Political Climate in Malaysian Universities: A Case Study: An Inside Look Through an Eye of A Necromancer

(artikel dari Mohd Hafiz Md Hanif)

Reading the title above, may make you wonder what kind of eye does a Necromancer possesses. Well, according to Wikipedia, the word Necromancy is defined as : Necromancy (Greek νεκρομαντία, nekromantía) is a form of divination in which the practitioner seeks to summon "operative spirits" or "spirits of divination", for multiple reasons, from spiritual protection to wisdom. The word necromancy derives from the Greek νεκρός (nekrós), "dead", and μαντεία (manteía), "divination". Thus in this article, I will be chanting a few charms to summon the ugly-truth of the undead-plague, to expose to some of you who has not yet realized the true phenomenal climate that was and is still plaguing our higher thinking society in this very second you read this word.

Universities, as we know, are the higher level education institutions that are available to the society. Regardless of where you came from and what you are majoring in, universities have always been the core attention for the society in which the ideology of highly-saluted-personnel-to-be in the society is embedded. Thus, with this expectation comes another challenge; conforming the expectation. Confronting the situation, the administration divides themselves into several parts in order to retain the bureaucracy and the formality thus enhances the image of the institute to a higher level. Now on the other part of the country comes the ISO thingy… (I will not delve into the ISO thing YET. Just wait for my next post, if I have the time to do it la… ) So, between the divided sections comes the students committee… Well, this is where my article will start and carries with it a serious tone. So if you are tone-deaf, please stay away from this article because it will hurt your ears. You have been warned. Thank you. Due to the time constrains and other related issues, I will zoom into the one thing that still hinders my understanding over the system.

Changelophobic

The term that I’ve created just for fun. No, I’m serious. I will tell you why I have created such incomprehensible word. To begin with, I would like to bring you back to where I stood. I was one of the students committee members in a college and I particularly dealt with the handling of wires, microphones, lcd projectors, name cards, DSLR cameras, Sony HVrZ1 camcorders, designing buntings, banners, montage, posters… all sort of things… etc. Being the guy who handled all those things made me a very observant person. Less talking, more action kinda guy. With me stood a very steady steering committee. A very versatile I would say. Everybody was really into the things that they did. And others will back him/her up. This was also because we were led by a wonderful person that I think is quite similar with our ex prime minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir. He was really far sighted and always, what we did, were against the current. Against the current here means against the present state of the university political climate then. Not to say that we were against the university policy. In fact we did boosted up the university’s name a lot of times by hitting the paper like striking-the-iron-while-its-hot thingy. BUT, the fact that we were several times in the HEP’s good list made other colleges kinda irritated.

The repercussion of the ideology that we’ve brought forth was never to be imagined. Accused to be the ‘pembangkang’ in the university was the hardest hit that was laid upon us. We could never imagine that they would go that far. But its politics, and people often forgot who they are and the real purpose of living here on the earth. Like the Malay proverb says: Friend eat friend… Those who were friends with us kept their distance. All of this just because we brought forth changes that were far from their reach. All we did were a few high impact programmes, introduced few campaigns that will boost up the quality of products the university was producing among other things. With those activities, we were labeled ‘elite’. The fact that we were in TNC HEP’s good grace several times made them even madder than before.
Now, can you relate the word ‘Changelophobic’ with my explanation above?

Changes that we brought forth, thinking that it would benefit the university, made us suffer for the whole 2 semesters. Now, they are still practicing the way they practice their practice of politics the same way they did before we took the throne. Hurmm… talking about changing the future? Ehehe… I’ve been there…

P/s: This post was written to inspire people who are now on the throne and have the power to change everything to a better state. Be inspired! Don’t listen to others because when you played your cards in politics, other players have their own. So be careful, but don’t be too careful until you did not do anything that was necessary to do. As for those who are still don’t have clue of what I’ve written up until this sentence, you have been warned earlier.

~Salam