Peter Mayle’s book titled, ‘Where
Did I Come From’ is a book that includes the fundamentals of sex and sex
education that is sold worldwide. However, the Home Ministry and Malaysian officials
strictly ruled out the immediate action to stop the book ‘Where Did I Come
From’ to be on sale in Malaysia (BBC 2012). The Ministry Deputy Education
Secretary General Datuk Abdul Rahim Mohd Radzi said the sale of the book had to
stop until a decision is made after they have properly studied the content of
the book.
Abdul Rahim mentioned in a
conference that the ministry was taking actions under Section 7, Subsection 1
of the Printing Presses and Publishing Act 1984 (Ahmad & Rahim 2012). He
also mentioned that the content of the book has content that is too explicit
and it might be educational to children from other countries but not ‘us’. The
content include cartoon and illustration on love making and sexual intercourse
information as well as how a male and female genitalia function.
I believe many are still confuse
even myself because of the culture in Malaysia, which is a Muslim country and
sex had been a sensitive or taboo topic especially in the eyes of the public.
Sex education was also introduced indirectly to Malaysian Secondary School and
Primary School in 1989 and 1994 consecutively (Jaafar & Chan 2008). This
shows that the government is having the idea of exposing the younger
generations to sex education at a younger age. Publishing this book is
basically a stepping stone to sex education because it helps parents to educate
their children in a safer form. Malaysian officials would need to go easy on sensitive topics such as sex because it affects the learning process and progress
of the education system. It is wrong to ban a book which is so informative and
educational but to compromise with the Malaysian culture, government can
implement a law to bookshops to sell the books to only adults. Doing so would
also help ensure that the information is delivered to the child properly with
guidance since the concern of the government is that the content of the book
might be misleading to children in Malaysia.
BBC 2012, ‘Malaysia ‘bans’ Peter Mayle book Where Did I Come
From?’, BBC, viewed on 3rd
June 2012, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17112635
Ahmad, ZA & Rahim, R 2012, ‘Home Ministry stops sale of
'Where Did I Come From' book by Peter Mayle’, The Star, viewed on 3rd June 2012, from http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/2/21/nation/20120221175525&sec=nation
Jaafar, A & Chan, SL 2008, ‘Design Approach of Malaysian
Sexual Educational Courseware (MSE) for Secondary Schools’, University
Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia, viewed on 3rd June 2012, from http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2008/istanbul-meta/istanbul-meta/istanbul-meta-06.pdf
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