Silverfish - Book Blurbs

Malaysia Human Rights Report 2007: Civil and Political Rights by SUARAM (RM 22.00)

SUARAM publishes its Human Rights Report on Malaysia every year without fail. This report is now widely recognised as the most objective, comprehensive and dependable source of information on the state of human rights in Malaysia.

In this 2007 report, we note that on this 50th year of Malaysia's independence, the state institutions intended to safeguard human rights failed to deliver...

The SUARAM Human Rights Report on Civil and Political Rights 2007 documents these human rights violations and the unrelenting struggles of human rights defenders to promote democracy and human rights in Malaysia.

Labels: Society

Iban Ritual Textile by Traude Gavin (RM 75.00)

Iban ritual textile draws on years of fieldwork and the author's documentation of the hundrds of Iban cloths. Topics include the ritual functions of Iban ikat-patterned fabric; the technical aspects of producing such cloths, as well as the dynamics of the complex of weaving (the power and efficacy of cloth patterns, dreams and charms) that can be subject to human interpretation and regulation. The main focus however is on the cloth patterns themselves and on the names assigned to them. Here the author challenges some long held misconceptions, in particular the notion of designs as a 'primitive form of language'. From this novel perspective, the role of weavers as technicians is set off against the power of patterns as an index for a weaver's relative rank. The study moves on to examine the
association of female prestige and weaving with the parallel structure of male status and headhunting. Findings further are discussed in the context of former and more recent intellectual frameworks.

Iban ritual textile is the first in-depth study of the ikat-patterned cloth based on extensive field research and should be of interest to anthropologists, art historians and scholars with an interest in the textile tradition of Southeast Asia.

Dr Traude Gavin is a freelance researcher and lecturer and lives in Great Britain.

Labels: Art, Society

East of Kinabalu by Leslie Davidson (RM 30.00)

Datuk Leslie Davidson, one of the giants of the oil palm industry in the second half of the twentieth century is the best known for his leading role in introducing to S.E. Asia the pollinating weevil. This has saved the industry millions of dollars annually in assisted pollination.

He was also responsible in the 1960's for bringing oil palm to Sabah on a commercial scale, opening up Tungud Estate for Unilever on what was then the remote east coast.

This volume relates his pioneering experiences in the development. Davidson's account contains episodes which are by turn hilarious, deeply moving, and important from both historical and literary points of view. They also attest to his leadership in creating out of a disparate range of races and religions, a stable and harmonious estate community.

The book vividly captures the atmosphere of Sabah before and immediately after it became part of Malaysia.

Labels: History, Society

Malaysian Human Rights Report 2006: Civil and Political Rights by SUARAM (RM 19.00)

The year 2006, the third year of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's term in office, was marked by a continuing lack of resolve tp improve civil liberties despite his pledges to fight corruption and to reform the police force ... Throughout the year, blatant abuses of power by enforcement personnel were rampant. The police continue to act with impunity, resulting in scores of unlaeful detention, deaths in custody, police brutality and various other forms of police misconduct ... As in previous years, the government continued to use restrictive and repressive laws, including the Internal Security Act (ISA), the Ememrgency Ordinance (EO), the Police Act, the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA), the Official Secrets Act (OSA), the Sedition Act, and the Universities and University Colleges
Act (UUCA), as tools to suppress voices of dissent ... A particularly disturbing trend witnessed during the year was the growing intolerance in matters of religion. There was also an increase in human rights abuse against migrants in the country.

The SUARAM Human Rights Report on Civil and Political Rights 2006 documents the human rights violations and the relentless struggles of human rights defenders that took place in Malaysia over the course of the year. The book is published to serve as an important reference to the aspiration of enhancing and promoting human rights in Malaysia.

