Fake Australian Professors

| by Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

( June 11, 2012, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) I write in response to Sri Lanka Guardian article ‘The More Abominable Fake Degrees Or Professorships?’ by Professor Ratnajeevan Hoole.

Professor Hoole writes about cheap overseas universities ‘What one can question, however, is their degrees’ academic merit. The UGC has powers to recognize degrees and that is how these degrees should be tackled to save unwitting employers from employing the holders of such degrees and unwitting parents from marrying off their daughters to them’

I sought and discovered the real value of Sri Lankan Chartered Accountancy- as to what it meant to me. In terms of Professor Hoole’s Alma Mater – practically everyday, I look at the framed picture of the group of Engineers of University of Peradeniya which was the pinnacle of my husband’s Sri Lankan education. My husband did get a Master’s degree from the University of New South Wales, Australia, but I have so far not felt like hanging up on our walls any memorabilia in relation to that. The difference is that even now, the ‘substance’ used by my husband is from the Sri Lankan education into which a whole society invested through my husband’s positions in family, school, community and country. In terms of degrees therefore, each one needs to be taken as per its value to the user. There is no common currency of valuation outside technical/scientific component - beyond each university system.

My own battles with the Australian Administrative system helped me appreciate that in terms of work satisfaction – Sri Lankan Chartered Accountancy was as good as Australian Chartered Accountancy. But when it came to prestige – the latter has earned higher status due to the status of Australia being higher at Global level than the status of Sri Lanka. Likewise, the Engineering degree from University of Peradeniya in 1973 is vastly different in status to the current one. The reason is also emigration of those who brought richer investments into their university life. Emigration has left a shortage of minds through which to maintain traditional values.

I now observe myself and realize that the way I hear with my ear is sometimes different to the way I hear with my mind. I react to the former and settle-down through the latter. This gives me inner peace. The two would be similar to a weak mind and almost the same to a deep and steady mind. Blind people can see for their own purposes with their minds. Likewise those who meditate. Hence the third eye of Lord Shiva – representing which we wear the Pottu/Bindi – the dot in the middle of our forehead.

The mind of a frivolous person is filled with hearsay. Hence plagiarism is a crime in educational institutions. I learnt through my Australian experience that Australian Professors and Judges are also guilty of plagiarism when it comes to knowledge of Equal Opportunity & Democratic Management. I was able to measure this through my own wisdom in Equal Opportunity and Democracy.

If Professor Hoole was asked the question –‘Who employs you?’ and he says ‘Michigan State University ’, my next question would be ‘who is the University?’ Keeping in mind, the Professors I know personally – the responses to this would be two:

(1) The students and Vice Chancellor

(2) ‘themselves as professors or the Vice Chancellor as their senior.

The first (1) is as per their memory through plagiarism of Democracy. The second (2) is as per their deeper memory through actual life. In younger Universities they are rewarded for answer (1) and in older Universities they enjoy being part of the University. The former is for calculated rewards and is therefore through surface memory. The latter is for ownership enjoyment – discovered through research of the self – an essential criterion for every academic to become real Professor.

The other day, our 5 year old granddaughter Kali - said to me about their new home ‘This is my house and I know all the rules of this house’. I smiled and shared with her through a mental hug, my wisdom in democracy which I believe would help her interpret those rules – so she would practice real democracy and not reverse autocracy. The latter often leads to hallucination which a good number of our academics suffer from to varying degrees. The family parallel of the above question about the University system could be asked of parents and they are likely to bring out different combinations from different cultures. To my granddaughter – she is the family when she thinks no one else of higher status is around. Likewise to most young Professors they are the University when the one holding the chief position is not around. In their backgrounds – they start practicing reverse autocracy when they run short of juniors through whom they could exercise autocracy. LTTE thus returned autocratic ways of politicians and when they had their ‘privacy’ in Vanni, they developed that very system they claimed they were fighting against. Likewise, the Sri Lankan government claiming sovereignty during the last phase of the war.

