Is UKEC an Elitist Organisation? Reflections from a Three-Year Social Experiment

Disclaimer: I do not reveal anyone’s identity here. Nothing in this essay is meant to dox or single anyone out. If we ever interacted in UKEC, your words or actions are not being recorded or publicly attributed. While I describe my involvement as a kind of social experiment, I do not see anyone as a lab rat. I intend to reflect on systems, privilege, and access, not to criticise individuals personally.

When I first arrived in the United Kingdom as a first-year student, I encountered UKEC. At the surface level, it appeared to be everything a young Malaysian student might hope to find: intellectually vibrant, ambitious, full of people who spoke passionately about nation–building, identity, and the future. I attended Projek Amanat Negara in Manchester, feeling genuinely inspired by the ideas and energy. I admired the discussions; I admired the confidence. Yet, I didn’t notice the invisible structures shaping who had access and who thrived.

It wasn’t until my second year, when I joined UKEC, that the patterns became clear. There are students from middle-class backgrounds, people like me, but the leadership, the executive positions, are dominated by those from wealthy, well-connected families. Parents who are C-suite executives, politicians, or prominent businesspeople with access to elite networks in Malaysia and abroad. These networks open doors, provide mentorship, and offer influence that effort alone cannot replicate. And I began to ask: are we celebrating merit, or the privilege that makes merit easier to achieve?

One moment that really showed me how different our lives were happened when we were preparing for an event and trying to secure prominent speakers from Malaysia. I knew the names of the people we wanted, the ministers, the public figures, the “Datuks,” but that was all I had: their names. I did not have their phone numbers, I did not have family connections, and no one in my circle could magically open those doors for me. But my counterpart in the executive team could. They had contacts at their fingertips. They knew people who knew people, and within a day, they could reach ministers and dignitaries with little effort. Seeing that happen so easily felt surreal. It reminded me that while we sat at the same table, we did not arrive there in the same way. When you don't feel like you belong, you start noticing these differences everywhere. You see who has doors opened for them before they even stand up to knock, and who is still outside, trying to find the key.

When I first started openly talking about elitism in UKEC, I shared my thoughts with a predecessor (not my direct predecessor, but someone senior who understood the organisation well). I told her that UKEC felt elitist, judging from the backgrounds of many in leadership. She responded by saying that these individuals had worked hard for their positions. And I do not deny that. Hard work, discipline, talents; these things matter. But we cannot pretend that everyone begins from the same starting line. Someone from a B40 household, with seven siblings, carries burdens that a child of an Amex Black Card family will never have to imagine. Meritocracy without context becomes a convenient story: it celebrates those who were already ahead, while quietly ignoring those who ran twice as far just to stand in the same room.

What surprised me was realising that some privileged people inside UKEC genuinely believe the same narrative, that they succeeded purely because they worked hard, without recognising how much earlier their race began compared to their middle-class or marginalised peers. Perhaps this is why, during the first event I was involved in, we received a complaint from a Malaysian society saying some of our members were behaving “atas” and arrogant. I heard similar comments even before I joined UKEC. And slowly, I began to see it too, not because the individuals were bad people, but because the environment subtly bred a sense of superiority. I want to be clear: I am not against wealthy people. But some wealthy people struggle to acknowledge that their “hard work” is built on a stronger foundation, one that others simply do not have.

This lack of awareness became even clearer during another event. A speaker, whose father had once been Prime Minister, stood on stage and told us, confidently and passionately, to “take risks.” On the surface, it sounded inspiring. But beneath that message was a truth I could not ignore: risk looks very different when you have a safety net. It is easier to fall when you know there are people and resources to catch you. I found myself wondering, did the privileged students in the room even recognise the disconnect? Did they hear how out-of-touch the advice sounded coming from someone raised in immense power and stability? Especially when some of the students in the audience came from families where their fathers worked in civil service, supporting ten children, hoping their retirement fund might just stretch enough to cover everyone’s basic needs. The gap between “take risks” and “I cannot afford to fail” is not a motivational issue; it is a class reality.

