Is UTAR racist? This question popped when I discovered this comment in Tun Mahathir's weblog.
In his comment, Shakeel mentioned that felt he has been discriminated. As a Muslim, he has to fast for all day long during Bulan Ramadan and only allowed to Buka Puasa after day. However, he has lecture until 8pm every Wednesday thus he has to starve if he were to attend the lecture. Lecturer did not have plan to end class earlier nor give response when this issue was brought up by him.
He felt disrespected as a Muslim and thought there is strong racism in UTAR as other higher learning institutions either private or public are able to provide Muslims with time to buka puasa, UTAR doesn't care about he because he is a minority in UTAR.
click to enlarge and here to navigate to Tun Mahathir's blog
If he were to read this, I will say UTAR is not a racist university but merely a careless university. If UTAR is racist, it wouldn't accept Indian and Malay students or any other races in the first place. We just need to bring up the issue to the correct person, I have sent an email to our president and written a feedback to management regarding the problem and I hope they will take proper actions to solve it. Since the university is opened to all, there is a strong need to understand all the cultures and do adjustment according to the status quo. It's not fair to sacrifice someone just because someone is minority.
p.s.
Anyway, I suggest Shakeel to negotiate with his lecturer so he can attend the lecture at some other time, as not only one class will be conducted in most of the papers.
