Malaysia Forum

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

In his delightful British accent and sense of humour, Karim Raslan reveals that his pre-election travels to Sabah, Sarawak, and the West and East Coasts have brought him into contact with many young Malaysians — and that they have more to say about politics than many believe, or want to believe. Taking back his prediction that the 2008 Elections would have been “non-epochal,” Karim (not Mr. Karim Raslan — he’s only 43!) explains that our growingly-emboldened young voters have, and will continue to change the political landscape of Malaysia by increasingly asserting their voices in various spaces.

Karim advocates that young people with common goals continue to strive and to act, and also to network (globally!) for a more international, diverse reach — across different cultures, languages, regions, and religions. Karim also answers questions about the importance of speaking native languages (deriving from his vast Indonesian experience), term limits, checks and balances, the role of a free media, the monarchy (-ies), youth movements in Southeast Asia (and learning from them), and our seeming attraction towards strong (if not authoritarian) leaders. Did I mention his boyish charm and British accent?

Comments Off Posted by andrewlza / NMF 2008

Colin Nicholas, Coordinator, Center for Orang Asli Concerns (COAC), talks about the special relationship of land to the Orang Asli. Not unlike the Native Americans, the particular areas where Orang Asli live make them what they are — “people of special ecological niches.” The physicality of land influences their culture, spirituality and social structure — and past and current government and corporate encroachment (e.g. logging, the Lebuhraya Damansara-Puchong (LDP), Sepang, KLIA, Subang) upon Orang Asli land and subsequent resettlement have drastically affected their livelihoods and well-being. A shocking 75% of Orang Asli still live below the poverty line, and they fare poorly in terms of all other indicators of standards of living (health, nutrition, access to water, etc.).

Colin strongly advocates recognizing Orang Asli claims to their ancestral land as a start. He argues, also, that we need to understand that they can lead self-suficient, autonomous, dignified lives by themselves. Colin explains that the Orang Asli want development and its benefits, but only on their terms. Fascinatingly, Colin relates the inseparable (but often overlooked) historical and cultural relationship between the Malay Peninsula and the Orang Asli by arguing that many Malay Sultanates (e.g. Melaka, Perak) could not be founded without the help of the Orang Asli (e.g. Johor and the Orang Laut); also, fascinatingly, Negeri Sembilan Undangs need Orang Asli blood.

In addition to these, Colin answers questions about regional efforts to address the plight of the indigene, the tension between Malaysia’s assimilation policies to create a Bangsa Malaysia and the need to address the Orang Asli as a separate, historically-marginalised community, and the political and financial incentives of many indigenous representatives (many in government) to oppress and mislead their own people.

Comments Off Posted by andrewlza / NMF 2008

Mark Chang, Jobstreet CEO, relates the paradox of massive youth unemployment, on one hand, and the many job-openings that are not being filled in the corporate world on the other. He attributes this to the expertise and talent gap between labor supply and demand. Fascinatingly, Mark explains that after five years of work, overseas graduates have a 15% higher average salary than local graduates; after ten years, the gap widens to 50%.

Mark argues that the structure of our (UK-inherited) education system does not really matter — and that the real problem is the questionable quality of lecturers and professors in our deteriorating university system, who are “not as good as they’re supposed to be.” Mark also explains that the miracle years of the 90s with its massive job creation will not be repeated in the near future, and that Malaysia cannot rely solely on being a manufacturing base in the long run due to more competitive places like China, India, and Vietnam. He projects that engineering and IT-related jobs will continue to be popular in the future.

Questions raised include the relevance of liberal arts and humanities degrees (as the talk was science-heavy) to future careers in Malaysia and a challenge against the importance of foreign direct investment (FDIs) in Malaysia. Another interesting point was a participant’s argument that other important (unaddressed) factors for the lack of creative-thinking and intellectualism (and subsequent employability) amongst Malaysian youth were repressive policies like the University and University Colleges Act (UUCA) — “which is why the forum is being held in Boston, and not in Petaling Jaya.”

Comments Off Posted by andrewlza / NMF 2008

Malaysiakini CEO and co-founder Premesh Chandran’s opens the conference, speaking about new media in Malaysia. Premesh argued that a significant reason BN lost so much ground in the recent general election was its failure to take notice of how much impact new and alternative forms of media have had on the political landscape.

Looking into the reasons why, Premesh observed that only urban areas have significant internet penetration rates. In his view, this lulled BN into ignoring issues that bloggers and others brought up on the internet. What they overlooked was how this information could spread — it could be done as simply as by distributing a VCD. Premesh observed that the impact of the internet is there for all to see — Khairy Jamaluddin lost a lot of his standing after the immense publicity of Raja Petra Kamarudin’s “Khairy Chronicles”. The mainstream media has had no choice but to since follow the lead of alternative media outlets like Malaysiakini, Premesh stressed.

Replying to questions from the audience, Premesh dealt with issues such as possible bias in online media, and means of policing them. Pointing out that practically all mainstream media firms are owned by the ruling party, Premesh suggested that online media is simply filling the niche of opposition news that the mainstream media refuses to cover. In response to a question on controlling online content, Premesh argued that offenders are being caught and punished, and suggested it would be largely self-policing — after all, Malaysiakini can hardly afford to get something wrong when it has a 100,000 people reading it.

Comments Off Posted by johnleemk / NMF 2008

Please meet tomorrow at 8am in Sever Hall, Room 113. A detailed map of Harvard Yard can be found here.

Comments Off Posted by joyce / NMF 2008

Just three days left till the start of the inaugural Northeast Malaysia Forum! We hope you’re looking forward to the event as much as we are, because it will be a blast. During the forum, we will be liveblogging the event (yes, live from Harvard University!), so make sure you watch this space. Even if you can’t make it, that doesn’t mean you can’t be in on the fun — and if you can make it, we will see you in three days!

Comments Off Posted by johnleemk / NMF 2008