Academia cannot remain as hermits
COMMENT There are only two kinds of academia - the ones who are in touch with reality and those who are worse than hermits.
Unfortunately, it is the latter that we see all too often in our local institutions of higher learning. They are there just to regurgitate knowledge which they have acquired eons ago. Despite holding professorial posts, some of them have never developed their critical thinking skills.
A few of them can even quote from various scholars on a certain subject, but when it comes to verbalising their own opinions, they fail miserably.
This is the result of years of governmental control over our academia and the university students, through the Universities and University Colleges Act (UCCA) 1971. They are told not to speak to the press, and when something controversial appears in the newspapers, they are immediately hauled up .
In most universities in the West, the academia is expected to ‘engage with the community’. For me, therefore, it is refreshing to hear it coming out from Professor Maketab Mohamed of University Technology Malaysia (UTM).
Critical thinking
Adding to what Maketab had to say, I wish to encourage our academicians to contribute intellectually to the development and maturity of our society. We do have many good talents in economics, for example, but only a handful of them are seen talking to the press.
As professors and researchers, by right, they should offer their critical thinking about a wide range of issues instead of confining their discussions within the academic circle. In the past, I used to admire Professor Ungku Abdul Aziz Ungku Abdul Hamid whose views were aired over television.
After nearly six decades since Independence, where have all the Ungku Azizes in our academic institutions gone? Whenever there is a major landslide, where are the professors on geotechnics? And, when the pregnant tigress was killed recently in a road accident, why did none of our zoologists say anything?
In the past, when I was working with the Monash University campus in Malaysia, one of the key areas that I was involved in was to get media coverage for views offered by our academics. This was in line with the university’s policy which is summed up in this one line - ‘Engagement with the community’.
However, I found it a big challenge to even get Malaysian academic staff to speak on current issues. Being Malaysians, a number of our lecturers were simply too timid to say anything controversial.
Perhaps they were too afraid to be misquoted, and feared repercussions from both the management and the authorities.
As a result, they were unable to engage in public debates or offer alternative views regarding an issue. They would rather conform than to be viewed as a ‘rebel’.
What we badly need today is a diversity of views that can help to enrich and stimulate our minds in order to provide the best of solutions to solve some of our current issues.
Several years after I left the university, there was an order issued by a former pro-vice-chancellor (PVC) forbidding students and staff from exercising their rights to organise religious meetings once a week on the campus.
The PVC claimed that it was the university’s policy, and none of the lecturers was prepared to challenge the PVC’s decision. When it came to my ears, I had to personally take the bull by the horns, and being an alumnus myself, I had to confront the PVC, who happened to be a former colleague.
As a student in the Australian campus of Monash back in the eighties, we had Overseas Christian Fellowship and Navigators meetings using the campus facilities. There was a religious centre which was open to all religious faiths. So, I asked the PVC on what grounds he had made the new ruling for the Malaysian campus.
The discussion went on for a couple of weeks, and not willing to take his word for it, I wrote to the vice-chancellor’s office to enquire further. The official reply was short and sweet - there was never a point in time when the policy was adopted by the university.
Finally, I won my case, but on a personal level we remained as friends, although I believe that it was after I highlighted some other issues faced by some staff, the PVC was transferred back to another campus in Australia. We were told it was a temporary arrangement, but at least four years have lapsed, and our friend has moved on to another university.
With that same gentleman, I had once told him off (which was given the thumbs-up by my immediate superior, another Australian professor): “If you were a football, I would have kicked you back to Australia.”
Despite my strongly worded e-mail, I was the first person he came to see after he returned from his stint in Australia to visit the Malaysia campus. To my surprise, his comments were: “You are the only one here that I respect.”
That should be the attitude. We may disagree on a number of issues, but friendship cannot and should not be affected because we hold different opinions.
Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, for example, cannot expect every Malaysian to believe that the RM2.6 billion that went into his personal accounts was a donation from the Saudi royal family, considering the weight of evidence out there.
Stay relevant
What is important is that academic staff stay up-to-date with the current development by carrying out researches and sharing their views with the community.
I am always impressed with a fellow writer Koon Yew Yin, a retired chartered engineer and a philanthropist, whom I have yet to meet. Despite his age, he is still keeping himself current with the latest developments.
One of his articles in Malaysiakini clearly shows that he can feel the pulse of the people who make up Parti Amanah Rakyat. What he said in his article is worth pondering upon.
Knowledge is ‘alive’. It is always evolving, never stagnant. If our academia cannot engage with society, and apply what they learn to add to public knowledge, they are as good as hermits living in caves.
This is why I fully agree with Maketab, and it is time for our government and university management boards to realise that they should no longer stifle intellectual debates and opposite views from our academia.
Instead, we should encourage more lively debates on a number of issues including the 1.5 million Bangladeshis that Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said we need. With over six million foreign workers in the country, we would become a nation where a quarter of our population will be foreigners.
By now, Zahid should have taken the cue that if he cannot produce the list of companies wanting to hire 1.5 million Bangladeshis within a month, no one will trust him.
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