According to latest polls by CSIS and Litbang Kompas (via Jakarta Post), Joko Widodo or "Jokowi" is currently leading Prabowo Subianto by 9 percentage points and he looks almost certain to be reelected as president - unless some miracle happens. Here's a rough guide or a simple breakdown of the voting pattern across Indonesia's major provinces and islands. This is by no means a perfect generalisation of the Indonesian election, but I just thought it would be interesting to dissect the voting pattern.  Some groups are not included as their political inclination vary according to religious identity e.g. the Muslim Moluccans overwhelmingly voted for Prabowo while the Christian Moluccans voted for Jokowi. For Jokowi: The Javanese, Balinese, Bataks, Dayaks, Papuans, Lampungese, Minahasans, Flores For Prabowo: the Acehnese, Minangs, Malays, Sundanese, Bantenese, Buginese, Banjarese, Gorontaloan . (Pic: Prabowo won in West Java) #pilpres2019

There is a famous saying that the oldest profession in the world after prostitution is spying and espionage. The traditional idea of spying is basically to steal secret information and bring it home to your national spy agency. The internet has fundamentally changed that.  Julian Assange's Wikileaks is like James Bond but with a twist - he dumped all of the stolen secret/classified information on his Wikileaks website for a global audience. So finally, after "hiding" for nearly 7 years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Julian Assange, the self-declared "information anarchist", widely described by the media establishment as a narcissist, was arrested.  Whatever your views about Assange or Wikileaks, the fact is that he and his Wikileaks outfit have succeeded in exposing the US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, exposing gigabytes of diplomatic cables documenting thousands of reports/diplomats' conversations, which amongst others confirmed and reaf...

Here's an excerpt from my upcoming book chapter on Media and GE14 (14th General Election). The gist of the chapter is basically in the final paragraph. -- GE14 was reportedly to have scored a series of records in the history of Malaysian election, such as the first ever electoral win by the opposition, the oldest Prime Minister elected – and re-elected – into office, the first woman Deputy Prime Minister and the youngest cabinet minister. Apart from that, the other record was the rise of opinion polling and political forecasting “industry”. Unlike the United States, where one can easily find dozens of opinion polling results and forecasts by the media and research institutions, the trend of conducting opinion polls during election picked up rather late in Malaysia or that some of the polling conducted were only meant for internal consumption, such as those prepared by government agencies and political parties. According to Malaysia’s leading scholar in public opin...

This is an excerpt from the dean's speech which I have prepared during the MedCom 2018 conference in Bangkok, Thailand. --- Navigating the Opportunities and Challenges of Communication Technologies in the Century of the 4th Industrial Revolution John Culkin, a contemporary of the great communication scholar Marshall McLuhan, was once famously quoted saying, “we shape our tools and, thereafter, our tools shape us” (1967). Nothing is truer than that. We are living in an interesting period of time in the course of our human civilisation: a period of accelerating technological change, where a lot of revolutionary changes are rapidly taking place driven largely by information and communication technologies. And they in turn have produced tremendous amount of effects within our society today; from the way we consume our news and information, the way we connect and communicate with our families and friends, to the way we work, shop and play; communication technologies have fundam...

Apart from books and coffee, I'm also quite a fan of maps. I grew up with a world map up on my bedroom wall. So it came naturally that I enjoyed and aced Geografi in school. But this map is a special one. It is not just a map, but a reminder. A reminder of the longest illegal occupation and subjugation of an entire group of people in modern history. A reminder of 'Al Nakba' or the depopulation (read: ethnic cleansing) of Palestinians from their towns and villages in 1948, followed by the occupation of East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza in 1967, until today. Donald Trump's latest decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel would only make things worse for peace and stability. I mean things are already bad for the Palestinians. How long should the Palestinians be expected to live under the Israeli Military Occupation? Can we have a timeframe, at least? Or alternatively, can the Palestinians be given Israeli citizenship? Unfortunately, Israel is onl...

Sometimes, reading a nonfiction sci-fi is more entertaining than reading a fiction sci-fi (I know. I know sci-fi means science fiction). This book is one good example.  There are many reviews and revisits about his dystopian-themed novel, Brave New World (1932), that you can find on the internet, but this "review" is different. It is a revisit by the same author - published about 2 decades after the novel. At a time when the global population was about 2 billion (only) in 1930s, Huxley had already worried and warned about the dangers of overpopulation - as evidenced in the first chapter of the book.  Long before the word "propaganda" became fashionable and being associated with the Nazis and their infamous Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, Huxley had warned us all about the use and abuse of propaganda in both democracies and dictatorships. He also wrote that "for what is now merely science fiction will have become everyday political fact" .  I ca...

Have you ever thought about the history of "nasi goreng USA" or American Fried Rice (fried rice + bacon and eggs) ? No, not udang, sotong and ayam. 1) There would be no nasi goreng USA had there been no Pattani/Kelantanese tom yam restaurants spread across major towns and cities in Malaysia. Like other popular menus e.g. nasi goreng Pattaya/Pattani/Paprik etc, as their name suggests, originated from Thailand. 2) There would be no nasi goreng USA had there been no Vietnam War; where it was first introduced to the American soldiers based in Thailand. 3) And there would be no nasi goreng USA had there been no Edward Bernays, Father of PR, one of America's best known propagandist in the early 20th century AND the man responsible for leading a PR campaign in introducing "bacon and eggs" as a "hearty American breakfast" about 100 years ago.