Limkokwing : The King of Africa Apparently Has A Queen!

I’ll never forget the day we took Danish academics on a tour of the presidential library and a member of SMT pointed to a picture of students at the Gabarone campus and said

‘These are students from our Botswana Campus. Sadly, quite a number of them have AIDS’

Seen as people’s attention is on Limkokwing, I was thinking about sharing my own personal racism experience with the institution. They were professional racists..

I loved that place. I gave my heart and soul to that place. I was even the voice on the Limkokwing radio show on Hitz.fm. The Magic of Limkokwing it was called

My first experience was when the Sound and Music department wanted to open a fashion show with a massive choir. They called for students to volunteer as they needed 60 choir members. Me and my friend (from Namibia) volunteered but soon after we were told we didn’t make the cut.

A friend of mine (from Brunei) who did make the cut went to the first rehearsal. There they announced that they still needed volunteers. My friend raised her hand and said ‘wait, Malaz and (Friend) volunteered and you said there was no more room. How come?

“Is it because they’re black” the choir conductor said ‘yes, they’re a but too roasted’ My friend then pointed out that they were being racist and dropped out of the choir. She was my flatmate and came home and told me what happened.

There I am, being denied an opportunity because of the colour of my skin. You can’t imagine how that feels. I stopped taking part in any school activities after that. I complained and they said that the matter was taken care of. Obviously there was nothing I could do about it..

About a year and a half after that incident I started working for the university again. I was doing radio ads, planning events, going exhibitions, and promoting the school. By the time I graduated I was offered a fulltime job. It wasn’t all bad but..

On of my colleagues was assigned a photoshoot. Her brief was ‘International and diverse’ we were branding as the most international university, so we had to reflect that in the print. The shoot was to be done during winter break when most students were back home.

So naturally, she reached out to staff and the few students who were willing to come to campus during the holidays. We were so excited as we heard that the photos were going to be plastered all over Malaysia imagine that

The pictures turned out so beautiful. They really represented the university well. So diverse with lots of smiles.

My heart sank when I saw this. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Am I not human? Why would anyone say this? Am I not worthy?

We were all upset about the instructions. Including the Managers, one of which is black. But it is what it is and we kept it moving. We did a reshoot but there were new instructions not to repeat people from the last shoot. Well, like I said, it was the holidays..

You see, there’s multiple layers to this type of racism, Dato. 1. You’re continuing to perpetuate the stereotype that Black and dark skinned people are uneducated. 2. You removed us from the picture based on the colour of our skin. And you followed it up with this.

I was so angry! My black colleagues were so angry. How could they do that to us after all that we had done for that place? We all dealt with our anger in different ways and we got loads of support from our non-black colleagues. I resigned the next day and left Malaysia soon after

This was the result of the re-shoot I mentioned earlier on. The one where they wanted no Africans because Bangsar has no Africans Face with rolling eyes

I would like to add that these beautiful people in these pictures had no idea what was going on. Only people in my office knew the full story

Limkokwing university is funded by a number of African nations. That’s why there are many African students in Limkokwing. They have also been funded to open campuses in a few countries but they have all failed due to terrible leadership. When I say toxic environment, I mean TOXIC

This is why it angers me when he presents himself as a saviour to the African people. He has not done anything for the African nations he was funded by, except continuing to perpetuate a negative stereotype of Africans not having access to education.