opinion

Since 1998, there has been a resurgence of paternal authoritarianism in Malaysia to attempt to reduce the constitutional rights of tertiary students and academics as secular citizens and taxpayers.

Calls to enforce legal provisions in the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) to 'ban' political activities and political debates in campuses have multiplied correspondingly.

In the wake of the upcoming Indera Kayangan by-election, it is also reported that some university authorities would send staff to the northern town to identify tertiary students who are involved in campaigning.

Almost needless to say, those university administrative officers would most likely be stationed in opposition strongholds or places close to the operating centres of the opposition party.

Tertiary students found on the other side of the fence would most likely be tolerated and defended as "merely conducting field research on social psychology" or "compiling real-case and empirical data on inter-ethnic relations".

Chinese tertiary students from the MCA-owned Tunku Abdul Rahman (TAR) College who dress up like salespersons, bank employees, or reporters or writers of MCA-owned Star, Nanyang Siang Pau or China Press , would probably not be detected at all.

However, the point is not that which side tertiary students support or campaign for, although any enforcement of the existing law that bans tertiary students from participating in political activities ought to be secularly fair and even-handed.

Mature students

The real question is whether tertiary students, who have reached the age of 21, can be, or ought to be, banned from exercising his or her rights as citizens and voters as entrenched in the secular Constitution of the Federation of Malaysia.

Putting aside tertiary students who have not only reached the age of 21 but are married and have children, how would the authorities view a Master's or doctoral student who is already 44-years- old? What about part-time post-graduate students who are working adults, taxpayers, and family men or women?

What about adult academics who pay income tax annually to the government. Are they not full citizens under our (and I must stress this again) secular constitution? Why should they be banned from campaigning for political parties and candidates, whether ruling or the opposition?

Thus, if we care to reflect rationally on the secular arrangements, we would certainly find it absurd for tertiary students and academic staff who have reached the age of 21 to be denied, in effect, of their constitutional rights as citizens, voters and taxpayers.

If a nation-state can be likened functionally to a sports or health club, then partial membership or limited membership rights for certain groups should entail lower membership fee. In the case of a nation-state, partial citizenship or limited citizenship rights can only logically lead to the conclusion that tertiary students and academics should pay a lower percentage of income tax. What should one pay the full 'fee' when one is only given limited rights?

Maybe some good lawyer should take up the case to a competent and secular court to test or challenge the constitutionality of the Universities and University Colleges Act which diminishes the rights of a portion of the rakyat while not reducing the fiscal responsibility they bear as taxpayers.

Mahathir's example

Another issue of similar nature is the so-called 'ban' on tertiary students to debate 'politics' in campus. If others can discuss and debate politics in unisex salons, coffee shops, shopping centres, taxi and buses, why can't tertiary students and academics do the same in campus? Are we inferring that tertiary students and academics are less qualified to discuss and debate politics than people outside the campuses?

Fortunately, there was no such law in the United Kingdom or even British Malaya. Otherwise, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, Tun Razak Hussein, Lee Kuan Yew or even Dr Mahathir Mohamad himself would not have had the opportunity to gain political experiences while still studying in universities or even secondary schools.

In his biography of Mahathir titled The other side of Mahathir (Kuala Lumpur, Utusan, 1994), former editor-in-chief of Utusan Malaysia and now parliamentary-secretary to the Information Ministry, Zainuddin Maidin recalls how Mahathir "put up anti-British poster when everybody had gone to sleep" while he was still a secondary school student in Kedah.

It is not known if Mahathir had ever been arrested by British Special Branch, or disciplined by his school authorities as there is no other record about that incident in the premier's life.

Seen from this historical perspective, it is rather clear and evident that British imperialism and colonialism were more democratic, liberal and tolerant to — at least — tertiary students and academics, both at home and in their colonies like British Malaya, including Kedah and Singapore.

That is probably why many educated Malaysians still love, or at least, not hate 'foreign powers' and 'Anglo-Saxon neo-colonialism'.

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia . Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew , he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.