PERGERAKAN Tenaga Akademik Malaysia (Gerak) is deeply concerned with the recent public comments made by the media and communications adviser to the prime minister, A. Kadir Jasin.

Kadir apparently was upset with the writings and revelations of a lone, rather junior, academic from UKM, Abdul Muein Abadi.

Muein, who is currently working on his PhD in Leiden, Holland, incurred Kadir’s wrath in an article which asserted that the Pakatan Harapan government had sold off RM20 billion in assets since winning GE14.

The article was posted on Umno-Online, Umno’s official news portal.

It is a rather shaky article that has 40 points, accompanied by links and little discussion or analysis. It’s the kind of sensationalist, pseudo-academic piece that throws a few reports together, without context or explanation.

Based on this flimsy piece, Kadir started hurling accusations of a conspiracy by the oft-mentioned but seldom analysed “deep state”.

In his diatribe, Kadir lumped together Muein with the UKM vice-chancellor and the chair of UKM’s board of directors as possible deep-state conspirators.

And he then asserted that Education Minister Maszlee Malik was being taken for a ride by these evil-doers.

Yes, this outburst was based on an article with fewer than 1,500 words.

Kadir evidently is no academic. Otherwise, he would have easily differentiated between a well-discussed academic analysis and really, a first year undergraduate piece like Muein’s.

But Gerak’s more serious contention is that even if it had been a thorough, well-researched and analysed paper criticising the PH government, so what?

Academic freedom and responsibility means seeking truths and verifying them. And often the truth need not necessarily be our truth and will hurt. But differences of opinion and dissent are part and parcel of academia, of knowledge acquisition and generation.

If the work is faulty and clearly biased, it is our task – and indeed even Kadir’s – to criticise the work, reveal its limitations and failings, and come up with a counter.

This was what happened earlier this year when the substandard work on the Statute of Rome, by the four now-disgraced academics from UIA, UiTM and USIM, was systematically and comprehensively critiqued and dismissed by real experts.

That these four did not defend their stand at all speaks volumes of their shame and possible loss of face and credibility. 

None of us asked for them to be disciplined or even sacked. No one asked the Education Ministry and minister to interfere and punish them.

For Gerak, it must be the same with Muein and his article. Criticise his work if we must, question his value as a scholar perhaps.

But let us not get so paranoid as to believe, without a shred of evidence, that there is this big conspiracy.

Kadir may be the PM’s media and communications adviser. But as far as academia is concerned, he must not be our censor.

What Kadir is doing is political interference. What he is implying the education minister must do also is political interference.

This is not – and must not be – the way of the New Malaysia.

Gerak consistently rejects political interference in academia. Such interference is one of the major reasons Malaysian academia is in the sad state it is in.

Academic reform, however, slow, is taking place. But it won’t go very far if we allow these kinds of actions – by people who should know better – to continue. – July 9, 2019.

* Zaharom Nain is Gerak chairman.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.