The Ministry of Higher Education must cease all of the “brainwashing” programmes in public universities

People nationwide were stunned and shocked after witnessing a videoclip on Youtube which displayed an argument between a second-year law student of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and a panelist named Sharifah Zohra Jabeen Syed Shah Miskin in a forum which took place earlier on 8th December 2012.

The forum then became a political field not only to defame several Bersih leader such as Datuk S. Ambiga and Datuk A. Samad Said but the panelist Sharifah, became a person who persistently tried to coerced the audience to accept her perspective unilaterally.

Ministry of Higher Education must stop all “brainwashing” programmes in all public universities. Programmes such as these, has no relevance in improving students' academic performance or even their characteristic development. On contrary, it was conducted clearly with political motive.

The Federal government under Barisan National (BN) must cease to treat university students as though they are in their secondary standards. The federal government has to respect their freedom and rights of university students to convey their point of view.

The way in which Sharifah handled the student is an evidence of autocracy. It is a violation to those students' rights whilst presenting their point of view independently. Sharifah’s act of plundering the microphone from KS Bawani as she was in the midst of her speech is very disrespectful and tantamount a disgrace by all walks of life. It reaches its pinnacle that Sharifah had to walk off the stage, confronted KS Bawani and raised her voice to end her speech.

University students were once constrained to sign an oath of undertaking (the notorious Akujanji). Now, public universities were transformed into a political field monopolised by Barisan National with the assistance federal government’s machineries such as the Biro Tata Negara with the intention to solidify BN’s status that is gradually threatened and unstable.

BN should neither ruin nor poison the minds of the scholars with political programmes as occurred in UUM. Let these scholars decide for themselves the political philosophy and principle which they tend towards. The duty of government and public  university’s administrative is none other than expanding the minds of scholars of various globalization whilst they are in pursuit of knowledge at the ivory tower.