The good old dancing days at Universiti Malaya

January 22,

by Anas Zubedy

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2019/01/20/the-good-old-dancing-days-at-universiti-malaya/

I am among the fortunate few who spent their university life at Kolej Kediaman Zaaba, the 7th residential college at Universiti Malaya, during the mid-eighties.

We were lucky to have a very outstanding college master in Prof Omar Farouk, who created an environment for performance where young Malaysians could grow, test out our leadership talents and potentials and be at our best. A place where we could transit into good citizens.

At the university level, we had the wonderful and very capable Deputy Vice-Chancellor Mohd Yunus Mohd Noor and our very respectable and awesome Vice-Chancellor Royal Prof Ungku Abdul Aziz who not only were willing to defend our college master’s approach but went all out to support him.

With this solid support from the university, Omar could provide us with an open environment where diversity and inclusion thrived. Respect for others is the norm. We were encouraged to always work our way to the top, do the best and be the best! Work hard, play hard! Excel in whatever we do!

We were able to run and manage not only national level projects but also international level ones. We were perhaps the most active college in the country. Our projects were recognised internationally and were even honoured in newspaper editorials.

Yet, we were labelled by the group of people who felt that we were too western, too worldly. We were told that we were not Islamic enough. Ungku Aziz, Yunus and Omar’s names were ridiculed during Friday prayers. Big groups of people came to demonstrate.

Why? Simply because we wanted to have our “dinner and dance” events at hotels. It was not relevant to them that the dinner and dance was to celebrate, reward and award those who had worked hard and did the college proud in projects, sports, social activities, etc.

To them, dancing is bad and mixing of the genders should be avoided. And, they see it as their right to impose their thoughts on others too.

How far are they willing to go?

Our master and college members were pelted with rotten eggs. They spoke rudely to a kind and well-mannered elder, Omar, who was ever willing to discuss and listen to their views and agree to disagree.

When my team and I were managing a project to promote Kelantanese arts and culture, lives were threatened and we had to deal with bomb hoaxes – simply because they felt that Kelantanese culture is against their religious beliefs.

That was when we were in the eighties. Have we gotten any better today?

We need to stop, think, reflect and choose where we want this nation to head to. In fact, at certain levels it is not an overstatement to say that we are becoming a society with a sick mentality: where a dance party is now seen and promoted as though it is an orgy!

Unfortunately not. Today the problem has gone national. A video clip showing the chief justice and attorney-general dancing to the tune of “Lets Twist Again” with the law minister and members of the Bar has sent some people into conniption.

We need to stop, think, reflect and choose where we want this nation to head to. In fact, at certain levels it is not an overstatement to say that we are becoming a society with a sick mentality: where a dance party is now seen and promoted as though it is an orgy!

We need to engage with these people especially the leaders and influencers and help them pay attention to what is crucial.

Let me use the Zaaba experience to unpack this.

The dance parties represented an extremely small amount of time, energy and focus to those who were at Kolej Zaaba. The rest of the time, it was hard work, delivering performance, adding value and doing good.

But if one pays attention to only that few hours of dancing instead of a whole year of work, that is being myopic, petty and senseless. Ditto the Opening of the Legal Year 2019 dinner.

Inability to pay attention to what is crucial and the core is a huge social and human problem that leads to bad results. The militant Muslims for example pay attention to fighting while in reality in his 23 years of his prophethood, the Prophet spend not more than three days in actual fighting.

That should give an indication about Islam’s position on fighting. Yet, fighting defines the lives of the “jihadist”.

We need to choose what we are paying attention to.

If you still do not get it, among the products of Kolej Zaaba are the current chief secretary to the government, the foreign ministry’s secretary-general, the Election Commission chairman, top surgeons at the National Heart Institute and countless more.

So please do not focus on the dancing. Pay attention to the hard work and results.

To Ungku Aziz, Omar Farouk and the late Yunus, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for paying attention to what is crucial and giving us the environment to be good Malaysian citizens.

