COMMENT Most Malaysians are in shock at the minister of higher education’s call asking Professor Abdul Aziz Bari to quit his academic position and become a politician if he continues to make public his views concerning constitutional issues.

NONE The minister was quoted to have said that an academic has to be neutral, which meant that he thought Aziz Bari was not being objective and neutral in his comments.

If this is truly the minister’s view, it is obvious Khaled Nordin ( right ) does not understand the very essence of academia. This is very bad for the public universities under his charge.

Good public universities the world over are made up of its academic staff, students and its administrators. These are not merely people who follow rules like cogs in a machine but individuals who are reflective and able to understand very complex subjects by way of analysis and robust exchange of ideas.

The freedom to debate and to inspire young impressionable minds is what motivates intelligent people to be academics. Academics, at least in reputable universities, are not merely motivated by money but by intellectual pursuits and the freedom to pursue the subject of their interest with passion.

What would the minister say if an academic made the following statement: “Of the 1%, for the 1%, and by the 1%", describing the enormous increase in inequality in the United States: 1 percent of the population controls more than 40 percent of the wealth and receives more than 20 percent of the income.

And those in this rarefied stratum often are rewarded so richly not because they have contributed more to society - bonuses and bailouts neatly gutted that justification for inequality - but because they are, to put it bluntly, successful (and sometimes corrupt) “rent-seekers”.

Would Khaled ask Stiglitz to quit?

Would Khaled Nordin ask Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz to resign his position in Columbia University for making such an obviously political statement ? Of course, the minister might say that this is a foreign example and cannot be applied to Malaysia.

Yet, Malaysian universities are under tremendous pressure to rise up the Times Higher Education’s university rankings with academics pressed to meet foreign benchmarks to boost their university's standing in the rankings.

Whilst we cannot hope to attract the likes of Professor Stiglitz to our shores because he would not be allowed to make statements deemed "not neutral", we are also making sure that we never produce the likes of Stiglitz by stopping academics from exercising their democratic right to engage in public debate.

NONE This article is not an attack on the minister or the agenda to climb up the university rankings.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve our public universities by way of “competing” with other universities but surely it is not fair to hold our universities up to Western standards when our universities do not have the kind of resources and even less academic freedom.

If academics are not allowed to think critically and engage with a wider public, how are they expected to carry the universities forward in the global rankings? For those who do not believe that the freedom to think and express an opinion matter, please take a closer look at the rankings again.

The best universities have all a history in tolerating dissenting opinions with universities given the autonomy to go against the grain and for the most part, this has been good for society.

To my mind, Professor Aziz Bari is to be lauded for making lucid and pithy statements about the current issues concerning his field of study, which happens to be law and the constitution. The minister should be fair when making public statements about academics.

What about Ridhuan Tee, minister?

Just as he has not said anything when another academic like Ridhuan Tee Abdullah made politically-charged statements based upon his opinions about the Chinese community - even calling for hudud to be forcibly applied - Khaled Nordin should give the same independence to Aziz Bari.

Perhaps we should all give the minister the benefit of the doubt. He might be genuinely confused because we have democratised higher education at a frightening speed, we now have some 22 public universities and hundreds of colleges offering courses in higher education.

NONE This has resulted 22 poorly-funded public universities and a decline in the reputation of public universities nationwide. More insidiously, we have now uneven quality in academia itself with the likes of Aziz Bari and Ridhuan Tee ( right ) sharing the same academic platform.

Perhaps this is why the minister himself is confused about the role of academics. Because of falling standards, we often have the wrong impression that academics live in ivory towers, meaning that they are divorced from society and by extension reality.

Whilst the expression owes its origins to the image of the absent-minded professor who is obsessed with his/her chosen subject, such healthy obsessions have resulted in important scientific discoveries. One cannot say that the study of the Nipah virus did not end us saving millions of lives.

Similarly, in the field of political economy, Malaysians have much to thank academics whose research points out how governmental policies can have unintended consequences like the creation of a rentier mentality that results in social stagnation.

Reactionary comments

The subject of law, the constitution and the monarchy is a specialised field requiring years of study. Only an in-depth understanding can yield the kind of perspective that resonates positively with society. In fact, it would be remiss of Aziz Bari not to express his professional opinions as it concerns public interest.

We cannot all be led by reactionary comments by those who are not familiar with the field or indeed by politicians with their own special interests at heart.

Just as the government hopes to be guided by subject experts in say nuclear physics if it wants to build a nuclear reactor, so it should allow social scientists to express their opinions on subjects concerning society at large.

If the minister found Aziz Bari’s comments to be not neutral, he does not have to call for the professor to resign. Aziz Bari’s peers will point out the good professor’s flaws.

More importantly, the public will be able to make up their minds about his comments and there are special interest groups that will surely make their feelings clear. Ultimately, all bad ideas and poorly conceived opinions will get discredited.

The minister must give Malaysians the opportunity to read Aziz Bari's comments and make up their own minds. Surely Malaysians deserve the right to do so.

 

NEIL KHOR completed his PhD at Cambridge University and now writes occasionally on matters that he thinks requires better historical treatment. He is quietly optimistic about Malaysia's future.