Issue..haish~

I am pretty sure that by now many of you should already be well aware of what happened to a couple of our Malaysian students in UK, Ariff Alfian and Amalina Che Bakri. The media, especially the Internet have done well to publicize the stories of these two, thus no further introduction would be necessary I presume. 

What is interesting when things such as this occurs is to observe how people react and respond to it. The majority of us, or so I thought, seems to oppose this outrageously drastic evolution that these two students have been through. On the other hand, there are also some who would say that this is a matter of their own personal lives, hence we ought not to interfere with their life decisions, at this juncture, they are more than old enough to know what is best for them. These are the two main school of thoughts available for now, but I am pretty sure that in time, there would be other opinions that would be voiced out. 

To be concerned with what happened to them is indeed necessary if one were to ask me, but why? Well to be simply put, from what I dare say, this is a perfect example of when knowledge is not being put into practice. One of the most well known companion of the Prophet PBUH, Abu Bakr (r.a.) said: Without knowledge action is useless and knowledge without action is futile. A quote from an American author, Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.It is not that these two students are not warned in the first place, they were being given lots and lots of reminders, they are also one of the brightest minds of the nation, otherwise, they won't step foot here to further their studies in the UK. They are knowledgeable, they understand their sole purpose of coming here, to study and gain enough experiences with the hope that once they come back, they will be able to contribute in building our nation. Unfortunately, they have gone astray. In their pursuit for knowledge, they have failed to uphold the very image and identity from which they once bear.

One of the greatest lessons one could possible gain from studying overseas is to maintain your own self identity even while living on the soil of someone else's. It is indeed a challenge, trust me. You could argue that time has changed, you now have more friends coming from the same country as you, plus with having the Internet around, you could barely feel like you are away from home. But that does not guarantee anything? Need us be reminded that our hearts are always in flux? The human heart is more swift to commotion than a pot of water that is set to boil, hence we need something more solid than life itself to hold on to, otherwise temptations could easily set in and lead us astray.

This is not a proof that the Malaysian education system is failing. Well, I must admit, our educational system is a bit faulty, but nevertheless, we never fail to have a few who succeeded. What I will comment is that, the system is alright, but if Malaysia is to be able to compete with the big players, we need to step up our game a little bit. We need not necessarily copy what they are doing because what works for them may not work out well for us, we never know. The first step, if I may suggest so, is to promote reading. Malaysians do read, yes they do, but their reading materials are ever so limited. Having met a young foundation student recently, I saw that this boy is well read, he knows quite a lot. I was pretty embarrassed when I reflected it unto myself, how much did I know when i was his age, surely not as much as him. So, no it is unfair to for us to put the blame on our education system for what has happened to these two. Perhaps the time is not right for us to ask the question 'why' or 'what went wrong', yes these questions are important in order to make sure that history does not repeat itself, but for now let us all try to put our heads together and come up with a solution for it.

If you think that this issue is just a matter of two young adults who made huge decisions in their lives but they got publicized while doing it, well you are not wrong either. It is kind of interesting when you come to think of it, why do people even care so much? Is this just another Asian tradition, to never let go of your roots regardless where you've been to? Why can't we Asians be more global? 

A bit harsh to say those things, but that is what came into my mind when I first read the Tweets about Amalina when she was one of the Trending Topics in Malaysia. If I were to comment on this side, I would surely defend the first argument, given that I was brought up in such a way.

You see, when an issue such as this or anything else surfaces, it is always so much fun to see how people respond to them. They will first listen to the whole story, or in most times what is left of it, then they'll begin to take sides. That is when the fun begins if you ask me. We all know that a coin has two sides, right? Imagine this Amalina and Ariff issue is a coin, or where I am right now a quid, if I may. When you start taking sides, you will inevitably be standing on either side of the coin. Voila, that is you biggest mistake. Once you stand on one side, bias will set in. You could not help but to rebut all that the other side is throwing to you. 

So am I suggesting that we ought to act neutral when a crisis presents itself? No. You and I know that we are smarter than that. Instead of fighting each other straight on like cows heading straight to the slaughter, let us take a moment to calm ourselves down. Try to see all the available angles, only engage when necessary.

I can keep on writing about this all night long, but what will I achieve by doing so? I am not trying to make you change your mind on this issue. But let us all rethink our approach when an issue presents itself, come on, we are better than this.

this was what I drafted before hand...

I leave the rest to you.......