Whispers and walls: The danger of anonymous slander in institutions we love — Nahrizul Adib Kadri

Malay Mail

17-05-2025

MAY 17 — In 1986, I was just a boy, crouched beside my siblings under the shade of a stairwell, trying not to fidget while our Abah attended his convocation at Dewan Tunku Canselor. He was receiving his Islamic Studies degree from UM that day. The whole family came along from Johor. We couldn't go inside the great hall, so we waited — across the road, across the field — in front of a building I barely noticed.
Years later, as an engineering undergraduate, I realised that very building — with its scent of oil, sun-warmed cement, and metal — was part of my own faculty. The place where I had once waited for my father to graduate would become the place where I learned, taught, and stayed. First as a student. Then as a lecturer. It's funny how places circle back into our lives, like chapters written before we could read them.
That memory — a child waiting for his father, not knowing that one day he'd belong to the same institution — comes to me often. It reminds me that for some of us, UM isn't just a workplace. It isn't just a university. It's a timeline. A legacy. A second home that helped shape our first.
Which is why it pains me to write what comes next.
Over the past month or so, a series of unsigned newsletters have been quietly circulating within our university community. Bold in tone, dramatic in presentation — complete with diagrams and accusations — they name names. They map networks. They point fingers at senior leadership, alleging nepotism, mismanagement, and more.
They are anonymous.
Now let me be clear: I'm not here to defend individuals. The people named are capable, experienced, and, if necessary, answerable. That's not my role.
But I am deeply concerned about what this whisper culture is doing to us. Not just as an institution, but as a community.
Critique, when done right, is not only useful — it's essential. Universities should welcome challenge, debate, transparency. No one, regardless of title, should be above question. But criticism loses its moral weight when it hides behind shadows. When it dodges accountability. When it forgets that even truth, delivered without ownership, can become a weapon.
Because what we risk losing here isn't image. It's trust.
When walls start to whisper, people stop talking. Dialogue turns to doubt. And fear replaces clarity.
We've seen this play out elsewhere around us, offline and online. The same pattern: a faceless claim, a breakdown in morale, and then, silence. But a university, of all places, should be better. We are not built on silence. We are built on speech. On arguments that stand because they are signed. On inquiry that doesn't retreat behind anonymity.
So we must ask ourselves, honestly: what kind of culture are we building here?
Do we want to be a place where people tear others down through unsigned PDFs? Or do we want to be a space where we raise concerns directly, openly, and with the courage to own our views?
I have spent most of my adult life at UM. I've been a student here. A researcher. A principal of residential colleges. A director of communications. I've walked these corridors wearing many different badges. And in all that time, one truth has held steady for me: that UM is not just Universiti Malaya.
To me, it has always been 'Untukmu Malaysia'.
It's a gift. From the nation to its people — and from its people back to the nation. It's ours to protect. And protection doesn't always mean defence. Sometimes, it means asking the hard questions. Sometimes, it means holding each other accountable — but with integrity, not insinuation.
One day, perhaps ten years from now, I may offer myself to help lead this institution. If that time comes, I hope to do so not through alliances formed in corners, but through trust earned in daylight.
But until then, I will continue to serve the way I know how. And I will speak — especially when the silence threatens to undo the very things I love most about this place.
To those who write in the shadows: if your cause is just, bring it into the light. Sign your name. Make your case. Join the conversation. Because only then do we become more than critics.
Only then do we become builders.
* Ir Dr Nahrizul Adib Kadri is a professor of biomedical engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, and the Principal of Ibnu Sina Residential College, Universiti Malaya. He may be reached at [email protected]
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.