Absolutely right on all counts – When the Islamic and ketuanan fire finally engulf Malaysia, it will be good-bye to everyone, including the current crop of fat cats.. Give it another 7-8 years.
Excellent article about Myint Zaw’s environmental work in Myanmar. Myanmar
is also home to thousands of indigenous
threatened and endangered plants and
animals, including many species of birds:
This course definitely inspired and directed my future learning – and I expect will have an impact on my post-university career. May it continue into the future. Thank you Ajaan Chintana, Nicholas Farrelly, Sarah Bishop, and the many other people who have contributed from Australia, Myanmar and Thailand.
What does Jokowi do if he takes this author’s advice and invites the PDI-P to join the opposition? Does he fall back on coalition partners like Surya Paloh’s NasDem party, which has donated such talented members as Tedjo and Prasetyo to Jokowi’s cabinet? And maybe Sutiyoso’s party could provide a couple of ministerial candidates to fill the gaps, and Wiranto’s too, both of these parties being sadly unrepresented at present.
As time passes since his inauguration, it is becomingly increasingly clear that Jokowi is bent on making Indonesia a ‘great power’, using such short-cut methods as getting himself photographed next to the leaders of acknowledged great powers like Obama and Xi. Having first explained this technique to some SMA students visiting the palace, Jokowi more recently moved up the educational ladder and gave the same message to the PMII,the university student organisation affiliated with NU.
In Obama’s understandable absence from the KAA, Abe Shinzo had to deputise for him in Jokowi’s photographs. It wouldn’t have done if the Swaziland representative had stood next to Jokowi. It is odd,though, that Narendra Modi couldn’t be prevailed upon to turn up for the celebrations of the Bandung Conference at which Nehru played such an important role. He could have been photographed near Jokowi to enhance the KAA host’s status.
Meanwhile, Prasetyo is clearing the decks for the executions of the second batch of the drug traffickers for whom Jokowi has denied clemency.
Are these generational transitions or expressions of crises of global capital in Southeast Asia? The periodization of this essay matches well with the establishment of heavily state driven development, its 1970’s crisis and reconfiguration into a ‘state-retreat’ phases, and finally whatever social science will decide to call the current moment. The common traits among each generation are well-put, but I wonder if it wouldn’t say more to connect it to global structures.
My main aim with this piece was to introduce a new term (as I tried to do in my book with “spaghetti Westernization”) to see if “double captivity” works as an analytical concept. Is there any use in this as an intellectual exercise? There might be if it unmasks inferiority masquerading as superiority, or if it exposes when the blind is leading the blind, ie when pseudo analysis is mistaken as good scholarship.
Also, does double captivity work only in the context of Singapore or can it apply to intellectual and creative work in Italy, the US and elsewhere? And why would we even want to ask this question? Maybe because at a time when there is a lot of talk about global flows of knowledge and who is commanding in the so-called knowledge economy, double captivity might just be one of the many ways to identify what is, and isn’t, truly and refreshingly new and useful.
Others have responded critically to the line that Thanapal and Koh have been pushing regarding their work on Chinese privilege. Among the criticisms I have come across are: too many generalizations and sweeping statements, conflation of concepts, a ranting, hostile, emotional tone; denigration of Indian men and Chinese women re their choice of marriage partner, the choice of frivolous examples like beauty contests to talk about a serious issue like gender discrimination, use of terms without really understanding them etc.
Any term built on an already problematic and flawed concept like White privilege is bound to run into serious problems. Works such as Theodore Allen’s The Invention of the White Race, Noel Ignatiev’s How the Irish became White and Sander Gilman’s ‘Are Jews White?’ in his book The Jew’s Body show that there is no common or consistent understanding of whiteness as one thing to begin with. Nor is there a common sense of privilege.
It is also a language problem, what words do when they appear in speech. Of course privilege exists, some people may not be aware of its negative effects and it is useful to remind them. But the moment one drops a term like Chinese privilege into the discussion, the reaction is often ‘What does that mean?’, ‘What has ‘Chinese’ got to do with it? Many Malaysian Malays are like that too’, ‘Why not just use the term Chinese chauvinism?’, ‘Why only Singaporean Chinese…many Malaysian Chinese are the same way…’, ‘Why are academics always talking about China these days?’ and the discussion becomes very confusing, circuitous, inconclusive and unproductive.
There is good scholarship and good writing about Singapore, if you know how to recognise it. This is a challenge further complicated by the amount of material available online, on platforms that readers give credibility to.