And before I go any further, I had to turn the mirror back onto myself. I was raised by a single mother from the age of thirteen. We were not poor, and once in a while, we managed to travel abroad around Asia, but we were far from the world of people whose families seemed to know ministers on a first-name basis. What I write here is not only about me. It is for anyone who grew up in the quiet middle, not struggling enough to be pitied, yet not privileged enough to be protected, or for anyone who has ever stepped into a room and felt, instantly, that they did not belong.

I attended a modest school that could not even afford proper science laboratories. There were days when our dormitories had no water, and my friends and I had to carry buckets up three flights of stairs just to shower or use the bathroom. My school did not have the facilities that MRSMs or SBPs had; I graduated high school with nothing “impressive” on my resume besides good grades. I could not play an instrument; I never represented my state; I did not have the sort of polished extracurricular portfolio that many of my peers, especially those from elite schools, possessed.

Yet somehow, through UKEC, I found myself in spaces that people like me rarely enter. I spoke at the Malaysian Embassy in London. I addressed an audience in the House of Lords. I led projects that reached thousands. These were rooms I never imagined I would step into. And while I did not grow up with conventional privilege, UKEC undeniably gave me access to privileged environments. Perhaps this is why people often call UKEC elitist, because entering it, intentionally or not, can turn you into part of the very system you once viewed from the outside.

It might seem contradictory that I am criticising an organisation I once represented, even one in which I held power. But contradiction does not frighten me. What would be frightening is refusing to admit that I, too, benefited from the same structures I now question. I cannot pretend I was untouched by them. I am both critic and participant, both outsider and insider. I am not writing to escape that truth; I am writing because it is the only honest place to start.

Now, entering my fourth year in the United Kingdom, I can see clearly that every meaningful connection I have, every mentor, every professional relationship, every opportunity, is something I built from scratch through UKEC and other student organisations. I arrived here without a ready-made network. My mother does not have friends who casually message “Datuk so-and-so.” Nothing was inherited. Everything was built. And by stepping into those worlds, I gained access to something incredibly valuable: information. Privileged spaces often guard knowledge like it is a currency, and in many ways, it is. Privilege is not just about money or education. It is about who brings your name into a room when you are not present. It is about having people who are willing to open doors without being asked. It is about access. And access, once you start to experience it, changes the way you understand inequality forever.

When I was elected as the Vice Chairperson of UKECares, my office received the highest number of applicants. Almost half of everyone who applied to UKEC applied specifically to work under my office. But that recruitment drive quickly became a real test of fairness. By then, I had already started noticing how little class diversity existed within UKEC. How do you select students fairly when the system itself is tilted toward those whose confidence comes from elite schooling, when polished CVs from private school graduates overshadow the quiet resilience of someone who grew up in a home where even having a laptop was a luxury? So I made a deliberate choice. I looked beyond glossy achievements. I looked for sincerity, for intention, for people who wanted to serve students not because UKEC would look impressive on their resume, but because they genuinely cared.

During this process, I remembered something deeply personal. After high school, when I interviewed for the JPA scholarship, my resume was almost empty. I did not have the medals, the competitions, the leadership titles that students from MRSMs or SBPs seemed to collect effortlessly. But the officer saw potential in me, something beyond the paper qualifications. And suddenly, I realised: I now held that same power. I knew how drastically UKEC could change someone’s life, and I wanted to open that door for people who had worked quietly and tirelessly, often without recognition. I wanted to recreate the same gateway that was once given to me, the chance to belong, to grow, and to step into rooms they never imagined entering.

Once I stepped into my role and held even a fraction of executive power, I continued what I half-jokingly called my “social experiment.” I asked uncomfortable questions. I challenged assumptions. I pushed people to reflect. In casual conversations, I often ask about their real contributions to marginalised communities, not to shame them, but to understand whether their intentions came from genuine conviction or performative sympathy. It is a revealing distinction.

What I refused to accept was the unspoken rule that “if you benefit from the organisation, you should not criticise it.” I have never been someone who chooses comfort over honesty. If my presence in a room meant I had to stay silent, then I would rather not be in that room at all. So I stayed vocal, some might even say a “joykill”, and encouraged others to confront the privilege they carried.

