Finding Malaysia : Making Sense of an Eccentric Nation (L118)

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9789670960517
Author: Zairil Khir Johari
Year Published:2016
Total Page:312

Some of the most engaging contemporary writing has seen the transformation of the political column into a literary art form – an important way of taking in the world and thinking deeply about it. In his first collection of essays, Zairil Khir Johari offers quick-witted and focused reflections on some of the most pressing and contentious issues of the day. At the heart of the matter is the bane of Malaysian politics – the ethnic question – from which he explores a range of high-profile issues: identity, secularism, federalism, the economy, good governance and education. After sixty years of nationhood, Zairil finds much that is wrong with Malaysia. Its eccentricities are by no means benign. Yet these essays also offer answers to his own assertion that ‘we need to move beyond this.’ At once both philosophical and practical, Finding Malaysia lays down a marker for any serious debate over the future trajectory of the country.
Zairil Khir Johari was elected as the MP for Bukit Bendera, Penang in 2013. A graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, he is currently the Democratic Action Party’s assistant secretary for national publicity and vice-chairman of the party’s Penang state committee. He is also the executive director of the Penang Institute, a public policy think tank. Through his work in Parliament and the Penang Institute, he actively spearheads discussions on issues such as national education, identity politics and federalism.