Live & Learn

Hikikomori, or extreme social withdrawal/ isolation, was first identified in Japan in the 1990’s. Dr. Alan Teo, an associate professor of psychiatry at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, and a researcher and psychiatrist in the VA Portland Health Care System, has said that since then, Hikikomori is being seen everywhere, even to young Americans who live with their parents and cut themselves off from society. Dr Teo believes that the condition needs to be regarded as a behavioural problem in its own right, and that the first step toward that is to come up with a definition. With that in mind, he has proposed a new, universal diagnostic criteria for hikikomori and a framework for defining pathological social withdrawal in the digital age. He joins us to discuss more.

History on Repeat is an eight-part miniseries that aims to delve into key aspects of Malaysian history. While we won’t be able to cover every period and topic in our vast and complex past, we will be having a series of conversations on key subjects, places and themes, and discussing why our history still matters today. For our fourth episode, we speak with Dr Mulaika Hijjas, Lecturer in South East Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, about the history of women in nineteenth-century Malaya.

History on Repeat #1: Archaeology and the Roots of the Malay World

History on Repeat #2: Rethinking Melaka and the Sejarah Melayu

History on Repeat #3: Portuguese and Dutch Legacies in the Malay Peninsula

History on Repeat #5: British Malaya through the Lens of Architecture

History on Repeat #6: Migration and the Making of Chinese and Indian Diasporas in Malaysia

History on Repeat #7: Malaya and the Second World War

History on Repeat #8: The Making of Malaysian Identities

The All Women's Action Society (AWAM) turns 35 in 2020, and the organisation was amongst the movers and shakers for the women's movement in the early 80s during the Reformasi Movement. AWAM’s work has been focused on victims and survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) such as rape, domestic violence and sexual harassment, and has provided them free counselling and legal information regardless of gender. Annually, they receive no less than 200 cases a year with an average of 20 calls coming through their helpline every week. We speak to AWAM's Nisha Sabanayagam (Programme and Operations Manager) and Subatra Jayaraj (Vice President) about the work they do to keep Malaysians safe.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) with the cooperation of the Royal Malaysia Police, have detained several suspects for allegedly spreading fake content on social media about the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak. Since it's stated in Article 10. (a) of the Federal Constitution that every citizen has the right to freedom of speech and expression, we explore the constitutionality of these arrests with Firdaus Husni, the Chief Human Rights Strategist at the Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights, and Kee Hui Yee, a member of the Bar Council Constitutional Law Committee. Law & Behold is an ongoing series aimed at improving constitutional literacy among Malaysians, done in collaboration with The Malaysian Bar and the University of Malaya's Faculty of Law.

Last Friday, Toh Puan Umasundari Sambanthan née Subramaniam passed away, at the age of 90. She was an activist, social worker, and a leading figure of the cooperative movement. Toh Puan Uma was one of the founders of the National Council of Women’s Organisations (NCWO) and she worked tirelessly to raise the status of women. Her husband, the late Tun V.T. Sambanthan, was Malaysia’s first Minister of Labour and president of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), and is regarded as one of the founding fathers of Malaysia.

Back in 2011, we had the pleasure of meeting and speaking to Toh Puan Uma, where we got (then) university student Kenneth Ng to interview her. We revisit that interview, where Toh Puan Uma candidly shared her eyewitness accounts of the consolidation of the MIC, the work put into making Merdeka a reality, and those early years of building a new nation. She also talked about her work with the NCWO and her life as an activist, social worker and leading figure of the cooperative movement in Malaysia.

History on Repeat is an eight-part miniseries that aims to delve into key aspects of Malaysian history. While we won’t be able to cover every period and topic in our vast and complex past, we will be having a series of conversations on key subjects, places and themes, and discussing why our history still matters today. For our third episode, we speak with Sheila de Costa, President of the Selangor and Federal Territory Eurasian Association, and Dennis De Witt, independent historian. Together, we explore the historical impact of the Portuguese and Dutch in the Malay Peninsula, focussing on the communities they built and their continued legacies today.

History on Repeat #1: Archaeology and the Roots of the Malay World

History on Repeat #2: Rethinking Melaka and the Sejarah Melayu

History on Repeat #4: Nineteenth-Century Women of Malaya

History on Repeat #5: British Malaya through the Lens of Architecture

History on Repeat #6: Migration and the Making of Chinese and Indian Diasporas in Malaysia

History on Repeat #7: Malaya and the Second World War

History on Repeat #8: The Making of Malaysian Identities

A research study conducted by Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) suggests there is an urgent need to increase the quantity and standards of domestic violence shelters in Selangor. International best practices recommend a minimum of one family place in a women’s shelter per 10,000 people, but Malaysia only has an estimated one family place per 72,538 people. We speak to the WAO about the gaps in the system, and how NGO's and the government can work together better, to ensure that domestic violence survivors get the assistance and protection they need.

The Malaysian government is seeking to scrap the mandatory death penalty for 11 serious offences under the Penal Code, including murder, and the Firearms (Increased Penalties) Act. But many civil society groups including Amnesty International and Suhakam are adamant that the abolition of the death penalty must be absolute, stressing that the right to life is guaranteed in the Federal Constitution. We discuss this polarising topic with Emeritus Professor Datuk Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi, a Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Malaya, and Sherrie Razak Dali, lawyer and filmmaker, in this episode of Law & Behold. Law & Behold is an ongoing series aimed at improving constitutional literacy among Malaysians, done in collaboration with The Malaysian Bar and the University of Malaya's Faculty of Law.

Professor Ilan Pappé is an Israeli academic and activist, who is one of the ‘new historians’ from Israel who have challenged the official Zionist version of the Palestinian-Israeli situation. Currently the Director of the European Center for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter in the UK, he has publicly spoken out against Israel’s policies and condemned the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime. He joins us to debunk some core myths of Israel, and to discuss why he is calling for the international community to take action against Israel’s Zionist policies.

History on Repeat is a new eight-part miniseries that aims to delve into key aspects of Malaysian history. While we won’t be able to cover every period and topic in our vast and complex past, we will be having a series of conversations on key subjects, places and themes, and discussing why our history still matters today. For our second episode, we speak with Ahmat Adam, independent scholar, and discuss the Sejarah Melayu, a major source for studying the flowering of Malay courtly culture and trade under the famous Melaka Sultanate. On this segment, we explore debates around this key text and period in history, and how the Melaka Sultanate has influenced the history of Malaya and Malaysia up to the present day.

History on Repeat #1: Archaeology and the Roots of the Malay World

History on Repeat #3: Portuguese and Dutch Legacies in the Malay Peninsula

History on Repeat #4: Nineteenth-Century Women of Malaya

History on Repeat #5: British Malaya through the Lens of Architecture

History on Repeat #6: Migration and the Making of Chinese and Indian Diasporas in Malaysia

History on Repeat #7: Malaya and the Second World War

History on Repeat #8: The Making of Malaysian Identities