NOT TO BE MISSED!!!

Emergency Festival : Preview
by Carmen Nge


From rumblings of party hopping and government takeovers to mud-slinging and racist remarks uttered by our so-called political representatives, a casual observer of the Malaysian socio-political scene may be tempted to classify our post-March 8 period as chaotic, a time of great instability and disorder. Historians would remind us that six decades ago, Malaysia (or Malaya, at that time) was going through a crisis of similar proportions involving more nefarious stakeholders in the creation of a new nation: the British colonial government, UMNO and the MCP (Malayan Communist Party).

The Emergency period, as taught in textbooks, was riddled with violence and state repression; the period also presumably signaled our national hatred for communists and eventually provided the conditions for our independence. Victor and villain, oppressor and oppressed, were carefully constructed and embedded into a static textual past, newly imbibed and inculcated each year into the young minds entering the Malaysian education system.

Fortunately, not every young mind is so wont to feed on the ‘truth’ advanced and propagated by the state. Off The Edge had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Teh, one of the young minds responsible for engaging with this tumultuous time in our nation’s history to culminate in a multi-arts event: The Emergency Festival, scheduled for mid-October at the Central Market Annexe.


OTE: Why the Emergency Project and why now? In what way has this period in Malaysian history captured your imagination as an arts practitioner?


Mark Teh: Because, contrary to popular belief, Malaysian history is damn exciting and sexy!

I suppose I have always been interested in the issues of authorship and ownership of history. Many Malaysians do not feel ownership of our history – it is dismissed as boring and irrelevant, or history is presented as irrefutable 'facts' cast in stone. Broadly speaking, I see our informal collective’s work as concerned with re-presenting and reorganizing, not just recording, local history. I am interested in exhausting the facts of history and using these as a starting point for dialogue because very often, the 'facts of history' are used to limit or end discussion.

The Emergency Festival! follows on from a series of projects that have attempted to examine and re-present marginalized Malayan-Malaysian histories. These have included creating installations for the Home Fronts (SENI Singapore 2004) and Crossovers & Rewrites: BORDERS over ASIA (World Social Forum 2005, Porto Alegre) exhibitions; the Directors’ Workshop 5 – CPM in 2005 (out of which the dramatic performance piece, Baling (membaling) evolved into a university and college touring production); Dua, Tiga Dalang Berlari and documentary film, 10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka. Conveniently, this year also marks the 60th anniversary of the start of the Malayan Emergency in 1948, and provides a good opportunity to reflect on this fraught period.

The Emergency is often presented officially as a period of great instability and disorder, but it was also a time of multiple possibilities and trajectories of identity, imagination and independence. So many things that still define our lives were forged between 1948 and 1960. Amidst the acts of ‘terror’ and propaganda perpetrated by the British colonial government and the Communists, instruments such as the Identity Card, the Internal Security Act, the New Villages resettlement plan, forced repatriations to China and other policies were introduced. These years also saw one of the biggest political negotiations and media events in our history – the Baling talks of 1955, between future Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and Chin Peng, the most wanted man in the British Empire. And of course, Merdeka in ’57.

Over the past few years, marginal and under-researched narratives of the Emergency years have begun surfacing, through declassified documents, new analyses by historians and social scientists, as well as the publication of many memoirs by early leftist leaders. Many of these publications have begun looking at the social and cultural dimensions of the Emergency, which were neglected by earlier historians. This has certainly inspired us to look anew and ask questions of the past, and consequently, the future of the country.


OTE: Do you think the Emergency period is still relevant today? How might it be relevant, particularly to young people like you?

MT: I think after March 8, as Malaysians come to grips with these changes and try to re-imagine the country with new strategies and vocabularies, the Emergency provides significant insights into the manifold contradictions, compromises, concerns and communities that are involved in such a process. The past holds many clues, lessons, patterns and scars but many of us don’t know this. The education system has been very successful in this regard, in implementing a politics of forgetting. Certainly one of the clear parallels with both periods is the political role played by young people in attempting to move beyond a racialist framework for defining Malaysia.


