Glimpse of Hope: Student-led Protest in Malaysia

Feature - Myanmar Student

Dedi Dinarto – Research Assistant at ASEAN Studies Center, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada

Encouraging students to actively participating in protest movement remains arduous. The busy academic activities and full-time organizational obligation pushes student to stay calm in campus without any centrifugal way of thinking. Living under strict and rigid academic practice and value, most of the students prefer to stay behind the desk and explore the reality through cyberspace as well as preparing their self-capacity for future professional job. On the other hand, there are also small amount of students whose initiative are to oppose against authoritative, corrupt, and repressive government. Given such ‘intellectual power’ to analyze and criticize the social contract, these students come up to organize counterbalance the praxis of statehood. In the last few days, the latter is real reflects on the Malaysian student-led protest that voices out the resonance to arrest ‘Malaysian Official One’ under the yell of ‘Tangkap Malaysian Official One.’

This rally should be seen as a positive signal since students start to participate and speak out of what is happening to their country and how it should be.

Despite the fact that Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 (UUCA) hampers the active participation of students within political arena, students have turned into political machine to fight against government. According to Aslam Abd Jalil, a protester who had also been graduated from the Australian National University, TangkapMO1 has showed the significant role of students in political contestation. Students are not only living under the traditional academic cage, but also transcending beyond the limit and fighting for the future of nation. In a broader aspect, he assessed that the rally would cause turbulence towards ruling party, thus affects the ruling party’s popularity. However, this opportunity will not give any significant change to the Malaysian politics since the opposition party is in a mess.

Moreover, TangkapMO1 also signifies the neutrality of student from political party.

Anis Syafiqah Mohd Yusof, spokesperson for the TangkapMO1 and the member of Persatuan Mahasiswa Islam Universiti Malaya (PMIUM) mentioned that the students are non-partisan. She loudly voiced out that this student-led rally should not be used by political parties to serve their interest. Although it does not mean that students reject the support from political parties to fight for universal values and justice.

This case reveals what Eep Saefullah (the author of Catatan atas Gagalnya Politik Orde Baru 1998) mentioned about the economic and social transformations that generate the rising of active and passionate students. The higher opportunity to access education will lead to the economic vertical mobilization. The growing of critical and well-informed community is inevitable. In the context of Malaysia, this should be seen as an opportunity since the data reported from World Bank shows that the youth literacy rate in Malaysia up to 2010 is 98.4%.

However, under the authoritative political architecture, it is insufficient for students to only organize and do protest in public space. The need to build and develop discourse within society is utmost. Breaking down the strict relation between government and society should be built under the skeptic view. Therefore, spreading discourse and opinion on what has been going on would be more significant. Otherwise, the movement will be regarded as fragile and extemporaneous.