am genuinely angry and tired of much \”false religiosity\” which is found in many cultures and belief systems in Malaysia. I call all such unexamined cultural beliefs, worldviews; whether one is consciously aware of the existence of such implicit beliefs, or assumptions, or lack thereof. Recently two examples of false religiosity were made evident in […]
In the early 1980s, we at the National Institute for Public Administration (INTAN) hosted Professor Milton J Esman, one of two American professors who came to Malaysia as consultants to the government of Tun Abdul Razak, after the challenges of May 13th 1969, and introduced the concept of “development administration” to Malaysia. Their views, and […]
In his book ‘Organisational Theory for Public Administration’, professor of public administration Mike Harmon quotes a real-life story wherein a young five-year-old boy in the US is battered to death by his stepfather. Although most, if not all, of their neighbours had heard of and knew about the wrongdoings, no one spoke up until it […]
To me, the word ‘idiocrat’ is my coinage for writing columns in Malaysiakini since about a decade ago. It describes those with power but falsely assume that “such authority alone” can resolve issues within any modern civil society setting; when others are equally smart, ie, we are all more aware as a community. The coinage […]
Time headlined a story for their April 3 issue entitled, ‘Is Truth Dead?’ Please see the picture below. This column will focus on ‘The Death of Common Sense’, a book by a former Harvard Law School dean, and reflect on today’s consequences of such a death of both the idea of objective truth and therefore also, […]
The word ‘Malay’ is an English etymological word and not a ‘Melayu’ one. I do not think I am wrong; unless some linguist tells me so from the field of hermeneutics as to why. Therefore, my conclusive argument is that Malaya, and Malaysia, are both at root, English words; exactly as it is with the […]
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