Zen & the Half-Past-Six University

Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) was the so-called centre of higher learning which gave us The Half-Past-Six Book, where the the content of the book was so racist that even an UMNO Minister, Mohd Nazri, currently acting Law Minister, condemned it as seditious and a piece of rubbish that should be withdrawn.

Indeed PM AAB had the half-past-six book withdrawn, although he provided his usual ‘elegant’ words to euphemise the reason.

Malaysiakini reader Vijay wrote in to to say that withdrawing the textbook was not good enough, because the root cause has not yet been dealt with. He wants action taken against those racists who compiled the offensive text. KTemoc commented that I wasn’t going to hold my breath waiting for that, certainly not until half-past-six. ;-)

That's the infamous UPM. Now, in another incident at this same so-called centre of higher learning, where young blokes sent there to take up tertiary education took up thuggery education instead, the university was forced into setting up a committee to investigate reported acts of what had been thuggish intimidation of a group of victims - 'forced into' to avoid bringing in the police. The thuggery was apparently abetted by one university security guard.

After several weeks of investigation, UPM’s vice-chancellor Prof Dr Nik Mustapha R Abdullah told a press conference that the investigating committee - surprise surprise, surprise - would not take disciplinary action against the 11 students who manhandled and intimidated another group of students.

Nik Mustapha said that the committee found that the victims were equally responsible for the fracas. He said the incident was ‘localised’ involving only a certain group of students and was not sparked by racial issues.

Whether the incident was 'localised' at the university or that it happened due to non-racial issues, was not the point. The vice-chancellor, or the investigating committee should be answering to these: Were there acts of thuggery and aggressive intimidation? Did a univeristy security guard participate?

When asked whether the UPM student representative council leader Abdul Manaf Ariffin - who was involved in the scuffle - would be allowed to continue in his position, Nik Mustapha said: “His term is finishing”. We take it that the vice-chancellor oblique answer meant 'yes', and that Abdul Manaf would be allowed to continue.

By then, one obtained that the press conference by the vice-chancellor would end up in a predictable outcome, and one could not be faulted for concluding the findings of the university investigation had been Hutton-ised.

Nik Mustapha's most outrageous denial was that of the evidence from a direct video recording of the incident – maybe that's because it wasn't a half-past-six video recording?

Asked to explain portion of the video recording which showed pro-campus authority students shouting and heckling another group of students, Nik Mustapha said they ‘were merely singing and cheering, and not shouting’. A victim said the video recording clearly showed otherwise: “If that is not shouting, then what is?”

Maybe the victim-student does not have the higher-educated 'vision' of a vice-chancellor professor who could see but not see?

To another question about a press photographer whose camera was damaged while recording the scuffle, the vice-chancellor claimed the reporter (also a student) from the Chinese vernacular news website Merdeka Review, had confessed that the damage occurred due to her own carelessness.

The press photographer rejected the vice-chancellor claims. UPM student and Merdeka Review trainee reporter, Chew Siew Foong flatly denied she had told UPM authorities that it was her own carelessness which caused her camera to be damaged during the scuffle.

Maybe the student-press photographer does not have the higher-educated 'hearing' of a vice-chancellor professor who could not hear but hear.

'... could see but not see ... could not hear but hear ...'? Hey, this is getting rather Zen like. Maybe the vice-chancellor was from Fu Mountain?

The victims of the thuggish manhandling said the vice-chancellor was whitewashing the appalling incident which frighteningly displayed thuggish culture, a black culture that, mind you, has good application in a certain body.

... white-washing ... black culture ... white & black ... yang & yin ... Zen ...? Hmmm, certainly Fu Mountain.

Nik Mustapha said the committee’s investigations were conducted in ‘a transparent and fair manner’ and he trusted the integrity of the investigation body. But he refused to reveal the contents of the report.

The victims disagreed with UPM’s version of the incident and its claim that there were no injuries involved. They said if indeed the committee’s investigation was truly carried out in a 'fair and transparent manner', then the university authorities should be willing the reveal the contents of their report.

Maybe the vice-chancellor or the university has a different definition of 'transparent & fair manner'? But don’t wait until half-past-six for the university to release the unedited findings of the committee.

Here’s a university whose academicians can write a racist book for ethnic relations class, termed as seditious by the Law Minister. Can we then expect the university to maintain a non-racist environment for its students? Or, to impartially investigate a thuggish manhandling incident where even one university security guard joined in? Where the vice-chancellor could ignore a direct video recording of the incident, reckon jeering was cheering, and aggressive intimidatory shoutings were mere singing, and claim a trainee press photographer had admitted to a fault she hadn't?

But the Zen response would be 'don't answer for they're answered'. To conclude, here's a Zen story (no, not from Fu Mountain) for you:

One day, Jizo received one of Hofuku's disciples and asked him, "How does your teacher instruct you?"

The disciple replied,"My teacher instructs me to shut my eyes and see no evil thing; to cover my ears and hear no evil sound; to stop my mind-activities and form no wrong ideas."

Jizo said, "I do not ask you to shut your eyes but you do not see a thing. I do not ask you to cover your ears, but you do not hear a sound. I do not ask you to cease your mind-activities, but you do not form any idea at all."