Dr. Hoole states ‘On the other hand, the far more serious problem is when people without the requisite credentials take over our national universities and run them with their fake professorships. They rapidly infect the system and everything falls apart as has happened.’

The higher the level of education the more subjective our knowledge becomes. We ‘show’ less and ‘know’ more. Subjective knowledge / judgment / decision is from mind to mind, without first translating into objectively measurable/scientific units of knowledge. The mind says and the mind sees/listens. We do not need to say – ‘this rose is red and is sweet smelling’. Both sides know that that is the case when we refer to rose. Likewise, when we say ‘triangle’ – as mathematicians we do not need to spell out that its angles equal 180 degrees. It’s that common understanding that gives us the mind connection beyond particular language. Likewise, when a Tamil says to a Tamil – ‘Sri Lankan war’ – they are both likely to identify with ‘ethnicity’ as the reason. But when a Sinhalese says to another Sinhalese - ‘Sri Lankan war’- they are both likely to identify with ‘Anti Terrorism’ picture. Hence, ‘Australian Professor’ would mean something to me through my experience – and another to Professor Hoole through his knowledge based calculations. To the extent of that gap between our conclusions the ‘Australian Professor’ is ‘fake’ to me. Likewise Australian Chartered Accountant who failed to connect to my mind.

Professor Hoole states ‘Under threat of trumped up criminal charges for an article he wrote in The Sunday Leader on election malpractices by Minister Douglas Devananda, the author fled Sri Lanka where he and his wife had been terminated from their permanent academic positions and refused appointments even as Senior Lecturer. Both were quickly absorbed at full-professor’s rank at Michigan State University, a top-50 national research university in the US’

Becoming a Professor is usually highly subjective. It is like the Vice Chancellor of the University of New South Wales winning against a migrant of Sri Lankan origin complaining of unlawful racial discrimination, in Federal Court of Australia. The judge’s mind speaks to the Vice Chancellor’s mind through the latter’s status and what it represents. Likewise, Minister Devananda winning in Sri Lankan courts against someone without much political status in Sri Lanka. If Professor . Hoole were to sue the President of Michigan State University – he is not likely to win. The mind that Professor Hoole uses with Minister Devananda is as per his true experience. But to win in Sri Lankan Courts subjectively – one needs that ‘fake’ status – including in politics. Sri Lankan Politics is in most Sri Lankan courts. Like with currencies – the two systems are not directly comparable.

Becoming a politician is through faith based bottom-up path. When Dr. Hoole is elected as Professor by students and staff at the base of his institutional unit – he would better appreciate that each system works for its own investors towards their mind to mind connection. Outsiders need to become ‘ordinary shareholders’ / citizens to win against fakes, for themselves and for those who have faith in them. We thus remove that ‘fake’ element from our own lives.

During a dispute in Thunaivi area in Northern Sri Lanka, some villagers suggested that I complained to the Police about trespass. I declined on the basis that I did not go to Police when the local Government Administrators were, as per my assessment, trespassing. Instead, I am in the process of finding out the true common grievances of the villagers to identify with the real reason as to why they cut the barbed-wire fence. I am proposing to exercise my lawful powers to offset the effects of trespass by the first resident of that area – the Government – by objectively measurable remedies that would cure the real grievances of the villagers who cut the barbed-wire fence. I have merely registered the event with the Vaddukoddai Police as a formality. The real solution needs to be by the villagers through themselves. By treating the offending villagers as being equal to the Government and hence not complaining against the villagers because I did not complain against the Government Officers – I reconfirmed to myself and to others who are being trained by me – the bottom up values of Democracy – so that we do not have another war due to reverse autocracy. No Politician or official has had a democratic win above me in that area. I lost ‘fake status’ in Australia and gained real enjoyment in Thunaivi-Sri Lanka where faith is more powerful than knowledge.