Archive for July, 2008

Freedom for students: Recommended amendments to the University and University Colleges Act 1971

Jul 27, 2008 News Breaks

Woke up this morning to a great headline on front page of the New Sunday Times:

Changes to Free Young Minds
Proposed amendments to the University and University Colleges Act 1971

Of course, I have since (a long time ago) learned not to get overly excited at such headlines. Surely there had to be a catch, I thought, and true enough … but that’s for later.

As the name of the act states, the act goes back almost 30 years ago but there has been some amendments since. Maybe I was too young to realise, or to care, but I don’t think it got so much attention until the late 90s, during the days of the Reformasi movement, when many young people took to the streets in support of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (who was quite a student activist himself, I hear).

Some people refer to it as a terribly draconian law (I don’t disagree) and that in its current form, the act stifles not only the freedom but also a students ability to develop. After all, a university (and university college, as we have 20 million of them around these days - I exaggerate, of course) shouldn’t be a place where only academic excellence is prioritised - it is conventionally the time of a person’s life where minds are formed and experience gathered.

So, imagine my thrill when some of the highlights were listed on P1 of NST including:

  • Uni students can now join any society or organisations (including NGOs) without permission from the Vice-Chancellor.
  • The offences will not be considered criminal by nature but instead dealt with as disciplinary offences.
  • Students under detention or in prison can continue to study with the Minister’s permission.
  • The Vice-chancellor will no longer be appointed politically.
  • Faculty members will be consulted with regards to the appointment of Deans.

It is important to note, at this juncture, that these are just proposed amendments by the Higher Education Ministry, and it has not yet been debated in Parliament - it was just tabled recently and is due to be debated at the next Parliament session. (I am assuming however that it will go through or else the Minister would not be speaking so candidly about it - after all, you don’t need 2/3 majority in Parliament to pass acts heh heh).

Now, the above things I listed all sounds good and all, but I still have some reservations.

  1. Students are still not allowed to be members of a political party.
    This means that the biggest flak about the current act has still not been addressed. I hope however that the amendments will be vague enough that students are allowed to be politically-aligned, even if they are not allowed to be card-holding members.

    This was like during my days in Australia when I would support Labor and the Democrats (different for state and national levels) although I was not allowed to be a member due to my International Student status. I was also a member of the Union, which was traditionally Labor-aligned.

  2. This proposal will redefine the term “student” to include “any student who is following a course of study, instruction, training or research, at the preparatory, undergraduate, post-graduate or post-doctoral level, including distance learning, off-campus, exchange and non-graduating students.

    Prior to this, students only referred to undergrads. Of course, this would mean that mature-age students will now be allowed to hold positions in university societies and bodies, but I worry about the scope this encompasses.

    What would this mean for someone who is part of a union for work, but decide to study part-time? And with regards to distance learning and off-campus, does this include students living in Malaysia but enrolled in overseas universities? These are just a couple among many scenarios which could be troubling.

  3. If it gets passed, this act will allow students to speak out, but only with relation to academic matters in a subject of which they are engaged in.

    First of all, how will this affect the role of a student leader/representative who should be speaking out on behalf of the student population, not just his/her classmates? Secondly, why the need to put a restriction on the levels of freedom of speech a student possesses?

Don’t get me wrong, I do feel that change is always good, I just wish that the act doesn’t feel like a half-hearted attempt to pacify its original detractors. I will say this though, that amendments to the AUKU 1971 has been a long time coming.

Liability claim: Most of what I have been written is based on the article in today’s NST. I have not yet read the proposal, and as such, am relying on the paper’s interpretation. 

12.12pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

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Bounty Offered: Arrest Condoleezza Rice!

Jul 26, 2008 Rantings

Student unions/associations rock!

It’s been more than 6 years since I retired from student politics, but I so enjoyed reading this AP story in The Star this morning about how a bunch of university students from New Zealand has put a bounty out for the arrest of Condoleezza Rice when the US Secretary of State visits the other country down under (she got in late Friday and is due to leave on Sunday).

The bounty was NZ$5,000, a reward for anyone who would perform a citizen’s arrest on Condy for her role in “overseeing the illegal invasion and continued occupation” of Iraq, and crimes under the Geneva Conventions Act 1958, and the Crimes of Torture Act 1989, according to the Auckland University Students’ Association (AUSA).

However, on Friday, it retracted the bounty after the New Zealand police threatened “serious consequences” for anyone who attempts to arrest the US dignitary.

As I was looking for a link for this post though, I came across this article in the International Herald Tribune stating that another bunch of students have offered a bounty on her arrest. And I thought, this is brilliant!

According to the report, Victoria University students have upped the ante by doubling the bounty to US$7,400!

The article mentions that Condy is aware of the students’ efforts, and was quoted as saying: “… student protests are particularly a long-honoured tradition in democratic society.” and adding that “the United States has done everything that it can to end this war on terror, to live up to our international and national laws and obligations.”

I am of course, all for the students’ cause because, well, I’m still waiting for the evidence that weapons of mass destructions exist. Also, Condy Ricey is right about student protests, and student associations.

It also brings back memories of the things we used to do during my days as an elected member of the Curtin University Student Guild and delegate/committee member of the Australian National Union of Students when we crowded the university council meeting when they decided to charge additional fees to international students, or when some of my friends sat on the car of the then Minister of Higher Education (can’t remember the name) or when me and a couple of friends organised a counter protest outside the Western Australian parliament when the religious right were busing church folk from the country to protest GLBT laws which were being debated.

I said it at the beginning, and I’ll say it again, student unions rock!

4.43pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

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Nike’s The Human Race 10k: My first 10k Run!

