Irony of UM

Students of Universiti Malaya who organized a debate after the 308 political tsunami were asked to attend a disciplinary hearing.

The reasons were that the students had invited non-UM people to be the judges. Both Barisan National and Pakatan Rakyat’s lawmaker had been invited. Ironically, UM has just climbed into top 200 (from 230th in 2008 to 180th in 2009) universities in the world.

University should be a place for intellectual discussions and since politics is closely related to economics, social and the future of our country, I can’t see why this kind of debate is always seen as ‘sensitive’ to the authorities. Furthermore, by inviting political leaders from both divides, students will be able to see different points of view and make critical analyzes themselves. Varsity students, after all, are also voters and the future leaders of the nation. Being politically apathetic does not help to build a strong nation.

It is clear that the authority does not want the students to be politically-savvy. Is it because they fear that if it’s so, they will lose power sooner or later? There is a Chinese saying – the more you debate about something, the more you will discover the truth (真相是越辩越明). I guess the authorities fear that if the students discovered how our country is badly governed, how our country has progressed so slowly despite the fact that we are so rich in natural resources (eg. oil & gas, palm oils, etc), more and more students will vote for opposition in the coming general elections.

This can be seen from the results of 8 March 2008 general election. The ruling coalition, for the first time in 51 years, lost it’s two third parliamentary majority and lost 5 states. The main reason was the information was disseminated freely and widely through the internet. Before this, all the while people have been relying solely on mainstream medias, namely the newspaper and TV, for information. But as you know, all the TV and radio stations were controlled by the ruling coalition through Media Prima. Major newspaper were also controlled by the respective BN component parties (Utusan Malaysia, New Straits Times & Berita Harian – UMNO, The Star – MCA, Tamil Nesan – MIC). That means all the news we read were actually being filtered.

Fortunately, now it’s no longer the case. Opposition politicians have made good use of the information technology. We are now able to read blogs written by them. We also get instant updates of their whereabouts through twitter and facebook. There are also online news portals springing up here and there, reporting neutral news.

So, you can see, the way UM authority provokes University and College University Act to suppress students’ freedom of organizing activities and denying students the right to take part actively in discussing political issues in the country is clearly a backward act. This contrasts the fact that UM has just squeezed into world top 200 universities.

Lots of organizations have written open letters to condemn such an act. Teresa Kok, Kinrara assemblyman cum Selangor state government senior executive councilor, had also issued a statement urging UM to withdraw disciplinary action against the students.

However, will the authority withdraw the disciplinary action? The answer is a clear – NO. We have to accept the fact the the top posts in our local universities are closely politically linked. It’s not academically qualified personnel who sit on the top of university, but it’s the one who is closely linked to UMNO that gets the chance to head a university. And this is also one of the reason why our local universities will not go far. We do not have the best brains to manage the universities, instead, we only have some politically linked vice-chancellors.

Nothing can be done to change all these except by our hands. Yes, the hand of you, you and none other than you. Please register yourself as a voter and vote in the next general election. It’s the ONLY way to change for a better Malaysia.