COMMENT | I am glad I have been given the opportunity to contribute to an intellectually engaging forum Malaysiakini. Happy 20th birthday, Malaysiakini!

I started writing for this forum 15 years ago! Yes, I persevered as perhaps the longest-serving columnist, proud to be writing with a cadre of those who speak truth to power and ones who answer only to their souls. I hope to continue sharing my views and analyses pertaining to politics in the Southeast Asia region, educational philosophy and practice, and critical social perspectives on society in general. I have enjoyed every moment of writing my 400 articles thus far.

Glad, too, that I am given the will to continue writing about the country I grew up in, Malaysia, and of which I have been a keen observer for the last 30 years. This is perhaps the best time to talk about a forthcoming book on Malaysian politics I authored. It is my eighth in a series of political-economic-anthropological-philosophical writings on a country known as a “moderately-Islamic-hypermodern nation-state” with all the complexities and contradictions of a neo-colonialist political construct.

In my forthcoming book, I analyze the performance of the coalition party headed by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, 94 years old, who has had control of the country since 1981. Through Machiavellian manoeuvres and master-puppetry as his twin strategy, he continues to hold on to power, refusing to let go...