Needless to say, we are indeed living in a very perplexing and confusing age of our history, and that each of us, without exception, is caught in it in one way or another. Thoughts are shifted within seconds, and with that also loyalty paradigms.

Friendship is put in jeopardy; old friends leave our fold, new friends are hugged in. Even more sad, people are made and unmade in the flick of an eye. This is the tragedy of our age where media reporting gives half truths, and therefore 'false truths', where people are trapped and manipulated to serve political agendas by desperadoes of politics.

One of the latest in these series of madness is the political snare which entrapped the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM).

IIUM is now becoming another item for political massacre, intentionally and unintentionally; intentionally, by those who want it for their political mileage; unintentionally, by those who wish it well. This tug-of-war points to one obvious fact - that IIUM is very significant for all camps.

If the situation is allowed to boil as it is, caught between the gun fires, as it were, than IIUM will succumb to the ground, destroyed before it could be salvaged by any camp. It is necessary therefore that the sane-minded come to the fore to defend this pride of the nation and the hope of the future from being slaughtered by any camp.

IIUM is not, and should not be, an issue of set political loyalties, but one of a set national aspiration - as all universities are. Autonomy for universities has been recognised by the wise and far-sighted to be essential for the essence of living and progressive knowledge. Autonomy to a varsity is as independence is to a nation. It is essential.

The latest tragic blow to IIUM was willfully initiated through the 'opening' of the university - a travesty from all points of view. Only the most simple-minded can be coaxed into believing that the 'opening' was proper and justified. Eighteen years too late - and out of the blues!

The very fact that the IIUM family as a whole rejected such preposterous proposition speaks to the fact that, thank God, IIUM is not made up of the simple-minded after all! Abhorrence and mimicry of the 'opening' runs across the board - from the students to the staff, from the workers to the intellectuals.

Therefore, all planning not known to the IIUM family, except for the briefest of the brief, and even these snippets of insight instigated enough laughs to sicken the organisers if they were within hearing distance. So confidential was the planning that invitations for the academic and administrative staff came out only a couple of days or so before the event; and the more innovative officials even threw these away before they got into the proper letter-boxes.

Poor attendance

All these despite the cards being very elaborate and therefore, undoubtedly, expensive, which are now found in waste-paper baskets and garbage bins - for that's what this is all about - garbage! Hence the reason behind the terribly poor attendance of the IIUM family during the would-be, the so-lauded, most auspicious event in their eighteen-year-old history.

So, to make do with what little was available, and in anticipation of very poor in-house attendance, after all the painstaking efforts to enforce compulsory attendance on the IIUM family failed, the innovative, far-sighted, disaster-wise organisers had to call for outside reinforcements.

After all, the event should be a prim success because heading it all, masterminding it all, was a person who has to make a political come-back. His survival and future depended on this event. Hence dignitaries were invited; most of whom did not turn up, by the way.

The TV slots of the occasion portray just how 'enthusiastic' the attendees were at the event, and who actually filled up the hall - cabinet ministers, politicians, secondary school children in their uniforms, and yes - a substantial bulk of tough looking personals out-of-place in a varsity environment - plain clothes police officers.

Too cold

What about students? Only the new intake which came up to about 1,300 in numbers, but by the looks of things, barely a percentage of these turned up and that too after a lot of cajoling and jostling, promises and threats - the usual package.

Senior students? Hardly any, except those who formed the memorandum committee, and of course, a sprinkling of the aspiring ones. Lecturers - were many of them there? The TV cuts didn't show. A very huge majority was on leave; some on a lengthy annual leave, but most for just the day.

Administrators? It is unbelievable how many were on sick and emergency leave! But some varsity members did attend though - we were forced to, they say. The usual, typical arm-twisting and administrative blackmails. Still, coming is obligatory, but staying on was not. Hence the frequent walk-outs to the toilets but no returning back to the auditorium. Too cold, they said - literally and metaphorically, no doubt.

It is no wonder, therefore, that the would-be, the so-lauded most auspicious university event turned out to be a lacklustre, off-beat jeopardy. Had the power of force not been applied, and all carried out on a willing and voluntarily basis, then the day would have turned out into a regular 'first Saturday of the month'.

Even despite all these, and with a fantastically handsome budget awarded for the occasion, which, by the way, was over and above the regular IIUM fund, the whole programme was anything but auspicious.

To begin with, the first line-up in the guard-of-honour welcoming committee was the ever so spectacular Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) and police officers in their decorative uniforms placed at the very entrance of the gate.

Plainclothes presence

Indeed, two days and two nights prior to that very day, April 17, 2001, hundreds of plain-clothes policemen were weaving in and out, here and there, looking for hidden weaponry, for by their own professional readings, the visit to IIUM was classified as a very high risk.

If, even during last year's student organised visit, about 700 plain-clothes were 'in-camp' in IIUM the night before, and more during the day itself, one can well imagine therefore how many troops, if not a whole battalion, were engaged in this Operation 'Opening'! That is how the auditorium, through TV, portrays an impressive size of an audience at the event - a whole battalion, perhaps!

Student bodies were initially instructed to come up with programmes of welcome and exhibitions with no limit to expenditure. But how could they? For some reasons, student leaders were not around, student committees could not be formed, ideas just refused to appear.

In short, no programmes from students because no students were around to organise them. So, a full day programme was cut to half a day, and even then, horror of horrors, students managed to insert a programme not in the schedule - they handed a memo of protest to the very person himself!

Needless to say, this took bodyguards and guards-of-honour off guard and so they scuttled to cut off all scheduled visits to the faculties and library in case students come up with off-schedule programmes again.

The selection of the date itself is most perplexing by all standards of good organisation. Then again, this may well be purposeful. The date April 17, 2001 is the second day of the third semester of IIUM. The third semester is an irregular semester to cater for the needs of special students, either the exceptionally good who got through their courses faster than the regulars, or the exceptionally weak who have slackened behind.

In both cases, they want to graduate that very semester. Such being the case, attendance is minimum, say about 10-15 percent of the total student population. This fact, together with the fact that April 17 was the second day of the semester, and knowing well enough that during such occasions, classes will be ordered to be postponed to make way for such an auspicious event, there is therefore no rhyme or reason why students should come to campus on the 16 and 17, except, of course, the extra-resourceful or the extra-nervous.

Sombre mood

Hence, organisers could well anticipate that student participation would be negligible. Then again, this may well be the set intention - in case students get to be too welcoming and too innovative for the event.

As things stand now, the organisers are still trying to gauge among themselves as to the rating of their achievements. For the uninitiated, this was a neat success since no student-led revolution actually took place. For the initiated, this was a major failure because programmes could not be carried out to the full, and with a non-scheduled one on top of that.

But for IIUM itself, the event puts everything off-tempo. A gloomy and foreboding atmosphere now pervades the campus. Like that of the aftermath of a funeral. Staff just do not like to be in campus anymore, and the spirit to contribute is fading out.

This is indeed very sad for a thriving university. Perhaps IIUM should call in a bomoh (shaman) now to pooh-pooh in the spirit of the place, and build up commitments once again - if commitments can be harnessed through such artificial and external means.

It took 18 years to build that spirit of commitment and giving. Will it take another eighteen years to recover it? Disillusionment is like ice water poured on a burning rock - it cools off and kills the heat, deadens the power and energy.

Even the very landscape is taking a tragic turn. Right in the middle of the round-about at the entrance, where the logo of the varsity grandly sits, a most monstrous, ugly block of stone pillar, the crudest and roughest imaginable, pitched in at a place where the open book (kitab) on its stand should be!

On one side of the pillar wall is Quranic verses; on the other an artificial waterfall encased by steel grills. Why should a waterfall be encased in an iron grill - only he who built it knows. Then again, such is not strange if one is to trace the track records of the mastermind, the head organiser of the programme.

Crude pillar

Up north, even more fantastic and fanciful visions were attempted at, which, ultimately, resulted in his very deportation from his native locality and the bankruptcy of the state. People just cannot live in a dream world of Alice in Wonderland where rice grows on rooftops, and beauty pageants parade goats and water buffaloes!

A similar attempt was made once in IIUM too. His fancies took to the wings yet again and coaxed him to moot and persuade the IIUM authorities to purchase an antique house, known as the 'Pak Ali's House', and place it at the varsity entrance as a historical show-piece for visitors. Allah Almighty be praised - the IIUM authorities have not gone lunatic like him! Still, with the likes of such around, not to mention his other well established character, anything is possible!

Hence the block of crude rock pillar at the very heart of the varsity logo, replacing the open book, bespeaks nothing but lunacy and an insult to the very spirit of the academia. Lost and gone is the symbol of knowledge of the varsity, buried deep down underneath a crude pillar.

It is indeed both a symbolic academia tragedy and a landscape disaster! Perhaps they who were behind the building of the rock pillar knew well the significance of their work - to kill the spirit and the landscape at one blow!

As heavy a price it is, heavier still, in fact, is a sequence to the events now - the unmaking of the head of the varsity itself, it's Rector. The Rector is now censured by the well-meaning public for developments which are not necessarily his making.

Rector's remarks

How effective and productive was his role in the organisation of the programme is a matter known only to him and the Almighty. Take the event itself - his was only 'remarks by the Rector' - not a speech, not an acknowledgment, not an insight, not an aspiration - but just a 'remark' and that too, no doubt controlled beyond the means of the deliverer!

Anyone well-versed with the Rector, nay, even those who do not know him in person but well applaud his ideas and character, will know that this couldn't be the Rector as himself, a person dearly loved by one and all, who always put facts as they are and acknowledgments where they properly belong.

Something is definitely amiss here. Whereas the Rector was not even given a decent slot in the programme, he is now aired in the media to support all kinds of contentions, way beyond his own imagination. The local media, of course, is remarkable in its ability to edit and prune! His comments, during, as well as prior to the event, are aired ever so often these days whenever it befits a particular point of contention.

No permission or consent was ever asked, and nothing is put in its original context. That is the media - licensed to misrepresent - and many are their victims.

As how the spirit of the varsity has eroded, and the harmony of the landscape dislocated, so now the stature of the Rector is being undermined and tarnished. In short, what they could not win by political impact because of the failure of the opening event, they now try to gain mileage through political psy-war, i.e., to use the opening event to support their political scheming using prerecorded interviews of the Rector.

In other words, they are now hitching free rides on others' back, as usual, and this time of a well-established, well-grounded, well-respected, well-loved scholar of local and international repute, and so score a political triumph for themselves. This is indeed nothing novel in the world of politics and so, therefore, people say politics stinks - and indeed, in this very case its stinks to the very core!

Hence, once again now, we witness an attempt at the unmaking of another great man. The people, particularly Muslims, should be alerted to this. In the field of politics they have destroyed a great leader; in the field of academia, they are now destroying a great scholar.

As the IIUM family has always stood by on the side of justice, so once again will IIUM stand on the side of justice. Let it be known to one and all - IIUM houses not the simple-minded nor the excitable. IIUM houses the serious-minded and the committed. And we call one and all of the same mind set and commitment to stick by us, and with us, through thick and thin. Help us kill off this evil scheme of destroying great scholars and great leaders.

Be with us to set justice back in place. Propagate only the truth. Fight all forms of victimisation. You will taste the rewards of your attempt here and in the hereafter. God bless us all.

ADLESTU is a pseudonym of a senior lecturer at the International Islamic University of Malaysia at Gombak, Selangor.