I wonder why the sudden brouhaha about run-of-the-mill degrees. It started with political activist Muhsin Abdul Latheef lodging a police report over a Facebook user’s claim in a Feb 3 post that the University of Cambridge did not offer the distance-learning programme in business administration that Deputy Foreign Minister Marzuki Yahya claims to have pursued.
The inquisition which started from that Facebook posting spread to innocent parties like wildfire. People began posting Singapore ministers’ qualifications as a comparison, and talked of ministers in European countries who had to resign when they misrepresented their qualifications.
All of a sudden, we are benchmarking our ministers’ qualifications against those in other countries.
The qualifications of five or more Pakatan Harapan ministers are being called into question, including the affable Mat Sabu (Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu) who loves cooking, and Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng who loves numbers. Wikipedia is now the trusted gold standard for reference. I can only say, we can trust Wikipedia as much as we can trust anyone who tells us that they don’t know who put RM2.6 billion into their personal bank account.
It seems like some people are on a witch hunt. Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin, one of those accused, said she is not responsible for the wrongful entry in Wikipedia which claims that she is an NUS graduate.
The issue of dubious degrees is nothing new.
In June 2013, Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming from DAP raised questions about two ministers, human resources minister Richard Riot and science, technology and innovation minister Ewon Ebin, who were alleged to hold fake degrees.
Ong said then-prime minister Najib Razak must sack members of his Cabinet found with engineered academic qualifications to prove his commitment to government reforms.
Once in the government, Ong, who is now deputy international trade and industry minister, changed his tune.
In a tweet, he now says one does not need a degree to be a good politician or a successful CEO. His tweet not only contradicted himself but also vindicated Riot and Ewon.
Of course, a mufti has to step into the argument by posting on his Facebook page that a government which continues to involve a person who has committed fraud over his credentials cares little for integrity.
No capable government in the world would allow those in leadership to possess fake degrees. Lying about possessing a degree is a sign of self-dishonesty, he added.
I wish our muftis would stick to religion instead of commenting on dishonesty. They would gain more credibility if they pointed out the sins of our leaders who robbed the country, or raised questions when Clare Rewcastle-Brown of Sarawak Report alleged that PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang took RM90 million from Umno.
Nobody in this world would accept a leader who misrepresents himself in his academic credentials, period. But instead of condemning these leaders, I see another side to the argument. We should ask ourselves why some people in our society would succumb to peer pressure.
Malaysia has created a culture where honorifics and degrees seem to get you respect and standing in society. Integrity, honesty and hard work is all good, but you need a “Datuk” title to get a good table when the restaurant is full, or choice parking in front of a five-star hotel. You need it to jump queue when the clinic is full of sick people waiting in line, or to be included when the MC at a function mentions the Datuks in the crowd.
It does not matter when people joke that if you throw a stone into the crowd, you are guaranteed to hit a Datuk. Or when somebody greets a Datuk in a room and a dozen or so people turn their heads, thinking he or she is referring to them. What matters is that you are a Datuk, with a Datuk emblem on your car that entitles you to park anywhere. We are at fault for creating a society dependent on honorific titles or degrees to claim status in life.
Sometimes titles can be a liability. The media favourite, for example, is to headline “Datuk caught beating up a security guard”, “Datuk caught for operating a massage parlour without licence”, “Datuk caught with his pants down”.
Here again, the offending Datuk does not have a name but every Datuk in town is now a suspect. Social media goes on overdrive speculating over who the Datuk in question is.
When honorific titles are not enough, some add bogus degrees to their names. Peer pressure has gotten the better of them. It doesn’t matter if the most successful people in the world like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Michael Dell, etc are without degrees. In Malaysia, what matters most is the long list of titles after your name. The longer the better.
Sometimes, I put my honorific title when booking my flight. Even when travelling economy, I notice that I get more attention on MAS. If the flight attendant scrutinises the passenger list and finds out that you are a Datuk, you will be given extra peanuts to take home with you. Such is life.
Whatever your reasons for acquiring a bogus degree, if you are a public figure, your honesty will always be questioned. There is no escape. What good you do for the community or your constituency in the past will be eradicated in double quick time once you are exposed.
People are not forgiving when it comes to politicians.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT