COMMENT In 2002, when Malaysian public universities introduced the Aku Janji pledge, I chuckled. It was not so much the sight of first-year students herded into stuffy halls to swear fealty to their masters, like some cult ritual. That orientation programme was more sad than funny.

But the contents of the document that Universiti Malaya students were forced to sign floored me. Nestled in a thicket of terms and conditions was a warning to not breach provisions regarding the... use of loudspeakers.

In amusement at its absurdity (what next, pledge neat use of toilets?), I just laughed it off. Bureaucrats just needed to pad the page; nothing would come of it.

In 2014, two UM students are being charged for using a loudspeaker without the vice-chancellor’s permission. At the Oct 27 ‘40 Tahun dari UM ke Penjara’ gathering on UM’s campus, elected student council (PMUM) president Fahmi Zainol delivered a speech and Safwan Shamsuddin played emcee. They needed a loudspeaker to be heard.

I never thought I would witness this - my university criminalising vocal amplification. This is telling.

The expropriation of the students’ voice - literally, physically, technologically - takes campus authoritarianism and thought-policing into new territory.

But there’s even more. The UM administration has an arsenal of student putdowns to draw from, known as the Universiti Malaya (Discipline of Students) Rules (1999), authorised by the abominable Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) 1971.

The rules have been there, their interpretation and utilsation totally at the whims and fancies of top management. Now that the ban on loudspeaker usage without the vice-chancellor’s (VC) permission is in the public domain, a few others should also come out from the shadows.

Unless they get the vice-chancellor’s blessing, students are NOT allowed to:
  • “Hold, organise, convene or call” a meeting of more than five people (Rule #10).
  • Distribute any document anywhere in the universe (Rule #12 reads: “No student, organisation, body or group of students, without the prior permission of the vice-chancellor, shall publish, distribute or circulate any document within the campus or outside the campus” - emphasis added).
  • Post anything related to university life anywhere (Rule #15. Watch out, Facebooking students).
On the VC’s part, there are no guidelines, references or limitations for deciding whether to give consent, and no obligation to give reasons for rejecting applications.

Perhaps one day a group of six chatting politics over lunch will be hauled up for failing to get the VC’s permission to assemble, or a UM student will be harassed for sharing a manifesto in Pontianak, Indonesia. These may be laughable today - just like enforcement of loudspeaker regulations seemed hysterical 12 years ago.

Paranoia not unthinkable

Such paranoia is not unthinkable if UM continues on its current trajectory.

This UM administration feels so self-satisfied about the way it is keeping law and order, and looks oblivious to the absurdities it commits. Oh there must be glee and confidence. The students are cornered with one charge laid on all the ‘UM8' - attending an event not approved by the university. University declares an event illegal. Students attend that event. University pounces on them for attending an illegal event. Gotcha.

Fahmi is slapped with nine charges in total, Safwan faces three, and the rest have two.

Students must always show cause and the UM8 now face disciplinary hearings before an administration that has never given substantive reasons for its actions - it has only squeaked how it was necessary to prevent the university from being “tarnished”. What does that mean? Of course, no explanation.

This university has audacity, one has to give due credit, for emblazoning integrity, academic freedom, open-mindedness, accountability, and professionalism as its “core values”.

This UM administration behaved bizarrely and disrupted our lives by locking down the campus on the evening of Oct 27 under the pretext of bad weather, danger from electrical systems damage and an impending “undesirable event” that had to be prevented. It has shown no accountability for those actions. And it demands accountability from students.

Tarnishing the university’s image? Well, I leave it to people to decide. Some coverage has put the ‘40 Tahun’ event in a bad light. As expected, these reports predominantly stream from the BN-controlled media, fixating on the forced opening of UM’s gate.

From other perspectives, a peaceful and vibrant assembly took place that did not warrant any alarm, and the gate incident was avoidable if the gate had not been locked in the first place. In the academic world, especially in any leading global institution, this type of incident would be a cause of great humiliation.

More importantly than image guarding, though, UM must decide whom it wants to serve - political masters or the academic community?

This UM administration shows zealous subordination to the interests of the Putrajayan powers that be. It acts with political intent. Then it persecutes students for bringing a politician to speak on campus.

Tragic ironies

Let us pause to behold this cornucopia of tragic ironies.

But there is one more, which has perhaps been less noted.

UM’s administration would like to appear as defending the academy from bad influences. How great the human capacity to ignore and forget, to selectively remember and prosecute.

Has the university top management forgotten that when Prof Mohammad Redzuan Othman was fired as Umcedel chief due to political pressures, it was PMUM and affiliate student groups who marched in solidarity for him, for academic freedom and against political interference? They were in fact coming to the defence of the university management by condemning external meddling.

When Azmi Sharom (centre) was charged with sedition under the most dubious of circumstances, these brave, talented, articulate young men and women (who like us are flawed works in progress) marched, together with academic staff, in solidarity with Azmi, for academic freedom and against abuse of power. Not a harsh word was uttered against the UM administration, because the students recognised that the fault lay entirely with authorities outside the university.

Now, the very people who stood up for an oppressed member of this community face the spectre of punishment by those who sat back, meek and mute, while Azmi Sharom was hauled to court.

I stand with the UM8, and demand that the charges against them be dropped.


DR LEE HWOK AUN is a senior lecturer at Universiti Malaya.