Closing Time

It has been one week since our campaign commenced. We received overwhelming response in the first few days and now the debate has subsided. We believe some people have started to think. Yeah, it's time we finish up all assignments and start preparing for final exams. Let's put aside our disputes and resentments. We're MMU-ians after all. What we need is critical thinking.

We're glad to see many students are able to discuss issues and deliver their thoughts in respectable manners. We are always introspective and we have benefited a lot from the comments and discussions made by you too.

We did censor some vicious spam in the comments initially. However, we stopped censoring since we believe in free speech and there is self-consciousness in everyone's heart.

We have stolen the limelight. We have people link to us in their blogs. Our campaign has even attracted some attention from the media too. ;) However, every thing has to come to an end and we are here to sign off, after 7 days.

Campaigns don't last forever (we have no time and funding). And yet if some people have given themselves a second thought on their previous deed, we are already more than delightful to see that.

We didn't response to anonymous comments and those who keep asking us to show up. The reason has already been addressed several times in previous post - no point.

Regarding why we didn't undergo normal procedure to get this awareness campaign approved. As a matter of fact, ALL activities in the campus have to be signed and ratified by both Student Representative Council (SRC) and Student Affairs and Sport Division (STAD). The problem arised here: How are we going to get approval from the SRC when SRC was the organizer of the event?

Student leaders should be those who are more critical, matured, progressive and pragmatic. Hence, we have high expectation towards the SRC. SRC was directly or indirectly involved in the Kebab event. By right, they should explain to all the students instead of just meeting us and explaining to us.

We will be taking down all posters. However, if you happen to see any posters that we left by oversight, please do not hesitate to take them down.

We are graduating (and some of us has already graduated) very soon. So, we would like to hear good news and great activities from MMU after we left.

There are questions in previous post that we would like everyone to read, ponder and answer by themselves.

Finally, we would like to wish everyone good luck in finals.

Dear SRC, why meeting?

We have got messages left by Mr. Larry, Deputy President of SRC, requesting for a meeting.

However, we have no clues on why SRC holding this meeting. Just like what we have been stressing all these while, students shouldn't do things blindly. So, what are the agenda of the meeting? What do you wish to achieve from the meeting?

Our messages are targeting at vast population of students who are crazy with breaking non-constructive records, which bring no benefits to the society and humankind. The Kebab event was the largest, meaningless and yet most lavish one that incurred this awareness campaign. The Kebab record is inane and it has shown the superficiality of students' mentality. It's just a very good example for us to bring the issue up.

We wish to stimulate the students start thinking and try to abate the record-breaking fanaticism.

Dear SRC, have you read our previous post entitled 'Some Clarifications'? If so, why are you requesting for a meeting?

To Larry, the Deputy President of SRC

We suppose Larry who replied us in the previous post is the Deputy President of SRC.
The comments you left in our previous blog let us down. We would like to call upon your attention and read our objectives thoroughly.

We're not here to penalize anyone, including SRC, but to create awareness. Your comments in our previous post show that you're not paying attention to this issue. We didn't want to complain to SRC. Hence, there is no such need to file an official complaint. You're giving impression to everyone that you are trying to self-defend - you didn't do anything because there is no official complaint.

Even lj has repeatedly reminded you about our objectives,


but you chose to ignore his statement and defend yourself again and again.


Why are you in such a haste to defend yourself when we are not complaining about SRC?

So, please wake up, read up, and be less self-defensive.

SRC is a body that represents the students, not a body that manages students. SRC should take the initiative to reach out to the students and find out students problems and dissatisfactions. Staying back in the comfy SRC room and waiting for complaints is not the way to serve the public.

Waiting for official complaints is just showing your passiveness on student affairs. Bureaucratism and shirking off responsibility, like what the CCIP committee wrote in the comment below, doesn't help to make our country advance.

Please bear in mind that student leaders should be someone who are more critical, matured, progressive and pragmatic.

Explanations and Response

Some of the students are still demanding for explication from us about pasting posters up everywhere without permission. I think this is time we address the motive and reasons here.

As a matter of fact, ALL activities in the campus have to be signed and ratified by both SRC and STAD. The problem arised here: How are we going to get approval from the SRC when SRC was the organizer of the event?

We're so sorry that the posters were blocking the view of the mirrors in the toilets. But, it was really a big rush during publicity. We have limited manpower and yet we need to outfight the speed of security guards and FMD taking down our posters. Hence, we didn't think much on how we pasted the posters. Whether they were terribly pasted, tilted, torn etc. were not our consideration. Our goal was to catch the eyes.

We apply small amount of adhesive at the back of the posters to facilitate the security guards and FMD tearing down the posters. We don't want vandalize the campus, leaving marks and traces after they were removed. Sorry to the guards and FMD staff as we had created extra workload to them.

We don't think that it's necessary for us to 'reveal' our identity so many time as we had already moved around the campus, central plaza, hostels, corridors to make publicity.

We've found this under SRC's CCIP website:

and we also see this:

but we have got such comment from 'CCIP committee'.

We do not know whether this is impersonation or an authentic comment left by CCIP committee. Instead of leaving everyone ambiguous statement, perhaps, we suggest them to show up and make their statement clear.

In response to Radio MMU

In response to the bulletin by Radio MMU entitled "RMMU::The Issue of Record Breaking Events: On-Air Interview with STAD Assis. Director" dated 13th April 2007.

We feel very grateful that Radio MMU is willing to vacate their airtime to make way for an interview with the Assistant Director of Student Affairs and Sports Division (STAD), Mr Omaruddin Bin Ibrahim. However, just like what we have clarified in previous post, our targets are students and event organizers, NOT STAD.

