A little learning is a dangerous thing

Pak Bui

Sarawak chief minister Taib Mahmud’s biography, as laid out in the hushed, awed tones of his party’s website, is that he obtained an LLB degree from the University of Adelaide, Australia, in 1960. His only recorded postgraduate achievement was that “in 1964, he attended aHarvard International Seminar”.

One might suppose this little nugget of information was inserted to inform us he once had some kind of association with Harvard University, even if it was tenuous.

The thousands of Sarawakians searching for work abroad (economic activity for ordinary Sarawakians being moribund, thanks to Taib’s family) might be well advised to participate in some seminar, run by a well-known university, and then include it in their job applications, and see where it gets them.

Taib had the good fortune to have obtained a law degree at a time when there were few homegrown graduates in Sarawak, so he was a big fish in a small pond of graduates. Most other Sarawakians of that generation were deprived and poorly educated, so they could not even get their feet wet, so to speak, in the graduates’ pond.

Taib’s family connections to his maternal uncle Abdul Rahman Ya’kub, and his appeal as a local Muslim to the federal Alliance, and later the Barisan Nasional, were other important credentials.

These qualifications helped him scurry up the slippery pole of our slimy politics of race and religion, until he reached the dizzying (and nauseating) heights of Sarawak’s longest entrenched chief minister.

‘School life expectancy’ in Sarawak

An average Malaysian born in 2005 has a ‘school life expectancy’ of 12 years (13 for girls), according to the United Nations (UN). This means a boy born in 2005 would expect to study up to Form Six, and a girl would expect to reach Form Six or tertiary education.

This statistic is similar to the average in Thailand and the Philippines, and slightly below that of Indonesia. Sweden and other developed nations have an average formal education lifespan of around 16 years.

The average Sarawakian born in the 21^st century, on the other hand, would have fewer years of formal education than the national figures would suggest.

UN resident co-ordinator for Malaysia, Richard Leete, pointed out in 2005 that 10% of Malaysians had never attended school, according to official Malaysian statistics. The corresponding proportion in Sarawak, the fourth poorest state in Malaysia, was 17%, and in Selangor, the richest state, a mere 5%.

In other words, one in six Sarawakians had never attended school.

Nationwide, among those who had attended school, 53% studied up to secondary level, while 9% reached tertiary education. For Sarawak, 51% attained secondary level and only 5% enjoyed tertiary education, while for Selangor, the figures were 54% and an impressive 15%, respectively.

Over-rated graduates

Taib is not unique in Malaysian politics, having attained great heights with modest academic qualifications. Najib Razak, for example, took an undergraduate degree in industrial economics, and Samy Vellu, famously, never managed any kind of degree. In contrast, virtually every member of Singapore’s cabinet has a Masters degree or PhD.

There is little guarantee though, that a complete education makes ministers more enlightened or more principled, as Singapore’s benighted administration shows.

Intelligence and education are no more than the veneer of civilisation. Education is a means to an end; and the aim must always be the relief of human suffering, driven by universal concern for other humans.

The teaching of Socrates, recounted two and a half millennia ago in Plato’s Academy, set out the principle that “to know the good is to do the good.” Socrates taught that evil stems from ignorance, or from our confused interpretation of what is good.

Singapore’s overriding principle is ‘every man for himself’. Singapore’s rulers may have read Socrates and may have written erudite and well-received essays on him, but they have failed abjectly to apply what they have learnt to daily life. They still obey nothing more than the law of the jungle.

Despite the privilege of education, many leading Malaysians like Najib Razak and Sultan Azlan Shah of Perak, a former Lord President, continue to use emotional language to condemn those who have denounced ‘Ketuanan Melayu’ or Malay supremacy. But behind the heated political arguments of so-called ‘Malay supremacists’, lie hardnosed and cynical, economic concerns.

There are many examples of highly educated, but ethically empty, people worldwide. Laurent Gbagbo, former president of the Ivory Coast in West Africa, was educated in the acclaimed Paris Diderot University, and was a history professor at the University of Abidjan, in the Ivorian capital. Yet for all his learning of world history, he has retained no lesson. Gbagbo has stirred up the threat of civil war by refusing to step down, to accept the results of a national election he has lost.

‘A little learning is a dang’rous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.’

These memorable lines are from Alexander Pope’s poem An Essay on Criticism. The reference to the Pierian Spring is to the mythical source of knowledge, art and inspiration. Only by plunging ourselves into learning can we be sober – and humble.

The poet calls on us to avoid the pitfall of pride; he says pride rules weak minds with bias, or ‘byass’, poisoning our thoughts with prejudice.

‘Of all the causes which conspire to blind

Man’s erring judgment, and misguide the mind,

What the weak head with strongest byass rules,

Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.’

Sound familiar?

Perhaps in this new year, all of us internet readers – all of whom have benefited from education – might take a minute to examine ourselves. Are we using our good fortune to improve the lives of our fellow, struggling Sarawakians, or only to serve ourselves?