MY first brush with segregation was when I was a pupil. I attended a public school in Kuala Lumpur (a big shout-out to SK Jalan Gurney alumni!) until my parents enrolled me in a private institution due to complications arising from the need to travel abroad during their sabbatical.

Reluctantly, I went along with the sudden decision (what could a kid do?). I left my friends, and had to travel far by van to my new school in the depths of Cheras from downtown KL (it was the late 1980s). I was forced to part ways with a classmate I had a crush on – never verbally expressed, only giggles and mutual glances – which was what upset me the most, honestly (there was no social media then to “follow” her).

In public school, I noticed a peculiar thing early on. During Pendidikan Agama classes, the non-Malay pupils from the next classroom received their lessons in the walkway (we were on the third floor, so it was balcony-like), where some desks and chairs were arranged. I was jealous as they got to enjoy the wind and had a killer view of the city. Later, I found out that they were taught Pendidikan Moral as they were non-Muslim. My class was 100% Malay, and Malays made up the majority of the school. This first, formal experience with segregation certainly left an impact, though I didn’t ponder too much on it at the time.

When I entered a private secondary school (which coincided with my family moving out of KL), I got what I had longed for – lessons outside the classroom – or so I thought. The tables were turned; Malay-Muslim students were the minority, and we were the ones to leave our classroom for Pendidikan Agama. However, we just moved to another room, which was such a disappointment as I had expected the walkway. Another downside I didn’t foresee was that each student got the teacher’s full attention since there were so few of us – not ideal for a daydreamer like myself.

Private school also presented preadolescent me with the chance to interact up close with non-Malays, most importantly, the girls. Being enthralled by their “otherness” was a daily ritual (and the numerous crushes I had would inform my romantic songwriting later, I suspect). And, my Chinese friends had a curious habit that I never saw in public school: they brought along with them used soft-drink bottles filled with water. In hindsight, I think my Malay brethren and I were always dehydrated. Also, the Chinese students’ bags were often heavy, while my Malay buddies travelled light.

Fridays were the best. The freedom accorded by Friday prayers to us Malay boys revealed our pecking order. We would congregate and walk towards the nearby mosque, like migratory birds, with no chaperone or teacher. The group would thin out the closer we got to the mosque – most of the seniors would “ponteng” by diverting into the kampung or kopitiam to hang out and smoke cigarettes. Once, when I joined the “ponteng” expedition, we caught a Malay teacher sleeping in his car that was parked in the leafy yard of a dusun.

I also witnessed after-school fights between the Chinese boys from my school and the Malay students of the adjacent religious school. I doubt the brawls were racial in nature; they were more like territorial pissing. Needless to say, most of the Malay boys in my school were pretty “naughty”, but a classmate and I were deemed “upstanding citizens”, and this opened the door to becoming class monitors and prefects (I reckon there was a Bumiputera quota to fill).

My early teen years in private school were when I developed some understanding of the sociocultural politics of being Malay and experienced the multitudes of diversity on my own. Through it all, I was never subjected to outright racism. I’m sure some of you have experiences that mirror mine, and I believe they were more common in the late 1980s and early 1990s among urban, middle-class Malay kids compared to now, when private Islamic schools and international institutions are the norm. Those were truly pre-internet Malaysian experiences.

On another note, I was first exposed to homegrown underground music – Kelantanese death metal legends Suffercation, specifically – when one of the younger boys skipped class and hung around beside me (I was seated at the back, and he was well hidden from the teacher’s view), listening to his Walkman.

So, there you go. What was your Pendidikan Moral or Pendidikan Agama experience like? – July 31, 2020.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.