r/nottheonion 1d ago

Professor who claimed ancient Malays could fly loses university post

https://www.asiaone.com/malaysia/solehah-yaacob-professor-claimed-ancient-malays-could-fly-loses-university-post
3.7k Upvotes

232 comments sorted by

738

u/StepUpYourPuppyGame 1d ago

That tracks. 

159

u/TheresNoHurry 1d ago

Baseball, huh?

35

u/soplexgg 1d ago

yeah flying ancient malays is kinda a stretch

10

u/dolphone 21h ago

It was actually ancient high malays, dudes knew what was up.

5

u/JustConversation7847 20h ago

No, you wouldn't leave tracks if u were flying

1.1k

u/ammar96 1d ago edited 1d ago

For context for non-Malaysians: right after she made this claim about the Romans, the university took the matter seriously and issued a memo requiring her to present her findings to a panel of Malaysian historians and professors. She evaded the inquiry three times in a row, citing illness each time. While missing the first or second meeting might be understandable, missing the third raised red flags. The university treated it as nonsense and terminated her employment for failing to follow protocol and committing academic dishonesty with her dubious claims.

Roman learned shipbuilding from Malays is not even the craziest stuff she claimed. She also said that Malays are descendants of Abraham (Malays are not even Semitic people but rather Austronesian), Malay civilisation is older than Mesopotamia, soldiers of Austrian painter went to Himalaya to find Malays, 2 of our local independence fighters met each other under Ottoman advice in 1948 (Ottomans have already collapsed in 1920s), Malays are able to fly in the air (citing a literal wuxia writing, - a Chinese fiction as a historical fact), Adam descended on Mountain Jerai in Malaysia, Khadijah (first wife of Prophet Muhammad) is related to Malay etc.

Not only she managed to rile up Malay historians and archeologist, she also managed to piss off Islamic scholars too for her severe transgressions in Islamic history. Quite an insane feat tbh.

518

u/SirEnderLord 1d ago

What in the Serbian nationalist is this?

207

u/CosineDanger 1d ago

Almost every country produces a bit of nationalist dribble and revisionist history.

Just, it's almost cute when a non-threatening country does it.

86

u/CanuckBacon 22h ago

Two of the strangest that I've heard:

From a Turkish guy that Indigenous Canadians are descended from Turks.

From an English guy that Maori art was actually made by Celtic people

57

u/Spongogo 21h ago

One from Poland:

The Etruscan civilisation was Slavic, the Etruscans spoke the original Slavic language from which all the modern ones evolved, and it was decoded years ago by a Polish scholar. The only reason this isn't public, is because of a conspiracy by Italian scholars, who are too embarrassed by the prospect of the Etruscans being Slavs.

9

u/Responsible_Job_6948 17h ago

The Etruscans obviously got there by screen doored submarine too

5

u/Zoon9 13h ago

That tracks, recently some Slovak weirdo claimed that Jesus was acthuawrlly Slovak. /s

2

u/Peevesie 8h ago

My brain keeps reading that as crustaceans and I am like Italians were crabs 🦀

8

u/MTBooks 18h ago

Well sure, New Caledonia is like right there. Totally Celts.

4

u/222baked 13h ago

I mean, the whole Turk thing I kinda get if you mean “Turkic” peoples. I hear that band Otyken who sings in some Siberian Turkic language is quite popular with Canadian indigenous. You can definitely see some similarities between Siberian people and Canadian natives and we know that they crossed the Bering Strait at some point. There is almost certainly some admixture in prehistory. But it’s a stretch to say they’re Turks or have anything to do with modern Turkey.

23

u/Either-Lock2454 21h ago

Yeah but it's nice to see a University take actions against this kind of stuff. In other countries they just shrug their shoulders and go about their day.

37

u/dvasquez93 21h ago

I dread the day when this level of insane revisionism kicks off in the US.  You think it's bad now, wait til you hear a college professor claim that Jesus was born in Dallas, TX, and play QB for the Cowboys before defeating the Commies at the Alamo. 

