PETALING JAYA: Higher education minister Zambry Abd Kadir has ordered all programmes and activities scheduled to be attended by a foreign academic who courted controversy with his recent remarks to be cancelled immediately.
“I have asked Universiti Malaya to investigate the matter and report all further details,” Zambry said in a statement.
“I would also like to remind all agencies under the higher education ministry to be alert and conduct background checks before inviting anyone to an event.
“Although institutions of higher education are given autonomy to decide on intellectual programmes, it does not mean they have complete freedom to ignore the sensitivities of Malaysia’s majority,” he said.
Zambry said all decisions must take into account sensitivities, and align with the government’s policies and stance.
This comes after US academic Bruce Gilley was panned on social media for purportedly claiming Malaysia is pushing for a “second Holocaust against the Jewish people” in a talk he delivered at Universiti Malaya.
In his talk titled “Will Malaysia Become an Active Middle Power” at UM on Tuesday afternoon, the professor of political science from Portland State University also supposedly downplayed Malaysia’s ties with the US.
“‘A country whose political leaders advocate a second Holocaust against the Jewish people will never be a serious player in world affairs, and will certainly never be a friend or partner of the US,’ from my keynote address yesterday in KL on Malaysian foreign policy,” he wrote in a post on X yesterday.
“This has been a long-standing vice of Malaysian politicians going back to (former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s) advice to learn from the Germans on how to kill Jews.
“Most explicitly, in October, agriculture (and food security) minister Mohamad Sabu promised a rally that ‘Israel will soon disappear’,” he added.
Malaysia has no diplomatic ties with Israel and has repeatedly condemned the country for its numerous attacks on Palestine, including the current war in Gaza which has seen more than 34,000 Palestinians killed and 77,000 wounded since Oct 7 last year.
Former foreign minister Saifuddin Abdullah has called on the foreign ministry and UM to provide more details about the talk.
Muda acting president Amira Aisya Abd Aziz also said Gilley’s post was “absolutely misleading and unacceptable”, and that his statements falsely depicted Malaysia’s support for an independent Palestinian state.
“We have never advocated for a second Holocaust… academic institutions should be very careful in inviting speakers and lecturers spreading pro-Zionist narratives,” she said in a post on X.
Gilley is no stranger to controversy, with his 2017 article “The Case for Colonialism” published in the Third World Quarterly (TWQ) journal resulting in immense criticism and generating two separate petitions signed by thousands of academics demanding its retraction. - FMT
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