WHAT has the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) Selangor government achieved after two and a half years in power? If one relied on traditional media reports or Umno’s “Save Selangor” roadshow, the answer may well be, “Not very much”. But the reality is much more nuanced, as demonstrated in the book The Road to Reform: Pakatan Rakyat [...]

THE Selangor government’s November 2009 announcement banning state employees from attending Biro Tatanegara (BTN) courses due to racist elements triggered a flurry of public testimonies. Many former BTN participants shared their own encounters with racism during the course, including on The Nut Graph. The government was quick to defend the BTN programme while agreeing that [...]

MOHD Khalid Mohd Nor, 27, attended the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) programme in 2002. Back then, he was a Public Services Department (JPA) scholar about to be sent to Germany to attend university. Khalid is now in London finishing his PhD in advanced manufacturing technologies. He is not on a government scholarship anymore. The Nut [...]

HOW have Malaysians been discussing the recent controversy over the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) programmes? Let us count the ways. There are those who defend the BTN courses, such as Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein. Then there are the critics. Some, like de facto Law Minister [...]

ARIF Johny Abdullah, 34, attended his Biro Tata Negara (BTN) programme back in the 1990s when he was in secondary school. He has blogged about his experiences at the camp, including an escape from camp grounds to find replacements for participants who had broken their eggs. Arif is a Sino-Kadazan from Sabah and officially converted [...]

I NEVER attended a Biro Tata Negara (BTN) programme. But I, too, sat in a darkened room while the facilitator taught the song Warisan, which ended with the line Melayu kan gagah di Nusantara and some participants crying. I, too, was made to carry an egg and then reprimanded for letting a mischievous trainer defile [...]