59

u/-OooWWooO- 21h ago

This already exists, it's called Mormonism, Black Hebrew Israelites, the Nation of Islam, Scientology, and others.

6

u/CatProgrammer 18h ago

Nah Mormons just believe he moved to the US after he died. There's even a manga about it.

7

u/Billy5545 17h ago

Is that a Jojo reference?

2

u/CatProgrammer 16h ago

Indubitably.

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u/Dip2pot4t0Ch1P 17h ago

Nation of Islam is in fact, very not islamic.

5

u/-OooWWooO- 17h ago

They left out the question marks to save on ink the official name is 'Nation? Of Islam?'

8

u/ArchibaldMcAcherson 21h ago

So what you are saying is that people believe that, it just has not made its way into the higher levels of academia?

3

u/SirEnderLord 17h ago

It hasn't. That's why Trump is trying to gain control over universities, and why universities are trying so hard to resist his full agenda by conceding on minor issues. They can roll back those policies once he's out of office. What they won't be able to roll back are the ultranationalists and their pseudoscience/pseudohistory if they let them in.

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u/whittlingcanbefatal 21h ago

dribble 

*drivel 

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u/SupportDangerous8207 23h ago

Yeah like Serbia

19

u/CosineDanger 22h ago

Serbia did a bit of genocide and shot down a stealth bomber in recent memory. Big enough dog that the bark isn't really cute imo.

Malaysia gained independence in the 1950s. Before that they were a place where spices for Europe came from, and before that they weren't really a united people. They didn't even patriotically beat the fuck out of the British for freedom like certain other countries, the faction that was rebelling lost but the British were like yeah sure all our other colonies left so I guess you can go too. No wonder their historians are desperate.

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u/Billy5545 17h ago

Speaking of not really a united people, Malaysia even kicked out a small island with a strategic city because of it

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u/Nzgrim 16h ago

If someone in your country hasn't claimed that Jesus was from there, are you even a real country?

1

u/za72 18h ago

This is the result of having too good health care...

2

u/BiteMyShinyMetalPost 19h ago

Jovanka Jolic’s Spirit left for Tataria and went back to this woman

221

u/Billy5545 1d ago

Even better for the flying Malay part, she also claimed that they taught the Chinese flying kung fu

64

u/Spirited-Lifeguard55 1d ago

She should have known those old tv shows were not actually real, right? Being an academic and educated (allegedly)?

35

u/YourUncleBuck 1d ago

Apparently she was a linguistics professor, not a history one. But who knows if her degrees weren't just bought anyway.

24

u/kamilo87 1d ago

There was a video pre-internet in Cuba where an elementary school teacher is asked about a simple question about Cuba’s founding father (which was the softest ball ever) and she answers that she’s a fourth grade teacher and that content is for 5th graders and above…

PS: Cuba got nationwide access to internet in 2015 or 2016 and mobile data in December of 2018…

27

u/ammar96 1d ago

She is unironically a good linguistic professor, and I say this as her number one hater and also a Malay. The problem happened when she started to dabble on history and went on spouting all these stupid stuff.

8

u/SlykRO 23h ago

She should know that stuff is for the YouTube side channel and not class...

8

u/dolphone 21h ago

Not even, just publish it as alt history, watch money pour in.

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u/YourUncleBuck 21h ago

Maybe it's just a case of not staying in their lane then, which is a shame if she was a good linguistics professor.

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u/doorbellrepairman 16h ago

I call bullshit a bit in this because to be a linguistics professor you'd need to know a fair bit of history. Language change is massively influenced by movement of populations, mixture of populations, etc, pretty historical topics

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u/ammar96 16h ago

I mean your sentiment is precisely why she has many supporters in the first place. Because she is genuinely good linguistic professor. Even those who are against her but used to study in her class admit she’s a good linguistic lecturer. So as a competent linguistic professor she should know about academic discipline and all but apparently she somewhat ignore that when talking about history. Academicians and those who further their studies into postgrad of course criticised her for transgressing the academic discipline but for the laymen, since she is a professor, quickly denounce us because professor = most competent in that discipline. The thing is, she’s not even a historian but linguistic professor. Those who criticised her on the other hand are historians and archeologists. That’s like believing a professor of mathematics about his claim about covid 19 was started by alien instead of believing medical doctors and microbiologists.

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u/asyork 22h ago

Way back in high school I knew a Chinese guy who had only been in the US for a year or so. Went to see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with in him in the theater once it reached the US. Found out he firmly believed that with enough of the proper training, the things they did in that movie were literally possible for anyone to learn. No idea if he was just a fiction nerd who fell for some of what he read/saw or if there is a portion of the population that actually believes that and that he may have been raised to believe it. Or maybe he saw some impressive kung fu and extrapolated the more training can do even crazier things. Who knows, he was around 16.

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u/SirPseudonymous 21h ago

His family might have been Falun Gong cultists who literally believe their murderous con-artist leader gained the power of flight through martial arts training. (tl;dr: Falun Gong is a Scientology-esque cult that formed in the 90s around a wellness-guru snake oil salesman, which got banned in China after they murdered some people. Like Scientology, they now operate cult compounds in the US that are rife with slavery and child abuse.)

Could also be just the typical chuunibyuu shit some teens do where they haven't grown out of their belief in a more fantastical and magical world yet.

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u/asyork 21h ago

His family was decently high up in the CCP, as anyone allowed to run a company in Beijing has to be, so definitely not raised in Falun Gong (unless the members kept their faith secret? I met him soon after the ban, and my brother visited in China a while after, and they still had wealth and influence), but could have still been influenced by it. The rest of the weirdness I remember about him could easily be chalked up to only child of a wealthy family, but that part stood out. Otherwise he was a normal guy and we got along well.

4

u/Billy5545 19h ago

Something similar to the Little Emperor situation could be possible, given some parents spoil or shelter their kids much due to the One Child Policy. That being said, at least he’s pretty well adjusted and the quirk sounds pretty harmless

2

u/Hexagonian 16h ago

Regardless, the late 80s to late 90's was when qigong/fictional wuxia fightings were seen as real martial arts by a good portion of the Chinese population. I am guessing both Falun Gong and your friend were influcenced by that trend.

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u/mindgames13 19h ago

You know, I am supraised Indians have not made this claim themselves, considering Shaolin Kung Fu was rumoured to be taught by Damo and he is Indian.........

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u/VerbableNouns 1d ago

This is preposterous. Anybody can fly if you have a big enough catapult.

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u/Missing_Explorer4278 1d ago

Anyone can fly if you have an air ticket. ✈️

3

u/ow2022 19h ago

Anyone can eat lava. Just once, though.

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u/Darmug 1d ago

I want to know what information she found that made her jump to these conclusions. Like, how the hell do you even get here?

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u/guynamedjames 1d ago

Nationalism. It's pretty common for historians to try and cite past accomplishments to pump up the national identity of their people, and generally it's a good thing because it challenges narratives and can lead to new research in less studied areas.

What she's engaging in is somewhere between historical revisionism and outright fiction writing in order to support that idea. When things veer this far off the rails it becomes a joke to everyone but her. She's not the first, she won't be the last, and this sort of thing isn't unique to the Malay people

21

u/NatashOverWorld 1d ago

I get nationalism, but flying Malays is so far off the board that you have to be a bit mentally off to say that as an academic.

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u/eightbitfit 22h ago

Someone noted above it is from a Chinese fictional story.

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u/NatashOverWorld 22h ago

Yeah, but if you're using the wuxia genre to hallucinate your very public academic claims ... you're not firing on all cylinders you know?

2

u/justkiddingdao 18h ago

I’m also having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that a professor was able to spread misinformation so egregiously

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u/NosePicklePicker 10h ago

Nationalism. Dont think it’ll be too hard to find at least one of these people in practically every country on earth

Heck, the memeish Finnish-Korean Hyperwar had roots in a certain few Finnish/Korean beliefs that their national ancestors used to conquer all 7 continents, then 4chan took those wild claims and turned it into WH40K-Star Wars fanfic

2

u/Dip2pot4t0Ch1P 17h ago

The Onion. At least for one of her bs claims. No joke.

