It was heartening to see students, with the apparent support of the university authorities, staging demonstrations last week in many of the public campuses. The demonstrations were meant to express their condemnation of the violent atrocities that were inflicted upon the innocent Lebanese and Palestinian people in the current West Asian conflict.

Such an act (of demonstrating) not only indicates supposed political consciousness amongst the students; it also marks an apparent awakening from their overdrawn political stupor.

But for the student movement in Malaysia to gain legitimacy and respect from the general public, it has to go beyond state-sanctioned issues such as the Arab-Israeli conflict. It should speak out on all forms of injustice and social problems in the country, such as corruption, ethnic polarisation, mediocrity in universities, inter-class disparity, religious extremism, etc.

Put differently, university students should be willing to speak truth to power if - as some university dons seem to valorise - intellectual integrity is to be guarded jealously. They should be sensitive to, and concerned for, things like poverty, social discrimination, oppression of the poor by the rich and the powerful, the ugly side of globalisation, etc. Such human compassion and political sensitivity are very crucial to the intellectual and human development of our university students as future leaders of our country.

Moreover, by doing so, the students could unite around issues that have universal relevance and significance. In a sense, this is one way students could promote integration between the various ethnic groups in the country as they would all be talking the same political language.

Who knows, this may be one way of making the controversial ethnic relations course redundant.

However, if the students only come out on issues that are politically correct (from the government perspective), then cynics would be tempted to interpret last week's event as one that enabled them, and the university authorities, to have a mere photo shoot.

The students would only see it as a spectacle that was to be enjoyed while it lasted. And if this is so, it is utterly shameful.

By the way, were the campus demonstrations last week legal in the sense that they didn't violate certain provisions of the University and University Colleges Act as well as the Police Act?