Culture and the arts under threat

Sutra Foundation chairman Datuk Ramli Ibrahim leads the artistic direction for Spellbound Odissi featuring Young Dancers of Sutra Dance Outreach Programme on Sept 4.

I DETEST the decision to disallow Datuk Ramli Ibrahim (pic) from giving a talk on how dance transcends race.

As an esteemed institution of higher learning, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) is sending all the wrong messages. It should uphold academic excellence first and last, and be the bastion of healthy discourse and conversation.Sadly, it allows its Islamic Centre to decide what is appropriate and what is not, and in the case of Ramli, his talk was cancelled so as “not to offend any party”.