Kadir Mohamad just for the record

This book offers an interesting and informative account of the often fractious account of two countries in the heart of Southeast Asia. It outlines the primary issues that plagued relations between Malaysia and Singapore in the last fifty years and the political, diplomatic and legal initiatives taken to address them. The author gives a first-person narrative of the seemingly endless behind-the-scenes episodes that have brought the love-hate relationship to where they are today. He further delves into the vast reservoir of information on the rocky bilateral relationship to provide a reasonable argument over why Malaysia has behaved as it has since 1965. Exhaustive records of, among others, minutes, letters and documents are brought to light to substantiate the Malaysian view in relation to issues of contention with Singapore. Coming from an insider with more than four eventful decades in the Malaysian Foreign Service, it will be an eye opener for many.

This book rejects the notion that the 1997-98 Asian economic crisis was further evidence that ultimately capitalism can only develop within liberal social and political institutions.

Most Muslim-majority countries have legal systems that enshrine both Islam and liberal rights. While not necessarily at odds, these dual commitments nonetheless provide legal and symbolic resources for activists to advance contending visions for their states and societies. Using the case study of Malaysia, Constituting Religion examines how these legal arrangements enable litigation and feed the construction of a 'rights-versus-rites binary' in law, politics, and the popular imagination. By drawing on extensive primary source material and tracing controversial cases from the court of law to the court of public opinion, this study theorizes the 'judicialization of religion' and the radiating effects of courts on popular legal and religious consciousness. The book documents how legal institutions catalyze ideological struggles, which stand to redefine the nation and its politics. Probing the links between legal pluralism, social movements, secularism, and political Islamism, Constituting Religion sheds new light on the confluence of law, religion, politics, and society. This title is also available as Open Access.

New in the Short History of Asia series, edited by Milton Osborne, this is a readable, well-informed and comprehensive history of Malaysia from ancient past to hyper-modern present day.

During the political upheavals of the mid-twentieth century, as imperialism was unraveling on a grand scale, writers from colonized and occupied spaces questioned the necessity and ethics of their histories. As empire "wrote back" to the self-ordained centres of the world, modes of representation underwent a transformation. Exploring novels and diverse forms of literature from regions in West Africa, the Middle East, and Indigenous America, Maps of Empire considers how writers struggle with the unstable boundaries generated by colonial projects and their dissolution. The literary spaces covered in the book form imaginary states or reimagine actual cartographies and identities sanctioned under empire. The works examined in Maps of Empire, through their inner representations and their outer histories of reception, inspire and provoke us to reconsider boundaries.

The year 2019 marks Singapore's Bicentennial milestone since the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles in Singapore in 1819. It was in anticipation of the arrival of the Bicentennial that this book, Beyond Bicentennial: Perspectives on Malays, was initiated. This book is a collection of articles from prominent individuals and academicians that touch not only on the 200 years since the arrival of Raffles, but goes back much earlier, 720 years earlier, when Sang Nila Utama first set foot on the island in 1299.This book hopes to heighten the readers' sense of history and to reflect upon how Singapore has journeyed over the last two centuries, witnessing the perseverance, trials, challenges, and efforts of Singaporeans, and to see how the nation has gone through a transformation from a feudal setting to a cosmopolitan and multi-racial society.Prior to this book, Majulah! 50 Years of Malay/Muslim Community in Singapore was published in 2016 when Singapore celebrated SG50 — an initiative launched to celebrate the nation's 50 years of independence. The book highlighted the progress, the contributions, and the challenges of the community for the past 50 years since Singapore's independence in 1965.Both books can be read hand-in-hand. While Majulah! 50 Years of Malay/Muslim Community in Singapore called on the community to reflect on the past and to look ahead, this book, Beyond Bicentennial: Perspectives on Malays, calls on readers to reflect and re-examine the position and contributions of the Malays to Singapore's history and its development, as Singapore commemorates its Bicentennial.Related Link(s)