Reform and Nation-Building

The Malaysian people have endured decades of economic decline, identity politics, and socio-political uncertainty. The country has also experienced a decline in international credibility due to the 1MDB corruption scandal of global proportions. Since obtaining independence in 1957, Malaysia has had two historic general elections, the first in 2018 (GE14), and the second in 2022 (GE15). GE14 brought the reformist Pakatan Harapan government into power. After the previous Barisan Nasional administration had dominated Malaysian politics for 61 years, it was obvious the people could no longer tolerate the deteriorating conditions in the country. However, due to both internal and external machinations, the Pakatan Harapan administration collapsed 22 months later. Subsequently, more than 2 years of socio-political instability ensued, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdowns, economic hardships, the kleptocracy trials of Najib Razak, and increasing ethnic polarisation and identity politics. After GE15 in November 2022, there was renewed hope for Malaysians. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Pakatan Harapan again leads a new coalition government (dubbed the “unity” government). Sharifah Munirah Alatas discusses these developments in a series of short essays. She highlights the peoples’ hopes for crucial reforms and their lingering despair for what seems unattainable. Alatas focuses mainly on the meteoric rise in corruption, identity politics, and what she considers the dismal failure of the nation’s public universities. She questions the future of the nation but hopes for a revolutionary change in leadership attitudes.

Author Biography

S. Munirah Alatas, Ph.D. is a former Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Indonesian International Islamic University (UIII, Jakarta). In March 2023, she retired from a career in Strategic Studies and International Relations at the National University of Malaysia (UKM). Munirah’s doctorate and MA degrees are from Columbia University, and her BA is from the University of Oregon. Her scholarly interests and writings focus on decolonial thought, geopolitics, foreign policy, non-Western International Relations theory, and autonomous social science traditions.

Munirah also speaks regularly in public fora and writes in her media columns, on Malaysian politics, civil society, good governance, higher education reform and the future direction of universities.