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Recollections of Long Lost Memories, 2007, slide projection, dimensions variable, Ahmad Fuad Osman MALAYSIAN artist Ahmad Fuad Osman’s Recollections of Long Lost Memories received the Juror’s Choice Award at the APBF Signature Art Prize in Singapore in early October 2008. This artwork consists of a slide projection of 71 images of historic photographs taken between […]

Pic courtesy of Tricia Yeoh ONE question hovering over the minds of Americans as they enter the final leg of the 2008 presidential election campaign is whether race will influence voters. If it does not, then the battle between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain should be purely about their policy stands, experiences, and abilities. […]

MANY are talking about the “social contract” as though it is a single construct with a single meaning: the so-called ethnic compromise in Malaysia. Nothing could be further from the truth. Academic Dr Mavis Puthucheary has reminded us that the term started being polemicised only since the 1980s. It is also important to understand what […]

(© Piotr Kozikowski/Dreamstime) WHEN I was media officer at a local feminist organisation, the Malaysian police claimed in their press statements to have solved 80% of crimes against women in 2005. That these figures were greeted with near-universal derision by activists working on women’s human rights would not, I wager, be a surprise to many. […]

(© Jesse Therrien/sxc.hu) MULANYA ada Puteri Gunung Ledang: the Musical (PGL). Kemudian muncullah Putra: the Musical, Cheng Lock: the Musical, P Ramlee: the Musical, muzikal Ismail: the Last Days, Impak Maksima: the Musical, muzikal itu dan muzikal ini. Letih tangan kami menaip kalau nak ditaipkan semua muzikal yang pernah dipentaskan di sana sini, termasuklah muzikal […]

EVERY year, as Deepavali approaches, I always remember my good friend, the great P Patto. For those five years when we were both serving Members of Parliament, the late Patto was my roommate at the DAP headquarters in Petaling Jaya. We slept in those fold-up canvas camp beds that must be obsolete now. (His snoring, […]

(© Revati Upadhya/sxc.hu) SELEPAS hampir sebulan menyambut Aidilfitri, kita sama-sama akan menyambut perayaan Deepavali. Kalau dilihat, ada persamaan antara kedua-dua sambutan yang meraikan “kemenangan”. Kemenangan “melawan” nafsu sepanjang berpuasa dan kemenangan yang baik atas yang jahat. Kita sepatutnya mengambil kesempatan menterjemahkan rasa muhibah antara kita dengan ziarah-menziarahi. Setiap tahun saya akan menyambut Deepavali bersama pengundi […]

Devotees at the Sri Padhpathira Kaliamman Alayam temple (File pic by Danny Lim) “…will you walk through your fears, to dance with me?”                                                                                            – from a hymn of Kali AS often as the story has been told, it can’t be told enough. The narrative remains an essentially “modern account”. It encapsulates the great transformations […]

WHO would think that young people, some only in their late teens, would be interested in history? Specifically Malaysian history, which, as I knew while surviving the Malaysian education system, was dry and boring. My school history lessons definitely did not inspire or engage me. The syllabus did little to help me feel connected to […]

I TOOK a look at the New York Times this morning before setting off to work. I found myself very moved by Maureen Dowd’s op-ed article about Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama. Powell’s “Aha!” moment happened as a result of seeing a photograph of a mother hugging the tombstone of her son, a young […]