COMMENT | Disappointing state of M'sian scholar-activism

COMMENT | Activism is defined as efforts to promote, impede, direct, or intervene in social, political, economic, and environmental reform. Scholar-activism is part of this.

Scholar-activists are first and foremost, academics. They are educators employed by an institution of higher education, such as a university. These academics have one foot in academe and the other in the struggles of society. Therefore, a scholar-activist functions as a bridge between these two spaces.

They link the intellectually privileged and theoretical space of the “Ivory Tower” with the chaotic and brutal reality of everyday life. This link is important because it connects knowledge production spaces (universities) to a social reality that needs constant updating. Without innovation, reality regresses into stagnation, which eventually impedes development in all its positive forms.

Knowledge, whether newly discovered or reinterpreted...