Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 38, Number 13. 12th June 1975
Overseas Student Congress Report
Overseas Student Congress Report
Dear Salient,
1) | I had in fact submitted a lengthy report on the Overseas Conference to the editor of Salient, for publication in the May 29 issue. | ||||||||
2) | However, well-informed sources have it that the editor decided to hold up the report for another week in order to allow certain persons working within the Salient staff and Studass to write out replies to the criticisms noted in my article for publication concurrently with my report in the following issue of Salient. | ||||||||
3) | However, during the following week I was advised by the editor that my report would be rejected and replaced by the report by Bryony Hales that was subsequently published in Salient June4. | ||||||||
4) | The reasons given for rejecting my report were as follows, and I quote:
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Question: Have you any solid, substantive reasons aside from that ...?
Answer: Silence ... long pause ...eh, that's good enough reason.
I leave it to readers to judge the value of the sort of report that was finally published in Salient's June 4 issue. In the meantime, could I suggest perhaps that Salient publish a booklet on 'How to write a report for Salient', listing perhaps all the relevant points, attitudes, ideological premises, etc that would be required of any report seeking publication in Salient. Then perhaps, there will be no need for some of us to bother putting too much time and effort into writing up articles for Salient Better still, Salient could perhaps reprint reports from the local Women's Weekly or even better (dare I say it?) ...the local Press.
Krishna Menon
(Salient prints letters that are submitted without alteration even if they are known to be factually incorrect as is this one. Krishna Menon is very much less than honest in his outline of my reasons for rejecting his report. I received his report in time for the May 29 issue but decided not to publish it then as I was very much adverse to its general approach and because other people who had gone to the Overseas Students Conference disputed many of his facts. I decided that at the very least an alternative report should be placed alongside it should it appear, at most I felt it should not appear at all. I then asked Bryony Hales to prepare a report on the Overseas Students Conference.
Before the next issue of Salient I had a discussion with Krishna Menon about the content of his report. Although I no longer have a copy of the report I can remember that it would not take much effort to see in it a description of sneaky Maoist subversives twisting the minds of poor innocent Malaysian students. I pointed out several parts implying this, and said that this was exactly what the Malaysian High Commission had been saying last year when Malaysian students reacted to the arrest of Khoo Ee Liam. Krishna put forward no argument against these allegations.
Point B is also an accurate quote — unfortunately it fails to disprove my statements. I said that several parts had been pointed out to me as totally innacurate and that I was unwilling to print them. The reply this time was that it added spice to the report. Not one single allegation was denied.
Point C is roughly accurate. The whole tone of the report was one of lazy cynicism. Good intentions were ridiculed and behind every action as sinister motive was placed, eg. a section where he ridiculed the concern (which he placed in quotes) that privileged members of Malaysian society such as university Students felt for the squatters at Tasek Utara (which he also put in quotes). That many university students have been placed in jail for these supposedly false emotions and that recently over a thousand students were arrested in Malaysia on charges of unlawful assembly doesn't seem to convince him of their sincerity of purpose in their concern over the plight of fellow Malaysians.
Point D just had to be a misquote — and it is. What the hell ping-pong has to do with anything I don 't know, but I suppose it does look good. In fact, at this stage, all I was doing was pointing out one of the many slurs on the organisers, NZUSA and others involved in the Conference. The actual article read something like 'what do you expect with a bunch of fervent Maoists organising the affair' which, of course, plays directly into the hands of the Malaysian High Commission, who have been saying that far longer than Krishna Menon.
Krishna Menon knows full well that I offered many more reasons for refusing his article than he outlines in those four short quotes. His request for other reasons was made at the end of a long explanation of why I was unwilling to print his article.
Krishna Menon's approach to this letter is basically the same as the approach to his article. He is not concerned with the facts — except to deliberately misrepresent them. He expects this to result in debate as people rally against him. The unfortunate thing is that he doesn't seem to care that people have to waste a great deal of time putting the record straight just because of his ideas of what creates debate. The easiest thine for me to have done would have been to reject his letter as I rejected his article for it is not worth the effort needed to reply to it. — Ed.)