OTE: Why did you and your team decide to embark on an Emergency Festival and not just have a screening of Fahmi Reza's film about the period? What possible outcomes do you hope for?

MT: Because we don’t want to feed Fahmi’s megalomania, heh!

I think this is actually the logical step in our collaborations over the past few years. Our process as a group has evolved from the youth- and community-based art projects where we worked as facilitators, to the more recent documentary/history projects where we have worked directly on making installations; visual artist/filmmakers/designers performing, etc.

For me at least, engaging with different media allows for more diverse ways of seeing, thinking and experiencing the issues we deal with. We have pursued a collaborative mode of working, particularly with regards to content. And our content tends to look at and blur the lines between fact, fiction, fantasy and memory. We are not particularly concerned with arriving at an agreed perspective of the Emergency anyway; certainly, personally I am comfortable with presenting and negotiating a multiplicity of perspectives and narratives that can contradict or provide commentary on each other.

The other idea I think is to engage with different creative people who have done significant research into this area, even if they don’t perceive what they do as research (particularly in Re:Search Re:Source). There are many forward-thinking people who have built up impressive personal collections of Malaysian books, music, film, paraphernalia, etc – I think partly in reaction to the poor job that our institutions do. So, it is important to tap into resources beyond ourselves. And of course, to draw on their audiences!

I hope that the festival engages and connects Malaysians with their history – that they see it as exciting and sexy too. And that history can be highly creative and participatory – once again, issues of authorship and ownership really.


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The Emergency Festival! will take place at the Annexe@Central Market from 16 – 26 October 2008. This mini festival of performances, art exhibitions and installations, film screenings, talks and workshops will investigate and re-present narratives and images from the first Malayan Emergency, from 1948 to 1960.

Parallel to this, the festival will also look at the emergence of the early local film industry, which overlaps the same period. Film afficionados and historians will get to view rare films, propaganda and documentation made by the Communist guerillas during and after the Emergency as well as anti-Communist propaganda clips from the Emergency era.

One of the centerpieces of the festival will be the much-anticipated premiere of Revolusi 48, Fahmi Reza’s follow-up to the hugely successful, award-winning documentary film, Sepuluh Tahun Sebelum Merdeka.

In addition to the film screenings, there will also be performances led by Hari Azizan, Fahmi Fadzil and Mark Teh, which deal with themes, issues and events such as the setting up of the New Villages and the impact of resettlement on individuals and communities, and the Baling talks of 1955 between Tunku Abdul Rahman and Chin Peng.

For more information, please go to: http://www.fiveartscentre.org/

The Independence Project : Review

by Carmen Nge


In our post-post-colonial world of global capitalism, multinational-ism and online interconnectivity, the idea of independence must be rethought. In the visual art world, contrary to what people may think, artists increasingly create in collaboration with diverse others. Collaborative efforts do not necessarily erode each individual artist’s sense of autonomy but they do challenge artists to negotiate with people who may or may not share similar artistic trajectories and visions. Collaboration entails risk and few artists are willing to heed its calling.

An initiative of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, The Independence Project is a collaborative exhibition between Galeri Petronas, KL and Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne that celebrates two seemingly contradictory ideas: independence and collaboration. The exhibition commemorates the 50th anniversary of Malaysia-Australia diplomatic relations, which certainly have deep roots in the arts world.

A work that simultaneously epitomizes collaboration and independence is Wong Hoy Cheong’s Aman Sulukule, Canim Sulukule (Oh Sulukule, Darling Sulukule), a 14 minute video created by the artist and the kids of Sulukule, a district in Istanbul where the Roma community has resided since the 11th century. Although the Roma settlement is slated for demolition, the video manages to capture a vibrant and kinetic world peopled with children who continue to hope, play and dream like any other. The aesthetic influence of Michel Gondry permeates the video, which poignantly captures a transient society refusing to be demoralized by its impending eviction. The whimsy and carefree air of the children and their stories belie the numerous difficulties faced by the artist and his team when creating the film with the community of Sulukule. Within the gallery space, a cosy TV room is constructed which enable viewers to imagine Sulukule. Such an ambience help to situate and contextualize the work, thereby heightening the experience of viewing an unfamiliar community.

