Catastrophe has become such a marketplace word. The four syllables in succession ring and amplify your own localized version of bad news, making you feel like the world’s caving in.

Maybe it is.

I think there’s something deep-seated that gets moved when your own institutions of higher learning are given the once-over and then summarily dismissed. Cuts even deeper when it’s foreigners who are being dismissive. Head over to Jeff Ooi’s post about university rankings, and read the comments. Most deplore the state of universities in Malaysia, and I think we all know the reasons for such a low ranking.


The funny thing is, no one really wants to talk about it. Why? I suppose recent goings-on regarding racial slurs and such are the answer; not that the answer would run along racial lines, no, but that a compact of silence now exists in the blog-o-sphere. You can almost feel it. A palpable fear. Is this mere melodrama on my part?

What does it mean when you are told that your institutions of higher learning are far below par? Simply that you are churning out graduates who will not be of any use to employers. I’m sure that’s part of the answer from an economic perspective, besides not building on a solid middle-class base these future graduates will form.

No, no, what does it mean to the layman? I mean, the man in the street? Just imagine for a moment a kopitiam uncle with kids, hard-earned savings and thinking about how to afford paying for his children’s education. Local universities seem the best choice for some, having one’s choices mitigated by financial constraints for some. Suddenly you hear news that the local university you’ve been talking to your child about is crap.

You spend several sleepless nights wondering how your kids are going to secure a life for themselves if they can’t be properly equipped to deal with life. What options do you have? You can’t send your kids to Australia or Canada, or any foreign country for that matter, because you simply can’t afford it. Or maybe your kids are exceedingly bright and you, the kopitiam uncle, suddenly entertain that glimmer of hope for a scholarship.

Then you recall how biased things can get where awarding scholarships are concerned; your kids may be smart, but you’re more realistic.

And how are the kids going to take it? They live in a world where they are told one thing, and another thing is done. They see kids of a different stripe being driven around in large SUVs, walking around with the trappings of the rich. Some of these kids who watch may also be privileged by the efforts of their parents, but they know somehow that their parents will never be as privileged as the parents of these strutting young turks.

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Aquinas tells us that conscience is the ability to tell right from wrong. Conscience may be malformed, twarted or perverted by wrong thought and wrong action. The faculty of conscience is an innate ability which is a gift from God. As far back as I remember, when conscience first stirred me to act, it arose out of a sense of unfairness.

Fairness. Such a charged word, sometimes such a selfish word because “fairness” is in many ways self-reflexive. What you think is fair might not be so for everyone else. Fortunately enough, when everyone else thinks something is unfair, to then regard this such thing as fair begs many questions.

Ethnic chauvanism, power-grabbing, enjoying the largese provided for by others: just so many things where fairness must be applied. That fairness is not applied as such is the meaning of the word “catastrophe” for me today.