One phase of mother-tongue education is over and we are witnessing a new era. Two recent incidents in the country have jolted the DAP out of its slumber to pay attention to the phenomenon of mother-tongue education.

The nature and the manner of the implementation of the Vision schools concept and the Damansara Chinese school issue have provided the party a new vigour or vision to examine and extrapolate the concept of mother-tongue education not necessarily in opposition to Malay as the national language.

There is possibility that even Malay language might be integrated within the broader ambit of the party's struggle to provide essence to the nationality rights of all Malaysians.

So the concept of mother-tongue education that is being currently articulated should not be seen in opposition to the Malay language as was the case in the past. During earlier decades, the articulating of the right to mother-tongue was basically in response to the way the state imposed the Malay language on non-Malays.

But then, even before Malay became the official language of the country, it was the main or the only link language between the various races. So it was ethnic nationalism mainly among non-Malays and to large extent championed by the DAP that articulated the concerns of non-Malay communities in opposition to the official promotion of Malay.

Little confidence

Of course, the DAP or any other non-Malay opposition parties would not have gone to the extent they did in the 1960s and 1970s, had the non-Malay components of the ruling coalition do the job they were supposed to do. Presently, the debate over the Malay language has been more or less settled among non-Malays and Malays, but it is the state that has not followed any consistent policy in the implementation of Malay as the medium of instruction in the overall sense, as there are many contradictions.

The present issue of mother-tongue education is not something that grew out of abstraction. As said earlier, the two issues were paramount in providing the stimulus for its present significance. More importantly, it was the neglect of mother-tongue education by the state that has provided for the present stimulus.

Lack of consultation in the implementation of educational policies, the inability to fathom the problems faced by Chinese and Tamil schools, lack of transparency in dealing with mother-tongue education and others have contributed in some measure to the present problem of mother-tongue education.

It is not that the state has perfectly implemented the Malay language as the national language. A quick look at the private sector and some segments of the public sector would reveal that there is little confidence attached to Malay language. Of course, under the present conditions of globalisation, there is slow but inevitable creep of English language into areas once exclusively reserved for the Malay language.

Functional utility

During the earlier years of ethnic and racial polarisation, the concept of mother-tongue education was seen from opposition terms, a kind of zero-sum game. Whatever gains made by the state in pushing the Malay option was seen as victory of Malays and whatever gains by Chinese or Tamil were seen as exclusive victories of non-Malays.

There is general feeling shared by many that such a zero-sum polarised game is more or less over. The very fact that thousands of Malays could lend their support for the mother-tongue education of non-Malays is a commendable thing in Malaysia politics. And the very thing that non-Malays do not question Malay as the national language or its great communicative functional utility has earned the confidence of Malays in general.

Such depolarisation in Malaysian politics would not have come about without sections of Malays and non-Malays making joint efforts in trying to uphold universal principles such as democracy, justice and freedom.

Beyond these, the very attempt made by the opposition forces to question and to dismantle some of the archaic aspects of Malaysian politics is very significant in terms of understanding the present political processes. Certainly, it can be said that the political environment in which the mother-tongue education is being debated is quite different from the earlier decades.

The very fact Malays themselves are confident about their language and appreciative of non-Malays in upholding the sanctity of Malay goes a long way to ensure that we might be in a better footing to tackle the democratic rights of citizens to their mother-tongue education.

Linguistic hegemony

The present move to promote mother-tongue education should be seen from a broad angle. While Malay is the national language and the medium of instruction in schools and universities, especially in the public sector, the promotion of non-Malay mother-tongue education should not been seen in opposition terms to Malay.

Just as non-Malays respect Malay as the country's national language and mother-tongue of Malays, Malays must also recognise the fundamental right of non-Malays to their mother-tongue education. Such a recognition will not undermine Malay, but on the contrary promote the well-being of all nationalities.

There is great urgency for the promotion and propagation of mother-tongue education among Malaysians in general. The cultural hegemony imposed by globalisation seems very ominous in terms of having the potential to dilute the practice of particular ethnic languages all over the world in favour of English.

In this respect, mother-tongue education might come in as strategy to reassert ourselves against this linguistic and cultural hegemony. In other words, mother-tongue education becomes a perfect tool of resistance to stall the pervasive homogenizing effects of the English language.

P RAMASAMY is a professor of political economy at the Political Science Department, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and has academic interests in Malaysian politics and labour. He has written quite extensively and is currently focusing on conflict management in Sri Lanka.