SUDAH banyak yang diperkata, diperdebat dan didemokan tentang Seksualiti Merdeka. Banyak juga yang menuduh bukan-bukan. Pesta seks bebas lah, mengajar orang supaya jadi gay lah, dan macam-macam tuduhan yang kreatif. Sayangnya, ramai orang termasuk wartawan, lebih suka menuduh dan mensensasikan isu dari cuba memahami dan memberi maklumat berguna pada orang ramai. Seperti biasa, ramai yang […]
Archives for November 2011
Three things I like about the Peaceful Assembly Bill
MUCH has been said about how undemocratic the Peaceful Assembly Bill is. I beg to differ. On the contrary, three very good aspects of the Peaceful Assembly Bill have been missed by commentators. Here they are: More religious The Bill promotes a religious society. We all know how important religion is to ensure that we […]
Lisa Surihani: Proud of Malaysia
SINCE winning the Best New Actress award at the Malaysian Film Festival in 2007, 25-year-old actress and television personality Lisa Surihani has been in constant demand in the local film industry. She won Best Actress at the 23rd Malaysian Film Festival Award in 2010, and also racked up the Popular Film Actress Award in the Anugerah […]
Uncommon Sense with Wong Chin Huat: Lessons from the Seksualiti Merdeka controversy
Open-ended vs. close-ended democracy?
Nasihat tentang golongan songsang
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 […]
Ways to go organic
WE are what we eat. But how often do we think about where our food comes from and how is it processed? I started taking an interest in organic food due to health and ethical concerns. It is encouraging to observe growing consumer interest in organic products and the mushrooming of retail outlets such as […]
Who’s afraid of Ambiga Sreenevasan?
IF there is one word that best explains and describes the virulent reaction towards Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, that word, for me, would be fear. That’s right. Fear. In fact, it would seem from the continuing attacks against the Bersih 2.0 chairperson that this fear is such that she should be detained without trial under the […]
Untangling PPSMI
DURING the first weekend of November 2011, the PPSMI (the Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics in English) policy trended on Twitter. This evidence of PPSMI’s importance to large numbers of tech-savvy Malaysians came shortly after Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s back-to-back statements on the policy. Muhyiddin first reiterated that PPSMI would […]
Is sustainable development possible?
WHEN residents talk about development in an urban environment, the discussion primarily focuses on ensuing traffic problems for the existing neighbourhood. Developers would, in turn, talk about how they are bringing in much needed economic activity into the area to justify the project. Any discussion without a base framework to start from would invariably lead […]
Who is proselytising?
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 […]