Jul 25, 2008 Events

Come August 31, I will not be celebrating Merdeka in KL, but will be in Singapore instead. Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m a traitor. Ho hum :P

The reason why I’ll be in the country down south is to participate in Nike’s Human Race 10k where over a million people are expected to be running across the globe on the same day. Nike has organised runs in 25 countries, but runners from other parts of the world are also encouraged to participate from their own city.

Singapore is the only South-East Asian country in the list, so Nike Malaysia has invited several local journalists and bloggers (such as Runwitme, Carboman and Runnerzcircle) to participate in Singapore. Yours truly is one of them.

I’m pretty excited cos this will be my first run ever! Yes, yes, I go to the gym (occasionally) and all but while I’ve always said I wanted to run, I never did it. Last year, at StarMetro’s Subang Jaya Half Marathon, I said that I will participate in this year’s.

So now I have no excuse!

I have been “training” - if you can call it that - and just got my very own Nike+ Sportsband, which I reviewed in Yum.My last month, so it’s all good!

Nike Plus

I won’t write much here because of the review, but the run is a Nike+ event so I thought I’d mention it. Today, I will be doing my first run on the road (yes, yes, I know, I’m very behind schedule in terms of training) and I hope I will be able to make good time - so far, I’m quite happy with my time on the treadmill. Besides, my goal is not to come in last, so I’m not aiming too high!

Nike Plus

Wish me luck!

3.56pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

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Malaysians are sexually kinky

Jul 24, 2008 Rantings

Or at least that’s the picture in the head of some of the PAS Youth members. Yup, here we go again. Sigh.

I have missed most of the controversy surrounding Indonesians singer Inul (known for her supposedly-sexually stimulating dance moves) and the cancellation of a recent concert in Johor. Now, she is due to perform at Bukit Jalil this Sunday and she made it to the newspapers again as Pas Youth will be present to hand out flyers telling anyone who watching it that they are sinners.

The NST quotes Federal Territory Pas Youth chief Kamaruzaman Mohamad as saying that her shows are quite obscene. Here is an excerpt:

He said her concerts were known to make the crowd go “wild sexually” and that this could lead to social problems.

“Once they go wild, some will resort to sex by the roadside. So it’s best that her concert does not go on,” he said.

I really don’t know if I should laugh or cry. I mean seriously, when was the last time you saw Malaysians having sex on the roadside. Sure, we have sex and average of 3-4 times a week (according to the Durex Sex Survey) but I’ve yet to see any exhibitionists around. Maybe it’s just my bad luck, and PAS Youth’s good luck?

This isn’t the first time though that Inul is facing such backlash. I recall reading before that she has similar problems back home in Indonesia. But she’s still persevering and has even came out with a song called Goyang Inul which she addressed her “seksi” image and “apologises” to “bapa-bapa, ibu-ibu, semua yang ada di sini (gentlemen, ladies and everyone present)”.

Truth be told, I’ve never watched her perform or any of her music videos until earlier and really, I don’t see the big fuss. How is her dancing different from the Middle-Eastern traditional dance of belly dancing or raqs sharqi (رقص شرقي; literally “oriental dance”) according to Wikipedia.

If that is the case, then PAS might as well also ask that all fitness centres and dance schools be shut down for teaching belly dancing (the costumes of which show hell of a lot more skin that what Inul showed during her recent KL concert in the video above - she was wearing pants and a long-sleeved top).

Heck, even Erra Fazira has gotten into “goyang” fever. There are two YouTube videos showing her singing Inul’s song, but she changed it to be called Goyang Erra.

The above video is quite funny, as there is a tudung-ed woman goyang-ing along, while this other one was performed in the presence of her mother-in-law.

As always, I’ll pass on PAS, thank you very much.

2.50pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

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SATC: Sex in Kuala Lumpur

Jul 23, 2008 Sounds Like Pop

Like the best of us, I’m as shallow as the next person. So I absolutely enjoyed the show.

Yup, Sex And The City is about to hit Malaysia (albeit muuucchhh later than everywhere else in the world) and I managed to catch it in the comforts of the Gold Class hall in GSC Signature at The Gardens (thanks to Gaik Lian and the folks at GSC for the invite!).

Gorgeous!

When the show ended, I looked at my sister who have been so desperate to watch the show and she said: “It’s okay lah”. I suppose it was. But in a totally feel-good kind of way.

There is this worry about bringing small-screen characters to the big screen - most of the time it never works (which is why I’m still deciding if I’m going to catch the new The X-Files: I Want To Believe movie, the last one was a disaster!). I’m not sure if I recall right, but if I’m not mistaken, Ellen Degeneres was interviewing Courteney Cox (Monica from Friends) once on her show and the former asked if Friends will go on the big screen, and the latter replied: “Isn’t Sex And The City doing that already? We’ll see how that goes first” or something along that line.

Four cows?

The fact is, the script wasn’t brilliant and the acting was just okay. And then you realise that the four women - Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha - that you have come to love so much are actually such selfish, horrible cows. They really are!

But hell, none of them are expecting an Oscar. And for that reason alone, I enjoyed the movie.

The clothes were gorgeous, the wo(men) were gorgeous and New York was gorgeous (although there wasn’t much of it). It was just a nice two hours of frivolity, and it’s got a happy ending. What more can you ask for from a movie about four women carrying Gucci, drinking Cosmopolitan and dressing up for a fashion show (almost) every Saturday? In that context, the movie was, as Carrie would say, “Fabulous”.

I’d really recommend this movie for a fun night out. Boyfriends are optional. :)

p/s If you can afford it, Gold Class is the bomb!!!!!

10.03 Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

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