I have never resented anyone for coming from wealth. Privilege itself is not a wrongdoing. But entering spaces that sign off emails with “Yang Berkidmat untuk Negara dan UKEC,” while remaining indifferent to the inequalities around you, is a problem. Refusing to reflect, refusing to listen, refusing to use privilege responsibly, that is what makes privilege harmful. If someone is unwilling to engage critically with the world beyond their own comfort, then they should step aside.

I cannot deny that UKEC is a powerful platform. The access, the resources, the funding, all of that can be transformative. So when I was given a limited time to utilise my office’s budget, I poured myself into creating initiatives that actually mattered. I wanted to give opportunities to students who rarely had them. During my office plan presentation, I said openly, perhaps too openly, that I wanted to challenge UKEC’s elitism. We were too focused on inviting prestigious speakers to talk about economics, politics, and advocacy. The events were glamorous, but the impact on everyday Malaysian students abroad was minimal.

So I launched Projek Lumina to redistribute educational opportunities to Malaysian high school students who needed them most. I introduced reimbursements for volunteers from the Klang Valley, removing a financial barrier that had quietly kept many people out, something UKEC had never done, at least not during my time. I insisted on fairness even when it made people uncomfortable. Using the positional privilege I had in UKECares, I initiated the UKECommunity food programme, raising almost £5,000 and feeding over 300 students across four regions. In everything I did, I wanted UKEC to remember where it came from, from the Kalsom Movement and the Charisma Movement. Organisations that are rooted in outreach, access, and opportunity. I wanted us to return to that spirit, even if it meant challenging the organisation from within.

UKEC has given me extraordinary opportunities, and I am grateful for them. But gratitude should not prevent honesty. The organisation is a microcosm of a larger truth: privilege compounds itself unless actively disrupted. Recognising this does not diminish anyone’s achievements. Instead, it demands awareness, humility, and responsibility. My journey has been about more than UKEC. It is about interrogating the systems we inhabit, acknowledging my place within them, and imagining what leadership could look like if equity were not an afterthought but the foundation.

When I speak about elitism, I want to make it clear, elitism is not solely about excellence; it is about access, who is allowed into the room, who feels safe to speak, and who is quietly filtered out before they even get a chance to try. If UKEC is truly committed to serving Malaysian students abroad, then it must confront the structural barriers that prevent equitable participation. It is not enough to say “everyone can apply” when the path to leadership is easier for some and steeper for others. Merit does matter, but merit without context becomes a convenient way to overlook inequality.

UKEC must also broaden its understanding of leadership. Leadership cannot only be reserved for those who grew up fluent in elite spaces, those who have been taught since childhood to negotiate, to network, to speak with polished confidence. Leadership must also include the students who fought relentlessly, often invisibly, to earn their place abroad, the ones who took crowded buses to tuition centres, who filled out university forms without guidance, whose families sacrificed quietly so their children could dream beyond what they themselves had access to. These voices matter. These perspectives matter. And when they are excluded, the organisation becomes a reflection of one version of the Malaysian student experience.

And perhaps, as uncomfortable as it may be, UKEC needs to rethink its diversity, equity, and inclusion structures with the same seriousness. Just as the Sheffield Malaysian Students’ Association (SMSA) has a dedicated Female Officer to ensure women’s concerns are not sidelined, UKEC could consider similar measures to encourage participation from students outside traditional elite networks, those from middle-class backgrounds, first-generation university students, or underrepresented regions. Not as a symbolic gesture, but as a meaningful safeguard: to ensure that the organisation does not become an echo chamber of “someone’s son” or “someone’s daughter,” repeating the same privileged voices year after year.

If UKEC truly wants to serve the broader Malaysian student community, then it must be honest about who has power, who feels welcome, and who remains on the margins. Change does not begin with blaming individuals; it begins with reimagining structures so that the next generation of leaders, regardless of background, can step forward without feeling like they must first earn the right to exist in the room.