After years of not a thought about my old school, suddenly I find myself rudely reminded of it and recollecting its connection to Malaysia.

The most vivid reminder of my alma mater is Tony Abbott, leader of the opposition Liberal-National Party coalition in the forthcoming Australian federal election. Not that I ever knew him way back then, as he’s a much younger old boy than I am.

Nor do I support him or feel the slightest inclination to vote for his candidate in my electorate, considering that he’s also an old boy of the former Howard government, a blot on his record that heavily outweighs such sentimental considerations as old school ties.

In addition to this distant connection with Tony Abbott, the other recent reminder of my old school has been a bad-news story about a group of present-day students there.

A group of 30 or so current senior boys apparently jetted off on a teacher-supervised skiing jaunt to New Zealand, where towards the end of the trip at least 16 of them went on a shoplifting spree.

My first reaction to this was that they must have misinterpreted the school motto, Sursum corda , which I have always understood to mean “lift up your hearts”. But whatever their inspiration or motive, I find their crimes a far-from-uplifting reminder of the old college.

NONE Melbourne’s Xavier College, that is. Xavier pronounced by us pupils and other locals as “zayvier”. Quite erroneously, as I learned long after I left there, as the great Jesuit missionary St Francis Xavier was Spanish, and thus his Christian name would actually have been Francisco and his family name pronounced something like “harvier”.

Which brings us to the Malaysian connection. Decades after I thought I’d severed all ties to my old school, I encountered a marble statue of San Francisco Xavier beside the ruins of St Paul’s Church amid the little that remains of the 16th-century Portuguese fortress of A Famosa in Malacca.

As I learned from a plaque at his statue’s base, Xavier died on his travels in Asia and was first buried in the crypt of St Paul’s, Malacca before later being moved to his final or at least current resting place in Goa, India.

Mysterious coincidence

In the process of his disinterment and transfer, or so I gather the story goes, somebody souvenired one of his fingers, presumably to keep as a sacred relic. And, lo and behold, that very same finger, of the left hand, as I think I recall, is missing from the statue.

NONE Nothing to do, I’m sure, with light-fingered students from Xavier College, Melbourne, which wasn’t even founded until centuries after this mysterious, not to say miraculous coincidence. But in the light of current events, I can’t help thinking that the disappearance of the digits turns out to have been uncannily prophetic.

As for the culprits of this present-day thievery, all I can say is that they’re lucky not to be back in my time as a Xavierian, as in that primitive era they would have been assured of six of the best, whereas all they’ll probably suffer in these more politically-correct times is a rap over the knuckles.

They may also be expelled, of course, as I and any of my contemporaries certainly would have been in similar circumstances. But I’ve always been opposed to expulsion on the grounds that school seems to me like a 12-year custodial sentence, and thus being thrown out early amounts to early remission for bad behaviour.

Thereby giving the finger to the whole concept of justice, and unfairly discriminating against those who obey the rules or at least don’t get caught breaking them, and are consequently unfairly condemned to serve out their full terms.

These modern-day miscreants may not get off as lightly as they might imagine, however. They still have to answer to their parents for darkening their family names, for what they’re worth, and wasting all that lovely money that’s been invested in a vain bid to turn them into scholars and gentlemen.

Namby-pamby loot

And worse still, they’re condemned to live the rest of their lives with the shame of disgracing themselves by lifting loot as namby-pamby and metrosexual as après-ski apparel.

At least 50 years ago Xaverians looking to lift their hearts and spirits with a spot of larceny and a quick and merciful expulsion mostly went for more macho merchandise, like car hubcaps, wheels or entire motor vehicles.

NONE Just as the rector of Xavier back then, Father Gleeson of the gunslinger eyes, wouldn’t, as current principal Chris Hayes reportedly has done, comment to the media that his students’ criminal behaviour was “gutting”. The offenders, not him, would have got the gutting, and the press a curt “no comment.”

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, those were the days. When boys were boys, men were men, and if Xavierians had been taken on trips to New Zealand, which we weren’t, it would have been the local sheilas or the sheep that had cause to be nervous, not the management and staff of ski-wear boutiques.

So our teachers were careful not to take us anywhere much, or for anything much either, for that matter, save for the hopelessly hormone-addled adolescents and of course old-boys-to-be that we were.

But at least the Jesuits did their best to equip us with as much respect as possible for principles like honesty, truth integrity and justice. And in that regard it’s a pity that San Francisco Xavier didn’t live long enough to do the same for future rulers of Malaysia.

Because even imperfect products of the Xavierian tradition, like hard-core right-winger Tony Abbott and students who sink to a spot of shoplifting, would be preferable to the arch-criminals of Umno/BN. And, as you don’t have to be a saint or an old boy to see, it’s high time these crooks were given the proverbial finger.

 

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he mentors creative writing groups. Already published in Kuala Lumpur is a third book of his columns for Malaysiakini , following earlier collections ‘Mad about Malaysia’ and ‘Even Madder about Malaysia’.