PETALING JAYA: Universiti Ma­la­ya’s re-established Speaker’s Corner will invigorate the minds of its students, says a student leader from the 1960s.

“They may be inexperienced but it will help them develop a good perspective on things.

“I hope the students will be given flexibility on the issues they can raise. There has to be some freedom of expression.

Down memory lane: Adam looking at the story he wrote for ‘Mingguan Malaysia’ in 1966.

“However, with that comes the responsibility to speak decently and considerately,” said former Senate president Tan Sri Adam Kadir, who was pursuing an arts degree in the university when the first Speaker’s Corner was set up on June 15, 1966.

He went on to feature the first session of the Speaker’s Corner in his column in Mingguan Malaysia.

“It was under the big tree outside the main library. A group of students casually organised a place where anyone could speak their mind,” he recalled.

He said the corner had humble beginnings but slowly grew in popularity and was noticed by university authorities.

Among the speakers Adam remembered was former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Rahim Noor.

Adam said his fellow students spoke on issues of the day then, such as communism, the Vietnam war and Afro-Asian concerns.