IT is perhaps destiny that Maria Chin Abdullah ended up being one of the steering committee members for Bersih 2.0, the civil society movement calling for free and fair elections in Malaysia. One of her earliest memories is of independent Malaya’s first general election in 1959 when she was just three. Maria remembers being with [...]

I DIDN’T live through the racial clashes of 13 May 1969. I was born a year after. And yet, throughout my childhood and into my adulthood, just mentioning “13 May” evoked whispered warnings and an unnameable fear. What is it about 13 May that gives rise to fear and suspicion that fellow Malaysians might re-enact [...]

Updated at 4:45pm, 27 Jan 2011 Corrected at 10am, 25 Jan 2011 “WHEN the word ‘Malaysian’ comes to me, I always think of diversity,” Datuk Seri Nazir Razak says at the CIMB headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, where he is the bank’s group chief executive. It is our diversity, he adds, that has allowed us to [...]

Azhar Ibrahim (Wiki commons) MUCH as some of us want to move on, we keep being reminded about 13 May 1969 in fearsome ways. For many, in particular those who feel politically threatened, the date is a bogey to scare others into submission. That’s why we still have the likes of Penang Opposition Leader Datuk [...]

Performing in Bunga Manggar Bunga Raya; Five Arts Centre, 2007 (Pic by Phillip Craig; all pics courtesy of Mark Teh) INTRODUCING Mark Teh with a short sentence is not easy. The director-educator-producer-performer-researcher says he tries not to place his various pursuits in a hierarchy. “I suppose I function more like a historian, more than anything [...]

Interview with Hassan Muthalib, a witness to the events of 13 May 1969, as featured on The Fairly Current Show. Lead pic on TNG home page is by Hassan, depicting a Malay/Chinese Malaysian kampung the day after 13 May IT’S been 40 years since the race riots of 13 May 1969. Every Malaysian is familiar [...]