Labels: Politics, Society

Understanding the Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia by Leo Suryadinata (RM 69.00)

About 80 per cent of the ethnic Chinese outside China (also known as "Chinese overseas") live in Southeast Asia including Malaysia. This book examines that community in the context of both national and international dimensions. It first discuss the ethnic Chinese and China, addressing the issues of migration, nationality, business success and ethnic conflict; second, Chinese cultural adaptation and various identities; and third, case studies of the Chinese in Indonesia, external actors, the state and ethnic Chinese politics. The book throws light on the complexity of this diverse and important ethnic community.

While the bulk of the book examines the Chinese situation in Indonesia, a significant part of the book looks at the pernakan Chinese of Macacca, Singapore and Penang. These 15 essays, by the author were written from 1987 to 2006, ranging from ethnic politics, economy, ethnic and national identies to China ethnic-Chinese relations.

Labels: Politics, Society

I am Muslim by Dina Zaman

I am Muslim is a selfish journey of faith. Dina meets shamans, nationalists, moderates and gets into all sorts of scrapes, to discover what it means to be Muslim in Malaysia. Heartbreaking, angry and downright funny.

A Noor. I am Muslim is Dina Zaman's first work of non-fiction.She has written for the media since 1994. Her first column, Dina's Dalca was published in the New Straits Times and she has had her share of brickbats. Her works of fiction and poetry have been published locally and abroad.

Dina Zaman's articles about being Muslim in Malaysia today captures the multifaceted aspects of difference and alterity in normative religios life better than many academic studies ...Dr Farish


Tanah Tujuh: Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos by Antares

Tanah Tujuh is what a large number of Orang Asli tribes call our planet. Tanah Tujuh: Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos chronicles Antares' initiation into a fast vanishing aboriginal cosmo-mythology that offers an alternative view of reality. Copiously illustrated with sketches and photographs, foreword by eminent anthropologist, Robert Knox Dentan.

Antares is a writer musician and visionary who moved out of the city in 1992 and found himself living amngst the Temuan (the second largest of the peninsular Orang Asli tribes) in the rainforest.


Adam's Dream by Salleh ben Joned

This is Salleh ben Joned's first book of poems since Sajak Sajak Saleh (or Poems Sacred and Profane) and it is entirely in English. Salleh says in his forward that, although English is not his first language - he only learned it in his teens - he has two main reasons for writing in English. Firstly, he thinks that a big majority of his readers seem to be non-Malays, and, secondly, "My satires in Malay, the use of humour, parody, irony ... puns ... and othr forms of word-play seem to have been taken wrongly by most of the Malay readers."

Adam's Dream is an intensely personal collection of poems, to make you laugh out loud or cry or to ponder over.

Salleh ben Joned was born in Melaka. He spent many years Down Under where he became a student of leading Australian poet James McAuley. His first collection of bilingual poetry, Sajak-Sajak Saleh (Teks) was published in 1987. [A second enlarged version was published by Pustaka Cipta in 2002.] It was followed by A book of essays, As I Please (Skoob, 1994) and Nothing is Sacred (Maya Press, 2003).

For free delivery anywhere in Malaysia. Click here.

Labels: Poetry, Politics, Society

From the preface:
'I am at a happy loss to explain the continuing popularity of A Malaysian Journey, a work of non-fiction, comtemporary affairs, pop history and personal memoir, which was published in 1993, sold a few tens of thousands of copies in Malaysia and Singapore, turned my life inside-out, upside-down and back-to-front, and went out of print at the turn of the millennium...'

This is the story of a Malaysian born in the twilight of British Malaya, growingup in an independent Malaysia, attaining maturity as his nation approaches the turn of the millennium ... and this is the story of Malaysia's own growth, asseen through his eyes.

The historical and biographical narrative is interwoven with passages culled from a months-long journey through the nation as the narrator visits every Malaysian state, exploring his country and, in so doing, his own soul.

