i flew to Botswana 6 days ago to meet the headmasters and career guidance teachers of the highschools in Gaborone..
Botswana is very much like Cambodia in terms of their weather and dust and the friendliness of the people..
it is a much much stable country as compared to South Africa i must say ..
in many ways, they are safer and less threatening with more orderly cars, patient people, stable government and lower crime rates.
it is one of the fastest growing countries in the African continent..
their currency is also, for now, the strongest in this part of the region (not including the USD used in Zimbabwe and a few other countries)
my trip there was pretty interesting as i was greeted by uber friendly people with lots of “How are you”s and a trip to the poorest part of their town..
however, this trip made me realize just how much one person represents their country and how much the things that a country does reflects on their citizens.
in a fairly recent detainment of four Swana students in Malaysia for suspected drug possession, it turned almost the entire country against Malaysia.
now we all know that the news you get in your own country is usually either very much blown up over the top or silenced/diminished as though it isnt a big deal.
but regardless of what the news portrayed it to be, the Swanas DO NOT LIKE MALAYSIA!
all of my initial greetings were pleasant until the man (guide) i was with told them that i am from Malaysia, and then i get a frown and an occasional “Malaysia is a horrible country” then i would have to apologize for my country’s faults and convince them that i aint like my countrymen (government more like it) and then they will open up and start talking to me
problem number one
the people are not happy with how their students are being treated over in Malaysia.
apparently to them, Malaysians are a drug driven nation with horrible racist notions.
racist, yes.
drug driven? not as much to the extend of open cocaine pushing and all that crap.
so as i talked to these headmasters, i gathered information that the Swana students get a scholarship and some money from their government and our local institutes to study in the Malaysian private universities.
now how do they get involved in drugs? i can only think of the probability of them mixing with the wrong crowd.
some of the Swanans says that its because of the Nigerians,
(anywhere you go in Africa, no one likes the Nigerians.. they are apparently cunning, conniving, sly, evil and moral-less)
some say its the Malaysians,
some say its because their government is giving these kids too much money to waste.
and i noticed that no one seemed to blame their own kids!
until we went to the last school of the day and met with the headmaster.. and he was the first one to say the smartest thing i’ve heard the whole day..
he said, “It is not the fault of Malaysia, it is the fault of the government for giving them too much money, and it is largely the fault of the students for being ignorant enough to dabble themselves in drugs when they should have known better.”
righto~
however, to everyone else, all i could tell them was, “Look, anywhere you go in the world, regardless of whether you are from Kenya or Botswana or Zimbabwe, people will automatically assume you are like the Nigerians. Lets face it, Nigerians do not have the best reputation in the world, they have murdered students, pushed drugs and bullied people the world around. To you, all chinese looking people are from China, but I’m chinese and I’m from Malaysia. So to the rest of the world, all Africans look alike and are pre-assumed to be alike and from Nigeria. But you are African, and you are from Botswana. This does not only happen in Malaysia, it happens even in UK, US, wherever you can think of. Yes there are racist notions, yes i know it is unfair, but we cant do anything about it.”
problem number two
headmaster from another high school says, “I have nothing against Malaysians, but i do have a problem with their universities. They lie to us, and deceive us into studying there, but they do not keep to their promises. I sent my daughter over there three years ago. She was studying at Sunway University. They promised my daughter and I that they had the course that she wanted to study. So she went. After two years of foundation courses, they finally were forced to tell her that they actually do not have the course that she wants and even tried to push her into another course that they think was ‘better for her talents’. So i had to bring her back, and send her to the States with my own money. She ended up wasting two years, and I ended up wasting a lot of money. I am highly disappointed with the level of integrity in that country.”
i was just feeling so disappointed and ashamed of my countrymen at that point because i know how some universities over sell and over promise and a lot of students get conned into studying there and not being able to study what they truly want to study.
(heard all these stories back when i was in University College Sedaya International)
naturally, i did not have a good comeback for I myself have been through this bout of shit.
(my guide even purposely drove me past Lim Kok Wing’s branch and said, “It all started from THEM!”)
o.O”
they even named the universities.
they are:
Sunway University
Monash University College
University College Sedaya International (they might have changed their name by now)
Lim Kok Wing
four prime suspects.
why am i not surprised.
this isnt the first time these institutes were named as highly marketed and lied about.
not surprisingly, these are the universities with the highest number of African students (they have agreements.. money making agreements)
a couple even had a cap on the number of African students they can bring in in a year..
lets just say, what you dont hear in the news, does not mean that there aint shit happening right under your noses.
this problem isnt only confined to the African students.
if you take some time to talk to SOME of the students from China, Pakistan, Bangladash, UAE they too can tell you that they were lied to to come study in some of these institutes.
at that time 4 – 5 years ago when i first heard these stories, it sicken me to my core.
now that its come up again, i felt even worse.
i did not know whether i should dig a hole, climb in and bury myself to do them a favour, or run and hide..
i was, in any case, a minority in that country.. (freaky)
so what could i do?
apologize for their lack of integrity and tell them that i sympathize with them.
(also, i was superbly irritated with the lack of honestly and integrity. wanting to make money is one thing, but lying about something that you dont have, is another. there is NO SUCH THING as, “oh its too late you’re already here so might as well take another course. we offer business, mass comm……..”)
a country should never be selfish.
a government should never be selfish.
because what a country does (or what people who represent a large industry does), reflects on every one else.
it is unfair that the innocent has to suffer all the bullets when they are in another country.
it is not only saddening and embarrassing when you country(men) is being compared to Saudi and the prehistoric for the racial, religious and human integrity issues.
i’ve even had a comment (from a South African who worked in Saudi) asking me how’s it like living in a country that’s like Saudi when women had to be caned, they cant use the same cashier as the men and there needs to be four witnesses for a rape case to be a case.
-.-”
thanks PAS, thanks…………
so in a month of being in Africa, i not only became ‘Malaysia’, i also went from being a chinese from China who should know kungfu to a Malay to a moral-less Muslim to just about every other fault read in the papers.
(suspiciously similar to how all Africans are Nigerians)
i guess people are not so different the world round, innit?!
i guess i can now safely say,
THANK GOD I’M NOT MISS MALAYSIA OR THE PRIME MINISTER!
