Time to Limit the Logic of the Market
4 min read
In December 2015 Playboy magazine released its January/February 2016 issue. It featured 48-year-old every-pubescent-boy’s-fantasylifeguard Pamela Anders...
Lessons from Journey to the West
7 min read
Before the story was depicted in films and movies, Xuan Zhang’s mythical journey and the monkey’s adventure were re-enacted on many an opera stage...
Selfie Politics: Perhaps We Need Superheroes After All
5 min read
I wrote recently about “selfie politics” – how politicians try to project an “I’m-like-youthe- normal-people” image, exempli...
The Problem is not Intolerance, it is Injustice
7 min read
A buddy of mine treated me to a stand-up comedy show in May. It was my birthday. The show featured four highly-acclaimed comedians and all of them were funny....
The Political Economy of Malaysia’s Migrant Worker Business
7 min read
Presently, we have a substantial number of migrant workers in the country – 2.1 million registered ones and another two to three million unregistered ones...
The Budget Speech Is NOT the Budget (Part One)
7 min read
Parliament must appear very strange for the uninitiated. After all, the Westminster system that Malaysia models itself after is an old and quaint one. There a...
The Budget Speech is NOT the Budget (Part Two)
4 min read
Many parties, including my parliamentary colleagues and myself, have pointed out the shortcomings of our budgetary process in the past, such as Budget doc...
Tackling the Immigrant Issue Seriously
5 min read
US President Donald J. Trump’s executive order to ban immigrants from seven Muslims majority country provoked strong negative reactions in the country and...
The Sad Lot of Migrant Workers Affects Us All
4 min read
For years, I have spoken both in and outside Parliament about the need for Malaysia to empower women in economic and public life.We need to increase our femal...
Understand That Your Wisdom May be Worthless…
5 min read
In the age of free information flow, we do well in being hesitant about sharing.In my philosophy class in varsity, we studied Plato, who wrote narratives ab...
The Housing Question: Who Is My Neighbour?
5 min read
Vincent van Gogh's The Good Samaritan, After Delacroix.Oddly enough, the fundamental issue with housing today can be summed up in what perhaps is the most...
Hang Tuah as an Icon for Malaysia
5 min read
Last November, Prime Minister Najib Razak launched a new national ambition that sets aside the Vision 2020 programme initiated almost 20 years ago by his newfou...