the Sufiah story: a Malaysian perspective

  Truthfully, I must admit that I don’t really know in depth about the whole Sufiah’s mumbo-jumbos. What I know was that she was offered a place to study Maths at Oxford University at the age of 13, she is a British citizen, her mother is a Malaysian from Muar, Johor, her father originated from Pakistan and was arrested for molesting his tuition students.

  It came as a small surprise when she was reported to be selling her body for a modest 130 pounds/hour as a mean to earn a living. She already made a shocker when she ran away from her study and got married, then became a divorcee at such a young age.

 

  I sincerely feel that she should be left alone to manage her own life. It doesn’t matter if she was a Maths genius with a bright future that turned out to be a hooker. Why must Malaysian goverment takes the responsibility of correcting her life? Other than her Malaysian-born mother, I don’t see her other relation to Malaysia. Malaysian goverment should only at the most, monitor how far these huhahs go, and then continue to care for other Malaysian students abroad. There is no need to engage a deputy minister to arrange for the well-being of Sufiah, when she herself acknowledges how she wants her life to be. Why should the UK’s Malaysian Students’ Department being burdened to develop networking with some NGOs there just for the well-being of a single entity?

  I’m also in disagreement with some fugures that mentioned Malaysia (especially the Malays) should help Sufiah because she was a symbol of achivement for a Malay student. I don’t know why we must recognize her as a successful story, when she didn’t even finish her study. Other prodigies may also able to enter university at a young age, but what set them apart from other ‘mortals’ are their ability to carve out outstanding way of life, and legendary contribution to mankind (if not for their own people or country in the first place). The other striking thing to consider is that, is she really to be considered a Malay? Her mother might be a true-blue Malay, but what about her Pakistani father? I don’t know, but how’s she being considered in Britain? English? Caucasians? Mixed? So, how can we say we must help her because she is a Malay?

 

I’m still with my opinion that we (doesn’t matter if you are British or Malaysian) just let her do whatever she thinks fit for her life. Whether, she still got that Maths ‘genius’-trait in side her – only time will tell.