Read without ads and support Scribd by becoming a Scribd Premium Reader.
See Premium Plans
 
01
 
Issue #1 Sept 2012
Editors
Tshiung Han See, ShivaniSivagurunathan, Adele Minke
Design
Tshiung Han See
Contributors
Tricia Yeoh, Zedeck Siew, JinHien Lau
Logo
Andrew T. Crum
Cover image
Tan Ray Tat
Photos
Hanif Maidin, Malek Abdullah, Andrew T. Crumnewvillages.tumblr.comnewvillagezine@gmail.com
Contents
Editorial 1Contributors 33
Fiction
e New Year’s End 2Heart-of-the-City 14Melancholia 18
Non-fction
Working in the Selangor State Government9
Poetry 
Being Born 32
 
1
Editorial
e name “New Village” is perti-nent to this issue in many ways.Historically, we know that the new  villages were settlements borneout of forced relocation, the resultof British policies against Malay-sian communism. But how didthe inhabitants feel? We can only imagine the alienation thataccompanies any forced move-ment (something that has by nomeans ended today), its psycho-logical eects stretching past themoment of relocation.In 1968, Lloyd Fernando wrotethat there may be some forms of alienation which have yet to beexplored. In that sense, alienationis nothing new. In another sense,though, alienation arises precisely out of the new, the movement of modernity that grants its subjectsa sense of vertigo, and dislocation.Locally, one may trace this back tothe new villages, their construc-tion being a crucial moment of themodern invention of Malaysia.A way of reading this issue,then, is as an exploration of theimpact of the new. Here are rep-resentations and expressions of the current Malaysian moment,which poses questions amidst theurry of modern signs (e.g. theshopping mall), and symbols of the “traditional” (e.g. rural repre-sentations, nature). As the name“New Village” implies, we feel thatthere is an unresolved mingling of the modern with the traditional,which does not fall into the usualdichotomies of modernity versustradition, the urban and therural—a central paradox (andsource of creative potential) of Malaysian existence today. In oth-er words, the new is in the village,the village in the new. Alienationpersists, regardless of its locationand form; history, too, reaches outto today’s moment, regardless of our perception of its eects.Fanon wrote in
Te Wretched of the Earth
, “Each generationmust discover its mission, fulllit or betray it, in relative opacity.”e writer, theorist, and artist un-derstand this existential question,and it is their attunement to thedri of Malaysia today that drivesa publication like New Village.If there is something new to besaid around here, it will be foundin the opacities of reection andexpression, away from the usualheadline-grabbing rhetoric andpartisan confrontation, whichpasses for cultural discussion here.
 Adele Minke
Search
Search History:
Searching...
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
  • p.
    • Notes
    Load more