UM dept says sorry to all Malaysians over Bruce Gilley fiasco

 

Controversial US academic Bruce Gilley caused an uproar with his remarks about Malaysia’s stance on Israel while speaking at Universiti Malaya. (Facebook pic)

PETALING JAYA: Universiti Malaya’s international and strategic studies department has issued an apology over controversial US academic Bruce Gilley who had accused Malaysia of pushing for a “second Holocaust”.

The department said it regretted what it called an irresponsible statement by Gilley. The department pledged to make improvements to its procedures involving visiting professors.

“The department apologises to all Malaysians, the government of Malaysia, the higher education ministry and the members of UM over the incident.

“We take this matter seriously and will improve on our screening process, planning and holding of such programmes to ensure the platform given to foreign scholars is not manipulated in the future. The international and strategic studies department will make improvements at our level immediately,” it said in a statement.

The remarks by Gilley, a professor of political science at Portland State University, sparked a backlash, with higher education minister Zambry Abdul Kadir ordering all programmes and activities involving Gilley to be cancelled immediately.

Gilley later expressed regret for the harm caused by his statement, and deleted a post containing the quote from his talk, “for the safety and well-being of his colleagues at UM”.

However, he later claimed that he quickly left Malaysia out of safety concerns caused by an “Islamo-fascist mob whipped up by the government”, raising money on the GoFundMe donation site to cover US$2,346 (RM11,222) in travel expenses. He had declined reimbursement from UM because of what he called “its disgraceful behaviour and that of the Malaysian government”. - FMT