‘Educate stateless kids or breed hostile underclass’

Malaysiakini – Wed, Jul 24, 2013 (via Yahoo News Malaysia)

SABAH RCI Blocking access to education for stateless children will eventually endanger Malaysians as it will breed an uneducated “underclass” with no loyalty to the country, the royal commission of inquiry in Sabah heard today.

In an emotionally compelling testimony which led a commissioner to liken him to Mother Teresa, Yahya Yacob told the commission into illegal immigrants in Sabah that this was the reason he started a school in a squatter area in Likas, Kota Kinabalu in 2005.

“If these children are left to their own devices, 10 to 15 years from now, these people will be the underclass.

“It’s a very dangerous position for us as Malaysians when we have these people as the underclass who feel they have no stake in this country,” he said at the RCI, which is sitting in Kota Kinabalu.

Seemingly embarrassed to be compared to Mother Teresa, Yahya said the government should allow children of refugees holding IMM13 documents and permanent residents into national schools.

Asked by conducting officer Manoj Kurup if this would burden the system, the 61-year-old said: “These people have been here for 10 to 15 years and have documents to prove that.

“It is only right and proper to teach (their children), and those with no documents, people like us will fill the gap,” he said.

Frozen in fear of authorities

He said despite media reports linking them to crime, the immigrants he works with are “the most law-abiding people” and are “frozen in fear” of the authorities.

Some, who have obtained MyKads after being in Malaysia for many years, still send their children to his school even though their children qualify to attend national school out of this fear.

Yahya, who was successfully registered the school with the Sabah Islamic Affairs Department last year, said that for the children, 90 percent of whom are Malaysian-born, consider themselves Malaysians.

“They don’t know anything about Zamboanga (in the Philippines) and don’t want to know,” he said.

Their parents, too, he said, has asked him not to seek financial assistance from the Philippine and Indonesian embassies as they feel they are now Malaysian residents.

He said that he cannot say how many of the parents are documented as the school practices a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy.

The syllabus at Madrasah al-Hikmah – which teaches English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mathematics, Civics, Islamic Studies and Malaysian History – also help to inculcate a sense of belonging.

“Every morning they sing the Negaraku and raise the (Malaysian) flag,” he said, noting also that the children are taught the Rukunegara.

He said he teaches those about to graduate after the maximum six years in the school conversational English as he feels “in the private sector if you can speak English, and can temberang (embellish) a little, you will be hired”.

Limited resources had forced him to turn about 500 students away, but he said the school does admit some Malaysian students who come just for English or Islamic Studies lessons.

The school funds itself from student fees – RM10 per month, although half of the 508 students do not pay as their parents cannot afford it – and donations from an anonymous donor from the peninsula.

He said the salaries of the five teachers come up to RM4,600 a month, while he pays for utilities and other expenses out of his own pocket.

Local politicians have assisted, he said, by donating construction material to build more classrooms and such, possibly because they see the squatter as a “vote bank”.

‘A human issue’

However, the politicians dare not assist openly as stateless children is a “sensitive issue” and surrounded by “political hoo-ha”.

“This is not a political issue, it’s a human issue. Take it out of the political area with a cross-party committee to resolve this matter.

“At the practical level, we need (the immigrants) as workers in industry and at a human level, we need to treat people the way we want to be treated.

“Things are lost in political antagonism and these people are trampled between us,” he said.

Yahya’s moving testimony prompted commission chairperson Steve Shim, commissioner Herman Luping and Sabah Law Association representative John Sinkuyan to voice their appreciation for his “noble” work.