At a "Meet Anwar" dialogue at the Youth Empowerment Forum 2023 in Mar 2023, in response to a question about whether the government will repeal the UUCA to give tertiary students autonomy, you gave your commitment to the audience to abolish certain provisions, e.g. provisions limiting students, academicians and lecturers' actions, from the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) 1971.
Saying you had discussed this with the Higher Education Minister, who had earlier, on 2 March 2023, told Parliament that the government has no plans to abolish the UUCA, you again assured that any provisions limiting students and lecturers would be abolished.
Abolishing the UUCA was one of PH's promises in the 14th GE. This was reaffirmed by the then Deputy Education Minister from PH, who, in Aug 2018, said the government is looking to abolish the UUCA in the next five years.
The youths of today wish to remind you that you had, as the then Leader of the Opposition, while speaking at an event in memory of the Baling demonstration at Padang Awam Kg Lalang, Mukim Siong, in Baling on 20 February 2022, urged youths of today to reflect on the history surrounding the 1974 Baling demonstration saying knowing its history was important for youth, especially university students, to continue to express themselves for the good of the country and nation.
Describing yourself and your friends as young blood who had just graduated and could not bear to see the sufferings of rural folk and farmers and where you were incarcerated for two years for your actions, you led thousands of university students in a protest on 19 November 1974 in Baling, Kedah.
You urged the younger generation to continuously voice out the sufferings of the people regardless of race and religion, as no one speaks up for them, with many thinking about themselves instead.
They are urging the youths of today not to be content with being among the elite and having comfortable lives. They should instead fight for all Malaysians.
The UUCA was enacted to curb student political groups in an era of widespread student activism.
Section 15, strict penalties, including suspension or expulsion from the university, to be meted out against dissenting students, was introduced later in 1975, arising from high political and social awareness among universities.
The demolition of the homes in Tasik Utara in Johor motivated students from UM to gather at Bendahara Hill and hold protests for three days, resulting in the banning of UM student association under Section 15.
The UUCA was amended again in 2012, where students were allowed to join political parties but could not be involved in political party activities within the campus.
In other words, students who voiced out criticisms against the government can still be expelled from the universities.
This makes students or the youth lose their interest in politics.
As Datuk Lim Chee Wee, the then President of the Malaysian Bar Council, said, "Universities, as with all institutions of higher learning, must, as one of their primary duties, embrace and espouse the development of critical thinking by their students and the encouragement of robust debate. This is vital to ensure a continuous stream of thinking Malaysians who are able to advance and build our nation".
Since you have urged the younger generation to continuously voice out the sufferings of the people regardless of race and religion, as no one speaks up for them with many thinking about themselves instead, deliver on your commitment by announcing the timeline to repeal those certain provisions.
The youths can't wait for five years for the provisions you promised to be repealed or removed.
Let the youths of today have ample time to speak up and fight for the poor in this country and not have to wait until the next GE.
The youths of today are the future of this country.
Hopefully, they can be the change to the toxic political culture that this country desperately requires at present.
Remember, you cut your political teeth on campus too.
Open up the political space in the universities.
FLK is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact Newswav.