LETTER | When professors ought to profess

LETTER | The Higher Education Minister, Zambry Abdul Kadir, was recently reported to have urged academics not to issue statements “outside their area of expertise”.

Although he did not name and shame, it is widely believed that Zambry was referring to at least one of a number of instances when purportedly senior academics, including a professor, made absolute ninnies of themselves and their universities.

They had released statements and TikTok videos that made unverified claims about the supposed impact and influence of the Malay civilisation on the rest of the world.

The one that the minister and others were referring to was probably the recent video clip of an Arabic language professor, Solehan Yaacob, that went viral.

In it, the professor allegedly claims that the Prophet’s wife, Siti Khadijah Khuwailid, had originated from the “Malay realm” (alam Melayu). Realising that this video had become viral, she issued a statement that she had never made such a claim and that the video had been edited to make it appear that she had.

At any rate, she was rightly chastised by her university’s staff association and the university had also reportedly “taken appropriate action” against her.

In line with Malaysia’s penchant for keeping things under wraps, what that action was we have not been told. Nor are we likely to.

Academic autonomy

Earlier in the year, there were two similar incidents of Malaysian academics, again including a full-fledged professor, making “historical” claims about the Malays during the days of the Malacca sultanate.

Locally based French historian, Serge Jardin, had highlighted on his Facebook page, first in January and later in April these pathetic attempts at rewriting history. These “academics” had come up with supposed “evidence” - including photographs - of Malay achievements that clearly were not.

What’s shameful and unforgivable is that there was no apology from the culprits, no admission of guilt. What’s even worse is that their universities - public ones, mind you - went into silence mode, evidently trying very hard to hide from the spotlight that was then shining on them for the wrong reasons.

In this latest incident, while the culprit came up with the flimsiest of excuses - at least the university’s academic staff association and, later, its management, came up with statements chastising the professor.

The more crucial matter for Gerak is the question of academic and university autonomy and taking responsibility.

We believe that, whatever the minister’s motivations for his note of censure, the responsibility for taking action on errant academic staff must be that of the university authorities and the staff association.

Maintaining one’s credibility

We also wish to stress that the “lanes” scholars move in can be many and varied. Knowledge acquisition and dissemination should never be about staying within particular and narrow lanes.

After all, we constantly stress the need to be interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary in our studies and research.

The question should be about maintaining one’s credibility and applying intellectual rigour, irrespective of the lane, field or discipline that we move into.

IIUM set the right tone and took the right steps in this regard, as opposed to UPM months ago. There was no beating around the bush by those responsible in this latest episode.

Indeed, where academics make silly - and clearly inaccurate - statements, they should be answerable to a jury of their peers, not to some external entity, especially a politician. Or even a minister.

Aside from Gerak, there are a number of other, admittedly muted, academic organisations, that really need to unmute themselves in this regard.

Indeed, we hope that should instances like these come up again, other purportedly “academic” Malaysian organisations will play their roles as senior academics.

After all, we believe that professors should profess.

GERAK is an association of Malaysian academics committed to educational reforms.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.