In the wake of a brawl in Kuala Lumpur’s Low Yat Plaza, Sophie Lemière looks at how youth, prejudice and mob violence go hand-in-hand with politics. The Malay word amuck or amok (rage) is the most famous Malaysian export along with palm oil (praised by Nutella lovers)...
«Sodomy II» sonne comme le titre d'un film réservé à un public averti ; mais, en Malaisie, celui-ci est synonyme de la répression à peine masquée du dirigeant de l'opposition. Anwar Ibrahim, ancien leader du mouvement islamiste, devenu dauphin et protégé de Mahathir...
Malaysian democracy and civil society The relationship between the concept of democracy and civil society is central to understanding the dynamics of the Malaysian system. The general concept of civil society goes back to antiquity as an arena between the...
For over 30 years, Pekida has been one of the shadow allies of the ruling party, UMNO; emerging in the media only in 2008. The election results of 2008 were seen as an awakening of political consciousness among the majority of Malaysians. Facing this new wave of...
Reconstructing the history of Pekida and its network’s is a hard task. No historical account of the organisation has been found, and every attempt to locate official records has been an arduous mission. This article relies primarily on oral history (rarely shared with...
What if the liberalisation of the public sphere since the Mahathir era paved the way for the emergence of civil surrogates of political parties? What if the so-called “civil society” was used as a veil to hide and promote the rise of militants who are in fact...
Misplaced Democracy: Malaysian Politics and People is the fruit of a three-year collaboration between academics who have chosen Malaysia as their specialty. Defined by its inter-disciplinarity and covering the fields of urban studies, political economy, international...
This chapter is a short exploration of the relationship between political parties, and more specifically UMNO, and gangs through the case study of Pekida. The articulation of this relationship is the central concept of this study: we define it as "connivance...
In Malaysia, the political articulation and social perception of religion, more specifically of proselytism and conversion, are at the source of recurrent tensions between religious groups, and jeopardize the balance of this plural society. The first part of this...
In this talk, I’m going to give a case study on the rise of ethnonationalist groups in Malaysia. In order to understand the origins and challenges of this movement, it is necessary to give a bit of background first. Historically, Malaysia has been at the crossroad of...