One final thing. The interview carries the byline of its editor, Petra Dierkes-Thrun, which is unusual for an interview. We are not told how the interview, called a “conversation”, was conducted–whether face-to-face, recorded and transcribed, or via email. Lack of clarity is understandable and inevitable in spontaneous speech. But if responses were written, then edited, why is there still lack of clarity (and I am not refering to typos like “..think in terms of the language and social of the dominant group..”)? What are we to make of “…it places the blame for failure on those who did not work hard enough…” So they did not work hard enough, or they were perceived as not working hard enough? Here we have the return of the myth of the lazy native.
Moreover, why does the interviewer not ask for clarification or call the interviewee out in the face of her naive and troubling conviction that Singapore is the only decolonised state that “has a completely alien population control political and economic power, while the formerly decolonized indigenous people remain continuously marginalized”? Apart from the fact that Malays do vote in Singapore, and the Singapore government has always shared political power in a multiracial coalition, the notion of “alien population” is troubling. Are Singaporean Chinese still considered an alien population in Singapore today? When did they start to become one? And when, pray tell, will they stop? Do Native Americans still consider other Americans an “alien population”? For the record, the Chinese have been present on Southeast Asian territory since the tenth century, not just as merchants but also settling down and marrying local people.
If Adeline Koh chooses not to react because she is following her own advice to “shut up when a minority is talking about race”, then the question is: who is damaged in the end by this approach?
One of my readers has privately pointed out to me the connection between Du Bois and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the idea of ‘double consciousness’. My reader’s point was this: Ideas cross borders, and are borrowed and built upon all the time. But Du Bois was not a captive mind. His writing has a certain independence, a distinctive feel about it such that we do not see the figure of Emerson sitting at the back of his mind. So Emerson’s influence is not felt as bondage where a power imbalance can be identified. Du Bois’ is the kind of writing that makes it difficult to distinguish between internal and external influences. It is modernizing and modernist writing that shows it has understood the lessons of the teachers in a completely new manner. It is, to paraphrase A.A. Phillips on the cultural cringe, writing that shows it has mastered the art of being unselfconsciously itself.
In the nation of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In Malaysia, the one-eyed man is soon to lose his second eye. A nation run by illiterate misfits and racist warmongers does not lend itself well to equitable institutions and, in Malaysia, the most equitable institution is WWF-Malaysia, which has tried to do more to save endangered non-human species, than all the expedient politicians combined, have tried to remove all the entrenched interests, that infect and parasitise Malaysia at all levels of society.
Malaysia is an Islamic Monty Python State of Kafkaesque proportions. Consider: Malay extremists are offended by an innocuous cross on a church near a predominately Malay neighbourhood; the same delusional idiots who believe they will be intentionally doused with Roman Catholic Holy Water and be converted to Christians during a full moon.
Consider: The brother of the Malaysian Inspector General of Police (IGP), the most senior law enforcement position in the nation, is an UMNO politician and virulent supporter of Ketuanan Melayu, as is his brother, the IGP. If no Malaysian can trust the most senior law enforcement official to be objective in the protection of Malays, imagine the confidence level among non-Malays. Consider: Current Home Minister, Zahid Hamidi, former Malaysian Defence Minister, stated about two years ago: “The non-Malays don’t want to fight for Malaysia; they are basically disloyal and that is why there are few non-Malays in the Army”. With such a “tolerant” and “encouraging” viewpoint by the former Defence Minister, also a virulent Ketuanan Melayu supporter, it is a wonder that there are ANY Malays in the Malaysian armed forces. In fact, the IGP (Tan Sri Abu Bakar) and the Home Minister (Zahid Hamidi) last year, stated clearly and unambiguously (and it is on the record), that they WOULD DEFEND MALAYS AND ISLAM, BEFORE MALAYSIA. Would you like me to repeat that, in case it wasn’t clear ? Imagine, that you were in the UK, and the analogous individuals, stated: “I put my Anglican beliefs before Queen and country”. The normal response would thus be: “Well then, perhaps you should consider becoming an Anglican priest”. If it hasn’t shocked you yet that the two foremost ministers for law enforcement in Malaysia recently declared that their loyalty was NOT to Malaysia first, then you are either deaf or delusional, as well. Given that almost the whole planet has been indicted by Prime Minister Najib and UMNO for sedition, it should be fairly obvious why the IGP and Home Minister have NOT, clearly seditious and racist statements very much to the contrary. This must be another Malaysian World Record, in cultural, political and religious hypocrisy.