The rest of the works by Malaysian and Australian artists exhibit a wide range of predilections and tendencies. Paintings by Richard Bell and David Griggs, and Tim Silver’s photographic narrative explore independence as seen through the lived reality of specific marginalized communities: the aboriginal artist, urban youth of colour, and dark-skinned islanders, respectively. While Bell’s painting is glib, conceptual and tries too hard to embrace postmodern high theory, Griggs’ gargantuan triptych of garish colour is refreshingly unpretentious. A throwback to Basquiat’s pop/street art style but with a twist of social realism in the tradition of Filipino and Mexican muralists, the work is unusual for its daring; unvarnished and unframed, The Bleeding Hearts Club is raw, vivid colour. Like Grigg’s work, Silver’s photographs are the anti-thesis of beautiful, though well-executed. His desire to juxtapose island life with gore films, however, perplexes.

Helen Johnson and Mark Hilton appear to approach the theme of independence in a far more indirect manner. Johnson’s sketches of mundane human activities and familiar objects seem out of place in the gallery but their very ‘unbelonging’ is perhaps indicative of a wish to assert the artist’s identity, independent of the gallery space. Hilton’s double-sided lightboxes, on the contrary, are far from mundane. Luminescent and arresting, their suspension from the ceiling enables both sides to be viewed; the images resemble Persian miniature paintings and like most miniatures, deserve a closer look. Hilton is well-known for using lightboxes to explore tragic and criminal events in his native country such as gang rapes and murders that have claimed the front pages of Australian newspapers.

Of all the works by the Australians, Zehra Ahmed’s Permission to Narrate stands out. Tucked away in one of a few dark recesses at the gallery, this sound installation with video projection is visually and aurally hypnotic. Borrowing ideas from the late Edward Said, Ahmed weaves intricate layers of popular culture (hip hop, breakdancing, fashion) with identity politics, Islam and the Arabic language. The almost pitch black space lends the dark-skinned dancing figure—decked out in an all white outfit—an angelic aura. It is impossible not to remain riveted to the moving body as it goes through a series of fluid moves; the superimposition of Arabic script onto this embodiment of urban street culture calls into question the usual Western-centric distinctions of “cool” and “religious”. For a change, both terms co-exist, projected onto one body and for a few hypnotic minutes, they become independent of the socio-political contexts that confine their meaning to mere stereotypes.

Seeing as independent art spaces are as important as the work they inspire, a section of Galeri Petronas is devoted to presenting a library of information and material culled from such spaces in both Malaysia and Australia. Although not part of the exhibition proper, this resource enables artists and gallery visitors alike to appreciate the range and diversity of independent initiatives as well as their trials and tribulations. The documentation of independent spaces is further explored by Malaysian artist Yap Sau Bin, whose work could not have happened without Google Earth. He maps all known art spaces in Kuala Lumpur and viewers are invited to point and click these locations with a mouse. The work exploits our fascination with technology but its rather clinical method of spatial mapping reduces the lived reality of independent spaces into pixelated dots. For those already familiar with Google Earth, this work is but a pointless gimmick.

Ahmad Fuad Osman’s slide show and Kungyu Liew’s photographic sculpture choose to deal with independence in its more literal Malaysian sense. Using old photos from the 1950s, around the time of our country’s independence, Fuad plays with the idea of Merdeka, tourism and identity. What would a young person do if he could travel back in time to meet with political luminaries and to join in momentous events from a hallowed era? The results are at times scathingly hilarious and at others, predictably droll but the idea of being able to explore independence through the willful doctoring of historical photos and facts is cheeky, clever and a sign that Fuad is finally beginning to lighten up. Liew’s sculpture is intricate and kitsch beauty at its best but not a huge leap from what he has done before. This is characteristically Kungyu Boleh and undeniably Malaysian.

