UMNO and Malaysian students overseas

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has announced a new policy of engaging Malaysian students locally and overseas in an effort “to bring them back to the right path.” Alumni of the UMNO Clubs overseas would be sent on some sort of conversion missions to influence the students politically.

This new effort has been described as “a policy shift” and a deviation from Dr Mahathir’s “old ways” of wanting students to focus only on their studies.

It is certainly not true that there is a “shift” in policy, because in the past it has always been the policy of UMNO as well as Malaysian Students Departments overseas to encourage political activities – as long as it was only UMNO politics that they indulge in. Students organizations willing to allow themselves to be used as tools for furthering UMNO and BN partisan political agenda are known to be financially well supported by some UMNO politicians with financial resources to back them.

The Prime Minister is not totally correct when he says that UMNO clubs overseas have been purely social clubs. They have been organizations actively involved in UMNO internal politics, becoming conduits for funds dispensed by UMNO politicians to further their personal political agendas, and a vehicle for individual Malaysian students to collects benefits – such as free travels to Malaysia to attend UMNO general assemblies and to rub soldiers with powerful UMNO leaders.

Indeed it has been a source of complaints among local university students that while their counterparts overseas are free to indulge openly in political activities – although confined only to UMNO activities – they themselves continued to be gagged by the Universities and University Colleges Act from participating in any form of political activities whatsoever.

Malaysian students overseas who are politically aware, and who try to translate their awareness into any form of healthy political activities but not of the UMNO persuasion, have been subjected to threats and harassments by staff of the Malaysian Students Departments and some dubious characters from the local Malaysian embassies.

What is worrying about the “policy shifts” announced by the Prime Minister is that it is most likely to involve the harassments of students who are perceived by UMNO as being “politically incorrect” – as it has been in the past. We call on the Prime Minister to be fair and democratic in this matter. If students are encouraged to be “politically aware” then the awareness should not be confined only to UMNO politics. If public funds are to be utilized to send people to engage the students overseas, then the students must not be harassed and intimidated if they also wish to listen to politicians from home with different political persuasions.

Furthermore, students on scholarships must not be categorized as being “ungrateful” just because they oppose political parties in power. After all it is not the party’s money that supported them but the government’s (i.e. the people’s) money. It is totally within their democratic right if they decide to be with the people in rejecting the government of the day, especially if they choose to express the rejection in democratic and non-violent ways.

Rustam A. Sani
Vice President
Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM)

May 17, 2000