These are the foundations of WHY Malaysia is in trouble; why Malaysia is becoming a Hanafi or Hanbali Sunni Islamic State (soon to transition to Wahhabi Islam), leaving Shaf’i Islam far behind, because the ever shrill demand for Shari’a Law and Hudud by many Muslim Malay fanatics, and the political party PAS, has clearly changed the Islamic paradigms and faces of Malaysia. Gone are the multicultural panels, the multiethnic conferences, and even natural intermingling of Malaysia’s different races, is now fraught with more risk, more fear and greater susceptibility to political manipulation by always ambitious and venal politicians, many (but not all exclusively) from the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN).
Malaysia was already in trouble with the illegal trials of Anwar Ibrahim. Now, with every two or four-legged organism, on Planet Earth (especially rather overrated cartoonists) subject to sedition charges, Malaysia has become a Malay-led Islamic police state, except the police are the cause and not the solution (just ask Roman Catholic Bishop Paul Tan). Malaysia is not the “Fox guarding the hen house”, but rather, the “Hen guarding the fox house”, and we all know well what that spells for Malaysia, in the long run. To see a nation, that I once greatly admired, descend into madness, that only Dante Alighieri would approve of, is beyond sad and depressing. Malaysia is a comedy, alright, just not as divine, as its most extremist elements, would have us believe.
What is in many ways most notable about Prof Keyes’s book is the willingness to rethink some of his basics assumptions about Thai society and politics that it bespeaks. And not only is that intellectual honesty admirable, but it also has led Prof Keyes to a range of invaluable insights. How much members of elite and would-be elite circles in Bangkok (and their White Man camp followers) could learn from both that honesty and those insights. Silkworm deserves congratulation for publishing this book.
Malaysia is becoming an Islamic State, or rather a Fascist Islamic State. The Constitution and Malaysia Agreement of 1963 forbid Hudud; in fact, forbid Shari’a Law. UMNO, PAS and Ketuanan Melayu fanatics in Isma, Perkasa, JAIS, Pekida are making a mockery of Malaysia. The Chief Justices of the High Court openly acknowledge favouring Malays in their rulings. The Home Minister and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) are both thugs and followers of Ketuanan Melayu. Pretty soon, orangutans, biawak (lizards) and tapirs will be arrested for sedition. Malaysia makes Monty Python look sane. Najib, Mahathir, Anwar, none are free of guilt, in their egocentric desire to dominate the nation. The institutions in Malaysia, educational, scientific, judicial and sociocultural, are pathetic, because they have no independence. Like Turkey, under President Erdogan, any pretense of secularism and multicultural tolerance, is quickly being swept-away by greed, cupidity and no respect for the Constitution and the MA of 1963. At this point, it’s 50/50 whether Sabah and Sarawak will even stay in the federation. This is not what Tunku intended at all for Malaya, and as a son of Malaya, born in Singapore before Merdeka, I have watched my former home, crumble slowly in the face of institutionalized avarice and hypocrisy. From the absurd trial of Dr Kassim Ahmad to the so-called “accident” of Karpal Singh who was murdered, oh sorry, killed, to the PM’s dalliances with Mongolian models and randy academics, Malaysia has become it’s own farce, achieving another great Malaysian World Record.
I was really delighted with the insights this book offered. For the first time I understood the long struggle of the Isaan people in the context of the Thai State. It is a necessary read for everyone who wants to see and taste the background of the current political crisis.
OK, Allah speaks Arabic, we got that… BUT did Allah, say anything about humans (especially the Ketuanan kind) being given the power to dictate what words non- muslims use?
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Strengthening sedition
Absolutely right on all counts – When the Islamic and ketuanan fire finally engulf Malaysia, it will be good-bye to everyone, including the current crop of fat cats.. Give it another 7-8 years.
Art, activism and saving sacred rivers
Excellent article about Myint Zaw’s environmental work in Myanmar. Myanmar
is also home to thousands of indigenous
threatened and endangered plants and
animals, including many species of birds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_of_Burma
Art, activism and saving sacred rivers
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/22/earth_day_special_goldman_prize_awarded
“Democracy Now Earth Day Special: Goldman Prize Awarded to Burmese Photographer Who Fought Dam Project”
Southeast Asian Frontiers field course
This course definitely inspired and directed my future learning – and I expect will have an impact on my post-university career. May it continue into the future. Thank you Ajaan Chintana, Nicholas Farrelly, Sarah Bishop, and the many other people who have contributed from Australia, Myanmar and Thailand.
