"The Geopolitics of Emotion: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation and Hope are Reshaping the World" (Anchor Books, 2009) I have read this remarkable work by one of France's leading scholars, Dominique Moïsi, 5 years ago. It remains as one of the best books on contemporary global politics in my collection. But nothing quite struck me of how spot-on his views were, until recently; namely the Syrian refugee crisis, the rise of the far-right anti-immigrant parties across Europe, the global appeal of the IS terrorist group, the rise and the populism of the xenophobic Republican Donald Trump in America and most recently the British fear and anger behind #Brexit. To Moïsi, the three major global civilisations are represented by three important emotions; West; America and Europe (fear), Islamic (humiliation) and, India, China, East Asia and Africa (hope). It is grossly insufficient to only be focusing on Trump's racism and his personality alone without understanding...

Note: The following blog post was drafted about two years ago, but for some reasons it went unpublished until today.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...