Northeast Malaysia Forum

So, as you might have noticed, our web team was not quite able to keep up with the fast pace of events here in Boston. Technical glitches + sleep-deprivation + room reservation mishaps = harried and stressed out committee. So, we missed a lot of things, and the things we did not miss were posted much after the fact. We were also not quite able to keep up with the sessions enough to fully transcribe them.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t find any. In particular, the Malaysian side has done a great job covering what’s happened, especially back home. On ReCom, Chen Chow covered much of what happened on the first day. On his blog, Chen Chow covered the second-day teleconferencing sessions — Tony Fernandes and Malik Imtiaz. Meanwhile, Hafiz blogged (with pictures!!!) about Karim Raslan and the second-day teleconferencees. A gigantenormous thank you to these two awesome guys! We will try to get more information about the conference proceedings online in the following days, so do stay tuned.

Comments Off Posted by johnleemk / NMF 2008

Sim Tze Tzin, co-founder of the original Stanford Malaysia Forum, followed Jeff Ooi in teleconferencing from Penang, where he was recently elected as the state assemblyman for Pantai Jerejak. Sim opened by speaking about the contributions of student leaders who eventually radically changed the course of history like Sun Yat Sen and Mahatma Gandhi. Sim was quick to dismiss the suggestion that Malaysia might need a radical revolution; however, he made it clear that he believes “the country is not going in the right direction”.

He moved on to describe the founding of the Stanford Malaysia Forum one bitter California winter four years ago. “Stuck in a coffee shop,” he and a few others resolved that they needed a space for overseas students to engage in dialogue about the home country we all care for. He put it as a “spirit of civil society,” where we begin first with discussion, and continue on to form small projects to improve the country and maybe later fully “engage in the nation-building process,” as he and Jeff have done.

Comments Off Posted by johnleemk / NMF 2008

“Bloggers thrive” in the space for political expression says blogger-turned-politician Jeff Ooi. Teleconferencing from Penang, where he was recently elected as the MP for Jelutong, Jeff spoke of online media becoming an “authoritative source of information and analysis”.

In particular, Jeff emphasised the impact of using the internet to disseminate various political videos, be they simply an expression of one’s personal opinion, or a recording of a ceramah. In his analysis, Jeff attributed the dramatic results of the recent elections to the drastic proliferation of political media in the online space.

Responding to a question on why he decided to leave the neutral ground of civil society to enter the realm of partisan politics, Jeff explained that he had grown tired of dealing with political issues in an ineffective non-partisan manner, and “thrown in the towel”. He also stressed that being a blogger-politician would be beneficial for both his cause and Malaysian society at large, mentioning the possibility of explaining the inner workings of Parliament on his blog, and using online media to strengthen the space for political dialogue in the country.

Prompted by a Penangite questioner, Jeff also expounded on his analysis of the economic situation in the country. Rejecting the notion that Malaysia can compete in providing low-cost labour, he instead proposed looking into hi-tech industries as a future source of economic growth for the state and the country.

Comments Off Posted by johnleemk / NMF 2008

Zainah Anwar is the Executive Director of Sisters in Islam, and a prominent feminist and public intellectual in Malaysia. Expanding from Malik Imtiaz, Zainah argues that the Constitution of Malaysia does not explicitly state whether Malaysia is an Islamic or secular state, and that the decision to make Islam the “religion of the Federation” was for ceremonial purposes. Echoing Malik on the secular nature of Malaysia’s laws, Zainah argues that the current scenario — the encroachment of Shariah jurisdiction on matters deemed under secular jurisdiction (Shyamala, Subashini, Lina Joy) — is a result of a change in the political landscape of Malaysia, and frames this as a “silent rewriting of the constitution.”

Zainah sees civil society as the way forward: arguing that public law must be open to public debate. She calls for lawmakers not to “hide behind the sanctity of the divine;” and for civil society to speak out on important, far-reaching religious issues without discrimination, rather than frame them in a Muslim/non-Muslim binary. Zainah argues for a progressive, intellectual understanding of Islam to cope with changing norms and times (Arabic: ijtihad) — to ensure that religion is a “source of peace.”

As a response to a probing question about the legality of enforcing religious law (e.g. raiding night clubs), given the secular nature of Malaysia’s laws, Zainah explains that the state grants regulatory bodies like JAIS power to regulate the lives of Muslims with the Shariah Criminal Offenses Act — and that its jurisdiction has expanded over the years. She highlights the gender biases against women inherent in such enforcement, and argues that public outrage at the excesses of religious authorities (e.g. Zouk!), while rejuvenating, is only the first step towards reformation of religious law in Malaysia.

