After the brouhaha over the UPM's Ethnic Relations guidebook and student heckling incident , anyone with common sense would assume that teaching racial stereotypes and assigning blame-games at universities would be a thing of the past. Having just celebrated our 49th year of Merdeka, one would think that national unity should be better forged.

Unfortunately, another local university has found itself in the limelight for all the wrong reasons. In a compulsory one-day seminar for first-year students at USM-themed, Seminar Bina Negara Mahasiswa, the young impressionable minds were fed with Jewish conspiracies theories . The message relayed during this seminar was that Jews were funding Chinese-majority student groups to destabilise the nation's security.

Sounds familiar? Yes, I believe Hitler spewed the same blame in his book 'Mein Kampf', as do other ultra-rightist groups.

It is pitiful that universities which should inculcate bonding among our already racially polarised society have become a breeding ground for spreading race-hate propaganda and unfounded racist theories.

While university vice-chancellors and lecturers are allowed a fair degree of autonomy in their administration and syllabus, they should not abuse this opportunity to brandish and implement their personal prejudices, and singling out Chinese student leaders. During the seminar, pictures of certain Chinese student leaders faces were circled in red.

It is safe to assume that any academician, be it the vice-chancellor, professor right down to the tutor would fully be aware that any thesis or theory should be tested against a multi-layer hypothesis process supported by empirical evidence. Otherwise, how would they have gained their PhDs or even basic Bachelor's degrees?

Have the organisers or speakers of the seminar have any proof, or did they conduct any investigations or studies that Jewish groups 'sponsor' Chinese-majority student groups to undermine our country's stability by creating chaos?

Dell Computer Corp, a well-known multinational company which houses its plant at Penang's Bayan Lepas Free Trade Zone was founded by its chairman Michael Dell, a Jew who is well-known to contribute to Jewish charities.

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry's (Miti) open trade-investment policies and Malaysia's stable political environment have attracted the likes of Dell to invest in Malaysia, creating plenty of job opportunities and technology transfer which leads to building up our human capital. In fact, Michael Dell was even awarded with a Datukship for his contribution in building up our economy.

With all these Jewish conspiracy theories about Jews and Chinese student groups causing instability in our country, if investors like Dell and other MNCs (multinationals) were to withdraw their FDIs (foreign direct investments) from Malaysia, many Malaysians, from their employees down to the suppliers of the MNCs would be out of a job.

Unemployment gives rise to even bigger social problems and instability as out of desperation, people with nothing to lose may resort to crime or street protests.