KUALA LUMPUR – Some 100 students and youth gathered at the Pasar Seni LRT station today to stage the #Turun demonstration against the rising cost of living.
Led by a coalition of youth activist groups, the students aired their grievances over the alleged lack of substantive action from the government.
For second-year Universiti Malaya (UM) student Elisa Shafiqah, the government’s establishment of a special inflation task force is nothing to crow about.
“They call it a jihad but I think they’re being jahil (ignorant) for not listening to the rakyat,” the UM International and Strategic Studies student told The Vibes.
The taskforce dubbed “Pasukan Khas Jihad Tangani Inflasi” (Battling Inflation Taskforce) was established on June 29 and aims to formulate strategies to resolve inflation-related issues.
Elisa said she is worried about her studies being affected if the prices of goods continue to rise as she is from a low-income family.
Other speakers at the demonstration shared similar anxieties. Angkatan Mahasiswa secretary Amirul Amin bemoaned the spike in expenses, saying that even death was no longer a welcome respite.
Referring to Muslim funeral arrangements increasing to nearly RM2,000, he said that “Death is also as difficult as living.”
He also lambasted the government for citing supply and demand imbalances as reasons for price hikes instead of working on solutions to address the dire situation faced by the people.
“The government will give plenty of excuses to explain the issue, but they have yet to provide ways to fix the problem,” he said.
Meanwhile, International Islamic University Malaysia student union president Aliff Naif Mohd Fizam said students will shoulder the burden of voicing out against government inadequacies.
“Others are worried about their jobs and families being put at risk if they were to make their opinions known so let us (students) speak for the people,” he said.
“The rakyat are depending on us, we cannot remain silent anymore.” – The Vibes, July 2, 2022
Additional reporting by Lancelot Theseira