Vincent Leong’s Shut up! You’re Not Real video installation is work that would have benefited from less cute and more bite. Blatantly poaching from Tony Oursler, Leong’s soft toys with projected human lips solicited more giggles and squeals of delight from viewers than any other work. Although seemingly benign, these talking toys lip sync to random media news reports; Leong previous attempts to fuse the conceptual with the cute has garnered unusually nuanced results but this work lacks complexity.

Roslisham Ismail or Ise’s DEB, on the other hand, is potently political without being unduly overt. But Malaysian viewers would have no trouble figuring out the artist’s sly and sophisticated critique of the New Economic Policy. Using hundreds of business cards advertising loan, credit and money lending services, Ise fashions a collage shaped in larger-than-life size letters: D E B. Chinese, English and Malay name cards proclaim to be able to help rid clients of debt, dependency and destitution but at what cost? How successful is the NEP and who stands to benefit the most from such government policies? Ise is true to his pop art-collage roots in this work but ups the ante with its political sting.

Sharon Chin and Sooshie Sulaiman are two artists whose work would have benefited from a more concerted attempt at integrating interactivity into their display. Chin’s video gives viewers an inkling of what heart-to-heart communication could look like but the absence of a human being in the installation was sorely felt. Two stethoscopes were left on chairs, with a note explaining how to listen to the ‘true’ voice of conversation but no viewers took up the offer. Similarly, Sooshie’s art book would be better enjoyed outside their transparent casing. Wall text alone did little to illuminate the interactive nature of the work and keeping the book opened to one page and only frustrated this writer.

Taken as a whole, the Independence Project is a mixed bag of well-conceived new works, some of which directly touch on the theme in question while others only tangentially so. Nevertheless, the range of media, materials and artistic approaches is a positive reflection of just how essential it is for artists to be given the space to create as freely as they choose.

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This review first appeared in Off The Edge, Feb 2008 issue.

Feminism and the Women's Movement in Malaysia : A Review

by Carmen Nge





Barisan Nasional MP Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin must be simmering. The old adage, “loose lips sink ships” has never before proven so metaphorically true. His slip of tongue has resulted in an unstoppable torrent of public criticism from women and men alike. The DPM’s pathetic attempt at salvaging Bung’s rear end by claiming the remark was innocuous only smacked of complicity. I suppose this is what members of the old boys’ club do: they back each other up, they forgive and forget, and return to the task of running the country. What’s a little crass ribbing among MPs? Women should be more thick-skinned.

What the op ed pieces and newspaper reports don’t tell us is that Bung’s callous remark is a hardly an anomaly. Witness Datuk Seri Samy Vellu’s comment a few days after the infamous “bocor” incident: “A woman 50 years ago, she looks beautiful, but today she won’t look so beautiful.” He said this when referring to the RM90 million renovation work done on the Parliament House. Clearly, the old boys cannot stem the tide of their patriarchal lingo and prevent another sexist screw-up.

To surmise that all our MPs are sexist or male chauvinists would be an overgeneralization, but there is no denying that retorts against women are nothing new. Comments during Parliamentary debates about menstruation, sexy clothes, unmarried divorcees and outspoken women, in some ways reflect the limited influence that the women’s movement in this country has had on men in power. The fact that the female MPs from BN failed to publicly take Bung to task during Parliamentary debates also showed that partisan politics will always trump gender issues.

Perhaps the problem lies in how women are perceived by the ruling apparatus—not as equal and legitimate partners in the political process but merely as a voting bloc to be swayed for electoral purposes. This supposition is amplified and well-supported by historical research in a ground-breaking book entitled, Feminism and the Women’s Movement in Malaysia, published by heavyweight academic UK publisher, Routledge, and authored by three Malaysians: Cecilia Ng, Maznah Mohamad and tan beng hui.

Ng, Maznah and tan make a formidable trio; all of them are active in various women organizations and have research expertise in the area of women’s studies. Maznah and Ng are both academics, having taught at University Sains Malaysia and University Putra Malaysia, respectively. The former is currently Associate Professor and has a string of publications to her name. Tan is a member of the Women’s Development Collective (WDC) and the All Women’s Action Society (AWAM), which Ng helped found. Feminism and the Women’s Movement in Malaysia is a result of their collective effort to document the existence of a movement that does not consider documentation high on their priority list.

