Culturally insensitive | 22.04.05

In my favorite episode of Murphy Brown, Murphy was forced to host a seminar/training on “cultural sensitivity” (a euphemism for “political correctness”, which apparently wasn’t politically correct enough for the organizers). The event turned out to be an utter failure: stereotypical insults went round and round and everybody ended up arguing with one another. Murphy tried to restore order by telling the participants that they they were all behaving like children, to which the one kid present took objection: “I’m a young individual and I find that remark cultural insensitive.”

Absurd as that may be, at least “cultural sensitivity” in that case was about banishing stereotypes, something I can wholeheartedly support (as long as we don’t go crazy about it). Recently in Thailand, though, the term seems to have taken on a totally opposite meaning. Take a look at a new schoolbook for students in the three Muslim-majority provinces. (From the Bangkok Post, April 18)

Dor [Thai alphabet] dek [children]
learn by rote
the sacred book of
Qur’an

[Translated from Thai by yours truly]

Here’s a list of things the oh-so-politically-correct (let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?) producers of this textbook don’t seem to be sensitive to:

1. Not everybody in Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat is Muslim.
2. Introducing as it does alphabets, this book is for first-graders or lower (think ABC). So why would children that age know anything about learning a religious text by rote? Of course, they don’t and they shouldn’t. Give them a break already!
3. The hijab is supposed to be worn from puberty onwards. Again, it’s the first-graders who’ll be using this book.
4. The Arabic and Yawi translations at the top right-hand corner are useless. Sure, the first-graders will likely speak Yawi (though certainly not Arabic), but they don’t read it. The people who may read either Arabic or Yawi are parents, who will have no use for the translations since they can probably read Thai. Even in the event that they don’t, the translations still won’t be much help as they only render the one identifying word (in this case “children”) that is paired to each Thai alphabet and the pairings won’t make any sense in another tongue. At any rate, even a dyslexic child can gather what little information that is contained in the translations much more easily by simply looking at the picture provided.
5. Lastly and most importantly, as a Buddhist former school kid who was forced to pray every single morning from the first grade to the twelfth and endure Buddhist studies in middle school, I say on behalf of myself and my former schoolmates and likely the vast majority of current Thai school children: it stinks to get a religion — any religion — stuffed down your throat. It’s high time we put all this pious stuff back where they belong, in the temple/mosque/church and out of school. As Pink Floyd would say: Hey, preacher, leave those kids alone!

Fat chance:

According to Ms Areerat, the new books came about as a result of a committee comprising 30 experts, mostly Muslim teachers in the deep South. The committee also includes Muslim-language experts from Chulalongkorn University and local linguistic experts in the three provinces.

“We have been very careful with the content, style and detail in the books. The style and content must not have any negative impact or draw any resistance from the local people,” she said.

In 1978, the Education Ministry supplied a Thai-language book to the deep South. The item included a tale called, Chao Mom, written by the late M.R. Kukrit Pramote featuring a dog which is loyal to its owner. However, local parents prohibited their children from reading the books because Muslims did not like dogs, she said.

Well, I’m not an expert in Islam (much less the “Muslim-language” — is that what we laymen call Arabic?) but I can tell you that many Muslims — especially the fundamentalists this committee is trying to appease — hate kuffar. Now what to do to avoid “resistance”? Evict the infidels from the text books? The face of the earth?

There are many things that are wrong with Thai schools and curricula, and their consequences are suffered by students all over Thailand. Any student anywhere can tell you that, and yet so far no committee has been set up to study concerns of students in the other 73 provinces.

Who do we have to kill to get some attention to our textbooks? Thanks to the to the southern “insurgents” who are showing the way (a Bangkok Post article right next to the textbook one has them setting off another bomb), that is no longer a figure of speech.

Update The last paragraph has been edited for clarification.

00:33 ▪ politics

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1

Zato 23.04.05

So I take it that dropping all those delightful little paper cranes last year didn’t solve the problem? And I had such high hopes. :-(

2

Tom Vamvanij 23.04.05

Nope. And I’m afraid this bogus curricular sensitivity will be just as effective.

Ironically, now that there is, for once, a course of action that can unequivocally be described as unilateral, I don’t see any smart alecks telling us that unilateralism doesn’t work.