Azmi Sharom - A Brave New World that Umno is desperately trying to BAN young Malays from

Having read the article by Azmi Sharom on Sin Chew Daily yesterday, I was instantly reminded of my early rendezvous with Azmi.

That was in last year when I approached him to pen a column in the newspaper, which he agreed on the phone and promised a meeting soon.

Several days later, a well-built young man showed up in the office, a simple round collar T-shirt and a pair of white color jeans. The most striking thing was a long ponytail behind his head.

If I had not known him earlier to be a UM law professor, I could have mistaken him as a gym trainer.

It was later proven that above his well-built physique and in front of that landmark ponytail was a far more vibrant and quick-witted brain.

I invited him to pen a column in our newspaper with the intention of giving our readers a glimpse into the thinking of a new generation Malay intellectual. Before long, we agreed on the name of the column: Brave New World

Among the young generation Malays, Azmi is a writer with a unique personality, relatively liberal thinking and strong professional background.

He does not write for any particular group of people; nor has he any affiliation with any political party in this country. While hitting real hard at Barisan Nasional, he is never lenient with Pakatan Rakyat either. He bases his writings on incidents and policies, never on any partisan line. He loathes policies being hijacked by conservatives in the government as much as politics being manipulated by some in Pakatan.

This is that kind of commentaries readers would love to read, something not blindfolded by the affection or abhorrence towards any party of faction, offering the readers an objective scope of vision as his articles unleash the independent thinking in the readers.

Azmi is also one of the very few members of the liberal elite in the Malay society. In his article "A Bunch of Fools," he hammered the manipulators of racism, and on the issue of hudud law, he wrote that "non-Muslims also have the right to talk about hudud."

Deep inside his unique personality is a conscience vowing to safeguard the country's multicultural legacy, one that upholds rational thinking surrounding an attitude of moderation.

He has written many articles on the Selangor MB crisis, and it is one on what he thinks of the state that has ended him being charged under the Sedition Act.

He feels that Selangor should not repeat the history of the Perak constitutional crisis back in 2009. He also made mention of the power exercise of the royal family in these incidents.

As I said earlier, it is up to the court to decide whether what he wrote has breached the Sedition Act, now that the matter has gone into the legal phase..

But charging Azmi Sharom because of this does not seem to go well with public demands for more democracy and freedom of expression, denying intellectuals of the deserved protection in conveying public statements.

We can refer to Azmi's viewpoints or talk about them. While some may not agree with him, there is absolutely no need for such a harsh action to gag him.

We have allowed politicians on both sides of the great divide to voice up deliberately on such an important issue, but we don't even have the magnanimity to accommodate some of the more objective voices from an independent intellectual. Malaysians will continue to be dragged in the nose by politicians to their respective ends without seeing the real significance and solutions to the problem.

If anyone thinks the Sedition Act should be retained, I think I can respect his or her advocacy although I personally prefer a more explicit and restrictive Harmony Bill to take its place.

That said, the Act should only be cited against those who really fan up ethnic and religious emotions or the constitutional spirit, not against Azmi Sharom or any other public affairs critics.

Reassuringly many UM students have stood up for Azmi. These young people are defending their right to free expression conducive to the c