It was curious that at a recent private book sale at a local university, an undergraduate though apparently fascinated by the book, ' Pilihanraya atau pilihan jalan raya by Hishamuddin Rais (Mkini Books, 2002) told me that she would not purchase the book for fear of repercussions in campus.

Although she was not able to articulate the reasons for this fear, I surmised that it could well be premised on some vague notion of guilt by association.

Isham Rais, as he is popularly known, is held in preventive detention under the ISA not because of his writings in his column in malaysiakini called Dotmai. So, the fear of the book itself, which is a publication of these writings is really without basis.

Isham's detention order alleges that he incited the public to bring down the elected government by unconstitutional means. There is no proof of this allegation to-date. The Home Minister has not seen it fit to charge him in open court where the allegations could be proved. It is with stronger reason, that the fear of being associated with the book or with the author is completely unfounded. Isham, reputedly an icon of the student movement in the mid seventies, is not the bogeyman the state has made him out to be.

Undergraduates' Rights Day

On June 8 this year, students and new graduates came together to declare the date as Hari Hak Asasi Mahasiswa (Undergraduates' Rights Day'). June 8 was the one-year anniversary of the peaceful assembly of students to protest the ISA. Seven students were arrested then, when the assembly was dispersing.

The ISA-7 from various campuses in the Klang valley were subsequently charged under the Police Act for illegal assembly. They were automatically suspended from their studies. This is ordained under the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) which permits suspension upon being charged with a criminal offence. These changes to the UUCA came after the Isham Rais years when Dr Mahathir Mohamad became the education minister in 1976.

It used to be that some vice-chancellors have chosen not to apply this draconian rule during the 1998-1999 reformasi days. However in recent years the UUCA's grip on student activities has worsened.

June 8 was also to remember the arrests under the ISA of two student leaders. Mohd Fuad (UM) and Khairul Anwar (Institiut Kemahiran Mara) were arrested in July last year after a fire gutted the Dewan Tunku Chancelor (DTC) of Universiti Malaya. They were subsequently released, but not without torture. The fire was subsequently found to be due to faulty wiring.

At the June 8 event, about one-third of the participants comprised of police and the Special Branch. They were blas about it, sending officers, 'reporters and camera-crew for Bukit Aman press', who are much too old to be students. It was a warning that students are being watched by the state.

It is a fact that Bukit Aman is in the business of sending letters to administrators of university and institutions of higher learning advocating disciplinary actions for active students which it has monitored. In the case of Khairul Anwar police intimidation of this nature did not work as he was reputedly an exemplary student. Police used the ISA instead against the 24-year-old student.

Post-1998 student repression

Fear is the ultimate weapon to corrupt the spirit of independent and free student organising. Fear and the law as contained in the UUCA and various others are intended to curb speech, assembly and association in campuses nation-wide. A pledge of good conduct, the Akujanji , adds to the forte.

It was reported that Deputy Education Minister Abdul Aziz Shamsuddin warned students who refused to sign the Akujanji that they may not be allowed to continue their studies. Some 200,000 undergraduates were reportedly compelled to sign the pledge in May this year.

Student repression post-1998 also included disciplinary action for selling Abolish ISA stickers in campus (USM), for taking part in an inter-varsity Chinese language debate competition in Singapore (USM) and for lodging complaints with the Malaysian Human Rights Commission or Suhakam (UTM).

The latest cudgel against students was reported in July this year when USM imposed 10 conditions on the suspended Chinese language society. The conditions among others prohibited the society from speaking to the media without prior university approval. This included the making of press statements and posting them on any website with malaysiakini being cited as an example.

One does wonder of course if all this policing would in the course of time build a generation of young people who would be able to reasonably respond to their environment and promote skills of survival to face their own brave new world, a world without borders.

However, in a manner of speaking, our young people in universities are really being "rehabilitated" rather than educated. Some note with amusement, others with indignation that we then complain about the lack of competitive skills of our youths as compared with our neighbours. If something is really wrong with the education of our youths, it starts with the UUCA.

Does the student vote count?

If we take the average age of graduation at 24, more than half of the university population are eligible voters if they get themselves onto the electoral roll at 21. If we remember, some 680,000 new voters were denied the vote at the last general election in 1999 as the election commission reportedly was not able to get their names on the electoral roll in that election year. Perhaps it was a reformasi year after all, which saw an unprecedented number of students involved in street protests not seen since the Isham Rais years.

The UUCA has not yet denied students the right to participate in the notion of universal adult suffrage as represented by the elections. Students are expected to be participants to the system of representative democracy that is Malaysia. However the UUCA restrictions on speech, assembly and association are the very antithesis of democratic participation.

A political system can be properly described as a system of representative government if it is one in which representatives of the people share, to a significant degree, in the making of political decisions. The necessary condition of representative government is therefore said to be the existence of a fair number of people, meeting together and engaging in processes of decision- making which includes challenging and consensus building.

If the vote of an undergraduate counts as in theory and practice, it must, students must be in a position to engage in a meaningful democratic process free from fear and intimidation from the state, from the ministry, university authorities and the police.

The manifesto for student freedom in campuses must first begin with students being able to negotiate and define their own political spaces. In any case, if the student population is a vote bank, students should wise up to this fact for the rumoured 2003 general elections. Several of their demands are already there in the works, the repeal of restrictions to legitimate student cultural and political activities and review of the wide powers to discipline under the UUCA. There is no time like the present to lobby for change.

SALBIAH AHMAD is a lawyer and an independent researcher. MALAYA! as the name for this column was inspired by the meaning of "Malaya" in Tagalog which means freedom. The events at the end of 1998 in KL offer a new inspiration. MALAYA! takes on the process of reclaiming the many facets of independence.