May all of us guide ourselves with love, logic and wisdom. Love, because love makes us fair with our hearts; logic, because logic makes us fair with our minds; and wisdom, because wisdom leads us to combine our love and logic in the way of God and for the benefit of mankind.

Anas Zubedy is a businessman.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.

 

 

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Jomo named National Academic Figure

November 28, 2018

by Bernama 

Economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram was announced as the 12th National Academic Figure at the National Academic Awards (AAN) ceremony in Putrajaya last night.

 

Jomo, 66, a former assistant secretary-general for Economic Development in the United Nations, is an expert in political economy of development, especially in the Southeast Asian region .Jomo received RM200,000, a trophy and a certificate.

 

 

The National Academic Figure award is presented to academicians who are committed, wholly engaged and always contributing to the discovery and development of knowledge, wealth generation and fulfilling the aspirations of the tertiary institution as a national development vehicle.

Meanwhile, Juan Joon Ching, a professor with Universiti Malaya, was announced as the most promising academician award winner. This award is given to affluent scholars under the age of 40.

Earlier, Mahathir in his speech expressed hope that the awards would motivate the individuals to pursue further excellence while setting a benchmark for others to emulate.

“Without their (academicians’) support, I believe we cannot build a knowledgeable generation that is par excellence, and at the same time produce balanced individuals for the development and progress of the country,” the Prime Minister said.

– Bernama

 

University of Malaya: Time to Honour Dr. Jomo Kwame Sundaram

July 4, 2018

I am reminding my alma mater, University of Malaya to address this Injustice to Dr. Jomo, who is a member of New Malaysia’s Eminent Persons Group led by Tun Daim Zainuddin . I  know that he genuinely deserves this honour. My reasons are given in an article I wrote a number of years ago (July 4, 2010):

University of Malaya Emeritus Professorship for Dr. Jomo Kwame Sundaram

by Din Merican*

With the next commencement or convocation of the University of Malaya fast approaching, some time in August, 2010, I have been thinking about names of distinguished Malaysian Professors who should be honored by my alma mater for their solid research and teaching achievements while at the University.

In recent years, I note the University of Malaya has been awarding Emeritus Professorships to its former Professors for their outstanding work. This is a very important development in the University’s history. A professor and scholar never retires and like a great military general, he just fades away, but not with making contributions and sharing his knowledge and experience through his writings, consulting and advisory work, and occasional public lectures.

Even in retirement, a professor is remembered by his students and those who have benefited from his generous guidance and wise counsel. In this regard, I can think of Professor Syed Hussein Al-Atas, Professor Wang Gungwu, Royal Professor Ungku A. Aziz, Professor Mokhzani Rahim, and Professor Zainal Abidin bin Wahid because they had a huge impact on my education and outlook.

I can say the same of my Business School academic advisor and intellectual mentor, the late Emeritus Professor Dr. Philip Donald Grub at the George Washington School of Business, The George Washington University, Washington DC.

A number of my friends like Professor Dr. Mohamed Ariff (formerly Executive Director, Malaysian Institute of Economic Research) and History Professor Khoo Kay Kim have received due recognition by the University for their contributions to our country and for their work in the University. Missing from this honour list is the name of Professor Dr. Jomo Kwame Sundaram (popularly known as Jomo in academic and social circles). If there is anyone deserving of this honour and recognition, it has to be in my humble opinion  has to be Jomo.

I first knew this outstanding yet humble academic through his book, A Question of Class: Capital, the State, and Uneven Development in Malaya. ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) and have interacted with him during my short attachment (2000-2001) at the Asia-Europe Institute at the University. This book is today regarded as a classic on Malaysian political economy. It has been widely reviewed by his peers and critics alike. His writings left a deep impression on me. I am sure during his career at the University of Malaya, Jomo touched the hearts and minds of colleagues and students, who were privileged to know him at close range.

From Academia to the United Nations

Jomo has been Assistant Secretary General for Economic Development in the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) since January 2005. He was Professor in the Applied Economics Department, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya until November 2004, and was on the Board of the United Nations Research Institute on Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva (2002-4). He is Founder Chair of IDEAs, International Development Economics Associates (www.ideaswebsite.org).

Academic Background

Born in Penang, Malaysia, in 1952, Jomo studied at the Penang Free School (PFS, 1964-6), Royal Military College (RMC, 1967-70), Yale (1970-3) and Harvard (1973-7). He has taught at Science University of Malaysia (USM, 1974), Harvard (1974-5), Yale (1977), National University of Malaysia (UKM, 1977-82), University of Malaya (since 1982), and Cornell (1993). Jomo has also been a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University (1987-8; 1991-2) and was Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (2004).

Articles, Monographs and Publications

He has authored over 35 monographs, edited over 50 books and translated 11 volumes besides writing many academic papers and articles for the media. He is on the editorial boards of several learned journals. His book publications include Malaysia’s Political Economy (with E. T. Gomez), Tigers in Trouble, Rents, Rent-Seeking and Economic Development: Theory and the Asian Evidence (with Mushtaq Khan), Malaysian Eclipse: Economic Crisis and Recovery, Globalization Versus Development: Heterodox Perspectives, Southeast Asia’s Industrialization, Ugly Malaysians? South-South Investments Abused, Southeast Asian Paper Tigers? Behind Miracle and Debacle, Manufacturing Competitiveness: How Internationally Competitive National Firms And Industries Developed In East Asia, Ethnic Business? Chinese Capitalism in Southeast Asia (with Brian Folk), Deforesting Malaysia: The Political Economy of Agricultural Expansion and Commercial Logging (with YT Chang and KJ Khoo), M Way: Mahathir’s Economic Policy Legacy and After The Storm: Crisis, Recovery and Sustaining Development in East Asia.

Other and more recent books include Bail-Outs? Capital Controls, Restructuring & Recovery in Malaysia. (with Wong Sook Ching and Chin Kok Fay), Industrial Policy in Malaysia: The Chequered Record of Selective Investment Promotion, Labour Market Segmentation In Malaysian Services (with H. L. Khong), Law and the Malaysian Economy (with others), Globalization Under Hegemony: The Changing World Economy During The Long Twentieth Century, The Great Divergence: Hegemony, Uneven Development and Global Inequality during the Long Twentieth Century, The New Development Economics (with Ben Fine), The Origins of Development Economics (with Erik Reinert) and Pioneers of Development Economics.

I hope that the Minister of Higher Education, the University Senate and Council ,and the Vice Chancellor will deem it timely and deserving that this outstanding Malaysian should be granted the status of Emeritus Professor. Although he has been critical of government policies and is often invited to speak by the Opposition and civil society group on Malaysian political economy, most recently in Parliament when he spoke on the 10th Malaysian Plan, his views have always been contrarian, yet constructive and useful as we seek to formulate new policies which are intended to transform Malaysia into a high income economy by 2020.

Let us honour this outstanding academic and the University of Malaya should recognise his contributions to research and teaching for more than 2 decades. No obtacles should stand in the way of honouring Jomo for his stellar contributions to research and teaching. Even his detractors should concede that Jomo is outstanding and deserves recognition.

*Din Merican graduated from the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur in 1963 and did postgraduate studies in Business at George Washington School of Business, The George Washington University, Washington DC. He is Professor of International Relations, Techo Sen School of Government and International Relations, The University of Cambodia, Phnom Penh since 2014.

Mr Holland’s Opus–Starring Richard Dreyfuss –An Inspirational Movie

June 7, 2018

Mr Holland’s Opus–Starring Richard Dreyfuss

Comment:

 

My Friend, Ambassador John Malott (pic above) is passionate about Cambodia, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia after retiring from a distinguished career as a diplomat with the State Department.

