English-Speaking Malays

I thought I would be writing about how I spent my 28th birthday last Saturday but the topic on a local station today really irked me. (By the way, a lot of people wished me happy birthday that day and that alone made me really happy.)

The topic was on 'jati diri dan bangsa kita masa kini'. The DJs (a woman and a man) started of the topic by criticizing parents who talked to their children in English. Of all the problems that our race is facing, English is your main enemy? Do you think that baby abortion and dumping by our race was because their parents taught them English? Do you think that rude teenagers are because of English? Do you think that they forgot their history because of English? How much dumber could you be?! How absurd! Owh, I was so pissed off when they started to say that people talked in English just to show off. How much more shallow could you be?!

In my environment, the opportunity to speak in English is really scarce. English, just like any other language, will get rusty if you do not practice the usage of the language.

Everyone at work speaks in Malay although I don't know why, some people only has "I" and "you" as their English vocabulary at work. For example "I nak pergi Alamanda. You nak ikut?" or "I dah siapkan tugasan tu. Ada atas meja you." I can understand if people mixes English-Malay because they are still in the learning stage but if it has been going on for months with no improvement, it really gets annoying.

I don't think it is wrong to speak with your child in English. Don't underestimate their ability to learn many languages. They CAN learn English AND Malay language. A child's brain grows rapidly and this is the phase where you should help them to learn languages and instill morale values in them. Parents who depend on teachers to teach their children English usually depends on the teachers to teach their children everything; science, math, history, common sense and values. They don't give their children a good head start and probably doesn't even try to help their children in their education. They just leave it to the school teachers and give excuses that they're too busy or that they've paid for it to be done by someone else.

English is not the enemy here. The enemy is the inability to see the big picture. Our success in this life and the hereafter is not determined by what language we speak. (You can be a politician, speak fluently in Malay but still be very corrupt.) Success is when you can give goodness to people around you and even to yourself - you leave in peace, especially with yourself, because you know you have done your best at every possible turn.