UNIVERSITIES IN FEAR OF AN ARTIST

 

Some of our universities, including those described as apex universities appear to be in the grip of a fear that free speech may grow on their campuses. The source of their fear is an artist named Fahmi Reza (image above).

In actions repeated in several universities, the authorities acted to shut down student forums that were being conducted by Fahmi Reza. In at least one case, auxiliary police were summoned to assist the authorities in shutting down the forum.

It all started when Fahmi attempted to conduct his popular online forums on electoral politics in person on university campuses. Fahmi’s Kelas Demokrasi forum was conceived by the artist when Parliament was dissolved on 10 October this year. The aim of the forum was to educate emerging young voters on the complexities of electoral politics to help them understand and exercise their electoral rights in the forthcoming general elections. In elections that will see the participation of a large number of the young reaching the voting age, these forums clearly serve an important need.

However, those controlling our universities seem to think that such activities are averse to the purposes of the university and to the education of students enrolled in them. The interruptions of such forums in universities are so bizarre that they may well have been scripted by the artist himself.

Universities are meant to create the space for free speech and robust debate. University administrators and academics are duty-bound to uphold these ideals of the university. The free expression and exchange of different views without fear of punishment or interference, as in this case, goes to the very heart of democratic principles which are a vital part of higher education.

It will be naïve, however, to think that the interruptions of these forums are rare and an exception to the general environment of freedom in our universities. The truth is that our higher education laws have progressively scraped away almost all the essential attributes of a university, leaving in its wake bland statutory bodies that bear no resemblance to a university. Universities in this country are universities because that is how they are described by the law. Shapes without substance.

The tedious bureaucratic explanation that prior permission was not obtained for the Fahmi forums is nothing compared to the statutory mutilations that have been inflicted on academic freedom by the Statutory Bodies (Discipline and Surcharge) Act 2000 (605). Disciplinary rules make it an offence for an academic in a public university to criticize the government or the university. 

How cool is that for a university?