This is call “Being President of MSSNI” Syndrome.

Long time ago… I had the dream to make a difference… Dream that there will be a Malaysia that all Malaysian will be proud of.

Then I took the Presidency of MSSNI.

I see fragmentation of Malaysians… break into groups, usually along racial line. A group of TARcian (mostly Chinese students doing master in Engineering) rather join the Taiwanese for CNY celebration then coming to MSSNI CNY and Hari Raya celebration. I am not sure why…

Then a group of Malay students, led by the Islamic group (which is now believe to have gone underground), boycotted the Deepavali Celebration. Giving the reason that it is a religious celebration and thus they will not be attending. So much of a Muhibah spirit.

The final saga came during preparation for Malaysian Nite. The Islamic group (who are mostly Malaysian), insisted that
1.No female to be on stage
2.No female voice to be heard over PA system
3.No mix seating (ie guys and girls on different tables).
4.No alcohol during the event
5.No sponsorship money from non-halal source to be used for the event.
They claim that if we do not follow the above rules, we are not running the event by the Malaysian’s way.

MSSNI and the Islamic group sat down and had a dialog. I put to them that MSSNI is a body representing all Malaysians and not only the Muslim. And the committee run the society free from any influence by any other organizations. We respect the proposal that they put forward, and we will facilitated as much as possible to make it comfortable and acceptable to all Malaysians to attend.

1.All food served was halal
2.no alcohol during the main event. But there is a after party.
3.NO sponsorship from non-halal source was used for the main event.
4.Seating can be requested.
5.It is not up to MSSNI to advice Muslim girls not be seen on stage.

We did our best to accommodate everybody. But end result is that the Islamic group boycotted the event, after we put in much effort to accommodate some of the request. However, we did have the support of a few Malay friends despite the pressure that the Islamic society put on them.

The polarization of Malaysians was well evidenced among the Malaysian students. I tried and fail to bring all the Malaysian students together. Few years on, YP I hope you do a better job.