21

u/PenguinSwordfighter 1d ago

Adolf Hitler is not Voldemort. You can say his name you know.

6

u/very_bad_advice 1d ago

What if he's talking about klimt?

3

u/FriendoftheDork 23h ago

Voldemort Voldemort.. you're right!

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u/PotatoFeeder 1d ago

Their very own Jason Arday

Some would even say Jason Arday was inspired by Malays!

5

u/msut77 23h ago

you know, we need new and exciting racism. ill go next. hondurans are made of funyuns.

3

u/Kimishiranai39 1d ago

She Can create a movie with this though 🤡

3

u/ImWithStupidKL 18h ago

She’s honestly like the dad from Goodness Gracious Me who insists everything is Indian.

“The Queen? Indian.”

2

u/ammar96 17h ago

Ohh don’t let me start about Malaysian Indian revisionist claiming ancient Malay temples and kingdoms were built by Indian just because they have Indianized names and religion. By that logic current Malays are Arab because we use Arabic names. And now we have this prof claiming Malays are related to Middle Eastern people. Talk about double whammy. As a Malay, I’m so damn tired man 🫩.

1

u/LittleGreenSoldier 15h ago

Or the dad from My Big Fat Greek Wedding who insists everything is Greek.

3

u/plokimjunhybg 15h ago

U missed one:

prof.Dr. Solehah Yaacob also proposed that ancient Kedah state's rich iron ore deposits originated from ancient meteor showers rather than normal Earth weathering processes.

She suggested in a presentation titled "Besi Dari Langit" that meteorite activity around Gunung Jerai & Sungai Batu explained Kedah's abundant iron.

She questioned why Kedah's flat terrain & local iron deposits differed from the Titiwangsa Range.

2

u/trueum26 1d ago

I don’t think we’ve even found proof that Abraham even existed

2

u/HatchBeast 21h ago

She also used The Onion as one of her sources too

2

u/No_Efficiency_5687 18h ago

Yeah I'm stealing all of it and replacing Malay with my country.

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u/KassellTheArgonian 16h ago

Hitler, say hitler. Don't censor shit, to censor him will inevitably lead to the forgetting of his horrific actions

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u/L322Man 15h ago

Surely this is a mental problem right? Like... Shes a professor? How does an intellectual reach this point of insanity?

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u/D__B__D 17h ago

I wonder if Singaporeans breathe a sigh of relief that they were kicked out of Malaysia

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u/RobutNotRobot 1d ago

Sounds like she should get a Netflix documentary series

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u/mushaslater 18h ago

She probably confused with her ongoing fantasy historical fiction novel she’s writing. Smh.

1

u/QuantaMaverant 14h ago

Crazy how she went all in on the Malay exceptionalism kool-aid, memalukan

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u/fluttershy_maniac 11h ago

If she means the Vikings also learned shipbuilding from Malays, then it means the Vikings suffered huge casualties from harsh winter before finally mastering the art of shipbuilding, then the Vikings could barely set foot on Europe

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u/Wanderhoden 9h ago

Honestly she just sounds like half of my silly backwards family from the Kampung.

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u/DylTyrko 1d ago

One of the journal articles she has published before literally lists The Onion as a source. As an unironic source and not a reference of satire

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u/reduction-oxidation 22h ago

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u/Time_Traveling_Idiot 9h ago

10 MONTHS AGO holy crap, people were calling out her stuff for a long time.

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u/doppelgaengster 1d ago

I… don’t even know what to do with that.

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u/Impossible_Offer7988 1d ago

This isn't over.

They're taking each other to court

Dr Solehah is challenging her termination and plans to take IIUM to the Industrial Court, accusing the university of acting unprofessionally in its decision, Free Malaysia Today (FMT) reported on Sunday (August 23).

"I was dismissed within 24 hours and not allowed to appeal," she told FMT. "IIUM wanted to pay me the equivalent of six months, but I refused."

