Eventually, after the protestation and the outcry, Terence Gomez has resigned from his position at the University of Malaya.

The country has lost yet another talented and principled scholar. MU, that institution of higher learning that once enjoyed an exalted position among similar institutions in Southeast Asia in the early years of our independence, has taken another dip on its path of slow but certain decline. The brain hemorrhage of the nation continues unabated.

In my wildest dream, I would envision hoards of angry university students numbering perhaps in the tens of thousands - descending upon the MU campus to protest the blatant humiliation of our prominent academics at the hands of faceless bureaucrats and arrogant politicians.

But alas, this is Malaysia! Among other things, our present crop of university students have (what they consider to be) better things to do. Nothing is further from their busy mind than trivial and boring stuff like social justice and the moribund state of our universities. As their parents and their political patriarchs have harangued them ad nausium since childhood, their only mission in life is to study, pass exams, get a good job, raise a family, and live happily ever after.