CONCLUDING SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF SRC 06/07

CONCLUDING SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF SRC 2006/2007

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah and a very good evening.

Praise is to Allah, Lord of the worlds, eternal Guardian of the heavens and earths, Ruler over all creatures. Him do I praise and from Him do I beg increase of His kindness and His generosity. Peace and blessing be upon the master and seal of the Prophets, and upon the rest of the Prophets and the Messengers, upon the families of them all, and upon all the believers.

Alhamdulillah, we are able to gather and assemble in this annual general meeting 2006/2007.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

As one knows AGM has always been the platform for reflection of what have been done by the SRC throughout the tenure ship. The central concern is whether SRC had served its purpose: particularly to serve the interest of the students as well as the ummah. I believe this task is a burden shouldered on everyone who calls themselves as muslim. For this reason, it can be said that, in a wider sense the purpose of AGM is actually to Muhasabah every one of us, and not SRC office bearers per se. This is because each and every one of us bears responsibility towards our own wellbeing. To ensure our wellbeing is well preserved, everyone must work together hand in hand.

On behalf of the SRC, we had underlined 5 missions to be achieved as you can refer by yourself from the report book. Whatever missions underlined, still the main concern is all about amanah and responsibility. We owe you duties to serve for your needs. I humbly seek apologies for our weaknesses in discharging our duties.

UNITY

Brothers and Sisters in Islam,
Our life is short, but our dream does not have to be. This dream is shared by everyone of us and had been continuously in progress since the time of Prophet Adam a.s. None of us know when we’ll be asked to leave this world. As we are given with the benefit of doubt, we have to utilize all means within our capacity He had given to shoulder our task. In the Day of Judgment, Allah only ask what we have done with our life; He never ask whether we succeed or not, because the outcome of our efforts is in His hands. So, let us not loose hope and faith in Him.

Let us ask ourselves, what have we done in our life? What do we seek to achieve in our life? What much can we do for Islam?

My dear brothers and sisters in Islam,
We are generation that will inherit and be the future leaders. This University has all it takes to produce pro-active students and agents of change of the Ummah. The rule is simple: we have to change ourselves before we can change others. So let us take things one at a time, beginning from our attitude. As the saying, ‘attitude is a small thing that makes a big difference’.

We believe that in order to achieve this noble objective, we should remove the gaps and barriers between us. Without taking this active action, unity and integration will just become a rhetoric and utopia. We must get rid of egoism and selfishness and replace it with the spirit of togetherness, tolerance, ukhuwwah, love and friendship so that we can create a caring community in the campus that will Insha Allah become the foundation for ummatic solidarity: ‘One God One Community.’

Unity is one of the biggest challenges yet to achieve by the ummah today. We least learnt from the history, Muslim nowadays has forgotten that more than 1,400 years ago, Prophet Muhammad SAW had successfully united the Ansars and the Muhajirins in the historic occasion of Hijra.

At one time, it was unity that put the Muslims in the apex of power and civilization. The Muslims dominated the world politics and commercial trade; they were known for their endless quest for knowledge; but these stories of victories and success have now only become part of the history, kept in libraries and museums.

Therefore it is our obligation and responsibility to restore the glorious days of our ummah and this effort should start by uniting ourselves, the students of IIUM, despite the differences of our culture, ethnic and background. Remember, united we stand, divided we fall. It is in the name of Allah and Islam that we should stand united. Let us pray to Allah Taala that this Garden of Knowledge and Virtue will become the cradle of ummatic unity. Set aside our differences and rivalries and let us concentrate on our ummatic agenda. Allah Taala says in verse 59 of Surah an-Nisa’:

“Obey God, and obey the Apostle, and those who are in charge in your affairs; if you are confronting each other; refer it to God and the Prophet, if you have in God and the Last Day.”

STUDENTS’ MORAL AND AKHLAQ

My beloved Brothers and Sisters,

Recently, the moral and akhlaq of our university students became a highly controversial and hot issue of debate and discussion. This is not the time to pin-point fault at others yet self-consciousness should always be deep in the hearts and minds of our students. Today’s university students have lost the respect from the members of the community; not because of their weak performance in their studies, but because of the attitude and behaviour of certain quarters in the students’ community. A famous Malay proverb goes; “Kerana nila setitik, rosak susu sebelanga”. Therefore, IIUM students, being exposed and instilled with high Islamic, moral and ethical values must take the lead to clean up our name and to rebuild our image so that we can again be respected by the community and more importantly, gain the blessings of Allah Taala. One will be more respected if he is not only knowledgeable but also possesses good akhlaq.

On the issue of moral and akhlaq, I would like to emphasize and highlight an issue which, in my opinion is worth mentioning. As we went through in discharging our responsibilities since the early tenureship until to this moment, there were a number of sabotage incidents, false accusations etc which occurred throughout our tenure. The banners and posters were vandalized and stolen, numbers of pamphlets which accused SRC of something which is not true and based on rumors etc. These become worst during this semester and these culprits even tried to extend their false accusation towards invited speakers who voluntarily came to share their knowledge with IIUM students. The priceless effort of the CONVEST’07 organising committees who had prepared all kinds of promotion was also sabotaged. The banners, posters and even the count-down board made by the committees went missing. Who are these culprits?