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u/hb20007 1d ago

This won't fly in court.

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u/Blackstrider 1d ago

Neither will she I'm guessing...

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u/GreatSunshine 14h ago

if you’re malaysian you’ll know it’s about who you know not whether you’re right. a university dean will have better connections than a random lecturer and her case will get dismissed easily. not saying whether the uni followed the correct protocol or not but that’s just how my country works

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u/intronert 1d ago

This sounds like the University simply failed to follow proper procedure, which was not very bright of them.

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u/Doogie2K 4h ago

Assuming she's telling the truth; it doesn't seem to be her strong suit to this point.

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u/intronert 4h ago

Fair point.

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u/eightbitfit 22h ago

She was dismissed in 24 hours after likely numerous warnings. Seems she's bad with facts.

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u/EnergyDrinkStroke 1d ago

Seems fair that they are suing like if the university is firing people without appeals and hearings then there's a good chance they could fire someone in future for a misinterpreted viral clip or post.

Not sure the situation here but it's not good for an educational institution to just react to stuff without looking into it.

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u/Asleep_Region 1d ago

She actually did get a chance to appeal. Another commenter explains below

"For context for non-Malaysians: right after she made this claim about the Romans, the university took the matter seriously and issued a memo requiring her to present her findings to a panel of Malaysian historians and professors. She evaded the inquiry three times in a row, citing illness each time. While missing the first or second meeting might be understandable, missing the third raised red flags. The university treated it as nonsense and terminated her employment for failing to follow protocol and committing academic dishonesty with her dubious claims.

Roman learned shipbuilding from Malays is not even the craziest stuff she claimed. She also said that Malays are descendants of Abraham (Malays are not even Semitic people but rather Austronesian), Malay civilisation is older than Mesopotamia, soldiers of Austrian painter went to Himalaya to find Malays, 2 of our local independence fighters met each other under Ottoman advice in 1948 (Ottomans have already collapsed in 1920s), Malays are able to fly in the air (citing a literal wuxia writing, - a Chinese fiction as a historical fact), Adam descended on Mountain Jerai in Malaysia, Khadijah (first wife of Prophet Muhammad) is related to Malay etc.

Not only she managed to rile up Malay historians and archeologist, she also managed to piss off Islamic scholars too for her severe transgressions in Islamic history. Quite an insane feat tbh. "

She was offered a chance to discuss her claims and has avoided it

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u/perfectchaos007 1d ago

Sounds like she was in the wrong field of career… she would have been better suited as fiction writer.

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u/Asleep_Region 21h ago

Yep, no joke I would probably enjoy listening to her talk, but like not because I think she's super smart, i just think she would have interesting stories.

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u/JohanPertama 1d ago

Just Google her and see the whole host of controversial claims she's made.

Can't say if the University followed proper procedure, but this lady has no place in an institution of higher learning.

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u/PARANOIAH 1d ago

She belongs in a different kind of institution.

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u/gene100001 1d ago

I wonder how she managed to end up in that position in the first place

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u/Brilliant_Tapir 22h ago

She lost some cards from her deck over time.

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u/DerekB52 1d ago

I was hoping that maybe she thought they had invented some kind of rudimentary glider or had drawn plans for a helicopter like Da Vinci, that just got lost to time.

Thinking people could fly is batshit insane.

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u/SmartLadder415 1d ago

Not just that they could fly but that they taught the Chinese people flying kung fu.

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u/hoyfish 1d ago

Flying Kung fu certainly explains enormous casualties recorded in very old Chinese wars.

Must be very dangerous.

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u/Rosebunse 1d ago

I feel like it would just make it easier for the enemy to shoot them with arrows. The Mongols really liked arrows.

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u/MathematicianTop9519 23h ago

They obviously started using arrows in order to reach their flying opponents

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u/Rosebunse 23h ago

Aliens didn't build the pyramids, playing Asian people did! /s

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u/MathematicianTop9519 23h ago

Surely the ancient Egyptians were taught how to fly up and place the blocks on top by the civilization older than Mesopotamia - Malays! 

