IF only voting were easy. For one thing, I’m still waiting for the Election Commission (EC) secretariat to tell me why my absent voter application was rejected. If the EC eventually approves my application — or if the elections coincide with my summer research at home — and if intra-party seat allocations don’t change, I’ll […]
nationhood
BTN’s flaws beyond racism
By Wong Chin HuatTHE Biro Tata Negara (BTN) saga has taken yet another twist. Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz has called former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad “bloody racist” for defending the BTN training modules. Most right-thinking members of the public would agree with Nazri that the BTN is ethnic-centric. However, would […]
The battle for national symbols
By Wong Chin HuatFlags (© G Schouten de Jel / sxc.hu) UNTIL the mid-1990s, the Union Jack was a symbol of the Conservative Party in Britain. Not that the UK was founded by the Tories. It was just that their opponents, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, were more internationalist, anti-imperialist, and some even republican in orientation. […]
