Can Malaysia find life after the National Front?

FOR Malaysia, the late 1950s were a time of national upheaval and individual decision-making. In 1957, the Malayan Federation achieved its independence from Britain, replete with a newly drafted constitution and a model of citizenship shaped by an elite group of British-educated Malay Muslims. Soon afterwards, a recently married Balbir Kaur arrived in Malaya from India to begin a new life. Her sister-in-law and her husband were in the process of returning from Malaya to independent India, and they left their six-year-old son, my father, in her care.