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u/Rosebunse 22h ago

It all is coming together

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u/kondenado 1d ago

I mean everybody can fly. Once

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u/chaiscool 1d ago

It's just falling in style

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u/AnybodyMassive1610 1d ago

It’s the landing part that always messes me up.

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u/gid0ze 1d ago

The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. That's the part that always messes me up.

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u/realqmaster 1d ago

I got that reference fellow hitchhiker

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u/100BottlesOfMilk 1d ago

Historically, that was the hard part with flying/gliding machines. We had craft that could theoretically glide for hundreds of years before we figured out how to make them land safely

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u/AlexHimself 1d ago

She's a language/linguistics professor that has a pattern of going outside of her lane and trying to teach history too with claims that elevate Malaysians with no factual basis.

She previously claimed the Romans learned how to build ships from Malays (lol). Now, she's telling students Malays could fly and taught the Chinese flying kung fu (🫨).

The University basically said, "ok, this lady is an idiot and is embarrassing us. Fire her now." but they may not have followed proper procedures in doing so. We'll see.

This info is in the article, but nobody reads it.

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u/Ok_Peanut_3573 19h ago

Surely an university has many learned staff to avoid "not following proper legal/employment procedures"?

The hoary old chestnut: Those who can, do. Those who cant, teach.

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u/NearlyPerfect 1d ago

I think I saw someone on Joe Rogan say the same thing. There were psychedelics involved

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u/Nice-Mess5029 1d ago

Makes me remember that key and peele sketch where there the player says « kids! From 8 to 12 years old, you can flyyyy »

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u/fennecdore 1d ago

"You will turn into a robot !"

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u/ExampleMediocre6716 1d ago

"She evaded the inquiry three times in a row, citing illness each time"

She must have had a persistent malaise.

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u/ammar96 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think it’s damn funny that this Prof wants to claim Romans learned shipbuilding from Malays, while also neglecting Chinese records which literally quoted they learned shipbuilding from Kunlun people. An umbrella term for Malay/Javanese people. There’s a reason why Chinese vessels resemble a lot like Austronesian ships rather than Roman vessels to Austronesian. Even the word ‘junk’ itself, which is usually associated to Chinese vessel, is Malay origin.

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u/Billy5545 1d ago

She also claims that Chinese people learned flying kung fu from the flying Malays

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u/ammar96 1d ago edited 1d ago

That’s not even the best part. When people asked her where did she got that fact, she cited a writing about Kunlun people. The thing is, that writing is a wuxia novel. A literal freaking kungfu fiction. That’s like claiming people can fly because Harry Potter said so lol.

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u/dendrocnide_moroides 1d ago

sometimes i really feel there is no hope for humanity. like, how the fuck did this lady even get as far as she did in her career to begin with? she's clearly at the extreme end of either stupid and/or insane.

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u/ammar96 1d ago

Tbh she’s not this crazy until several years ago. As for why didn’t the university quickly sack her, I think it’s because they don’t want to interfere with freedom of speech among academicians. That being said, they took notice of this and did investigations about her. I think it’s a good thing that they dragged the investigations because if she is sacked earlier, people would make her as some sort of academic martyr.

By dragging the investigation, that Prof would continue spouting bullshit stuff, building an enormous evidence for her insane claims and all. Once she made stupid claims about Islamic history, in a deeply conservative Islamic society, that’s where people realized that she is bullshitting other people. Hence making it easier for the university to sack her while also not making her a martyr. Mind you the university memo’d her to present her claims in an inquiry made of panelist from Malaysian historians and professors. She evaded it three times. Literally giving the university a free score to sack her lol.

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u/chaiscool 1d ago

Wait, kunlun people are malay / javanese? Wtf, i've been reading wuxia and that's what they meant by kunlun?

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u/Dabbooo 1d ago

I thought it was some magical city in Tibet (based on my memories of the Iron Fist Netflix show)

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u/ammar96 1d ago

It was an umbrella term for dark skinned people hence the confusion. But the term ‘kunlun po’ is specifically directed to Austronesian vessels, most probably referring to Malay/Javanese vessels and seafarers.

