Of Kurang Ajar

Lately Yengko has become synonymous with “kurang ajar” and “biadap”.

First, the HM spent a good one hour or so cursing me and the batch in front of our seniors (Class of 90) during their 20^th Year Reunion, not knowing that when you talk to one MCKK old boy; chances are he knows the person you are cursing and words will eventually go back to the person.

Lately, even elderly MCKK old boys use “adab”, “kurang ajar”, “warisan” etc. to deflect arguments they cannot answer. Let’s not get into the details because too much time has been spent on it anyway.

One of the brothers who had supported me all along in this sent an SMS to tell me to ignore and not feel disheartened by this. People do things for many reasons but rarely (especially nowadays) for selflessness.

School heads blame everything under the sun – the teachers, the boys, the Ministry’s guidelines, the building, the town – everything but himself for whatever that goes wrong in a school. But as the highest officer paid to look after the well being of a school (and along the way empowered to determine many routines and micro-policies of the school), surely the school head is also accountable for the majority of what went wrong in the school (if not all).

Other stakeholders will find other reasons as well. Some office holders are in comfortable liaison with school heads because their children are looked after well by the school or rewarded handsomely. So they choose to see what they want to see; after all their children are doing OK. They forget that they are entrusted to look after the welfare of everyone’s children in the school, not just theirs.

Likewise, it is a bit rich for some other stakeholders to talk big about respect when they no longer have direct interest in the school or in its immediate results. They do not have children in the school so even if 90% of MCKK products fail to get a call for scholarship interviews; they are oblivious to this because they are comfortable in their coffee houses reminiscing about their time when there was only 4 boarding schools in the whole country (hence, competition was different).

The concept of “menderhaka”, “kurang ajar” etc has been used often to justify many injustices or neglect. Condoning malpractices in our society becomes a norm on the basis we do not want to “menderhaka” or “kurang ajar”.

I am glad we did what we did.

The MCKK world out there can choose to make us an outcast, hurl unpleasant words to us etc. – but take comfort that we give voice to the voiceless; we give representation to the unrepresented.

My parents would not have had access to the high almighty like the big guns of MCOBA in the past and if the school was not conducive and screwing my future, they would have been hapless.

They might not be too good at teaching me manners; but they would have been proud and approved of what we did.

We did well and there’s nothing to be ashamed of it whatever the detractors say. We never took the conventional route during or after MCKK – no reason why have to start taking one now J