LAST Saturday, 10 young men, part of a group that had been asked to go out on an 8km speed march, collapsed in the hot weather. One of them died. Two others ended up in the intensive care unit while the other seven needed treatment at a hospital.
These young men were all fit army trainees who had been picked to join the infantry course at Johor’s Army Combat Training Centre (Pulada) in Kota Tinggi; and they could not take the heat.
Army-style training, obviously, is not for everyone. Which is why many are worrying about the return of National Service (NS) in Malaysia.
The new NS is set to be a tougher one. Each year, it will see some 20,000 youths drafted for training, which will comprise 90% army training and 10% nation-building, all at Territorial Army (Wataniah) camps.
The fears are many – there have been deaths, bullying, racial discrimination and even rape in the earlier days.
That’s not to say NS is a bad thing. Many youths left NS camps as better individuals, more mature and even having a better understanding of each other.
There was a lot of good that came out of the programme that was run from 2004 to 2015, and made a short-lived return in 2016. It was then abolished in 2018 when Pakatan Harapan came to power.
I asked a nephew – grand nephew actually – about NS, and he had nothing but good words. He was in a camp in Sungkai, Perak – a lovely place, he says. They were divided into groups, and they all stood by each other regardless of race.
He was something of a bookworm – his biggest physical effort being a Boy Scout – but the NS experience turned him into a mature adult.
He was taught discipline and ethics. In fact, he ended up getting an award as the best trainee in his batch, ahead of some athletes and far fitter youths.
“Some of the fitter ones had disciplinary problems,” he says.
The trainers were kind and caring. Fridays were special – Muslims were taken to mosques, Buddhists to wats and Hindus to temples in Bidor or Sungkai. Christians, meanwhile, were taken to church on Sundays.
They even had religious classes on Fridays, with each being taught according to his faith.
“I learnt a lot about Hinduism,” says my grand nephew.
He also learnt to use firearms, and fired several rounds from an M16 rifle at a shooting range in nearby Tapah. That was his most exciting moment, and he will definitely recommend NS to his fellow youths – if they can take it.
“What we had was 60% army-like training, the other 40% was fun. If it becomes 90% army-style training, I don’t know how many could take it,” he says.
“Some of the training,” he adds, “was a killer.” Quite literally, it was.
In the 13 years that NS was carried out, 23 trainees died. There were those who drowned, and some had “viral infections” or leptospirosis. Others had fever or swollen limbs before dying in hospitals. One girl fell unconscious in a toilet and was declared dead, and yet another died after being injured in training.
One girl claimed she was sexually assaulted by more than 20 unidentified men at the Lake Chini Resort Camp in Pahang. Another was reportedly raped in a car. An officer was jailed and ordered to be caned for the offence.These are all stories that strike fear in the hearts of parents.
There’s more. When the Pakatan government decided to scrap NS, the leaders claimed it was being used for racial indoctrination.
Those fears are real too. Such indoctrination has been known to happen in many places and events in Malaysia.
Many trainees have complained about bullying and racial mistreatment in NS camps. One Sikh youth, whose religion demands that he keep his hair long under his turban, woke up to find that his locks had been cut by 50cm to 60cm (that’s about two feet) while he was asleep in his dormitory.
What the country really needs is a long-term programme that unites youths and teaches them to understand each other’s cultures, traditions and religions. It should start with schools, and even pre-schools.
Datuk Abdul Hadi Awang Kechil, a former director-general of the programme, says NS will help create a nation that is patriotic, resilient and imbued with the spirit of volunteerism guided by the principles of the Rukun Negara.
He says youths should be made aware of the benefits of attending NS training while still in school so that they will look forward to it as a national duty.
But why not get schools to set the foundation for students before they even go into these army-style training camps for conditioning? It is not easy to get these kids, brainwashed from childhood to look at people of different races and religions as “the other”, to suddenly be trained to become brothers in arms.
Political parties can undo in a week what the NS can possibly do in 45 days – the duration of the new NS programme.
And what happens after the training? There was no follow-up, no continuous national programme to instil unity for the previous participants.
It has been promised that the new trainees will be geared towards jobs in the armed forces and uniformed brigades, but those haven’t really been paragons of national unity.
NS Volunteer Brigade president Mohd Syafik Mohd Taufik has acknowledged that the previous programme had issues such as bullying and poor management. He, however, felt these could be ironed out with proper planning.
He is right. Proper, and meticulous, planning is needed. We should not rush into NS 3.0 without first ensuring that everything is in order.
Of course, there is that other problem with NS – or at least there was in the last two editions.
The programme also reportedly served as a money-spinner for cronies. From transport services to uniforms and food supplies for the trainees, it was a RM500mil gravy train that many were riding on.
That train must stop. Instead, it should be only about training our children.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Get 20% OFF The Star Digital Access
Cancel anytime. Ad-free. Unlimited access with perks.
