Just before I left London for good in December 2000 and returned to the land that had nurtured my tender growth, Chris, a passionate refugee worker whom I had worked closely with in Stoke Newington - an area 'swarmed' by asylum seekers and rife with crimes - took me out for a meal in Chinatown. It was perhaps the bleakest day of the year, the wind blowing chilly and cold.

Over the sizzling hot set dinner and aromatic jasmine tea, I was telling Chris that the Labour government's proposal to make passing basic English test a prerequisite for acquiring British nationality was long overdue.

"I am all for it." My voice could not have been more firm.

"You must be joking." Chris' surprise at my 'Blairite' stance could hardly be concealed.

"Do you not foresee the inability to communicate adequately in English could in fact hinder national integration?" I asked him.

Chris shrugged off my question: "Tell me, have you come across any Chinese person being denied legal, financial or medical services here in the UK simply because the person has no knowledge of English, my own language by the way?"

He was right. I never did. Regardless of one's native tongue, one can always engage a lawyer, an accountant or a medical professional for the services requested with the help of the easily available interpreters in major British cities.

I was struggling to frame up a counter-argument, but no respite was in sight as Chris pressed on.

"Look, a decent level of English knowledge is of course desirable. Only desirable. It must not be made compulsory. Being a multiracial society, Britain will always be confronted with people who do not speak our language for a variety of reasons not by their choice, and we must not deny them the chance to make a difference in this country."

Later, Chris footed the bill and we parted with peace in our hearts. Nearly five years on, I remain grateful for the dinner in London Chinatown that changed my perception of multiculturalism.

It was perhaps most ironic that, Chris, being an English person, was more committed to making Britain multicultural than I. Like many who have benefitted from our adequate command of the English language, I once deemed it a passport to 'success'. By holding the language in higher esteem than it deserves, I overlooked the pitfalls that might be our own making should we allow the issue of language to take precedence over everything else.

Ghafar's inferiority complex

In Malaysia, language is among the most hotly contested issues, with the power to antagonise and alienate the various ethnic groups rather than to unite them. The recent debate on malaysiakini over Bahasa Malaysia being a national unifier among the races again shows that all the progress and advances that this young nation has made over the decades are only ostensible and cosmetic at best, as language remains a baneful issue that refuses to die a quiet death amidst the promises of the Barisan Nasional government of better days to come.

The non-Malays arrived in the then British Malaya expecting to return to the lands of their birth, but realised later that home had come with them. Instead of celebrating this ethnic diversity, the dominant community saw it as a threat. Many still lament, nearly five decades after Merdeka, that the presence of the Chinese and the Indians has diluted the original character of the Malay Peninsula, this despite the much greater use of Bahasa in all social segments today.

I never question Bahasa being the lingua franca of the nation, and I am rather pleased with my ability to converse with the non-Chinese in it. Still, agnostic of the belief in Chinese superiority I may be, I also happen to think making the Malay language rein supreme is not the be-all-and-end-all solution to the host of issues and challenges confronting the country at this juncture in time.

Living in a multiracial, multireligious and multicultural land, a common language for better communication is always desirable, but making it compulsory will not necessarily dismantle the ethnic divide and mistrust so long as racist politics is alive and kicking.

For Malay Malaysians who argue that a decent command of the Malay language is a must, their zealotry is driven more by the desperate need to be recognised and respected as the dominant group, or the alpha race, rather than by the concern over possible national disintegration.

Unlike Switzerland, where the three major language groups are blessed with clearly defined and securely demarcated boundaries, the diverse groups of people in Malaysia are scattered all over the land, from the peninsula to East Malaysia. Disintegrate? Only when one desires bloodbath in the multiracial neighbourhood.

Former prime minister Ghafar Baba once expressed his frustration at seeing the non-Malays unwilling to speak Bahasa, and the angry tone betrayed his deep-seated inferiority complex when he urged the audience to speak Malay more often, saying: Bangsa Melayu satu bangsa yang kecil dan lemah; kami harus dihormati.

I cannot help but salute his forthrightness and honesty. At least he was not bothered to make national integration a subterfuge with which to impose the Malay language on others. It must have pained the Umno veteran that the government insists on teaching science and mathematics in English despite Malay being one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, as boasted by Higher Education Minister Shafie Salleh recently.

Anyhow, using the level of Bahasa as a yardstick to measure one's patriotic spirit and loyalty to the nation can only be superficial and ignorant. There are 600 or so new Chinese villages across the countries, and it is true that many of their residents may not be conversant in Bahasa.

But why should we see them as a threat to national integration when they live their lives with little obstruction and disturbance to the outside world, while most of them do pay taxes and do their part to keep the country's economy going? Furthermore, with compulsory education comes greater access to knowledge, including Malay. Their command of the language may not be perfect, but passable.

A Chinese-language university?

Meanwhile, how perfect does a middle-class, English-educated person desires the Jinjiang boy's Malay to be, when the first language of many urban elites happens to be English regardless of their racial origin?

It is also most unfair to label the Jinjiang boy 'ingrate' just because his level of Bahasa is below that of yours and mine. To understand why there are still non-Malays who cannot speak the national language fluently and adequately, one must also take into account their family backgrounds and upbringing. More often than not, poverty and lack of parental guidance are hindrance to the child's ability to acquire basic knowledge of all subjects, not just languages. To be skeptical of these underprivileged people on account of their poor Malay is to rub salt into their wound rather than to tackle the real issue.

If one demands Bahasa competency as a show of respect for the Malays, I would in turn argue we must all cover ourselves with the deepest shame as no more than a handful of us are able to strike up a conversation with the Tamils, the third largest ethnic group, in their mother tongue, let alone the languages of the dozens of aboriginal communities who are the rightful sons and daughters of the peninsula and East Malaysia. But do the middle classes genuinely care about their educational opportunities?

At a public forum organised by Astro, the satellite TV provider, in Johor Bahru last weekend, a Chinese participant opined that the effort to establish a Chinese language university in Malaysia was not only futile, but pointless. He was adamant that, with private colleges mushrooming, tertiary education would no longer be beyond the reach of the Chinese Malaysian community, the discriminatory state policy notwithstanding.

In response, I reminded him that the teenage child of a middle-class Chinese family may be spoilt for choice when it comes to higher education, yet entering a local university remains an uphill struggle for many a studious and aspiring pupil from low-income households, not to mention the punitive school fees imposed by private colleges.

In view of this, not only is a Chinese university desirable, we must also fight for mother-tongue higher education for all races and establish more affordable learning institutions in Malaysia. As Will Kymlicka, the celebrated theorist of multicultural citizenship, makes clear, the struggle of minority groups for recognition in the public space is a reaction to the nation-building process of the majority and of the state.

If the Chinese, who are generally perceived to be more prosperous and well-to-do, are still faced with challenges in education, I dread imagining what insurmountable hurdles there are for the increasingly marginalised Indian and the indigenous communities. This is not to spurn the Malays, but part and parcel of a truly multiracial, multicultural society.

One must not underestimate the pragmatic strengths of the people. To strive and thrive in Malaysia, the non-Malay Malaysians will never neglect the importance of Bahasa Malaysia and the English language, while seeking to maintain and increase the access to vernacular education. It is high time we lay the tiring and delusive debate over the national language to rest, and concentrate on identifying the real challenges and crises in our education system. Period.