Youth Apathy: A Class Struggle for Student Political Hegemony in Malaysia

Abstract

On the 10th December 2018, an unprecedented historic event took place in the lower courthouse of the Malaysia Parliament. After years of repressive and regressive stance on student activism, members of parliament voted unanimously to amend the Universities and University Colleges Act 1975, which finally allows student political participation on campus. However, claims of youth apathy and the portrayal of youth in mass media as “unprepared and inexperienced political actors” pose a detrimental dilemma on the participation front. Intrinsic experiences of the youth community, especially from within the confines of universities have been misunderstood, and in fact, very much alienated. Therefore, the impact of the amendment amongst students is assessed in this research. Through exploring the experiences of youth who are caught up between state autonomy and civil liberties, this study employs qualitative research methods through asynchronous in-depth interviews in understanding youth’s freedom of expression. The findings are analyzed thematically to extract emergent themes from interviews derived from participants’ experiences with bureaucratic structures of the university environment and secondary data on the existing models of polity within the campus. Results show that structural barriers empowered by the existing ideological control provide both perceived positive and negative experiences to the participants. The majority of participants were alienated from the mechanisms of existing democratic institutions and discourses whereas subaltern voices of the youth prevail outside the confines of state-oriented spaces. This study has implications on the Overton Window practices of policymakers in providing true autonomy to students.