LETTER | Challenger calls on Universiti Malaya’s Student Affairs Department to lift the suspension on the Chinese Language Society.

We are also appalled by the restrictive email circular that patronisingly "reminded" academics of the imposed regulations on their speech, and in particular, the suppression to critique the university in any way, shape, or form.

It is in the interest of the freedoms of expression and speech guaranteed by the Federal Constitution that we demand UM’s Student Affairs department to rescind the circular.

We ask the administrators, what are you afraid of?

Universiti Malaya has had a long history of student activism. But the strongest trigger behind some of these movements was never an obscure ideology- it was a brother defending another brother in each other's right to speak and express.

As Fahmi Reza has noted in his public lectures regarding Universiti Malaya’s Student’s Union, when students protested against the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, tear gas was fired at some 200 students. The next day, over 1,500 students marched, not because they agreed with the views of the 200 students regarding Russia’s invasion, but in solidarity against the brutality that their fellow students faced.

This is the nature of democracy and it should be embraced, encouraged and learnt from. To inhibit the anger of the collective is to court further anger.

Today we have social media, news portals, flyers, leaflets, email circulars- an endless stream of message disseminating platforms. We have an equally infinite information source to search and dispute any of the messages we receive.

This is the nature of academia; one of debate, examination of ideas, and reinforcement of ideals. Allowing your academics the freedom to both consume and conceive thoughts builds critical and engaged citizens.

Without the freedom to experiment, to fall, persuasively defend your work, you would not learn, then improve and eventually succeed. If the administrators were at all academics, they should understand this crucial learning curve, in whatever language it takes form.

Academic freedom is the key to truth. And the sooner UM administrators realise this and invest in their students instead of silencing them, the sooner our democracy will progress.

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