What we’ve got here is failure to communicate
What does Jokowi do if he takes this author’s advice and invites the PDI-P to join the opposition? Does he fall back on coalition partners like Surya Paloh’s NasDem party, which has donated such talented members as Tedjo and Prasetyo to Jokowi’s cabinet? And maybe Sutiyoso’s party could provide a couple of ministerial candidates to fill the gaps, and Wiranto’s too, both of these parties being sadly unrepresented at present.
As time passes since his inauguration, it is becomingly increasingly clear that Jokowi is bent on making Indonesia a ‘great power’, using such short-cut methods as getting himself photographed next to the leaders of acknowledged great powers like Obama and Xi. Having first explained this technique to some SMA students visiting the palace, Jokowi more recently moved up the educational ladder and gave the same message to the PMII,the university student organisation affiliated with NU.
In Obama’s understandable absence from the KAA, Abe Shinzo had to deputise for him in Jokowi’s photographs. It wouldn’t have done if the Swaziland representative had stood next to Jokowi. It is odd,though, that Narendra Modi couldn’t be prevailed upon to turn up for the celebrations of the Bandung Conference at which Nehru played such an important role. He could have been photographed near Jokowi to enhance the KAA host’s status.
Meanwhile, Prasetyo is clearing the decks for the executions of the second batch of the drug traffickers for whom Jokowi has denied clemency.
“Children of the revolution” to revolutionary grandchildren?
Are these generational transitions or expressions of crises of global capital in Southeast Asia? The periodization of this essay matches well with the establishment of heavily state driven development, its 1970’s crisis and reconfiguration into a ‘state-retreat’ phases, and finally whatever social science will decide to call the current moment. The common traits among each generation are well-put, but I wonder if it wouldn’t say more to connect it to global structures.
What we’ve got here is failure to communicate
Ah, the lamentations of a former cheerleader. Jokowi, ANU has un-friended you, take that!
The double captivity of ‘Chinese privilege’
My main aim with this piece was to introduce a new term (as I tried to do in my book with “spaghetti Westernization”) to see if “double captivity” works as an analytical concept. Is there any use in this as an intellectual exercise? There might be if it unmasks inferiority masquerading as superiority, or if it exposes when the blind is leading the blind, ie when pseudo analysis is mistaken as good scholarship.
Also, does double captivity work only in the context of Singapore or can it apply to intellectual and creative work in Italy, the US and elsewhere? And why would we even want to ask this question? Maybe because at a time when there is a lot of talk about global flows of knowledge and who is commanding in the so-called knowledge economy, double captivity might just be one of the many ways to identify what is, and isn’t, truly and refreshingly new and useful.
Others have responded critically to the line that Thanapal and Koh have been pushing regarding their work on Chinese privilege. Among the criticisms I have come across are: too many generalizations and sweeping statements, conflation of concepts, a ranting, hostile, emotional tone; denigration of Indian men and Chinese women re their choice of marriage partner, the choice of frivolous examples like beauty contests to talk about a serious issue like gender discrimination, use of terms without really understanding them etc.
Any term built on an already problematic and flawed concept like White privilege is bound to run into serious problems. Works such as Theodore Allen’s The Invention of the White Race, Noel Ignatiev’s How the Irish became White and Sander Gilman’s ‘Are Jews White?’ in his book The Jew’s Body show that there is no common or consistent understanding of whiteness as one thing to begin with. Nor is there a common sense of privilege.
It is also a language problem, what words do when they appear in speech. Of course privilege exists, some people may not be aware of its negative effects and it is useful to remind them. But the moment one drops a term like Chinese privilege into the discussion, the reaction is often ‘What does that mean?’, ‘What has ‘Chinese’ got to do with it? Many Malaysian Malays are like that too’, ‘Why not just use the term Chinese chauvinism?’, ‘Why only Singaporean Chinese…many Malaysian Chinese are the same way…’, ‘Why are academics always talking about China these days?’ and the discussion becomes very confusing, circuitous, inconclusive and unproductive.
There is good scholarship and good writing about Singapore, if you know how to recognise it. This is a challenge further complicated by the amount of material available online, on platforms that readers give credibility to.