The strength of their book lies in a careful parsing of various strands of the women’s movement from socio-political and historical standpoints. Rather than focus on urban NGOs who are most vocal about issues such as violence against women and often take up concerns of the secular middle-class, the authors also scrutinize governmental bodies, namely the Ministry of Women and Family Development; mainstream Malay-Muslim women organizations such as Wanita and Puteri UMNO; and the women’s wing of Islamic NGOs such as Helwa ABIM and Wanita JIM. A chapter of the book on women and political Islam also covers the internal politics and complexities of women’s role in PAS, which is often stereotyped as a party unfriendly to the women’s movement. PAS Dewan Muslimat (Women’s Assembly) was established as early as 1953 and well-educated women do hold leadership positions, although these are numerically few and with marginal influence.

The depth and diversity of the book chapters in Feminism and the Women’s Movement in Malaysia are proof of the variegated nature of the women’s movement in Malaysia. The writers are, however, careful to point out the omission of East Malaysia in their project, citing the different relationship that women’s groups have with the states of Sabah and Sarawak due to different contexts and the federal-state government structure. Nevertheless, despite such limitations, the book manages to contextualize and critically analyze the scope and nature of women’s activism in the country.

In a fascinating chapter titled, “An unholy alliance?”, the co-optation of women’s NGOs’ concerns by the Ministry of Women and Family Development is carefully delineated. In a self-interested move, the Ministry used the Violence against Women (VAW) campaign—renamed WAVE (Women Against Violence) or OMBAK in Malay—to publicize itself and to dilute the issue rather than to sharpen its focus. Women’s NGOs boycotted the launch of OMBAK in July 2001 and the controversy was amplified in the press. In order to soften this public relations blow, Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil sponsored a proposal to amend the Federal Constitution, Article 8(2) in a politically expedient move.

This anti-gender discrimination amendment had already been put forward by the Women’s Agenda for Change (WAC) as early as 1998 but due to lack of political leverage and connections, was not passed, gazetted or enforced. The tireless and thankless work of women’s NGOs over the past 20 years went largely unnoticed as the Ministry of Women and Family Development stole the media limelight. This event also highlighted the fact that women’s issues could win votes; as such, political parties are liable to play the gender card simply to garner votes rather than to genuinely fight for gender equality and women’s rights.

According to 1999 statistics, women voters make up 55.6% of the population and since the mid-1990s, women voters have tended to outnumber men. With the rising number of women university students, it is likely that this percentage will increase in the upcoming elections. Mainstream women’s organizations such as Puteri UMNO has successfully penetrated rural enclaves, utilizing young women of the party to register potential UMNO voters and to raise the public profile of UMNO in general. But such attempts to curry voters are not commensurate with a similar rise in the number of women MPs in the country.

According to United Nations 2005 statistics, the percentage of women MPs in Malaysia is only 9.6%, still below the Asian average of 10% and well below that of Vietnam, which stands at 26% and is ranked 11th in the world for women MP representation. Even our immediate neighbour, Singapore, has 16% female representation in Parliament. It is no wonder MPs Bung and Mohd Said are unapologetic; after all, women are such a minority in Parliament, it seems pointless to care what they think.

Nonetheless, for us to chastise Bung for his remark and to get upset with those members of Parliament who took it lightly is only the tip of the iceberg for what needs to be done. The fact remains that MPs such as Bung exemplify the absence of intelligent thought in Parliament. To equate the leak in the Parliament House roof with the menstrual cycle is to commit a commonplace logical fallacy—false analogy—that any student of critical thinking can point out. A woman’s menstruation is as natural and God-given as a leaky ceiling is man-made. To menstruate is part and parcel of being a woman (and even then, with a few medical exceptions) but for a million ringgit construction and upgrading effort to spring a leak? What else can it be but an effect of corruption?

