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Heroes and Zeroes

I would hate anyone to think this column was kicking a man when he is down, but the administrators of Chulalongkorn University (‘we’re number one in pink’) have once again shown a tenuous grasp of what might constitute education.

University graduation ceremonies in Thailand have become something of a middle class carnival of kitsch consumerism. With rehearsals and multiple casts, they cut a gaping hole in teaching time; they are a godsend to the cosmetics, cut flowers and soft toys markets; and it is reported that there are hefty institutional monetary rewards that make the risk of a sore shoulder a small price to pay.

And they provide yet another showcase for students to prove just how worthy they are of the accolade of ‘university graduate’. A career, which perhaps began with being photographed standing bollocks naked in the surf as part of freshman initiation, can end with a smiling snapshot in front of an artificial grotto of dubious artistic or educational merit.

Or, in the case of Chula’s recent graduation bash, a grinning Zieg Heil salute in front of a (not terribly well painted) montage of superheroes. Including Hitler.

But let’s start by looking at the positives. They did manage to spell ‘congratulations’ in English without any mistakes, something that cannot, alas, always be taken for granted at these dos.

But then there’s Adolf. As if the international furore over the Tussauds Waxworks billboard, the Chiang Mai Catholic school SS parade and the Hitler Fried Chicken of Ubon wasn’t already giving the Simon Wiesenthal Centre enough heart attacks. This one, however, is different.

While the previous examples of Nazi chic could be blamed on juvenile ignorance and wrong-headed commercial greed, this latest example is from the pinnacle of the Thai education system. It even startled the National Human Rights Commission out of its insouciant somnolence and into copying the Bangkok Post article as ‘Interesting News’.

The situation clearly demanded an explanation.

And we got one. Oh boy, did we get one.

 

The poor sod wheeled out to placate the sniggering media was Assoc Prof Suppakorn Disatapundhu, Dean of the Fine and Applied Arts Faculty. In his official statement, Assoc Prof Suppakorn apologized unreservedly but noted that the offending ‘temporary congratulational banner’ was the work of 1st year students barely 6 weeks after they joined the university. (So we hadn’t had chance to teach ʼem proper, had we?)

Their ‘reckless naivete’ (does Chula not check for this in their selection process?) produced a ‘quirky’ Seven Superheroes pic, one of the seven being Herr Hitler whose inclusion, the Professor says, ‘served as a conceptual paradox to superheroness’.

Now this is beginning to border on the fatuous nonsense normally reserved for graduate theses. And Superman was there a conceptual paradox to Clark Kentness, I suppose.

In the hectic 2 weeks before graduation, the attention of those in the university with perhaps a broader education was ‘overwhelmed by floods’ of ‘temporary hangings’ (not the word I’d have chosen). This example, hiding in plain sight just round the corner from the auditorium where the degrees were being bestowed, sadly went unnoticed.

Well, who could expect the massed ranks of professors of the self-proclaimed Number One university in the land to notice something on their own campus that the international media had no problem in spotting? Aren’t university professors by definition absent-minded?

But there is one thing that seems to have passed completely unnoticed by everyone. While the students weren’t old enough to have been taught about Hitler, they clearly had already done the course on Batman and the Incredible Hulk and the rest.

Except that the greatest superhero of the lot is missing from their mural. Do they not teach Harry Potter at Chula? Though on second thoughts, maybe the books are rather too long for Thai undergraduates.

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