One final thing. The interview carries the byline of its editor, Petra Dierkes-Thrun, which is unusual for an interview. We are not told how the interview, called a “conversation”, was conducted–whether face-to-face, recorded and transcribed, or via email. Lack of clarity is understandable and inevitable in spontaneous speech. But if responses were written, then edited, why is there still lack of clarity (and I am not refering to typos like “..think in terms of the language and social of the dominant group..”)? What are we to make of “…it places the blame for failure on those who did not work hard enough…” So they did not work hard enough, or they were perceived as not working hard enough? Here we have the return of the myth of the lazy native.
Moreover, why does the interviewer not ask for clarification or call the interviewee out in the face of her naive and troubling conviction that Singapore is the only decolonised state that “has a completely alien population control political and economic power, while the formerly decolonized indigenous people remain continuously marginalized”? Apart from the fact that Malays do vote in Singapore, and the Singapore government has always shared political power in a multiracial coalition, the notion of “alien population” is troubling. Are Singaporean Chinese still considered an alien population in Singapore today? When did they start to become one? And when, pray tell, will they stop? Do Native Americans still consider other Americans an “alien population”? For the record, the Chinese have been present on Southeast Asian territory since the tenth century, not just as merchants but also settling down and marrying local people.
If Adeline Koh chooses not to react because she is following her own advice to “shut up when a minority is talking about race”, then the question is: who is damaged in the end by this approach?
One of my readers has privately pointed out to me the connection between Du Bois and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the idea of ‘double consciousness’. My reader’s point was this: Ideas cross borders, and are borrowed and built upon all the time. But Du Bois was not a captive mind. His writing has a certain independence, a distinctive feel about it such that we do not see the figure of Emerson sitting at the back of his mind. So Emerson’s influence is not felt as bondage where a power imbalance can be identified. Du Bois’ is the kind of writing that makes it difficult to distinguish between internal and external influences. It is modernizing and modernist writing that shows it has understood the lessons of the teachers in a completely new manner. It is, to paraphrase A.A. Phillips on the cultural cringe, writing that shows it has mastered the art of being unselfconsciously itself.
Southeast Asian Frontiers field course
Interesting article. Great offering from ANU.
Burma and the Kipling mystique
Thanks for the comment. The CityU paper is available here:
http://www.cityu.edu.hk/searc/Resources/Paper/15011914_161%20-%20WP%20-%20Dr%20Andrew%20Selth.pdf
Best wishes to all,
Nich
Strengthened sedition
In the nation of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In Malaysia, the one-eyed man is soon to lose his second eye. A nation run by illiterate misfits and racist warmongers does not lend itself well to equitable institutions and, in Malaysia, the most equitable institution is WWF-Malaysia, which has tried to do more to save endangered non-human species, than all the expedient politicians combined, have tried to remove all the entrenched interests, that infect and parasitise Malaysia at all levels of society.
Strengthening sedition
[…] Whiting has written an excellent piece on Malaysia’s Sedition Act in New Mandala. Among the many important observations and reminders, we […]
Strengthening sedition
Malaysia is an Islamic Monty Python State of Kafkaesque proportions. Consider: Malay extremists are offended by an innocuous cross on a church near a predominately Malay neighbourhood; the same delusional idiots who believe they will be intentionally doused with Roman Catholic Holy Water and be converted to Christians during a full moon.
Consider: The brother of the Malaysian Inspector General of Police (IGP), the most senior law enforcement position in the nation, is an UMNO politician and virulent supporter of Ketuanan Melayu, as is his brother, the IGP. If no Malaysian can trust the most senior law enforcement official to be objective in the protection of Malays, imagine the confidence level among non-Malays. Consider: Current Home Minister, Zahid Hamidi, former Malaysian Defence Minister, stated about two years ago: “The non-Malays don’t want to fight for Malaysia; they are basically disloyal and that is why there are few non-Malays in the Army”. With such a “tolerant” and “encouraging” viewpoint by the former Defence Minister, also a virulent Ketuanan Melayu supporter, it is a wonder that there are ANY Malays in the Malaysian armed forces. In fact, the IGP (Tan Sri Abu Bakar) and the Home Minister (Zahid Hamidi) last year, stated clearly and unambiguously (and it is on the record), that they WOULD DEFEND MALAYS AND ISLAM, BEFORE MALAYSIA. Would you like me to repeat that, in case it wasn’t clear ? Imagine, that you were in the UK, and the analogous individuals, stated: “I put my Anglican beliefs before Queen and country”. The normal response would thus be: “Well then, perhaps you should consider becoming an Anglican priest”. If it hasn’t shocked you yet that the two foremost ministers for law enforcement in Malaysia recently declared that their loyalty was NOT to Malaysia first, then you are either deaf or delusional, as well. Given that almost the whole planet has been indicted by Prime Minister Najib and UMNO for sedition, it should be fairly obvious why the IGP and Home Minister have NOT, clearly seditious and racist statements very much to the contrary. This must be another Malaysian World Record, in cultural, political and religious hypocrisy.