In closing, Zainah urged the audience to look to the Federal Constitution for guidance on handling the confluence of religion and public law in Malaysia. As she ended, her speech was met with raucous applause — perhaps the most enthusiastic yet of the conference.

Zainah encourages participants — and anyone interested in the issues she discussed — to check out the Sisters in Islam website, or get in touch with her via email: zmha54 AT yahoo.co.uk (replacing “AT” with “@”, of course).

Comments Off Posted by andrewlza / NMF 2008

Malik Imtiaz Sarwar is a leading Malaysian human rights lawyer and activist and the current president of the National Human Rights Society (HAKAM). Malik argues that race-based politics in Malaysia has contributed to a concentration of power in the hands of an elite — which has led to a variety of other problems, such as corruption, executive dominance, Islamisation (as political capital), and the perversion of the judiciary. He then emphasized the importance of state-ownership among citizens in reforming these systemic weaknesses, and quotes the March 8 2008 elections as an example of this notion.

In a response to a question about the role of Islam in the constitutional framework of Malaysia (Article 3 and Article 11) and its relation to the Lina Joy case, Malik quotes a 1988 Federal (Supreme) Court decision (Che Omar Che Soh), where the court ruled that the laws of the country were secular, including personal law. Malik also explains that the Federal Court awarded habeas corpus to a Malay man who converted to Christianity and who was proselytizing on the grounds that his ISA detainment was an infringement on his right to freedom of religion. Given these legal precedents, he therefore argues that the current legal imbroglio is a result of the political Islamic race between UMNO and PAS in the 90s and also of the 1988 Salleh Abbas affair that emasculated judicial independence, among other factors.

While recognizing the role of Islam in public life, Malik reminds us of the social contract inherent in the Constitution of Malaysia and exhorts us to be wary of the language of supremacism that many political parties make to position themselves. Another interesting question raised was the tendency of framing Malaysian issues in terms of “religious” versus “secular” rather than articulating them in a larger human rights context, or as Malik argues, in terms of “constitutional rights” and “equality.”

Comments Off Posted by andrewlza / NMF 2008

“You don’t need political connections”, says Tony Fernandes.

“This is the problem with Malaysians”, he says, “we sit around and think ‘Oh, it can’t be done.’”

The self-made man related his experience setting up a fledgling business in an industry long dominated by the national airline, MAS. Tony stressed the importance of being willing to go out there and take risks, warning that most Malaysians are often reluctant to take chances, which he spoke of as imperative to the entrepreneur. Audience members quizzed him on the difficulty of starting up a new firm in Malaysia, and opportunities for Indians to break into the corporate world, prompting Tony to remark that this seemed to be a rather “political conference”. In response, Tony emphasised that educational opportunities are the necessary factor for economic progress, and that relative to other countries, our airline industry is still more open. Closing his speech, Tony chuckled that thanks to the Malaysia Forum, he now has “another feather in [his] cap” — using modern, low-cost technology to speak at a conference thousands of miles away.

Comments Off Posted by johnleemk / NMF 2008

It was a pleasant moment when our teleconferencing with Bridget Welsh, an Assistant Professor in the Southeast Asia Program at Johns Hopkins University and a political analyst, was initially interrupted by technical glitches, reminding us of the near distance we have between Malaysia and its politics.

Welsh celebrated the recent elections for its “democratic opening” and “fundamental transformation” in electoral outcome. She said it had reflected a rise of an “increasingly sophisticated electorate,” which implicitly posed the question of “What should the government be doing.” The election pointed to how Barisan Nasional (BN) is “never going to be same again” but has to reform to maintain political hegemony, and also showed that “cooperation between opposition can be effective.” However, since the opposition parties “did not cooperate to govern but to win seats,” the challenge is to work together and prove that the “negative vote” against BN is indeed also a “positive vote” for the opposition.

Several challenges were highlighted: the lack of experience of younger candidates, an inconsistent cabinet, sultans challenging leadership in different states for a more representative leadership; sharp differences of opinions on the NEP and other racial questions; the rise of multiple sovereignties. Welsh also predicted that East Malaysia would emerge as “a pivotal player of Malaysian politics” and that Keadilan would be the focal point of these debates. She also pointed out that political power had previously been centralized around a single person; there is a heavy focus on personality figures within the party, rather than the focus of taking care of public interest.