A Malaysian Journey is available at all major bookshops in the country. This book can also be purchased online from our secure payment gateway at http://www.silverfishbooks.com/Silverfish/Version4/buybooks/BuyBooks.asp post free to any address in Malaysia, and at USD3.00 to international destinations. (All delivery will be registered mail, so no PO Boxes please)

(This is the 6th reprint of this book. This book is a virtual Malaysian classic and we have had had so many queries. We are glad to have it back in print)

Labels: Politics, Society

Other Malays by Joel S. Kahn (RM 85.50)

This new reading of constructions of ethnicity in Malaysia and Singapore is an important contribution to understanding the powerful linkages between ethnicity, religious reforms, identity and nationalism in multi-ethnic Southeast Asia.

The narrative of Malay identity devised by Malay nationals, writers and filmmakers in the late colonial period associated Malayness with the village or kampung, envisaged as static, ethnically homogenous, classless, indigenous, subsistence-oriented, rural, embedded in family and community, and loyal to a royal court. Joel Kahn challenges the kampung version of Malayness, arguing that it ignores the immigration of Malays from outside the peninsula to participate in trade and commercial agriculture, the substantial Malay population in towns and cities, and the reformist Muslims who argued for a common bond in Islam. Owing to a rising dissatisfaction with the established order and new modernist sensitivities, especially among
younger generation, the author argues that it is time to revisit the alternative, more cosmopolitan narrative of Malayness.

Labels: Politics, Society

Reclaiming Adat by Khoo Gaik Cheng (RM 95.00)

In the early 1990s, the animist and Hindu traces in adat, or Malay custom, became contentious for resurgent Islam in Malaysia. Reclaiming Adat focuses on the filmmakers, intellectuals, and writers who reclaimed adat to counter the homogenizing aspects of both Islamic discourse and globalization in this period. They practised their project of recuperation with an emphasis on sexuality and a return to archaic forms such as magic and traditional healing. Using close textual readings of literature and film, Khoo Gaik Cheng reveals the tensions between gender, modernity, and
nation in Malaysia.

Khoo weaves a wealth of cultural theory into a rare analysis of Malay cinema and the work of new Malaysian anglophone writers. Reclaiming Adat makes an essential contribution to our knowledge of the complexities embedded in modern Malaysian culture, politics, and identity.

(KHOO GAIK CHENG is Associate Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts, Australian National University, Canberra.)

Labels: Society

Orang Asli Women of Malaysia by Adela Baer, Karen Endicott, Rosemary Gianno, Signe Howell, Barbara S Nowak and Cornelia van der Sluys (RM 20.00)

Orang Asli women once had important responsibilities and functions that are now labeled "male-only." This discrimination spread throughout Orang Asli society during the last few centuries as Orang Asli came into contact with male-dominated cultures and internalized these alien norms for gender roles. It is the stealthy, relentless erosion of Orang Asli life in general, and the life of Orang Asli women in particular, that provides a true account of the problems of Orang Asli life today. The views of a variety of writers on Orang Asli women are presented in this book. From these writings, and also from what Orang Asli women themselves have to said, we can explore key features of Orang Asli women's lives in the past, the present, and what this means for the future.

Labels: Society

Anike
by Wong Phui Nam
Maya Press
(RM 19.90)


The conflict between subject and king is told in Malay history in Jebat's usurpation of the Melaka Sultan's palace. This is purportedly to be an act to right the injustice done to Tuah by the Sultan in ordering his execution on mere suspicion that he was dallying with the ladies-in-waiting in the palace. As is told in Hikayat Hang Tuah, the Sultan, on being told that Tuah has not been put to death as ordered, summons Tuah to the palace and orders him to kill Jebat on his behalf. This Tuah does out of unquestioning loyalty to his ruler. A parallel between this story and Antigone (by Sophocles in 5th century BCE Athens - a classic expression of conflict between established authority) may be drawn by having an invented sister of Jebat's defy the Sultan by retrieving for burial her dead brother's body left to rot hanging from a tree at the city's main gate on the Sultan's order. This is what Wong Phui Nam has done in Anike.

Labels: Plays, Society