How can varsities be ‘agents of change’ while Auku remains law?

 

In early September, the higher education minister spoke at the opening of the national convention of UiTM’s student representative council (MPP), urging university students to play more significant roles in bringing about reform and shaping the values of our society.

The minister’s message was really about empowering students and lecturers, but how sincere or “do-able” is it?

All Malaysians feel that it is impossible for universities in this country to be agents of change due to the existence of oppressive laws like the Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 (Auku) and the Statutory Bodies (Discipline and Surcharge) Act 2000 (Act 605).

The minister’s advice appears utterly useless. To date, the responses of most politicians to the concerns of campus students and lecturers – most of which revolve around Auku and Act 605 – have been nothing more than rhetorical.

At the UiTM convention, the minister also said that there were many historical records around the world that show how student movements have successfully brought about change in a country. He referred to South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, among others.

There are many examples of student movements in Malaysia’s history as well. However, over the decades, we seem to have either forgotten or deliberately ignored what Malaysian universities were like before Auku and Act 605.

In Malaya, between the 1930s and the 1950s, there was a youth awakening of sorts. This was part of a very active student anti-colonial resistance across the colonised Global South. Equally significant is the fact that most of Malaya’s student activism then was neither violent, divisive, disruptive nor transgressive.

Syed Husin Ali elaborates on this in his 2018 book on the development of nationalism in Malaysia. According to him, student political consciousness emerged in Malaya as a reaction to the inadequate education provided to the Malays under British colonial rule.

In 1962, the KL campus of Universiti Malaya (UM) broke away as a separate entity from Singapore, with the Singapore campus renamed as University of Singapore. The then UM students’ union (UMSU) initially focused their attention on student welfare and other campus matters. They were not focused on national politics.

However, later during the late 1960s, student activists began to voice their concerns about social and international issues such as problems of villagers, workers, the Vietnam and Arab-Israeli wars. They also protested on issues of language, culture and the status of Islam in Malaysian politics.

It is worth noting that at the time, UM’s only political club was the Socialist Club of UM, with members such as Syed Hamid Ali (Syed Husin Ali’s brother), Sanusi Osman and Hishamuddin Rais.

An interesting fact is that only 2% of the total student body at UM was involved then in student societies or the student union. Less than half of this small group were “radical activists”.

The higher education ministry and the Anwar Ibrahim administration should accept that student activism has been part and parcel of the country’s history and university life. Anwar himself knows this very well. Politicians should not feel irrationally threatened, which is what persisting with Auku and Act 605 suggests.

Another important fact is that Auku was enacted in 1971, in the aftermath of the May 13 riots in 1969. If student activism in universities were a real threat to our society, Auku would have been enacted long before 1969, given the presence of radical groups since the 40s and 50s.

So, it makes sense to rethink, and gradually abolish Auku. It is part of an oppressive cocktail of legislature meant to control all forms of political consciousness, intellectual awakening, critical thinking and scholar activism.

If ordinary Malaysians are to take the minister’s words seriously (about shaping the nation’s values), politicians must acknowledge and embrace our own history of student activism.

History reveals that the 1950s and 1960s were “tumultuous” decades globally, and Malaya/Malaysia was very much a part of this. There were widespread protests in Europe and the United States, as well as in the developing, colonised Global South. Such movements also inspired protest art and music.

For example, the very famous Woodstock music festival of August 1969 was a very political event. India’s Bengal School of Art was led by protest artists such Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose.

Second, the protests on many campuses worldwide were related specifically to the Vietnam War. Student protests, including in Malaya, were against US involvement in the war, on moral grounds.

Third, students and lecturers were reacting to several high-profile assassinations during the ‘60s. For example, US President John F Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Hasan Ali Mansur (the Prime Minister of Iran), Ngo Dinh Diem (President, Republic of Vietnam), and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (Prime Minister of Nigeria). There was also civil unrest in Indonesia, and our own May 13 racial riots.

Therefore, how are we to “brain” the minister’s suggestion that university students should shape the nation’s values, when we ignore two things – firstly, that the tight link between our public university system and politics, political patronage, and cronyism inhibit student and scholar activism; secondly, “shaping values” will never happen under such conditions.

It is impossible to nurture independent minds when intellectual creativity and freedom to explore all knowledge is stifled. An imprisoned mind becomes lethargic, dull and uncaring. Such a mind would not want to shape the nation’s values. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.