Is our Prime Minister a racist?

You don't normally get a sitting Prime Minister who blabs his mouth off like this. They usually make racist remarks when they're on their way up, in order to play to the gallery. Once they're up there, they will usually tone down.

So, I'm wondering why our sitting PM is making such remarks. He claims that (1) Malay students are academically weaker (2) that they are weaker because of the quality of their schools. He made these remakrs while attending a function, by the Federation of Malay Students Union (GPMS), to award the SPM top scorers.

I don't really know where he gets his belief that Malay students are weaker. I certainly don't believe that, having had many encounters wth wonderfully smart Malay students. In fact, the only person to have ever tied with me for first place in primary school was a Malay girl, who went on to TKC. At university, only three people got a first in my course, and one was a Malay guy. I say that whether a person does well in school or not doesn't depend on their skin colour, but by how much effort they put into studying.

And then, he goes on to lay the blame on the school teachers, who have tirelessly worked their asses off in order to give our country a future. Teachers are overworked and underpaid. They often stay up late, marking through hundreds of reports or homework. I'm sure that anyone who's parent is a teacher can atest to this. I hope that he realises that the teaching profession makes up the single largest bloc of civil servants in the country, with many hundreds of thousands of potential votes there.

Worse, he goes on to immediately contradict himself. He claims that poor results might be due to poor quality of teaching and learning, especially in rural schools. But these same schools are also capable of produce top students. Furthermore, if he feels that these rural schools are in need of improvement, he should re-allocate the millions he has allocated his former school, and spread it around a bit.

Somehow, I seriously think that he should fire the guy that does his PR. I've said this many times before and I'll reiterate it again. He really needs to get someone else to write his material. He won't win many extra votes by alienating the teaching profession and insulting the intelligence of his own people.

This reminds me of an Avenue Q song: "Everyone's a little bit Racist". You should really go watch the musical or listen to the sound track. It's a really good show about life and love.