At the end, Welsh underscored that “everyone in the room can make a big difference”. She suggested: -

1) 1) Share your opinions and insights with each other and back in Malaysia

2) 2) Offer your talents that the Malaysian education system has snubbed;“don’t stay here, go back” since the government needs to hear the different ideas

3) 3) Remind people that this issues mentioned have to be incorporated into the system – younger leaders have to be more open

Comments Off Posted by nickwong / NMF 2008

Azly Rahman, former lecturer at University Utara Malaya, and a columnist for the online newspaper, Malaysiakini.com, was an apt line-up to Meredith Weiss, a physical example of what Weiss mentioned was an academic instrumental to commenting on the various repressions of civil society, especially since he was one of the few Malaysian academics who refused to sign the AkuJanji pledge in 2007.

Given the platform to sound his ideas, Rahman did not address his assigned topic of National Identity (although there are preliminary sketches available on his blog), but instead offered us some spots of his philosophical ideas.

What I understood from Rahman’s speech was the need to equip ourselves with knowledge, to understand the “genealogy of history and theories” and, with hints of Orwell, to militate against the “prison house of language” that politicians find recourse to so as to manipulate its audience. He brought up several “ambiguities of freedom” which poses questions such as: “Freedom from what?”, “Freedom to do what?”, Freedom after March 8?”

Rahman spoke of his philosophy of Radical Multiculturalism, which is to discover separate identities within oneself, reminiscent of Palestinian critic, Edward W. Said’s idea of discovering “the other” and not merely make assumptions about one’s innate cultural identity. He quoted the necessity of the Bumiputra policy to “evolve and intermarry with other ideas”. Given the constant definitional change of what makes effective policies, he highlighted our role “to continue to dialogue…for things we value as a culture and a race”.

Rahman also posited an Eco-philosophy, which is the return to living in symbiosis with nature. He gave examples such as persistent deforestation, which points to the danger of “fail(ing) to look at the old idea of nature and culture.” We are both “economic beings” as well as “cultural beings”, and cautioned against “capitalism and consumerism” and the subsequent neglect of altruism.

Comments Off Posted by nickwong / NMF 2008

In her invigorating and excellent analyses, Meredith Weiss, a research fellow at the East West Center, Washington, started off by defining terms like “civil society” as “the space between the family and the state”, which extends to the media, student groups and social clubs, and “students” as someone poised to negotiate between “a functional/role identity” and “a collective identity”. She highlighted that in Malaysian schools, the functional/role identity is stressed over the other, leading to a lack of “progressive and bold” political action.

A large portion of her speech comprised a succinct recount of student movements in the 20^th century. She dated the start of civil society from the 1920s when political legitimacy not only stemmed from the political strongholds of the time - the Sultan, but also from outside, such as trade unions, secret societies, chambers of commerce, even silat groups. She said that the “assumption that Malaysians are politically apathetic is overstated and inconsistent”, and highlighted how in the 1960-70s, student activism was alive at University of Malaya, how in the 1980-90s, there was a rise of NGOs with a more activist approach.

After continuing with a brief and fascinating history of Malaysian students throughout the 20^th century, Weiss emphasized the importance of the now for students to get involved in politics, as the conditions seem promising, for example, students are building coalitions with other social bodies; alternative media provides a “career trajectory for activist students”; there is a shift to ideological, non-race-based coalitions and a resurgence of intellectualism in politics, and so on.

The Q&A session was very fruitful and well-handled.

Comments Off Posted by nickwong / NMF 2008

Sorry to interrupt the sporadic livebloggers, but a note from the technical side: issues arose with getting Jeff on the line. As you know, the final schedule had him together with Malaysiakini CEO Premesh Chandran to speak about new media in Malaysia. However, he was not able to teleconference with us because of urgent business in Penang. We planned to have him speak via mobile phone from his office there, but last minute complications have forced us to push him tentatively to tomorrow’s session. We’ve had a great day so far, and due to Jeff’s unfortunate last-minute complications, we are now having great Malaysian food! (If you are reading this from Malaysia, you have no idea how much you will crave Malaysian food once you go abroad; if you aren’t, you know exactly what we mean.)

Andrew is still busy typing up his posts, and you will soon get the scoop on what else our wonderful teleconferencees had to tell us here in Sever Hall, Harvard University. Till then, best wishes from Boston!

Comments Off Posted by johnleemk / NMF 2008