BARU-baru ini, saya banyak mendengar pendapat yang bertentangan tentang tindak-tanduk aktivis mahasiswa Adam Adli. Ada yang menuduh tindakannya bodoh dan biadap, tetapi ada juga yang mempertahankan haknya untuk bersuara. Walaupun tidak berkaitan secara langsung, saya rasa nasihat terbaru dari kolumnis pujaan ramai, Kak Nora, memberi perspektif yang penting. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Kak Nora, Kak, [...]

LAWYER-turned-politician Datuk Mohd Zaid Ibrahim, 60, knows that politics can be a dirty game. He joined Umno and won the Kota Baru parliamentary seat in the 2004 general election. The party did not field him for the 2008 elections, however. After winning with a severely reduced majority, the ruling coalition under Prime Minister Tun Abdullah [...]

DATIN Paduka Marina Mahathir is a renowned and often controversial Malaysian activist, writer, and commentator. She has worked in a variety of fields, from heading the Malaysian AIDS Council, to kicking off the successful feminist television programme 3R, to holding a bi-weekly column in The Star. She is currently a board member for Muslim women’s [...]

Open-ended vs. close-ended democracy?

PENING kepala saya baru-baru ini bila tercetus huru-hara tentang “pesta seks bebas” yang kononnya diadakan di Kuala Lumpur. Mula-mula saya rasa mustahil ada orang berani berbuat demikian di tengah-tengah bandaraya KL, tapi hari demi hari ada saja berita tentang golongan “songsang” dan “luar tabii” yang mengangjurkan pesta ini. Lalu saya pun cuba mengetahui dengan lebih [...]

A FEW weeks ago, I took an English friend to visit the National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur before the zohor prayers. At the entrance, my friend, a practising Christian from the Church of England, was given a purple robe to wear — I assume because he was wearing knee-length shorts and I was in full-length [...]