These are the foundations of WHY Malaysia is in trouble; why Malaysia is becoming a Hanafi or Hanbali Sunni Islamic State (soon to transition to Wahhabi Islam), leaving Shaf’i Islam far behind, because the ever shrill demand for Shari’a Law and Hudud by many Muslim Malay fanatics, and the political party PAS, has clearly changed the Islamic paradigms and faces of Malaysia. Gone are the multicultural panels, the multiethnic conferences, and even natural intermingling of Malaysia’s different races, is now fraught with more risk, more fear and greater susceptibility to political manipulation by always ambitious and venal politicians, many (but not all exclusively) from the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN).
Malaysia was already in trouble with the illegal trials of Anwar Ibrahim. Now, with every two or four-legged organism, on Planet Earth (especially rather overrated cartoonists) subject to sedition charges, Malaysia has become a Malay-led Islamic police state, except the police are the cause and not the solution (just ask Roman Catholic Bishop Paul Tan). Malaysia is not the “Fox guarding the hen house”, but rather, the “Hen guarding the fox house”, and we all know well what that spells for Malaysia, in the long run. To see a nation, that I once greatly admired, descend into madness, that only Dante Alighieri would approve of, is beyond sad and depressing. Malaysia is a comedy, alright, just not as divine, as its most extremist elements, would have us believe.
Vale Pamela Gutman
“Sittwe Residents Mourn the Death of Australian Rakhine Expert” reports RFA Burmese TV.
Review of Finding Their Voice
What is in many ways most notable about Prof Keyes’s book is the willingness to rethink some of his basics assumptions about Thai society and politics that it bespeaks. And not only is that intellectual honesty admirable, but it also has led Prof Keyes to a range of invaluable insights. How much members of elite and would-be elite circles in Bangkok (and their White Man camp followers) could learn from both that honesty and those insights. Silkworm deserves congratulation for publishing this book.
Fortifying authoritarian rule in Malaysia
Malaysia is becoming an Islamic State, or rather a Fascist Islamic State. The Constitution and Malaysia Agreement of 1963 forbid Hudud; in fact, forbid Shari’a Law. UMNO, PAS and Ketuanan Melayu fanatics in Isma, Perkasa, JAIS, Pekida are making a mockery of Malaysia. The Chief Justices of the High Court openly acknowledge favouring Malays in their rulings. The Home Minister and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) are both thugs and followers of Ketuanan Melayu. Pretty soon, orangutans, biawak (lizards) and tapirs will be arrested for sedition. Malaysia makes Monty Python look sane. Najib, Mahathir, Anwar, none are free of guilt, in their egocentric desire to dominate the nation. The institutions in Malaysia, educational, scientific, judicial and sociocultural, are pathetic, because they have no independence. Like Turkey, under President Erdogan, any pretense of secularism and multicultural tolerance, is quickly being swept-away by greed, cupidity and no respect for the Constitution and the MA of 1963. At this point, it’s 50/50 whether Sabah and Sarawak will even stay in the federation. This is not what Tunku intended at all for Malaya, and as a son of Malaya, born in Singapore before Merdeka, I have watched my former home, crumble slowly in the face of institutionalized avarice and hypocrisy. From the absurd trial of Dr Kassim Ahmad to the so-called “accident” of Karpal Singh who was murdered, oh sorry, killed, to the PM’s dalliances with Mongolian models and randy academics, Malaysia has become it’s own farce, achieving another great Malaysian World Record.
Review of Finding Their Voice
I was really delighted with the insights this book offered. For the first time I understood the long struggle of the Isaan people in the context of the Thai State. It is a necessary read for everyone who wants to see and taste the background of the current political crisis.
Rachel Leow on Malaysian Allah
Hai Greg, I salute your patience.. trying to speak logically to some fanatical Muslim?
That is quite beyond me.
Rachel Leow on Malaysian Allah
OK, Allah speaks Arabic, we got that… BUT did Allah, say anything about humans (especially the Ketuanan kind) being given the power to dictate what words non- muslims use?
Fascist assemblages in Cambodia and Myanmar
Thanks for that clarification Keith, much appreciated.