COMMENT | Invoking Mandela is intellectually embarrassing

COMMENT | I am a visitor to Malaysia. Although my family has a historical connection to this country going back to the early years after Merdeka and the leadership of Tunku Abdul Rahman, with a deeper heritage as a Cape Malay, I am obliged to respect and give deference to my hosts.

I am hesitant, therefore, to get involved or comment on the day-to-day politics of Malaysia. That’s one position I take, never mind that I am a columnist and essayist back in South Africa.

In another position, donning my cap as an academic – I am a visiting professor at the Multimedia University – I am absolutely wedded to the belief that scholarship and the research produced by academics should be more accessible, more readable and readily relevant to the daily lives of people.

Academic scholarship and research have little to no use if it remains aloof and disembedded, as it were, from the society in which it is moored.

As it goes, the lecturer teaches not just the student in class; that student returns regularly to their family, community, and society.

It is at those intersections where academic teaching and learning have to be relevant and help members of society make better decisions about their daily lives and their future. All of this is useful to bear in mind but is a topic for another day.

What got me writing this brief opinion and commentary is the Mandela-Factor has been invoked recently and commented on in this publication.

In deference to my hosts, I will not get directly involved in the politics of Malaysia, nor in government, state, or society.

What I will say about the raising of the Mandela-Factor - which is the habit of slipping behind the decency, humility, and ethical values embodied by Nelson Mandela - is that it is intellectually embarrassing.

To fully understand the basis of this statement, I should provide a brief reflection of my own work on and with the South African anti-apartheid activist who served as the first president of South Africa, Mandela.

I worked as a journalist in South Africa during...