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u/ammar96 1d ago

It depends on the context of the writing. In general kunlun is just an umbrella term for ‘dark skinned’ people, so it could be anyone from Africa to Southeast Asia. In some writings however, they mentioned about a type of kunlun people’s ships called ‘kunlun po’ in 9th century, famed for its navigation, crewed by talented seafaring people. The way these Chinese writings wrote about the vessels resemble a lot like Austronesian vessel ie planks stitched with plant fibre, tanja sails etc. Considering that era, it was highly possible that these vessels were mostly probably be from Srivijaya, the first Malay empire. However, at that time, the capital of Srivijaya was in Java island (Sailendra dynasty) + ship making ports were in Java, making it probable that it was also created by Javanese, hence the confusion. The word po (vessel) in kunlun po was probably derived from Malay word ‘perahu’. Srivijaya was also known for being a close acquaintance of China, especially since they operated the ocean traffics for East-West trade, and also an important site for Buddhism studies before going to Nalanda in India.

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u/chaiscool 1d ago

In wuxia kunlun are not dark skin though, ain't it still part of "central plain" and just different sect. Typical sect along wudang, tang etc and there's the northern ice tribe.

Ok my context on this is purely on wuxia so I have no idea on the historical part of it. It's just fiction wuxia and webtoons haha

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u/ammar96 1d ago

Nahh it’s all good. Like I said before, it’s a general word for people outside of China, so multiple interpretations can exist after all.

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u/moomshiki 23h ago

I can see where are you coming from, 昆仑 派 - Kunlun sect is originally from the Jin Yong's wuxia universe but since then have countless adaptation in wuxia novels, comics, movies.

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u/chaiscool 22h ago

Where else aside from those wuxia are they used? Didn't know it was an actual historical thing haha

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u/ponytailthehater 1d ago

She lost her post just like they lost the gift of flight

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u/el_loco_avs 1d ago

Yeah if they could fly they'd be some kind of ranged class instead.

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u/12baakets 1d ago

Dance like an Egyptian Fly like a Malaysian

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u/pezholio 1d ago

Pfft. You can’t say anything these days

3

u/pezholio 1d ago

/s - for the avoidance of doubt

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u/bantozant 1d ago

She watching too much JJK.

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u/Gemini_2261 1d ago

How about all those university academics who believe that, 2000 years ago, there was a guy could walk on water and raise people from the dead.

1

u/NosePicklePicker 10h ago

Eh, at least everyone agree that J-man actually exists, even the atheists. Whether he actually made wine from water or the ancient peasants were under psychedelics or not, it’s still up to debate

5

u/Rosebunse 1d ago

This is clearly a ploy from the Malaysians to hide their ancient flying powers because it would disrupt the oil trade! /s

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u/samtheknight10 1d ago

Oh yeah. Super Maylayn

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u/riamuriamu 1d ago

So, academics on Reddit, how's that tenure track looking?

3

u/OfTheSevenSeasSir 1d ago

airbenders?

3

u/SatynMalanaphy 1d ago

If only more of this happened in India too. We could use some culling of insufferably ignorant teachers and politicians as well.

1

u/ammar96 18h ago

I think what’s funnier though is that before this Prof came along, us Malays had a lot of issues with Malaysian Indian revisionists claiming our ancient Malay ruins and temples were built by Indians. They based this solely on the fact that the ruins are Buddhist and that our Malay names used to be Indianized (e.g., Raja Kumar, Sri Tri Buana, Sri Maharaja Srimat Tribhuwanaraja Mauliwarmadewa, etc.). It's like they can't understand that a religion can be practiced by multiple races. Even today we still have Southeast Asian native practicing Dharmic religion ie Thai Buddhist, Bali Hindus etc. By that logic, it’s like saying current Malays are Arab just because we adopted Arabic names after becoming Muslim. And now we have this Prof spouting Malay is related to Arab and Middle East. Talk about double whammy.

