Former Prime Minister,  Tun  Dr Mahathir  Mohamad  had once described the state of Malaysia’s inter-ethnic relations as one that can be termed as “racial stability”, rather than racial harmony. We have had several conflicts and skirmishes in the past but generally we succeeded in overcoming the differences. But post-13th General Elections saw yet again the rise in the  racio -political temperature. It is high time that something serious needs to be done to ensure that our fundamental structures –unity, peace and harmony – are free from threats that may come in the form of external or internal extremist organisations, groups or ideologies.   The idea of the "National Reconciliation" seminar was based on our strong conviction and consciousness that a long lasting peace and unity is in our national interest. It is something that is paramount and uncompromised. As a matter of fact, it forms the fundamental structure for our nation’s social, economic, polit...

Well known journalist and author, Thomas Friedman may have popularised the phrase “flat world” in his award winning book “The World is Flat” to advocate the idea of globalisation but two decades earlier, Alvin Toffler had already conceptualised and prophesied the revolutionary changes in the 21st century – a global society that is being shaped and fuelled by communication technology. It should be obvious that Toffler is not the only futurist around. There are dozens of other scholars and authors who have produced similar kind of works. But none has captured the public’s imagination as powerful as Toffler’s. It has been 33 years since the publication of Alvin Toffler’s most celebrated futurist book, “The Third Wave” (first published in 1980), widely considered as the most important publication in Toffler’s trilogy, which included “Future Shock” (1970) and “Power Shift” (1990). It is timely that we re-look and re-evaluate some of its major themes, especially in the context of new media...

Here's another ancient unpublished article. "There are probably hundreds of books and journals on Nazi propaganda, but at least one that is brief and worth mentioning is the one by David Welch, "Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft: Constructing a People’s Community", published in the Journal of Contemporary History, 2004. The purpose of this paper is to study how did the Nazi attempted to influence public opinion by means of propaganda, to analyse the key themes of propaganda and to observe whether or not there is a gap between the image of society in Nazi propaganda and social reality. All this were done by analysing the responses from two major sections of the community – the industrial workers and German youth. One of the key themes of Nazi propaganda was to influence the public opinion through propaganda. According to David Welch, he wrote that the concept of national or people’s community (Volksgemeinschaft) was a key element in the ‘revolutionary’ a...

Note: The following blog post was drafted about two years ago, but for some reasons it went unpublished until today. I left it as it is, save for a few minor editing (paragraph 8 onwards). Rereading the blog post, it looks like we have progressed very little. Malaysia is still very much divided along political and racial lines. Issues pertaining to race and religion continues to dominate the media headlines as well as online and social media discussions.  ----------------------- At the time of writing this post I am currently halfway (2013 note: completed) reading  Dominique Moisi 's excellent piece of work, " The Geopolitics of Emotion: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation, and Hope are Reshaping the World ". Though there are several glaring factual and interpretive mistakes (especially concerning Malaysia and former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's speech) it doesn't affect much of the author's main thesis; particularly on fear, hope and humiliation, an...

Three days before the 13th General Elections, a Bernama reporter called up asking me to do some predictions on a possible cyber attack. And so I responded as per the report below. But, this may sound very cliche, politically, but I must say that I was either misquoted or the pleasant-sounding reporter over the phone didn't really get what I was trying to say. But I don't blame the reporter anyways. Ha ha. KUALA LUMPUR: CyberSecurity Malaysia has given assurance that the cyber security in Malaysia is still under control despite concerns over the increasing number of cyber attacks during the 13th general election process. Its chief executive officer, Dr Aminuddin Abdul Wahab, said CyberSecurity, Royal Malaysian Police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission were always monitoring the situation to ensure peace in the cyber world. "Internet users need not to worry. All of them, especially the adults, can help maintain peace in the cyber world by adher...