LAWYER-turned-politician Datuk Mohd Zaid Ibrahim, 60, knows that politics can be a dirty game. He joined Umno and won the Kota Baru parliamentary seat in the 2004 general election. The party did not field him for the 2008 elections, however. After winning with a severely reduced majority, the ruling coalition under Prime Minister Tun Abdullah […]
Interviews
Liew Seng Tat: “We’re still outsiders”
By Gan Pei Ling
LIEW Seng Tat is one of the most promising indie filmmakers in Malaysia. His debut feature film Flower in the Pocket (2007) has won numerous international awards. Previously, his short films Bread Skin with Strawberry Jam and Not Cool had also won top prizes at the Malaysian Video Awards. The full-time filmmaker is now working […]
Liberal, Muslim, feminist, and comfortable
By Shanon Shah
DATIN Paduka Marina Mahathir is a renowned and often controversial Malaysian activist, writer, and commentator. She has worked in a variety of fields, from heading the Malaysian AIDS Council, to kicking off the successful feminist television programme 3R, to holding a bi-weekly column in The Star. She is currently a board member for Muslim women’s […]
Lisa Surihani: Proud of Malaysia
By Koh Lay Chin
SINCE winning the Best New Actress award at the Malaysian Film Festival in 2007, 25-year-old actress and television personality Lisa Surihani has been in constant demand in the local film industry. She won Best Actress at the 23rd Malaysian Film Festival Award in 2010, and also racked up the Popular Film Actress Award in the Anugerah […]
Wishing for an open society
By Koh Lay Chin
R NADESWARAN, better known as Citizen Nades, has spent years as the heart of theSun newspaper’s special and investigative reporting team. An award-winning veteran journalist, Nades has reported about local government issues since he started his career as a reporter with The Malay Mail in 1978. Born in 1952, the 59-year-old has dedicated himself to […]
“See me as I am”
By Shanon Shah
TAN Sri Rafidah Aziz, 68, has been a towering figure in Malaysian politics for the past three decades. Born in Selama, Perak, in 1943, she became at age 30 Member of Parliament for Kuala Kangsar, and remains the incumbent. In 1987, she was appointed international trade and industry minister. Her political career has not been […]
Maria Chin Abdullah: It’s not about race anymore
By Jacqueline Ann Surin
IT is perhaps destiny that Maria Chin Abdullah ended up being one of the steering committee members for Bersih 2.0, the civil society movement calling for free and fair elections in Malaysia. One of her earliest memories is of independent Malaya’s first general election in 1959 when she was just three. Maria remembers being with […]
“We were not an ordinary country”
By Deborah Loh
HAD history not intervened, Emeritus Prof Tan Sri Dr Khoo Kay Kim might have been a footballer. Of his youth, Khoo said he would have been content getting a simple job as long as he could have gone on playing soccer competitively even though there was no money in the sport back in the 1950s. […]
“I am extremely Melayu”
By Shanon Shah
LEGENDARY Malaysian dancer Ramli Ibrahim, 58, has been captivating audiences with his performances and choreography of Indian classical dance for almost three decades. After returning from Australia, Ramli founded Sutra Dance Theatre in 1983. He has gone on to perform and win awards both locally and overseas, and has also groomed many a talented dancer. […]
Amber Chia: 1Malaysia won’t happen in a day
By Gan Pei Ling
WHEN she was 18, Amber Chia flew to Kuala Lumpur from Tawau, Sabah with only RM300 in her pocket to fulfil her dream of becoming a model despite her parents’ vehement opposition. Chia stumbled around for some time before she found the right modelling agency. In 2004, she got her big break when she was […]
