He took me aside, pulled out a chair and started his story.
“My cousin told me something last weekend. She said a Malay teacher walked into her classroom and ordered all ‘keling’ students to stand up – he literally said ‘budak keling, sila bangun!’ The entire class roared with laughter, except for three Indian students, including my cousin. They stood up as ordered, confused however at why they were being called ‘keling’. She is just eight, Fa.”
Shocked, I asked him if his cousin knew what the term meant.
“In our family, the word ‘keling’ is used often but in a playful way. We have nicknames like ‘hantu keling’, ‘anak keling’, stuff like that. That’s one of the reasons why when she was recounting the incident, she seemed quite unaffected by it all, although it did bother her to some degree as the person calling her ‘keling’ wasn’t a family member. The fact that everyone else laughed when she was called ‘keling’ made her feel uneasy too. I asked what she thought of the word, and she said it is what our ancestors were called.”
Apparently, there are many Indians who concur with my stand that the only way to do away with the negativity surrounding the term ‘keling’ is to get reacquainted with the term itself. Hoping to reinvent a more positive view of the term, many have begun to use it in their daily conversations as in the case of my friend and his family.
Yet, this incident made me re-think everything I previously stood for. I mean, if the term ‘keling’ was not a big deal, why then was I furious upon hearing how a little girl had to endure being called one?
Besieged with so many questions, I soon found out that the school the little girl attended was located in Bukit Katil, Melaka and besides the ‘keling bangun’ incident, there was more.
“My cousin said she handed her exercise book to her teacher but when her hand accidentally touched his – he hit her – in her own words, she said: ‘kai pathenale avaru enne adiccaru’ (My hand brushing against his made him accidentally hit me). She innocently told me this without so much as a hint of anger and hate. But the part that I’m really concerned about is that I don’t know what to say in return to her,” my friend explained, clearly looking perplexed.
My heart sank. The worst thing that can happen to a child is to make him or her feel as if they do not belong. And this teacher had done precisely that.
“Tell your little cousin what her teacher did was wrong. It is unacceptable. Tell her there are many people like her teacher, who need to grow up and learn to respect others but to never forget that there are also many others who are good and kind.
“Tell her she needs to be strong to face all these wrongdoers in the hope that they will realise their mistakes someday. But most importantly, tell her she did nothing wrong herself.”
I feel that as much as it is pointless to get offended over such things, it is equally unjustifiable for anyone to choose to be offensive in this manner. People who resort to name calling in view of degrading others should not be reciprocated, especially when they are teachers.
I wondered why the parents of the other kids in this little girl’s class did not lodge a complaint with the school or the ministry – it did not take me long to understand why. There are way too many cases like this that already exist. This only goes to prove that lodging a complaint would be an utter waste of time. More often than not, it is the victim who suffers the most, not the wrongdoers.
When even teachers who are accused of sexual crimes get transferred instead of having their employment terminated, what more can we expect?
But then again, our students are so used to being called ‘pelajar Islam’ and ‘pelajar bukan Islam’ – it makes me wonder if it is now becoming a norm in our schools to put students in their respective categories. You know? To show who the masters are and who do not belong…