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Pengawas
Entry 16 of 18 | show all | print this entry |
If I have not been writing for a while, it is not for lack of material. There have been as many stories to tell for the week since I returned to Dungun from Langkawi as before. But I have been silenced by three simultaneous forces: a) a much busier schedule than before; b) the failure of the IT system at school; and c) the untimely demise of my trusty Compaq. Although the Compaq has been reincarnated, it is but a shadow of its former self - fortunately, a good number of the pictures and other files I lost are floating around in my email and on the internet, so not all is lost.
After a week of class, it is the Tahun Baru Cina (that's "Chinese New Year" to you) holiday, and we have another 5-day weekend. Although I arrived at school about a month ago, last week was the first week of real class. Week 1 was orientation for Form 2 and Form 3, Week 2 was clipped by 3 days off for Hari Raya Haji, and Week 3 was orientation for Form 1 and Form 4. Last week we finally were able to put together a full week of normal class for all the students. Well, almost - one class of Form 1 students has yet to enroll and Form 3 was taking a standardized test all week long and the schedule remains in flux (there is a new schedule for Week 5, but there will be a completely new schedule next week!). As Audrey from my programme noted, in contrast to home, it seems like they just have everyone show up, then figure out what they are going to do!
Today there were elections for pengawas (prefects, lit: "people who caution"). Every student, staff member, and teacher has a vote, and yesterday, each of the forty-some candidates for twenty-one spots made a speech in which they were directed to deliver their personal "manifesto" to the students. Some of the speeches were short and sweet, some were meticulously prepared (some were very much "off the cuff"), and some were downright Marxian. It was interesting for the first hour or so, but after that my mind started to wander.
At 2:30, all of the students assembled in the dewan makan to cast their votes. There were 6 "stations" with computers set up for voters to cast their ballots. On each computer, an excel spreadsheet listed all of the candidates, and each voter inserted a "1" for each of their 21 choices. It was not a very streamlined process at first, but it did the job, and once the station supervisors started to settle into a routine, it became much faster.
I voted about tenth at the station for teachers and staff. When I reached the station, I noted, much to my surprise that each of the teachers and staff had voted for all of the same candidates. The election was rigged! Seeing my surprise, my "mentor" Kartini explained very matter-of-factly that the other teachers had met prior to the election and had handpicked the winners, and had even printed out "cheat sheets" that the teachers surreptitiously carried with them to vote. Although it was still possible in theory for one of the "chosen ones" to lose, it was highly unlikely given that all the teachers and staff voted in lockstep, something conveniently concealed from the students. Manifesto indeed! All via the puppetry of the Imtiaz Dungun Central Planning Comittee! Although my better judgment kept me from being too loud about this (it is their school, after all), I find it absolutely appalling. At an educational institution, how does this send a principled and normatively formative message to anyone - winners, losers, or the conspiring teachers and staff? How pathetic... the insecurity of the teachers and staff is teaching their best and brightest to be brown-nosed puppets who win 100% of the vote.
Later I had an interesting conversation with Jo, my Scottish-educated host "dad" in KL, who is an insightful and articulate advocate of the maintenance of "traditional" Muslim values. In the context of the democratization of the Middle East, he pointed out that there is no tradition of Western democracy in Islam; rather, leaders are chosen by a small group based on their merits (Jo does not believe that democracy is "bad" or will not work in the Middle East, just that it needs to be introduced and developed in a way that is sensitive to this legacy). The "shadow oligarchy" system has some advantages, and remains largely successful for some purposes (think coloured smoke and the Pope). And in truth, the prefects chosen by the teachers and staff will probably succeed more than those who would have been popularly elected, because the teachers have more complete information and a mature perspective. But it is so offensively unprincipled, this lying to children, because the extended consequences by emulation are so much broader than the immediate effects. When I grow up, I will tell the most benign of lies to my kids about Santa Claus. And so, what is to discourage these kids from telling much more damaging ones about democracy?
Now Reading: A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
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