A two-bit ‘scholar’, the young, and doing what your conscience tells you

 

There’s an ongoing storm in one of our universities, though this time with an international dimension. An American professor from a provincial state college there came to our grand dame Universiti Malaya and said something odious regarding Malaysia and the current Israeli-Hamas conflict.

An outcry ensued, and he promptly fled the country, so quickly that he needed to raise money on Go-Fund-Me to pay for his airfare.

He’s now safely back in the US, issuing travel advisories against Malaysia on account of its supposedly-extreme antisemitic biases. Luckily for us, the world’s citizens are happy with the official travel advisory issued by the American authorities instead, which apparently have listed Malaysia as “boring”.

(I may have been wrong about that “boring” part. It may have instead said something along the line of “It’s OK to go there lah”)

Let’s be clear: what the professor said at the university forum was bad form, literally accusing Malaysia of supporting a second Holocaust against Israel, based on the words and musings of a few people, such as Dr Mahathir Mohamad when he was the prime minister.

The American guy is obviously not a professor of logic, because if someone’s words constitutes the burden of proof needed to be convicted of genocide, Israel is already convicted based on what their leaders (and their supporters in the US and elsewhere) have said.

Convicted and have failed in their appeals, too, I’d say. They not only have the motive (“God gave us this land, and on freehold too”, or as I’ve heard elsewhere “We decolonised this land from the British, so it’s ours”), they also had the means and the opportunity and of course the broken bodies of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children to prove it.

Chest thumping

I could also have asked, who’s listening to Mahathir nowadays, anyway? But, regardless, while talking about genocide can be seditious and odious (today’s favourite word), it’s not the same as committing it. So, while words matter, action matters even more.

It turns out said professor has a history of making odious (that word again) comments that clearly are racist against anybody who’s not white. So, it seems he’s just being his authentic self when he spoke here.

Meanwhile, assorted Malaysian heroes of the “race and religion and nation” kind are busy thumping their chest; perhaps Umno Youth would organise a boycott against, well, somebody, anybody. Perhaps even against KK Mart again since the SOPs are already in place.

Anyway, there’ll be unending scholarly debates about freedom of speech, so beloved by academics. But there won’t be such debates in Malaysia, though, because…academic freedom of speech?…puhlease! Not going to happen here.

I’ll leave that debate alone, content as I am enjoying my own freedom of speech to write about stuff that irks me (and in English too, especially since fewer and fewer people care about it).

Campus protests

While I don’t have a big problem having a two-bit “scholar” spout some stupid stuff, especially given they’re well-worn cliches that have been upended by events, it does bring up the question of what else is happening in university campuses across the world lately.

For one, the anti-Israel student protests that started at Columbia University in New York City haven’t died down. If anything, it’s burning even brighter and has sparked conflagrations in other universities on both US coasts.

There’s a lot of bitching by the powerful and the privileged – I, of course, mean rich and powerful white folks, both Jewish and gentiles – about the protests by young people, and the not-so-young faculty members. This actually gives me hope that perhaps young ‘uns of today are not a lost cause yet.

In all instances when college campuses erupted in the US – protests against the Vietnam War (technically a misnomer as the US sent hundreds of thousands of troops and millions of tons of explosive to Vietnam without ever declaring a war), against the apartheid regime of South Africa, against civil rights injustices in the US itself – they turned out to be on the right side of history.

Regime change

In 2018, during the height of the drama when Barisan Nasional for the first time lost a general election in Malaysia, one of my brood called me about attending a vigil outside Istana Negara.

Said youngling asked, nervously, whether it’s OK to join that large group of people waiting to hear what news would be coming from the palace. I said, yes, go ahead, be part of it.

I certainly didn’t know enough about the actual security situation, but it seemed safe enough, albeit with the usual risks that when the reins of power are up for grabs, anything can happen.

I was happy for my child to care enough about certain things to do something and perhaps take a little risk. Something that puts them on the right side of history, something that they can look back on later in life and conclude that it hadn’t all been hocked in the name of comfort and money.

I, myself, given that I’ve had all traces of heroism and bravery surgically removed from my backbone, stayed at home, and was relieved that that particular drama went without any untoward incident.

Choosing your side

Life is complicated, and sometimes it’s difficult to know for sure what’s right and what’s wrong. But perhaps a simple test is to ask – on which side are the forces of power and money and privilege? Invariably, whichever side those are, the opposite side, where the young and the poor and the weak are, is likely to be the right side.

That, after all, is what the prophets of all the Abrahamic faiths and other faiths too have told us to do, through their words and actions. None of them ever said to stand up for the rich and the powerful.

That seems to be the conclusion that an increasing number of people, young or otherwise, are reaching lately too, six months after the killing began in Gaza.

More of these young ones are getting angry enough to feel they have to do something, in spite of the danger and risks to their studies, current and future careers and even to their life and limbs.

Making it count

If any young people are to ask me what they should do given their extreme distress about what’s happening out there, I’d say, do what your conscience tells you.

Your calculations may say hunker down, lock the doors and mind your words and actions so your future won’t be jeopardised.

Your conscience, however, may say do what’s right, always be on the side of the weak and the bullied and against the rich and powerful and privileged, wherever and whenever and however they appear.

You’re only young once, make it count. Don’t risk growing old by forever running away from doing what’s right because it doesn’t guarantee a good return.

It could be risky and even scary at times. But it’s better than growing up to be a two-bit pseudo-academic professor from an obscure state college in the US west coast trolling for controversy everywhere for the sake of earning the approval of the powerful. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.