Race and religion overshadow merits of khat

The ‘solution’ to the khat controversy came a little too late as confidence in the Education Ministry and the Federal Government as a whole has eroded.

IF I ran a school for bright Malaysian kids, its curriculum would contain classes on khat. This calligraphic art form would come after an introduction to the Jawi script in a module about languages important to Malaysia and the world, including Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese dialects, Tamil, Latin and ancient Greek.My students would then appreciate many common etymologies of Malay and English words, and understand that knowledge has always been shared and developed by the world’s great civilisations.