THE local academic scene was lately in the news for all the wrong reasons (as usual), thanks to the “Gilley Affair”. While most of the news headlines had focused on the American professor’s contentious statements, what perplexed some less knee-jerking academics was the lack of a retort from the audience.

This was hardly surprising, owing to the tradition of rote learning in our schools, right up to university.

As someone who was schooled locally in my primary and secondary years, I was caught off guard by the high level of interaction between lecturers and their students in Australia, where I pursued my degree. I was surprised even though I had completed a pre-university programme taught by Canadian lecturers at a private college.

I guess the Canadian lecturers had probably been told by their peers that Malaysian students in class were prone to silence when asked if there were any questions.

A class in Australia that had the most discussions was “Introduction to Philosophy”,  taught by a rail-thin bearded stoic professor whose trademark response was “Very interesting”.

The most vocal student was a skateboarder classmate whom one would not think was a brainiac until he spoke.

My Malaysian housemate, who did not know any better, also signed up for the class. Like me, he often sighed in relief when class was over. Philosophy was a heavy topic for someone brought up on the good old “Malay Boleh” rhetoric of the 1990s.

Nevertheless, I found it interesting and as the semester rolled on, I did get into the groove of things but was still tongue-tied and frankly intimidated by how articulate my Australian classmates were.

Fast forward to almost a decade later and I’m presenting a paper at my first international conference in Cambridge. Since I was presenting a paper on Malaysian music subculture, I looked for other Southeast Asian-centric papers in other parallel sessions and found one that was thematically interesting.

I was early, so I sat in the classroom until the moderator arrived.

I noticed a group of Malaysian public university lecturers whom I had not met.  It wasn’t hard to miss them. They were all male and they all wore the same jackets emblazoned with the university logo and the same haircut. They had walked as a group into the small classroom. There must have been five or six of them.

However, only one of them was making a presentation.

While I had considered the employment of all the principles of an engaging presentation, the said lecturer merely sat down, placed his paper on the desk, and began reading his paper verbatim, without any slides or visual aids. I dozed off several times, soothed by his monotonous voice. It also have been the jet lag.

He took no questions after his presentation nor did he stay for the rest of the session. When he was done, he and his entourage calmly left as a group, perplexing the moderator.

My colleague, with whom I was co-presenting, nudged me on the shoulder and remarked “Like that also can, ah?”

This was back in 2005.

I am sure that in the intervening 19 years since, that gentleman would have climbed up the ivory tower into an administrative position, maybe even a professorship.

So, it is of little surprise to some of us that the visiting American professor was allowed to plod ahead without a rebuttal.

Although I thoroughly disagree with his point, in the spirit of academic freedom and dialogue, the knee-jerk reactions of pundits and apologetic administrators afterwards irked me.

This is typical behaviour that mires accountability and academic rigor in our local universities – point the finger elsewhere when the proverbial dung hits the fan.

This is the same attitude that informs the banning of Beyonce in Malaysia.

My immediate question was: how come nobody responded or said anything? Was this part conveniently left out from the news reports? Did he saunter off stage with a grin on his face? Was everyone busy queueing up for the coffee and kueh outside?

Academic talks are not briefings. Question-and-answer sessions and dialogues are part of such events. We need healthy and energetic repudiation, not cancellations or bans.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the outcome of kowtow culture that is well entrenched in our public institutions, our universities included.

The American professor was not the problem – the system that invited him was. – May 3, 2024.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.