My British friend and mentor, Dr John Molyneux (1948-2022), is known to many of my colleagues and students at International Islamic University Malaysia.
On behalf of its Department of English Language and Literature, I coordinated the organisation of two webinars, where he was the main speaker.
As an academic, John specialised in Marxist theory and art, wrote books on the subject and was the founding editor of 'Irish Marxist Review'.
From 1992 to 2010, he taught historical and theoretical studies at the School of Art, Design and Media at the University of Portsmouth. Upon retirement in 2010, he moved to Dublin, Ireland where he suddenly died of an aortic aneurysm rupture on Dec 10, 2022.
In 2020, I was teaching a postgraduate course titled Research Methodology. One of the topics was Marxism.
My students and I organised a webinar on Nov 30, 2020 for John to deliver a lecture on Marxism. We titled it "Marxist theory in art and literature". It attracted a large virtual audience from around the world.
In 2021, my colleagues and I felt the need to discuss a horrendous episode of Israeli brutality against the Palestinians. So I organised another webinar for John on May 28 of the same year.
After discussions with him, we named it "Anti-Zionism Is Not Anti-Semitism: Reflections on Recent Israeli Atrocities on Gaza".
It was attended by a larger virtual audience. Among the speakers were the dean of our faculty, Profesor Shukran Abd Rahman, and Afaf Al Najjar from Gaza, Palestine.
When I was with the University of Dhaka, John visited Bangladesh as my guest in December 2007. There as well I had planned a talk for him, which took place on the very evening of his arrival in Dhaka on Dec 13.
Very much in command of his material, John spoke confidently and eloquently on "Imperialism and Anti-imperialism in British Culture" in front of a very enthusiastic, large in-person audience that comprised my colleagues and students.
On a personal note, I was highly gratified that I could introduce John to colleagues and students at the University of Dhaka and IIUM.
My last WhatsApp conversation with John was in October 2022. I shared with him the weblink to my obituary of the scholar Yusuf Qaradawi that was published in the 'New Straits Times' (Oct 21).
I touched on Qaradawi's July 2004 trip to London that attracted huge media attention and inspired two contrary reactions in the UK.
Both John and I were in Portsmouth, UK at that time and were very much alive to the fetishisation of the whole issue. Little did I know in October 2022 that John would be the subject of the next obituary that I would write.
I first met John in 2002 when I was in Portsmouth studying for a doctoral degree. Our anti-war, anti-racist and anti-imperialist fervour and fight for the rights of the Palestinians and other oppressed groups brought us closer and fostered a friendship that spanned the last two decades of his life.
I witnessed in awe John's leadership in standing up to aggression and oppression and defending the rights of the Palestinians.
A few weeks before the March 19, 2003 US-UK invasion of Iraq, John organised an anti-war seminar at a meeting room on the 3rd floor of Norrish Central Library and Arts Centre (Portsmouth public library) in Guildhall Square.
He made me one of the three main speakers, who included the late legendary Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament leader, Bruce Kent (1929-2022). I was 28 years old, and it was a great honour and educative experience to speak at the event.
The Jami Masjid on Victoria Road North, Southsea was once vandalised. John promptly organised a protest rally and appeared in front of the 'masjid' with his friends to boost the morale of the Muslims of Portsmouth.
I was there and heard him declare in his speech: "Today we are all Muslim."
I defended my PhD thesis in June 2007 and went back to Bangladesh to teach in the Department of English of the University of Dhaka. Later, I met John a few more
times in Bangladesh and Britain.
We remained in touch on a regular basis — speaking on the phone and exchanging hundreds of electronic messages on work and family.
On Dec 27, 2008, John sent me an email about a protest against the Israeli attack on Gaza that he would be organising in Portsmouth on Jan 3, 2009.
It was jointly called by Portsmouth Stop the War Coalition and the Portsmouth Network for a Just Settlement of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. But John was the key person behind it all.
John was briefly arrested and charged with organising a demonstration without giving a six-day notice. He appeared at Portsmouth Magistrate's Court on April 17, 2009, and pleaded not guilty.
Many of us shared with John this compassion and sympathy for others and the fight for justice for the Palestinians and other oppressed peoples. He was a public intellectual par excellence as well as a man of the people.
The day before he died, he was on the street in Dublin holding a "Unite Against Fascism" banner and raising awareness of the refugee and housing crises.
John had a great love for humanity and the environment. In that sense, his death is a loss to many, not only to family members, colleagues and friends.
* The writer teaches English and postcolonial literature at International Islamic University Malaysia. He can be reached at email: mmhasan@iium.edu.my