COMMENT | The legacy of youth political activism in Malaysia
COMMENT | In a recent letter to The Star, Muhammad Afiq of the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute wrote on the dearth of political literacy in Malaysia, and a potential systemic solution.
This would not involve piecemeal answers, such as “targeted government programmes or youth-led organisations to impart political literacy. Rather, it should be through reorienting the education system itself to produce politically literate citizens”.
In the light of the delayed implementation of Undi 18’s push to lower the voting age to 18 and the general exclusion of citizens from the understanding and operationalisation of the byzantine world of Malaysian politics, answers are urgently needed for the continued functioning of democracy.
In general, I agree with the arguments and conclusion of the article, although I would emphasise that dynamic, youthful activism should still remain a key aspect of any solution, especially given that the state, by its bureaucratic and established nature, remains essentially a conservative institution.
Even though it may seem that youths are only just emerging as key political catalysts, a further look back would reveal the role played by the students during the late colonial years, starting in the Malayan Spring period under the uneasy rule of the British Military Administration, at a time when the politically divided Malay States and the Straits Settlements were stitched into a federation in preparation for eventual independence.
As University of Cambridge professor Tim Harper outlined in his book The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya, this period saw the entrenchment of the political apparatus and institutions of our British-style modern state, much of which has been carefully retained albeit in modified form.
In this highly politicised period, the students fought for...
COMMENT | In a recent letter to The Star, Muhammad Afiq of the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute wrote on the dearth of political literacy in Malaysia, and a potential systemic solution.
This would not involve piecemeal answers, such as “targeted government programmes or youth-led organisations to impart political literacy. Rather, it should be through reorienting the education system itself to produce politically literate citizens”.
In the light of the delayed implementation of Undi 18’s push to lower the voting age to 18 and the general exclusion of citizens from the understanding and operationalisation of the byzantine world of Malaysian politics, answers are urgently needed for the continued functioning of democracy.
In general, I agree with the arguments and conclusion of the article, although I would emphasise that dynamic, youthful activism should still remain a key aspect of any solution, especially given that the state, by its bureaucratic and established nature, remains essentially a conservative institution.
Even though it may seem that youths are only just emerging as key political catalysts, a further look back would reveal the role played by the students during the late colonial years, starting in the Malayan Spring period under the uneasy rule of the British Military Administration, at a time when the politically divided Malay States and the Straits Settlements were stitched into a federation in preparation for eventual independence.
As University of Cambridge professor Tim Harper outlined in his book The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya, this period saw the entrenchment of the political apparatus and institutions of our British-style modern state, much of which has been carefully retained albeit in modified form.
In this highly politicised period, the students fought for the progressive cause. The University Socialist Club at the University of Malaya proved a particularly key player, with their organ, Fajar, gaining particular notoriety as it criticised the colonial state.
There were also the Chinese-educated members of the May 13th Generation (so-called because of the National Service Riots of Singapore in 1954), who would come to see themselves as Malayans while espousing a broader Third World solidarity, as pointed out by Australian National University, School of Culture, History and Language’s post postdoctoral fellow Show Ying Xin.
Also present were the Malay students, particularly those trained as teachers and now conscious of a broader idea of home, whose members would eventually play various roles across the political spectrum.
But for the most part, these grassroots forms of nationalism would run counter to the “official nationalism” espoused by the ruling elites and further shaken by the political separation of Malaysia and Singapore.
As professor and chair of Political Science in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany, State University of New York, Meredith Weiss has observed in Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow, with the students caught up in the larger currents of political movements and repressions, eventually, the independent state would follow in the lines of their colonial predecessors, engaging in an “intellectual containment”.
The students of the late colonial to the early independence period saw themselves, naturally, as elites, with an outsized role to play in the formation of the young nation, even with increasing tensions in the background, such as the Alliance’s poor showing in the 1959 elections, the end of local elections, the Konfrontasi and Singapore’s separation, and then the May 13th riots. Eventually, the introduction of the Universities and University Colleges Act 1971, introduced in an era of increased state surveillance, went on to define in rigid parameters the established roles and limitations of students.
Still, this did not put an end to activism and discontent. The students of Universiti Malaya would rally in solidarity with the people of Baling in 1974 - an event which led to the Federal Reserve Unit storming the National Mosque in pursuit of the demonstrators.
The rise of the dakwah movement and the vast impact of Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (Abim) and its charismatic leaders, Anwar Ibrahim, showed that the students were far from apathetic, even if they were ostensibly being repressed, and would play an active role in the road ahead.
From my recollections, I rarely ever came across this history of activism during my education. Even in my university years, when we felt that we were at least becoming politically conscious, the past remained locked away. Perhaps it was partly because knowledge of it was esoteric and remote as we engaged in technical and theoretical studies.
Like the Reformasi of 1998 or the blackouts of 2013, occasional events emerged from the morass of barren years, stretched out like the desert ground. Whatever the case, it would not prepare us for the labour market, which induced its own form of apathy.
Ground down and compartmentalised by the demands of the neoliberal economy and its illusory ideals, this meant that taking an interest and being engaged in politics, even if we had the knowledge and inclination, was an additional burden of labour that should best be left to someone else.
Politics would not land us high paying jobs, nor would it guarantee any sort of economic survival. Foolhardy, thick-skinned people who were ready to be disappointed were the ones who went into politics.
Admittedly, my own personal experience was nothing to be proud of. The closest we got to any formal activism was piecemeal. One was our effort to save the university’s writing centre from being closed down by the administration for a cost-saving exercise, motivated partly to save our own relatively cushy jobs.
There were also meetings where we discussed politics and elections, full of righteousness and frustration, but the resulting demonstrations were more symbolic than anything else, contributing another set of photographs, some online statements and strong opinions to a flood of similar actions, although just how much of an effect that this actually had remained debatable.
This sort of activism seemed a feel-good measure at best: we did things without a clear expectation of what we would actually achieve.
Fortunately, there are other examples of democracy in action abroad with tangible results, from which youths can take inspiration, flourishing in spite of their respective pressures.
The vibrant democratic scene in Indonesia is a particularly powerful example, as with the youth-led movements in Thailand and Hong Kong, seemed woefully remote from us. It is natural though that the challenges against any necessary change feel insurmountable on an individual level. As Undi Sabah’s Mahirah Marzuki, Auzellea Kristin Mozihim and Fiqah Roslan write in a chapter of Sabah From the Ground:
“People were agitated with leaders who were more concerned with self-preservation than the wellbeing of the rakyat (people). The frustration for many we knew, however inadvertently, led to political apathy. What was the point, they would ask, of participating in the democratic process and exercising the right to vote, if the vote counted for nothing at the end of the day?”
Accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, enabled through social media and emerging from the broader Undi 18 movement, the discontent saw greater engagement on the ground as the Sabah elections of 2020 came underway. Even if a large amount of their engagement was necessarily virtual, it can serve as a case study of how to begin such a network, how to include voices, even if they do not always agree with each other.
Our legacy of colonial rule, the struggle between two different ideas of the nation - the civic-territorial model versus the ethnic state - and not to mention the inherent flaws of the democratic model, in spite of its many benefits ... this means that we must do the difficult work of living with the reality of living in a constructed, patchwork nation.
The challenge for the youth today is how they can build upon this legacy.
WILLIAM THAM WAI LIANG is an editor at Gerakbudaya and the author of two novels. His new novel, The Last Days, is set in 1981 and covers the continuing legacy of the Emergency. His first book, Kings of Petaling Street, was shortlisted for the Penang Monthly Book Prize in 2017.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
