IF there is one word that best explains and describes the virulent reaction towards Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, that word, for me, would be fear. That’s right. Fear. In fact, it would seem from the continuing attacks against the Bersih 2.0 chairperson that this fear is such that she should be detained without trial under the […]
Jacqueline Ann Surin
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 […]
Whose hudud?
Shape of a Pocket by Jacqueline Ann Surin
IF we were to believe everything the politicians are saying about hudud, we would come to three conclusions. One, that implementing the punishments prescribed under hudud is divine law that no Muslim can question, and hence is inevitable. Two, that hudud cannot be implemented in Malaysia because of the Federal Constitution and our multi-cultural composition. […]
Premesh Chandran: We lack a common future
By Jacqueline Ann Surin
PREMESH Chandran laughs when asked if he ever imagined Malaysiakini would become what it is today: the award-winning and leading online media in Malaysia that reaches over 300,000 readers per day in English, Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil. “It grew to be something much bigger than what we expected it to be,” the news portal’s […]
Insulting Muslims 101
Shape of a Pocket by Jacqueline Ann Surin
HOW does one insult Islam in Malaysia? And how does one insult Muslims in Malaysia? Over the past few years and increasingly over the past months, the state, politicians and pressure groups like Perkasa have demonstrated just how to do either one or both. For the most part, these incidents are an insult to Muslims […]
The problem with the 8TV ads
Shape of a Pocket by Jacqueline Ann Surin
WHY were the three 8TV Ramadan ads so offensive? “I don’t get it,” more than one person said on the social network they were on. “Chill guys,” 8TV executive director and Media Prima chief executive officer of Alt Media Ahmad Izham Omar told critics on Twitter. “Don’t overthink the ads. It’s written, produced and directed […]
Ann Lee: Both English and Chinese
By Jacqueline Ann Surin
FOR six years up to the year 2000, Ann Lee was beamed into Malaysian households three times a week as an RTM co-anchor for the 8pm news on TV2. She was also a newsreader on RTM’s Radio Four, making her a recognisable face and voice over the Malaysian airwaves. “People sometimes still come up to […]
Najib’s dangerous diatribe
Shape of a Pocket by Jacqueline Ann Surin
POST-Bersih 2.0 rally, what has Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak been saying to defend the government’s actions of repressing dissent? It would seem that since the 9 July 2011 rally and after arresting more than 1,900 people, including detaining without trial six Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) members, Najib’s responses have been disingenuous, narrow-minded, and […]
TNG wins environmental journalism award
By Jacqueline Ann Surin
PETALING JAYA, 25 July 2011: The Nut Graph columnist Gan Pei Ling has won a Special Prize in Penang’s inaugural Green Journalism Award for a column she wrote about the effectiveness of banning plastic. The piece, which won her one of two special prizes in the English language category, was entitled The plastic menace and […]
J Anu: “Nowhere else to go”
By Jacqueline Ann Surin
ANURENDERA Jegadeva, or better known as J Anu, is not just an artist. Whether he admits it or not, he is also a political observer and commentator. His art, which plays with, among others, “ideas of empire”, identity and belonging, are often satirical commentaries about Malaysian life and the life of the Malaysian. “I learnt […]
