(Corrected at 6:15pm, 4 Sept 2010) THE student movement in Malaysia was once vibrant, independent and autonomous. “Mahasiswa jurubicara rakyat” was the students’ motto in the 1960s. However, the government enacted the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) in 1971 to restrict students’ freedom and their rising influence. Thereafter, the student movement suffered a decline. [...]

STUDENT activism in Universiti Malaya thrived in the 1960 and early 1970s. One of the key student leaders was Syed Hamid Ali who was University of Malaya Students’ Union (Umsu) general-secretary from 1967 to 1969, before he was elected president for the 1969 to 1970 term. Syed Hamid’s activism inadvertently began because he couldn’t be [...]

AFTER a series of cancellations and rebuffs by the university administration, documentary filmmaker Fahmi Reza is challenging Universiti Malaya students to organise his Student Power lecture on campus on Tuesday, 24 Aug 2010. The Fairly Current Show host Fahmi Fadzil speaks with his namesake about his ongoing research into the Malaysian student movement of the [...]

ACCORDING to our government, university students are freer than they have been because the UUCA has been amended and there are speaker’s corners on campus. But is there real freedom?

IN the second of a two-part interview, self-taught people’s historian Fahmi Reza tells The Nut Graph more about the 1960s student movement, why their history has been under-documented, and what happened to it after its climax in 1969. TNG: Is there a particular reason why you named your lecture Student Power? Fahmi Reza: Yes, Student [...]

PETALING JAYA, 13 Aug 2010: Artist, filmmaker and historian Fahmi Reza has consistently been barred from presenting his Student Power lecture at Universiti Malaya (UM) since October 2009. All three attempts of Fahmi’s attempts to present his historical findings in UM about the student movement have been thwarted by the university administration. Fahmi was first [...]