instead it should be the language accessible to all. The faster we facilitate this process, the easier it gets for Malaysians to uproot the entrenched class divide which separates us.

SYED SADDIQ SYED ABDUL RAHMAN is a part-time lecturer at Universiti Islam Antarabangsa (UIA) Malaysia and is Asia’s best debater, winning the United Asia Debate Championship in May 2015.