tail-end activism: back to history soon

for the record, I would love to be the historian who runs across something like this interview in the archives.

what I learned today: I’m so enormously grateful that my primary source of PhD funding is not from the Malaysian government. I found out today just how skittish (and indeed hostile) many Malaysian students in Cambridge are about participating in, or even associating themselves with, Malaysian politics. Apart from the (numerous) apathetic ones, many are government scholars — that is to say, funded through their degrees with job-bonded scholarships from governmental bodies. If they get involved publicly, they risk losing their degrees and future careers.

of course, I’m still a Malaysian citizen, however circumspect that should make me. But it’s the tragic truth that you do what your money tells you to do (this goes for academic funding, mortgages, big business, political lobbies, jobs, etc.); fewer boundaries can be pushed safely. so I’m grateful for this much, at least.

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