SOME years ago, while studying in the United Kingdom, one of The Nut Graph‘s team members had a discussion with a classmate from India about a fellow Indian Malaysian student. TNG journalist: Ya, she celebrates Diwali, too. She’s a Hindu Indian. Indian classmate: Huh? She’s not Indian, she’s Malaysian! Journalist: Yes, she’s Malaysian, but she’s […]
Six Words On
PM Najib one year later
By The Nut Graph teamCOME 3 April 2010, Malaysians would have spent exactly one calendar year with Datuk Seri Najib Razak as prime minister. The year can hardly be described as a honeymoon — after all, there was unprecedented opposition from civil society and politicians from both sides of the divide to Najib’s ascendance. The new premier, in turn, […]
Pakatan Rakyat
By The Nut Graph teamPR leaders celebrating their victory during the Permatang Pauh by-election in Aug 2008 SO what is the deal with the Pakatan Rakyat (PR)? Is it merely experiencing the normal teething problems of a newly formed political coalition? Are all its problems engineered by the BN, or could some actually have been internally generated? After the […]
Sex education
By The Nut Graph teamLET’S talk about sex … and how ignorant our youth are about it. Anyone remember the Malaysian science syllabus in secondary school? The chapter with diagrams of male and female genitalia, and little explanation about what to do with them? Perhaps you had a teacher who, with a deadpan face, stuck strictly to the scientific […]
Demonstrations
By The Nut Graph teamTHE 1 Aug 2009 anti-Internal Security Act (ISA) street rally attracted big crowds scattered around the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The throng of people easily numbered 20,000 but could have been more. Demonstrators sported headbands, T-shirts and banners that decried the draconian law. They called for the Act, which allows for indefinite state detention without […]
MACC
By The Nut Graph teamTHE Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has come under considerable flak this past week, most severely with the death of Selangor state government aide Teoh Beng Hock. On 16 July 2009, Teoh was discovered dead on the fifth floor of Plaza Masalam, Shah Alam, after a gruelling interrogation lasting more than 10 hours until 3.45am at […]
Unity government
By The Nut Graph teamIT’S off now. But it was on before. And it was off before that. And a year ago it seemed like it was on. You’d think we were watching reruns of Friends and obsessing about Ross and Rachel’s romance. But no, we’re talking about proposals for a unity government, or a unity something, between Umno […]
Chin Peng
By The Nut Graph teamLAST week, newspaper headlines — Utusan Malaysia, in particular — were ablaze with red terror. The spectre of communism seemed poised to return to our lands, especially against a backdrop of calls to allow former Public Enemy No 1, Chin Peng, to return. These calls, most notably from Penang Gerakan chairperson Datuk Dr Teng Hock […]