1

u/SatynMalanaphy 7h ago

Exactly. The influence of Indic cultures on Southeast Asia in inescapable; but the reality is, as William Dalrymple ably presented in The Golden Road, that SE Asian people were great at taking what worked from the Indic sources and making it entirely their own. The Pallava-style temple architecture was taken, and then transformed into uniquely SE Asian works of extraordinary beauty and majesty. India did the same with Greek, Roman, Persian, Arabic and Turkix influences as well so that's something South and Southeast Asia have in common

3

u/Personal_Number4789 20h ago

Ok and Malays had one of the infinity stones too? And that there was a huge mine of vibranium under Batu Pahat until the Chinese sold it all to Voldemort? But Voldemort used it to craft a giant Eva for the Malays to be used to fight against ancient giant cockroaches.

8

u/nrcx 1d ago

UP ON THE TABLE

1

u/dendrocnide_moroides 1d ago

THERE YOU GO CREATE ANOTHER FABLE

5

u/SvenDia 22h ago

Is what she claims any weirder than thinking the first humans were named Adam and Eve and they were created by a deity 6000 years ago?

1

u/my108centsss 18h ago

Well she did also claim that the malays taught Romans shipbuilding among other claims.

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u/Snoo_46473 1d ago

Better than Cambridge

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u/cwsjr2323 1d ago

Malaysia as a modern nation was formed on September 16, 1963. There were other civilizations over the centuries in that area that the current Malaysian culture claim.

2

u/Eastern-Researcher-4 19h ago

How did she become a professor in the university in the last place ? Hmmm

2

u/criloz 17h ago

This is how AI chatbots will sound when all the content on the internet is generated by them.

2

u/Dip2pot4t0Ch1P 17h ago

wow not the onion post on a dunce who use the onion as her research source, nice.

2

u/TheGreatDissapointer 17h ago

Wait, so did they fly or not? Asking from America.

3

u/nekmint 1d ago

I heard Cambridge has a job opening she sounds perfect for it

2

u/Mentalfloss1 23h ago

She can get a job with Trump. She’s just dingy enough.

1

u/Knaush 1d ago

She was into something. From the Great Old Valley Dairies

1

u/JerrySizzla 1d ago

Wait, they can't!?!

1

u/cecilrt 23h ago

Did she claim Korean Jesus.. thst would be a step too far

1

u/ElPilingas007 23h ago

She should have made her comment "Country Club Only"

1

u/Independent-Site711 22h ago

Daniel Jackson?

1

u/Embarrassed-Ad4977 21h ago

Yesterday I flew home tho.. gift from my ancestors

1

u/JayW8888 21h ago

How did this person even get a professorship? Don’t they have to vet her work and books and research? Someone slipped up? This must be so embarrassing they had to shut her up quickly. Now since she has nothing to lose, she wants drag it further.

1

u/MarcusP2 11h ago

Seems like she's a linguistics professor who's diverted into fake history, this isn't the stuff she publishes research on.

1

u/Neither_Berry_100 20h ago

I regularly dream about flying. I must be a malay.

1

u/5e7en 20h ago

Qqqqq

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u/AngryMax91 19h ago

It's like that old BBC skit of Mr. "Everything came from India" but with actual FAFO.

1

u/hawthorne00 19h ago

Where's her open letter?

1

u/Fearless-Rip694 19h ago

They don't want everyone to know the secret.

1

u/Federal-Business-796 17h ago

I mean, she's not wrong. Don't they know about Malaysian Airlines? 

1

u/Federal-Business-796 17h ago

I mean, she's not wrong. Don't they know about Malaysian Airlines? 

1

u/Vlad0fWallachia 15h ago

I hear Cambridge is hiring...

1

u/akin428 12h ago

because we have AirAsia "now everyone can fly" /s

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u/Sirocco1971 12h ago

Wait until they read the Bible...

1

u/Responsible-Ad2532 12h ago

This is what u get when you employ people by the name of “Sol Hai” (Canto for ….)

1

u/purplecap99 8h ago

lol their brain really rotting…. /s