In making this call, MCA Religious Harmony Bureau Secretary Chris Daniel Wong said that the lecturer had hurt the sensitivities of the Hindu and Sikh communities in Malaysia by using the erroneous slides.
“We applaud the frankness of the apology over the derogatory remarks.
“As an academician, they know that they should only use approved materials. What is more disappointing is that the lecturer(s) cooked up his/her (their) own teaching materials which not only do not reflect the true content of the subject matter, but have introduced falsity,” he said in a statement today.
He added that subjects and matters related to religion should be referred to experts of the religion and those who profess the religion, and not to academicians who interpret it according to their personal perceptions.
“The entire MOOC-approved slides should be totally re-looked and revamped by an interfaith council to ensure such an incident does not repeat.
“Such an incident is an awakening call to all of us whereby important matters involving sensitivities have been left to so-called academicians to interpret. We wonder if there will any error in those MOOC-approved slides in the future. We won’t know,” Wong said.
Meanwhile, DAP National Legal Bureau chairman Gobind Singh Deo said that while an internal probe over the slides insulting the Hindu and Sikh religions was welcome, that alone was insufficient to address the issue as what happened was totally unacceptable.
“It is somewhat difficult to accept that an institute of higher learning could have made such an abhorrent and insensitive ‘mistake’,” he said.
“Surely they knew what was going on. Those slides were being used and there was no need to wait until it became a national issue before acting.”
Those who produced and subsequently used the slides ought to have realised the error, but yet they carried on and did nothing about it, he said, adding that these people were clearly unfit to teach in institutes of higher learning for they themselves had a lot to learn.
“The police must probe and act against those responsible, and action must be taken against those who produced the slides and those who used them as well. Those responsible must not only be disciplined, but charged in court and punished,” said Gobind, insisting that firm action be taken.
On Monday, Deputy Education Minister P Kamalanathan posted a screenshot of the erroneous teaching module that has sparked outrage among Hindus and Sikhs in the country.
The slides stated that “some Hindu followers believe that dirt on the body is a ritual which could lead to the attainment of Nirvana.”
Another slide claimed that Sikhism was a combination of Islam and Hinduism but that “Sikhism founder Kabir” did not fully understand Islam and was influenced by the surrounding Hindu communities.