We regret to tell Radio MMU that we're not be able to join the interview session as we think that it is not our purpose of this campaign.

In fact, Radio MMU should invite these record-breaking event organizers and the SRC to the radio programme to discuss about the value those events. After all, Mr. Omar is not the one who came up with these events. He is just helping to ensure the success of student activities. We DO NOT wish to see ANY changes of current regulations in the activity approval process.

What is important to us is that what has inspired this sudden increment of record-breaking events. And we do think that the event organizers and SRC can answer our doubt better.

P/S: Dear Abdulrahman of RadioMMU, we think that you need to TRUELY look into our campaign objectives and the message above properly. We hope that you are inviting Mr.Omar not because of our awareness campaign.

To make things clear, decision of inviting Mr. Omar to the interview session is NOT under our jurisdiction. Hence, we hold no responsibility over the interview session.

The question we want to put forth has never been "Why Mr. Omar approve them in the first place?" but "Why students want to organize such events in the first place?"

Yours truly,
Organizer of Awareness Campaign

Some Clarifications

Hi all!

We would like to first express our welcome to everyone reading this, doesn't matter if u are a student from MMU, or someone just stumbled upon us by chance. Thanks for all the overwhelming response to our cause! We never expected such heat and passion. It really wow-ed us!

At first we used some sharp and direct words here and there, because obviously, it's very attention grabbing (and we are truly sorry if we hurt anyone's feeling. It's not intentional!!!). We are trying to cut down those name-calling words from now on. Apologies!

By the way, some of the posters are still there since this campaign is still on going. When the campaign is ending, we will take them down one by one. Thanks for MMU security for giving us a head start, though it's a tad sooner than we would like them to. (Did you guys notice most of the papers used are actually recycled?)

After reading through all these comments and opinions, we found that we did not send our message as clearly as we wanted. Thus, we would love the chance to say something to clarify this. We made some points that we really like to share with you all why we are doing this. Here goes...

Our Objectives are to:

1. raise awareness among students that, breaking records does not always mean achieving something substantial.
   
2. raise questions to the students. Why are we breaking these records? How does these records helps you to achieve your club's objectives? Is the money used money well-spent?
   
3. stimulate the students to think critically, to rethink the meaning and purpose of organizing any events. After all, university is the training ground for future leaders.
4. bring some impact to the society. We do hope that this campaign can be carried forward by you all to cause a bigger impact to our nation.
   

We are NOT here to:

1. bash or spam or undermine the students' effort or write a hate blog
2. ask STAD to tighten up student activities regulations. In fact, we are proud to have a student affair which has always been helpful and supportive to students activities all the time. (Mr. Omar appearing in MMU radio says it all)
3. question how students trust fund is used. We are questioning why are we using money (be it student trust fund or sponsors) lavishly on some record-breaking event which ultimately does not really contribute much to the university or the society
   

We do realize that:

1. people will not change overnight just because we are doing this. We are just hoping that in the future, when they are thinking of breaking a record, this might influence their decision (not about doing it or not, but how and why they want to do it)
2. things will die down very fast and people will not change. But if one person has changed because of this, then our objective is achieved. (afterall, we are not here to change the world, just one person at a time)
3. point (1) and (2) are actually the same >"<
4. people will always have different opinions and we respect that. We do hope that you respect our opinion too.
   
5. our English far from perfect and there are grammar errors and poor choice of words throughout this blog. But we will try to improve on that to push our message through

Yours truly,
Organizer of Awareness Campaign

An Open Letter To The Organizers

Dear Thulaisidas V Nehru, Mohd Qhayum Hafiz bin Kamaludin and Mohamad Aizat bin Md. Lotpi,



As the organiser of one of the biggest events in MMU, representing the SRC and the University, we do expect CCIP committees to be student leaders whom are more critical, matured, progressive and pragmatic.



We, as a group of students and alumni that often heeding activities and events happening around the campus, have observed a surge in record breaking events in both campuses in recent years. Everyone is getting engrossed in breaking records.



The prevalence of such activities has reached a level where many event organizer are thinking that breaking records will make their activities successful. During the process, wastage of resources, may it be time, monetary resources or human resources regrettably happened.



From the statistics we collected, the students in MMU have organized (or partaken) 5 record-breaking events within these 2 months, which has insanely outnumbered the records hold in any single year in the past.



It's not certainly bad to create records. But we would like to put forward some questions for you and every Malaysian to ponder:

1. Is making Dodol and Kebab an effective way of promoting racial integration and understanding among different cultures, as what have been the main objectives of CCIP?

2. Is there other non-foppish way to achieve your activities objectives?

3. How does this different from buying a place in the record books?

4. Does making something longest (in length or in time) make it the best? Does quantity equal QUALITY?

5. Do the records make our university (as well as country) more competitive in facing global challenge?

6. By the end of the events, what are the benefits you bring to yourself, the society, our country and the humankind?


We would like to extend our admiration for the university for always being helpful on student activities and we wish it should be always like this. What is beneficial and what is not are all depend on students' mentality.



If you have any opinions to voice up, you may leave us a message at http://records-frenzy.blogspot.com/ . We welcome open discussion.



P/S: This email is CC-ed to all the staff of the university. Any support towards our awareness campaign is much appreciated.



Yours sincerely,

Organizer of Awareness Campaign



Side note: Thulaisidas V Nehru, Mohd Qhayum Hafiz bin Kamaludin and Mohamad Aizat bin Md. Lotpi are committees from CCIP