Preface

In mid-1997 Malaysia became a hot issue in global mass media news coverage.At first the 'economic miracle', including ten years' high growth rates after the dip in the mid-1980s, was destabilized by the financial crisis in Thailand and the Thai devaluation.While the Malaysian government floated and depreciated the Malaysian currency (the ringlet) the Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad simultaneously attacked international speculative capital and especially Mr. Sorros, a well-known global currency speculator, and tried in vain to curb the fall of the Malaysian stock market by restrictive measures.Malaysia had to adapt to the liberal regime of international finance capital and take measures to reduce the state budget deficit by e.g.postponing some of the large public investments.Furthermore, in December 1997 the Malaysian government decided to switch from a high growth (average 7% per annuum) to a middle growth (average 4% per annuum) economic policy.A misfortune rarely comes singly.Within a couple of months the environmental disaster of burning estates and forests in Indonesia affected Malaysia with heavy smog, and polluting the air at alarming levels.The Indonesian catastrophe added to the environmental problems of Malaysia, caused by the long and rapid growth and industrialization process, the massive migration from rural to urban areas, and the rising living standards.The haze immediately affected air traffic, tourism and working life, while causing health problems in the short and long term.The present thematic issue on modern Malaysia aims to present various analyses of the modernity of Malaysian life and politics, leaving aside the more macro-oriented debate on economic development, industrialization and the political economy of development which has be publicized widely, not least by Malaysian scholars (e.g.Jomo K.S., Rajah Rasiah and Terence Gomez).The focus is on political discourses, socio-cultural changes and social movements, calling attention to aspects of everyday life which form part of the transformation of contemporary Malaysia, and the wider connection between the problems of modernity-postmodernity in the North and the modernization process in the South.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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