The expression “New Malaysia” or Malaysia Baharu emerged in 2016 as a semantic capsule for the democratic aspirations of the movement for electoral reform Bersih (“clean” in Malay), whose rally in November of that year brought more than 100,000 people to the streets...
General elections in May 2018 saw the downfall of controversial prime minister Najib Razak—and an end to the monopoly on power enjoyed by the ethnonationalist United Malays National Organization (UMNO) for the whole of independent Malaysia’s 61-year history. Key to...
Since the uprising in 2011, Tunisia is seen as a political lab whose experiences impact the entire region. The return to the political scene of the of the Islamists of the Ennahdha Party, and their democratic ascension to power, came as a surprise, if not a shock, to...
This chapter looks at the genesis and development of the Jama’ah Islah Malaysia (JIM), a modernist-reformist Islamist organisation that today has played a vital and visible role in the political landscape of Malaysian politics. Little is known about the early genesis...
In Malaysia, legal definitions of the religious category “Muslim” and ethnic category “Malay” imply each other. Consequently, Muslims who have renounced Islam find themselves in an abyssal legal zone. The legal intricacies and the media representations surrounding...