Lim Lian Geok 林连玉/林連玉：The Father of Mother Tongue Education in Malaysia

I finished the first draft at 21st March 2014. Many thanks to a very kind mentor of mine for editing this article. In this article, I coined a term "Hwarian" to introduce the concept of 华人/華人 in Mandarin into English. I do not know if my own attempt will be successful yet I think that it is necessary since there is no a single English word can appropriately signifies the concept. 

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If you have gone to other countries and meet other Hwarians [1], such as Chinese Indonesian or Chinese American, you would find that most of them cannot speak Mandarin and literally know nothing about Chinese culture. It makes Malaysian Chinese, who systematically preserves Chinese culture, significantly special in this whole world. To learn more about the reason, you would have to know a great figure, Lim Lian Geok.

Lim Lian Geok was born in Hokkien, China in 1901. He went through his childhood, received education, became a teacher and built his family there; and he arrived in Malaya only when he was 27 years old whence everyone would assume a person like him should have strong attachment to China beyond any other country.  But, during 1950s, when Malayans were striving for independence, Lim Lian Geok urged all Hwarian in Malaya to pledge their allegiance to the new nation, which was particularly uncommon during that period when most Hua people still regarded China as their homeland.

It is no doubt that Lim Lian Geok was a patriotic man who served his country well. When Japanese occupied Malaya, Lim Lian Geok was a member of an ambulance crew, shedding tears and blood for the country. When the Alliance were negotiating with British colonial government for independence, he asked all Hwarians to support the Alliance. He said that Hwarians had to forget their origin country since their children would live in this land with other races as friends forever and ever. He even said that all Hwarians should lend a hand to other races since their socio-economic condition was less satisfactory then.

However, he stated that there are premises for adhering patriotism. Since every ethnicities had made a great contribution to the country, all of them should be regarded as owners of the land and thus be treated equally. [2] Among all of the rights, Lim Lian Geok regarded cultural right as of utmost importance since culture is the soul of every ethnicity, deserving the most respect. To preserve their own culture, the mother tongue education is the only means. Thus, he suggested that Malay, Mandarin and Tamil should be regarded as the official language of the country; and, accordingly, all of the mother tongue schools should be included in mainstream education.

  

To those who argue that different languages would harm the country’s unity, Lim Lian Geok stated that the fundamental basis of national unity is common interest instead of culture. He once questioned why is it that U.S and U.K. are two different countries in spite of their common language? Why is it that different ethnic groups in Switzerland are still being able to constitute a nation despite speaking different languages? It is no doubt that every nation needs a common language and it can only be Malay language in this country. But, does it mean that other languages need to be excluded?

His stance was totally against that of the government. In 1960, the Rahman Talib Report was announced on which the 1961 Education Act was based, stating that “the ultimate objective of education policy in this country must be to bring together the children of all races under a national education system in which the national language is the main medium of instruction, though we recognise that progress towards this goal cannot be rushed and must be gradual.” In addition, under the 1961 Education Act, all financial aids in the mother tongue secondary schools [3] were terminated. They were faced with only two options: 1) to convert themselves into English medium national-type secondary schools, which would be converted into Malay schools after 7 years; and, 2) to be forced to become independent schools without any financial aid.

Under such circumstances, Lim Lian Geok urged all Chinese-Malayans to choose the latter path even if it meant that all of the independent schools can only rely on donations from Chinese community for their survival since then. Though the government had exerted much pressure on him, he had never surrendered and continuously opposed against the government. Eventually, he was deprived of his citizenship based on the reason that he was racism and unpatriotic! Since his teaching license had also been taken away, he could only rely on his friends’ help for survival. Despite all these forms of hardship and deprivation, he still chose to live in this country as a way of showing his persistence against the government’s atrocities.

Lim Lian Geok’s sacrifice should not only be considered as protecting Chinese culture. On the contrary, he was protecting the mother tongue education movement which is an important reason that the Tamil Foundation regards him as “the father of mother tongue education in Malaysia”. Further, it should not be confined within the scope of mother tongue education; it is actually a struggle for equality of all Malaysians.

I believe that Malaysia has come to a new era, in which a brand-new “Malaysian” identity based on equality has been forming in many Malaysians’ minds. Thus, I should say that it is also an appropriate time for all Malaysians to learn about Lim Lian Geok who had inspired a lot of people and had personally done everything he could towards the betterment of everyone in this country.

P/S: 

I guess some of you might think that the main problem of Chinese independent school for national unity is that students can’t speak Malay fluently. Let me share my experience. My main problem then is that of attitude. Since I have been told that we are second-citizens in this country from my childhood, I was unwilling to learn the language. Thus, the main barrier for us is historical segregation instead of Malay-speaking environment. It comes out that it might be my biggest mistake in my life. I would learn Malay very hard from now. Otherwise, I could not communicate with most Malay friends.

[1] * Hua Ren is the translation of 华人/華人 in Mandarin, which means an ethnicity whose ancestors were from China, such as Chinese Malaysians. This term is to differentiate such group from the too widely-used “Chinese”, which generally indicates someone who holds China’s citizenship.

[2] Just a quick example. Yap Ah Loy, also known as Yap Tet Loy and Yap Mao Lan. He is regarded as the founding father of modern Kuala Lumpur, he developed Kuala Lumpur as a commercial and mining centre during the mid-19th century.

[3] I prefer this term to vernacular schools as the latter seems a bit derogatory.