What a big mess that has come about in the way English is to be incorporated more centrally in our schools.

And it all could have been avoided had the government been truly guided by the democratic culture of inclusiveness and adequate debates.

When Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad raised the issue, the concern was that a lack of English proficiency has led many Malay Malaysians unemployable.

At about the same time, there was the issue of meritocracy in higher learning institutes; that Malay Malaysians should learn to compete for places in colleges and universities because the quota system had apparently made many not take their studies seriously and hence not able to compete in the job market upon graduation.

Since the concern over the lack of English proficiency was targetted at Malay Malaysians as well, it was not surprising that the two issues were seen to go together to arrest the decline in Malay competitiveness.

However, complaints quickly surfaced from within Umno. Finally, at the Umno general assembly in June, both meritocracy and English was accepted, but with modifications from so-called Umno nationalists, that English be used as the medium of instruction only for science and mathematics.

One may argue that both issues had gone through a democratic debate. A major problem with that is that teachers were hardly a part of it, only politicians.

This is particularly problematic when it comes to the issue on the use of English because, after all that is said and done, teachers are the ones who are in front of the classroom every day doing the job. Instead of getting them to address and debate the issue in order to enlighten all concerned, we got politicians and their demagoguery. This lack of inclusion of a major party to the education system is surely contrary to the democratic culture of inclusiveness.

The issue was thus inadequately debated. Questions that were barely addressed, if at all, included: What is the impact of giving more emphasis to English in the classroom on the other three languages? Would having more Malaysians proficient in English really undermine their cultures? To what extent is language the basis of culture?

And the ultimate question persists: how can English proficiency be achieved when it is employed to teach only two subjects?

The other major problem with the way the English issue was debated and 'resolved' at the Umno general assembly is that it obviously excluded input from the other ethnic groups. This immediately became a problem when Chinese schools decided not to go along with the modified plan.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad quickly labelled them extremists. This was based on his reasoning that when one group refuses to go along with another group in observing a policy, the latter would feel unhappy because of a double standard. The end result would be discord and maybe even conflicts between them.

I believe the reasoning is sound. Should the Chinese schools stick to their guns (so to speak), there would be double standards, and that would be fraught with danger.

But then, the impasse would not have come about had the Chinese and Indian communities been included in the debates on the issue to begin with. As such, the main question of the Chinese schools (whether it has merit or not) was ignored: Why should they use English when their students have not done poorly in math and science, but instead many have excelled in them, with Mandarin as the medium of instruction?

Equally ignored was how can language proficiency be achieved merely by having it used for instructing two subjects.

Since Mahathir did not address the questions but instead rushed in with his extremism accusation, is it any wonder that the situation has become messier and perhaps even intractable? What next?

Well, as in any standoff, the situation has come to a sorry state of waiting to see who blinks first. Or, perhaps more accurately, how long it would take the Chinese schools to blink.

All this is contrary to a democratic culture. Rather, it is about who wields more power, or that might rules. This has to do with an authoritarian culture. And that ought to be blamed as the source of the sorry mess we are in.