Malaysian National Service: How My Friends Did or Didn't Get Exempted/Deferred Saturday, August 8, 2009 |
I got tired of updating my NS posts from last year.
It's fun to read my own journal and post it up in this blog cuz i get to revisit my past while putting it in proper prose (read Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita a week ago and now i can't help getting depressed over how limited my vocabulary is), but it kinda felt restraining at times. Like all i'm writing is what i felt then and there, and i'm neglecting the objectivity that only became clear to me after i have been through NS. Like i'm writing about bits and pieces of my life when i could and should be writing something more organized, using the fragments of my memory and experiences collected from my time in camp.
So i figured i'll write about something more specific, something i wanna get off my chest but probably never came up in the diary entries. I dunno. Something about... erm, getting exempted from NS, or as Malaysians like to say -- "escaping" from NS for example. Not so much about how to dodge it, but more on how friends i made in camp who registered (lapor diri-ed) either failed or succeeded in getting out of it.
As you would have imagine, this topic is frequently discussed among those of us who obviously did not" escape" from NS, while we're trapped inside. I can still remember the echoes of
"I rasa nak balik aje lah..."
"Sial betul kena NS ni..."
"Terpaksa datang juga..."
to quote a few. I hear them Malays whining about it every day. Same goes for us Chinese. Don't understand a single word of Indian but i'm pretty sure they gripe about it among themselves too.
This went on not just during the first couple of days or the first few weeks. Throughout the course of the program, it remained a hot topic of discussion.
The first two weeks, a number of our fellow NS trainees who registered and reluctantly showed up at the camp managed to get exempted, much to the envy of the rest of their peers who're still stuck in camp trying to figure out how to get out of the shit hole.
Some of those who left got their free ticket to liberty (and pursuit of happyness) because they were declared physically unfit by the medics. These are the ones who're leaving permanently, never having to come back again.
Some left to pursue further education. It's like this, if you leave camp before completing something like half the duration of the program (there's a specific duration, i can't recall the exact number of days), you're deferred. In which case you are required to join the later NS batches after you have finished with your studies. If however, you leave after a certain number of weeks, you get to end your National Service training for good, permanently, as in tamat latihan with your NS certificate and all, despite not having gone through the full 3 months term.
In one case, this friend of mine, after having spent a fair amount of time in the camp, finally managed to get her family to enrol her in some IT course. Rumor has it that she's not planning to study IT at all. Her family just paid a small deposit, have the school issue a formal letter that says she's enrolled, and use the letter as proof of her furthering her education so that she can end her training way sooner than us. It worked for her.
Of course, there's also a lot of talk about just paying the RM3000 fine and get the hell out of there. But that's just talking crap since none of them can afford it, even if they are willing to pay. It's just a kind of fantasy they like to indulge in once in a while.
Since i'm in the Group 3, officially Kumpulan 3 Siri 5/2008, many of my friends are aged 18 and above. Quite a number are primary/high school dropouts, or having went through Remove Class, then had to defer because they were in Form 5 when they were called to register for NS. Basically, whatever the reason, most of them have already joined the workforce already, and not just for a mere few months.
I found out that some of my friends in camp actually came all the way back to Malaysia from Singapore for NS training. Not because they're so keen to join NS or anything like that. Uh-uh. But because they got a letter from JLKN that says they are not allowed to defer any longer. So this friend of mine had to quit her job in Singapore and come back to Malaysia for NS. Who is to say she'll get her job back 3 months later?
She's not the only one. Another friend confided in me that he's the breadwinner of the family and now that he's in here, he wouldn't be able to work for 3 months. How the hell is he going to support his family? I'm not sure whether he's exaggerating his predicament but fact remains that there will be a fraction of the impoverished society's younger generation who are going to be picked for the mandatory National Service. RM300 allowance ain't gonna feed their family for 3 months.
Way back before i kena NS, i recall hearing some acquaintances of mine joke about getting pregnant just so they can dodge National Service. Well, this girl in my dorm has a 2 year old kid already (who came to visit once, with the dad) and yet she's still in here with us. So much for getting pregnant.
Just realized i'm writing a way too lengthy post. More on NS in future posts ^^
Labels: defer, exemptions, post-NS
