The Stray World

Apathetic hip­ster douche-bags.

Cit­izen Radio intro­duced this catchy phrase for young, mostly well-off indi­vidu­als who couldn’t care less about whatever goes on around them.

The term refers to lib­er­als who would rather not move a fin­ger, per­haps com­plain­ing about the trouble­some nature of actu­ally work­ing for social change — who sniff at elec­tions say­ing their vote doesn’t count anyway.

It is quite ironic that the gov­ern­ment pro­motes such  apathetic think­ing with the anti-intellectual Uni­ver­sity and Uni­ver­sity Col­leges Act, oth­er­wise known by it’s Malay acronym AUKU, and then comes back bemoan­ing the apathy it inev­it­ably induces.

Which instig­ated a so-called amend­ment to the AUKU, which (hello Par­lia­ment­ari­ans?) means noth­ing because the law is still there.

This act makes it trouble­some to think. A bill that actu­ally strives to limit intel­lec­tual poten­tial and power to act upon it.

There is a stir in the air.

By chance, I stumbled upon this art­icle on LoyarBurok.

An announce­ment of the upcom­ing National Stu­dent Assembly in Selangor on the 11th of Janu­ary 2011.

Apathy amongst stu­dents is a res­ult of ignor­ance and an effect­ive sys­tem that seeks to pop­ular­ise apathy. As a res­ult, we have become vic­tims of our own doing. This reign of apathy must end. We must remind ourselves that we are a part of a lar­ger com­munity, one that we owe a respons­ib­il­ity to.

The struggle for our rights and liber­ties to enable us to uphold our respons­ib­il­it­ies is para­mount. But so far, it has been done dis­par­ately and ineffectively.

It is now time to ORGANISE.

On the 11th of Janu­ary 2011, stu­dents from every private and pub­lic university/college all across the coun­try, shall come together as one to demand that they be recog­nised as equals in soci­ety, to demand the abol­ish­ment of unjust laws, to demand that their rights be respec­ted and as a show of solid­ar­ity to stu­dents every­where, to make it known that in your fight for truth, free­dom, equal­ity and justice, you are not alone.

You can head over to the National Stu­dent Assembly site to get a feel for this busi­ness called being an anti-apathetic hip­ster douche-bag.

Assembly object­ives:

1. Unite stu­dents from pub­lic and private uni­ver­sity and colleges.
2. A plat­form to share and dis­cuss stu­dent issues openly so that stu­dents do not feel alone in their struggle.
3. Estab­lish new net­works for col­lab­or­a­tion and coöper­a­tion on cam­pus level and national level to reach STUDENT UNITY.

Please, for the sake of all things pro­gress­ive, make your­self avail­able if you are near the area.

Short­link to art­icle: http://wp.me/pJg9X-i3