Lim Teck Ghee, Alberto Gomes and Azly Rahman (eds) - Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present and Future

Abstract

The average Malaysian non-fiction section in any bookstore looks like a country club photo-album full of political elites, a stoic collection of post-colonials endorsing the viewpoint of the status quo they help create. There are few books on the market that address the evolution of Malaysia’s multiethnic society, let alone those that address its tumultuous colonial past, its uneasy scandal-laden present and its often uncertain and constantly shifting future trajectory. So being able to read just such a book in Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present and Future, with its no-holds-barred approach to addressing the country’s ethnic issues was sorely needed. Indeed, its attempts to challenge and counter the currently prevailing rather bland and simplistic narratives on social history - and thus, the justifications for the various economic and political policies - is very much the whole point of the book.