S.G.M. called

MSA, anti-abortion items

A Special General Meeting of the association has been called at 6pm next Tuesday to consider a motion effectively granting the Malaysian Students Association the use of Association facilities. This will rescind the AGM motion denying them that use, and be a major blow to the Malaysian-Singapore Students' Association's attempts, endorsed by NZUSA, to Keep the MSA off campus.

In 1963, the Malayan Students' Association and the Borneo Students' Association both dissolved by agreement at their AGMs and reformed as the Malaysian Students' Association, which included Singapore students among its members. Following the secession of Singapore from the Malaysian Federation in 1964, the Association's name was changed to the Malaysia-Singapore Students Association. Then in 1968, the first move was made to set up a (national) Malaysian Students' Association (MSA). It is held, by the opponents of the MSA that this decision was made only after the visit of a high-ranking Malaysian Government official, who urged Malaysians to set up their own Association separate from Singapore students. Since then the Malaysian High Commission, first in Canberra and then in Wellington, has used the MSA in their surveillance of Malaysian student activity in New Zealand. The opponents of MSA, usually MSSA members backed by NZUSA, have since then documented cases of Government interference. The High Commission withdrew its support (and the use of a house for club activity) from the MSSA and considered the MSA the only body officially sanctioned which Malaysian students could join. Of the 140 or so members of MSA, more than 80 are also members of MSSA; some of these allege that they have been bribed into giving information about other Malaysian students' activities in New Zealand, or into joining the MSA against their will. Recently Truth reported a case in which a Massey student was alleged to have been offered an official bribe of $1500 to join the MSA.

All this is hotly denied by the members of MSA. They argue that from the fact that they receive financial assistance from the Malaysian High Commission in Wellington it does not follow that they are dominated by it. They repudiate all charges of bribing and corruption, and although MSA President Michael Lim acknowledges that MSA members who are on friendly terms with High Commission staff may in fact informally discuss the activities of MSA members, he considers that they are "busy-bodies" rather than "spies."

This is, of course not likely to be the last step in the fight. The VUWSA Executive has consistently refused to affiliate the MSA, and if the motion is passed by the SGM it could be taken of a sign of student support for the MSA. Further, it is likely that many students will "consider the issue of alleged political interference irrelevant. While it can be conceded that the Malaysian Government is fascist in its outlook, even the New Zealand Government makes a practice of keeping a "paternal eye" on its students abroad, and no-one can expect a realistic Malaysian student, on a Government bursary, to take a stand in defiance of his Government's official policy. This is not to excuse the actions of High Commission officials, merely to point out that Governments make a habit of checking on their overseas students.

The issue removed from these political considerations, is whether or not the Malaysian Students' Association can and does function as a cultural club providing for its members in a separate way from other clubs. If this is the case, and it seems to be, then there is no reason for not admitting it as an affiliated body like any (similar) cultural club; since if it is to become standard practice for the association to refuse affiliation to nationalist groups because of intergovernmental politics, the Association will seriously have to consider whether or not it should allow any individual nationalist group to affiliate. Or rather permit only one club, such as the International Club, to cater for the cultural needs of these groups.

Footnote: last week's news-story on the Malaysian Students' Association was by Amir Shariffudin, the 1970 President of MSA.