Rather than throw red herrings into the august halls of Parliament, perhaps some of our MPs should pick up a book to sharpen their critical thinking skills, to cultivate rational logic, and to expand their sorely limited knowledge of the struggle and gains made by women in the past 50 years. It would certainly behoove our MPs—male and female alike—to give Feminism and the Women’s Movement in Malaysia a read. Merdeka is around the corner—it’s the least they can do.


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This review was first published in Off The Edge magazine, Dec 2007 issue.

I Don't Want To Sleep Alone by Tsai Ming Liang : A Review

by Carmen Nge


At the tail end of 1998, during the most infamous trial in Malaysian courtroom history, a non-descript mattress was elevated to the status of scandalous visual spectacle. Purportedly containing DNA evidence that would incriminate a certain former DPM, this mattress was carted to the courtroom as proof of illicit sexual escapades. Although the victim of this political scandal was exonerated many years later, the mattress served as a powerful visual memory for many Malaysians, including Sarawak native and now Taiwan resident, filmmaker Tsai Ming Liang.

A queen-sized, well-worn and discoloured mattress inhabits countless frames in Tsai’s latest film, I Don't Want To Sleep Alone, which is set entirely in Kuala Lumpur. Migrant workers spy it in an alley and transport it back to their sleeping quarters, eager to experience its attendant comforts. Along the way, they stumble upon a beaten, bruised and black-eyed man—eeriely reminiscent of a certain former DPM in police custody—whom they rescue, bundling him up in their newly found mattress.

What follows next is a filmic narrative of exceptional neo-realism, exploring a subject exceedingly rare in Malaysian cinema: the lives of migrant workers in our nation’s capital. Shot almost entirely without dialogue, each frame is meticulously composed and Tsai, who is well-known for his minimalist style and excruciatingly long takes, allows us ample room to observe, soak in, reflect and ruminate on the lives of a group of people we take for granted.

The Malaysian Censorship Board originally banned the film, claiming that it depicted Malaysia negatively by focusing on immigrants and beggars, as well as the haze of 1998. There is no denying that Tsai eschews the typical icons of Malaysia Boleh; the Petronas Towers, Putrajaya and all other towering edifices of development were dismissed in favour of a semi-built, disused and abandoned multi-storey building near Pudu. Preferring to zoom in on the stark realities of the Malaysian urban landscape—dirty and dank city streets and alleyways; abandoned construction projects; decades-old kopitiams and cramped shoplots—Tsai’s film holds up a mirror to our so-called progress.

Malaysians in Tsai’s film are peripheral to the storyline, which revolves around three migrant workers, enmeshed in a quasi-love triangle. But the love that the two men and one woman feel for one another transcends the romantic; what the three migrants feel, if it can be called love at all, is indistinguishable from companionship, caring, and a craving to belong. These are alienated souls, eking a living in a city populated by other displaced and disenchanted persons, and who somehow stumble upon each other. The concept of home exists only within the paradigm of relationships, not a physical space. The mattress they carry with them is symbolic of their transience but it is also symptomatic of their desire to have some semblance of a home, regardless of where they end up staying.

I Don't Want To Sleep Alone is a powerful meditation on the what it means to be human, even in the face of decrepit conditions and cruel treatment. The slow pace of the film simultaneously accentuates the meaninglessness of existence and the ways in which unexpected encounters gradually blossom into relationships that fill the void of living. But more than anything else, Tsai’s film tells us a beautiful story of three people who manage to find solace in each other, despite residing in a city—KL—that has become increasingly cold, soulless and sullen. The fact that these three people are not Malaysians but instead, migrant workers who barely speak the same language, speaks volumes.

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This review was first published in Off The Edge, July 2007 issue.

John Perkins : Interview 2007

by Carmen Nge

In 2005, a silver-haired, retired American businessman resisted bribes, braved threats to his life, and hid away from the public eye, in order to write a book. The book was an instant bestseller and for months remained on Top Ten non-fiction books lists around the world, selling half a million copies since November 2004.

The term EHM or “economic hit man” entered common parlance and some readers of the book exclaimed that its contents were too unbelievable not to be true. EHMs were economics consultants and business professionals hired by American corporations to infiltrate countries that posed significant strategic interests for the United States. Over the last three to four decades, the American ruling elite, made up of corporate bigwigs and politicians, used EHMs to execute a masterplan of economic world domination.

