MALAYSIANS are no longer content to watch the official government-organised Merdeka parade on their televisions. Instead, they have been taking to the streets to celebrate Merdeka in their own way. What’s behind these different celebrations and do they make Malaysians unpatriotic?

TIME Magazine has just named The Protestor its Person of the Year for 2011. Malaysians would count among protestors that made headlines this year, if not internationally than nationally. But what is the point of continuing to protest when something – like the Peaceful Assembly Law – is a foregone conclusion? Political scientist Wong Chin Huat explains the value of civil disobedience and how it can work.

WE’VE all cringed at the sight of certain public structures. At one time, some government buildings were a sickly shade of pink guava. Or take the incongruity of some public structures with their surroundings such as the sculpted pitcher plant water fountain across the Kuala Lumpur (KL) City Hall Building near Dataran Merdeka. And in [...]

PETALING JAYA, 6 March 2009: The police should apologise and compensate the family of A Kugan, as well as others who have been beaten by police, the DAP said today. The party said police have long practiced a culture of “protecting and covering up for one’s colleague”, and demanded that Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed [...]

Book cover of From Majapahit to Putrajaya PETALING JAYA, 4 Dec 2008: The Home Ministry confiscated a book by public intellectual Dr Farish Noor on the grounds that it did not contain the publisher’s or printer’s address. “This book has no full address,” the Home Ministry’s acting director for Selangor, Zainal Osman, told The Nut [...]