In my long distance conversation over to the Internet with my dear friend Ambassador John Malott in Alexandria, Virginia  today, we got into a discussion about what we would do with the remainder of  our years before we fade, hopefully gracefully, into the sunset. John is 71 and I am 79. I told him that I wanted to realise  my childhood dream of being a teacher. After a career in Malaysia’s Foreign Service, Bank Negara Malaysia (Central Bank) and the private sector since 1963, here I am in 2018 not as an ordinary school teacher, but as an academic and researcher at The University of Cambodia (UC).

It is without a doubt one of the best decisions I ever made, and that is to be in the company of some of the young and brightest students in Cambodia. Over the last 5 years in Phnom Penh, I am a student again,thanks to Dr. Kao Kim Hourn, UC President, because education is a two way process. I am able to share my life experiences with my students and also learn new skills, share books, exchange ideas with them, and reinvigorate myself. I am lucky, I guess.

I am grateful for the opportunity to lead an enriching life of service at  UC, and learn from my students about their rich culture, music, history and moral philosophy.  Mr.  Holland’s Opus is a touching movie  about the trials and tribulations of a music teacher who was concerned  about his legacy.

I too am concerned about my legacy. My American buddy John told me that I should not worry as I have found my calling and passion; and my legacy will be that of a teacher who cares about educating and developing  the mind. So here I am a happy and simple man.

My liberal  business education at The George Washington University was demanding, challenging and morally transformational.  Terima kasih (Thanks) GWU for  Your Care.

Thanks, John, for your friendship. Thank you America and Americans for the quality education at The George Washington University. May God Bless you, my late Professor, academic advisor and intellectual mentor, Dr. Philip Donald Grub, for showing me the way.–Din Merican

Kassim Ahmad: An Iconoclast

October 14, 2017

 

Muslim intellectual Kassim Ahmad was a courageous and brave thinker and his passing on October 10, 2017 is a loss for the nation, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said. Dr Mahathir said he was very sad that his 84-year-old “friend” Kassim had passed away this morning in the Kulim hospital in Kedah. “We lost a brave figure who held on to the principle of his struggle no matter what happened to him,” he said in a statement posted on his blog.–Dr. Mahathir on the Passing of Dr. Kassim Ahmad

by Terence Netto@www.malaysiakini.com

COMMENT | Much of the encomia for Kassim Ahmad, who died at the age of 84 in Kulim yesterday, spoke of his courage in the face of repression of his beliefs.

Kassim exemplified Ernest Hemingway’s definition of courage as grace under pressure. He was serene in facing the waves of hostile reaction to his beliefs – save in one instance.

This was when he blamed Anwar Ibrahim for forestalling the evolution of a debate he wanted with critics of his book, “Hadis: Satu Penilaian Semula” (Hadith: A Re-evaluation).

Kassim had wanted the book, which was banned shortly after its publication in 1986, to evoke a debate on the arguments he had adduced for making the Quran – and not the Hadith – as the principal source of Islamic faith and jurisprudence.

The conventional view was that the sources of Islamic jurisprudence were the Quran, Hadith and the general consensus of Islamic scholars. Kassim had argued that the Hadith contradicting the Quran could not be relied upon as a source of Islamic jurisprudence.

 

 

He fingered Anwar (photo), then a Cabinet Minister, as having played the main role behind the scenes to stop any debate on the book from taking place, specifically a debate with the Malaysian Muslim Youth Movement (ABIM). The debate didn’t go ahead. Kassim, ever willing to debate his disputants, blamed Anwar for this.

Anwar was then seen as the go-to Islamist in government, having been ABIM leader from the early 1970s, before mutating from government critic to collaborator in the drive that begun under then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 1982 to inject Islam into the administration and governance of the country.

From the perspective of the years gone by, this move is now seen as having paved the way for the weakening of the secular underpinnings of the 1957 Constitution inaugurating the country’s birth – thus opening the way to what many feared would be the eventual Islamisation of the country, which would have been a travesty of what the country’s founders envisaged.

Kassim would remain scurrilous and vituperative on Anwar’s alleged role in foreclosing debate on the banned book.