The title of the book is Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and its author, John Perkins, became almost instantly infamous for his expose. Now, more than two years later, Perkins has written a second book, The Secret History of the American Empire. Hot off the presses, his latest effort incorporates more confessions from other EHMs like himself and reveals more secret deals of the American government in cahoots with multinational corporations. True to form, The Secret History is already a bestseller.

When Perkins’ first book came out, Off the Edge had the pleasure of a lengthy telephone interview with the author. This time around, due to his hectic book tour in North America and travels in Latin America, we were only able to dialogue with Perkins via email. Below is the full, unexpurgated interview.


OTE: Can you tell us why you decided to write a follow-up to your first book?

John: I wrote it primarily for 3 reasons:1. to include stories from other EHM and jackals who contacted me after "Confessions" was published2. to bring things up to date -- what is going on around the world up through the beginning of 20073. to provide a detailed plan for what we all can do to make it a better world.


OTE: One of the areas covered in Secret History of the American Empire is Asia and the economic collapse in the late 90s. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you have discovered about this area of the world?

John: The book goes into depth about the Asian Economic Crisis -- also known as the IMF Crisis. Indeed the collapse was perpetuated by US-IMF policies.


OTE: Malaysia is now in the process of negotiating its free trade agreement (FTA) with the US. What is your view of FTAs? Do you think they are another way for the US to gain control over the economies of developing nations such as Malaysia?

John: No question that FTAs are vehicles for expanding the American Empire -- a bad thing for just about everyone in the world, except the corporatocracy.


OTE: You have been critical of the US's imperial ambitions, the IMF and the World Bank. Yet so many developing nations rely on the World Bank for economic support. What options are there if we were to reject the policies of the World Bank and reject the monetary support of the IMF?

John: As I discuss in detail in Secret History of the American Empire, the Latin Americans are showing us a new way, [they are] planning to develop their own regional bank -- as well as media networks. Countries around the world that are under the US yoke must band together, form alliances, refuse to pay their debts, and create their own financial institutions.


OTE: What is your view of Hugo Chavez and the nationalization of petroleum in Venezuela? Do you think he will likely be assassinated like Salvador Allende, Omar Turrijos and Jaimé Roldós?

John: The US is very afraid that we will lose Middle Eastern oil as a result of the Iraq debacle; so Washington is very dependent on Venezuelan and other Latin American oil. Coups and assassinations are always a possibility but I think the US knows it must tread softly in Latin America right now.


OTE: As an American, how do you feel about the anti-American sentiment spreading across Latin America and the rest of the world, particularly in Muslim countries like Iran and Indonesia? Can this sentiment be a force of change or do you think it will only fuel American military aggression further?

John: As a US citizen I take it as a strong message. Part of my commitment is to write and speak out in the U.S. about these things and to encourage my people to take them very seriously. If we want our children to inherit a safe, sustainable and peaceful world, we must listen and we must change. Now is the time for us to act responsibly!


OTE: Apart from Saudi Arabia, it seems as if Middle Eastern nations are more resistant to American economic pressure and political influence. What is your view? Do you think US has succeeded in making significant political/economic inroads into the Middle East?

John: I think we are on the verge of losing influence in the Middle East. When we leave Iraq, the rest of the region may well desert us. Israel is in a very tenuous position. We must develop a new approach, one that strives to address and solve the real problems of all the people in that region. Are we capable of doing this? I will work very hard toward that end.


OTE: What hopes do you have for the upcoming American elections? Do you think a Democratic win can reverse the global problems caused by the Bush administration?

John: A Democratic win can set the stage to reverse the problems but we must go way beyond partisan politics. "Secret History" is devoted to presenting a plan for changing things, for truly creating a better world. It is not about Democrats versus republicans. It is about changing the very system created by EHM since WWII. As you will see in the book, I am extremely optimistic that we can -- and will -- do so.

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This interview was first published in Off The Edge magazine, July 2007 issue.