Introduction by Dr Lim Teck Ghee Dr Mahathir Mohamad has recently been giving distorted history lessons on minority populations. To top these rants, he even sounded almost regretful when he opined that the Holocaust had ostensibly “failed??? in its ‘Final Solution’ to reduce the ‘Jewish problem’ beyond the six million loss of life. On … Read more
Seorang kenalan saya di Amerika pernah menceritakan bagaimana pada satu hari, ketika duduk berehat sebentar di sebuah pusat membeli-belah, beliau ternampak dua orang lelaki berkulit hitam berlari dengan pantas sambil dikejar seorang pegawai keselamatan. Lantas timbul hasrat kenalan saya ini untuk membantu lalu dikejarnya dua orang lelaki itu, diterjah salah seorang daripadanya dari belakang dan … Read more
The finite human mind can’t be expected to fully grasp the infinite even if we are to name it God or Allah. And the more special our God is, the more special is our love and hate isolating us from adherents of other faiths. Although the ‘Allah’ controversy originated as a problem in translation, banning … Read more
Masyarakat kita hari ini dikelilingi kepelbagaian. Kita terdedah dengan individu-individu yang berbeza warna kulit, budaya dan pegangan hidup berbanding diri kita sendiri. Maka dalam keadaan ini, dilema yang menanti adalah samada kita tetap teguh dengan cara dan budaya kita sendiri atau perlu kita mengalah dan menerapkan budaya orang lain. Tidak kira siapa, Melayu, Cina, India, … Read more
Well, so what if Ah Beng is a multi-millionaire. His English is still ‘funny’, hence the English-speaking middle class in Malaysia can nonetheless consider him a linguistic inferior. Two Chinese businessmen from transnational organizations met in a Kowloon bar for drinks after a workshop in Hong Kong. As the local man spoke only Cantonese and … Read more
Hijacking the mind and feelings of a particular race for the purpose of consolidating power is so openly propagated that a realization of how individuals or groups can be deliberately primed for a malicious political purpose is simply paralyzing. Anecdotal evidence points to the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) courses being nothing more than doses of … Read more
One writer describes as ‘moderns’ as, “Pagans in the ancient world could at best exhibit splendid vices, given that they did not worship the true God, but at least they were trying to live virtuously in terms of shared narrative framework. Their modern successors, having lost their grip on the concept of virtue and … Read more
This article is Dr Abraham’s ‘Malaysia, protest and revolt’ entry in the International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest (published by Blackwell Publishing, 2009). It is reproduced in full by CPI with permission by the author. Malaysia is a multicultural society that was born in the throes of protest, largely influenced by British colonialism. The … Read more
Introduction to Dr Collin Abraham’s encyclopedia entry – by Editor, CPI This week marks 20 years of the signing of the Haadyai Treaty. The agreement signed on Dec 2, 1989 ended the armed conflict between the Malaysian government and the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM). A deal is a deal. Malaysia would do well to … Read more
CPI columnist for our Bahasa Melayu section Jayanath Appudurai (pix above) is a core member of the Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia (SABM) movement which seeks to reinvigorate participation by the citizenry in nation-building. This stakeholding in our country is premised on a fresh paradigm of equality and equitability for all under the … Read more