‘Amenable, amicable and kind’

The venomous streak that was much in evidence whenever Anwar’s name or fate came up in conversations between Kassim and friends who came a-visiting seemed uncharacteristic of the man who was otherwise amenable, amicable and kind.

From the time he graduated from the University of Malaya in Singapore in the late 1950s to the mid-1980s, when he called for a reevaluation of the hadith, Kassim distinguished himself as a thinker who was wont to go against the convention.

 

He had espoused the merits of Hang Jebat as the authentic Malay hero, in contradistinction to Hang Tuah as the archetype, in Malay intellectual discourse in the early 1960s.

He introduced “scientific socialism” to Parti Rakyat Malaysia in the mid-1960s when he took over its reins from founder Ahmad Boestamam, and changed the party’s name to Parti Sosialis Rakyat Malaysia, in conformity with the Marxist view that their ideology was irrefutable science.

Even when he began to abandon scientific socialism for an Islamic worldview while under ISA detention between 1976 and 1981, it was towards “Teori Sosial Moden Islam” (Modern Islamic Social Theory), the name of the treatise he would pen after being freed, and not towards anything nebulous.

Kassim’s was an intellect who craved certainty for its beliefs, where such certainty is elusive. That was probably why he took an oppositional view of the Hadith, with some of its origins in the mists of times long ago.

Whether it was jousting with national literary laureate Shahnon Ahmad on the role of art and literature in Islamic discourse, or with Islamists on the reliability of the Hadith, Kassim evinced the air of the scientific rationalist.

He had the iconoclast’s penchant for challenging orthodoxies, but this yen came with the ideologue’s weakness for certainties.

The French writer Honoré de Balzac knew the type when he observed that “It’s not sufficient to be a man; one must be a system.”

Read more at https://www.malaysiakini.com/columns/397983#Zu1Yr8RvHWv8cqG0.99

Universiti Malaya: Nip Racism in the bud and clear your name

February 26, 2017

by Mariam Mokhtar@www.freemalaysiatoday.com

In deciding to investigate an allegation of racism against one of its associate professors, Universiti Malaya gives itself an opportunity to prove to the Malaysian public that it upholds a high standard of decency.

We await the findings of the five-member investigation panel and the university’s follow-up action. However, one wonders whether Universiti Malaya would have bothered to look into the matter if it hadn’t received a directive from the Education Ministry. Indeed, it did not have to wait for the directive. It should have maintained an alertness to issues that might affect its reputation and it should act speedily.

The allegation came in a Facebook posting by a student. The article, titled “Voice of an Indian student”, has gone viral.

The student said the lecturer, in reprimanding her and another student, dispensed with the courtesy of calling them by their names and instead called them “India”.

Here, in brief, is the story according to the Facebook posting:

The lecturer said, “India, I don’t like Indians sitting together.” After making a disparaging remark about a private university, she added: “When Indians sit together, they will plagiarise and copy one another’s assignments. I recognise Indian traits.”

The abuse continued. She pointed to the student and her friend and told them to sit separately, saying, “I will ensure that the two of you will not be in the same group for your assignment. I know what Indians are like.”

This Ikan Bakar Man–Jamal Yunus– is a racist. Najib and UMNO support him and so Najib is a racist and UMNO is a racist political party. Q.E.D.

Then she insulted the other Indian students in the class. She made no excuses for her behaviour and said she did not mind if no one promoted Universiti Malaya because she preferred to teach smaller classes.

So, is this what you learn in a top Malaysian university – racism, intolerance, rudeness, insensitivity? When asked for his reaction, one postgraduate student said, “Academicians in Malaysian public universities should uphold a high standard of ethics. Making stereotypical racist comments against students is very unbecoming and reflects badly on the university and the degrees it confers.”

The student who wrote the complaint has demanded an apology from the lecturer.

The Fun Loving but Insecure Malays

An apology to the direct victims of the insult is not enough, if the lecturer is indeed guilty. She should apologise to the public and the apology should be published in all the mainstream papers. And Universiti Malaya must sack her.