My dear brothers and sister,
May I seek your favour? If you happen to know who the culprit is, please do send my regards to him or her. Do tell this person, life is short. Do appreciate this life and holy month of Ramadhan, to purify our heart and seek his forgiveness: as Allah knows the best. May Allah enlighten our heart and grant us husnul khatimah.

Whether they are our students or not and whether they are with us in this hall now or not is a difficult question to answer. Nonetheless, one thing that is clear to us: these culprits are trying to introduce a very unhealthy culture which is unsuitable with our belief and the Islamic environment in this university. I call for my fellow brothers and sisters, inside and outside this hall to condemn their mala fide act and if they are proven to be among our students, I urge the university authority to take necessary action against them, to the extend of expelling them from this university.

SRC GENERAL ELECTION

Brothers and Sisters,

The SRC General Election is just around the corner and may I offer my sincere advice to my fellow brothers and sisters, the students of IIUM who are eligible to exercise their voting rights. This is the opportunity for you to elect your leaders who can serve you best and more importantly leaders who can uphold and maintain the good ‘Islamic’ image of our university and continue to promote the mission and the vision of our beloved university.

It should also be noted that, a true democracy system would allow a leader to be elected by students directly without the candidate be subjected to any screening session before election. We as the students have rights to choose our own leaders. My hope is that, the distressing story of our late endorsement and unnecessary obstacles by irresponsible persons shall not occur again. We demand the students’ voice and rights are acknowledged and respected by the university authorities. Should this take place again, we are not more than a person who is very good in theory of democracy but very bad in practice; what more a person who call themselves as a muslim, living in an Islamic country.

When a person holds a responsibility, the result is of either two: rahmat or laknat. It is rahmat when it is prosperous and abides with Allah’s command, as shown by Prophet Sulaiman, Ayub and Muhammad s.a.w. It may also be a laknat, when it strayed from the path of Allah’s pleasure as shown by kingship of the Firaun and George Bush. Therefore, we need leaders who are amanah in holding this responsibility.

Plato, a Greek philosopher said: “The punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to take part in government, is to live under the government of worse men.” So, please make the wisest choice while casting your vote.

For this coming election, I pray that it will run smoothly without any appalling incidents occur which might tarnish the image of IIUM community. I urge the students to contest in a brotherly competition. Kindly remember, this is the contest on who to shoulder this heavy burden of amanah, should you win the election. Thus, I strongly disagree if one decided to contest for other purpose besides to serve the interest of our ummah, such as to gain popularity. Therefore I would like to remind all my colleagues if such goal exists in your heart, do take this Month of Forgiveness as opportunity to seek pardon from Allah S.W.T.

LESSON THAT I LEARNED

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Being in this position for a year give me a lot of experiences and lessons. Allow me to share some of them which I inherited from Bro Muhtar’s speech. Indeed, what Bro. Muhtar’s experienced are also experienced by me. They are:

1. I absolutely of the view that leadership is action, not position!
2. It is nice to be important, but it is more important to be nice!
3. Doing right is a might, eventhough might is not necessary right!
4. Vision without action is a daydream and action without vision is a nightmare!
5. If you want to satisfy everybody, you will satisfy nobody!
6. Politics is good, but politicians (some of them, not all) are not so good!
7. To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease. Only when one recognizes a disease as a disease, can one be freed from that disease.

APPRECIATION

Members of the floors,

I seek your permission to say a few words of thanks to the following individuals. Firstly, I would like to thank Yang Berbahagia Ustaz Hamidon Abd Hamid, the Deputy Rector of IIUM for his support and assistance throughout our tenure. My special thanks also goes to Dr. Akmal Khuzairy Abdul Rahman; Madam Martinelli Hashim and IIUM officers who help us throughout our tenure.

I also would like to dedicate my special thanks to my colleagues, the office bearers, and Excos of SRC 2006/2007 and the Sub-committees for their commitment and hard work.

Not forgetting, my sincere gratitude to my loyal assistants, who have kindly assisted me throughout my presidency. They are: Press Secretary cum Research Officer, Bro. Hafiz Badarulzaman, Sis. Hanisah Musa and Sis. Khalipah ‘Amirah Khalip, who has acted as my Personal Secretaries, and last but not least my best friends who always be in my side when I faced difficulties, Bro Anthony and Bro. Lukman.

APOLOGY

Dearest Brothers and Sisters,

Before I rest my case, on behalf on my colleagues, I would like to apologize for any mistake, inconvenience, dissatisfaction or shortcomings caused by me or my colleagues throughout my presidency. I ask for your forgiveness and it is hoped that when my colleagues and I leave this hall after this, there should be no heart-feeling between us. Brothers and sisters, to err is human, to forgive divine.

I would also like to apologize to all my colleagues for all the shortcoming and weaknesses on my part as the president throughout the time we work together. I truly cherished all the moments and memories that we shared together. I sincerely pray to Allah to bless all of you for all the works that have been done.

Though men are sometimes bias in their judgment, I risk myself to leave it to all of you to judge whether the line-up of SRC 2006/2007 is a success or a failure to this university. But as far as we are concerned, we have done the best that we could to serve you and we let Allah Taala to judge our actions and conduct.

DISSOLUTION

Brothers and Sisters,

Finally, to discharge the responsibility placed on my shoulder this evening, in the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate and the Most Merciful, I, Muhammad Zukhairi Muhammed Salehudin, the President of SRC hereby declare the dissolution of the office bearers of the Student Representative Council 2006/2007.

Wassalamualikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh