Aliran Monthly, Vol 25 (2005): Issue 9

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This month�s issue focuses on Aliran Monthly�s 25-year struggle to promote justice and freedom. P Ramakrishnan traces how the Monthly has evolved over the years and some of the challenges it encountered along the way.

The theme for the 25th anniversary celebration was �Creating free spaces and alternative ideas�. Mustafa K Anuar and Anil Netto recall the history of the struggle for free spaces in Malaysia.

Founding member Subramaniam Pillay, meanwhile, traces how Aliran and the Monthly have evolved into institutions that advocate freedom, justice and accountability.

In our centre pages, Anil Netto describes an evening to remember at the High Tea celebration in Kuala Lumpur to mark the occasion.

Over on the back cover, Clive Kessler writes on the struggle between �gentle� and �ungentle� Islam within Malaysia, which may have more than local significance. Faith itself, or rather the government�s vacillating management of it, is now arguably on trial, he says.

A Sivarajan analyses the latest Budget and expresses disappointment with the government pro-business policies that appear to favour mainly the capitalists.

Prema Devaraj, in a piece examining how the issue of gender is treated in textbooks, says it's hightime the government's national and international commitments on gender equality are reflected in classrooms.

We also highlight the quest for campus democracy in Malaysia and the students� boycott of recent campus elections, which were widely seen as unfair.

Finally, we carry pieces paying tribute to Harold Pinter, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and Rosa Parks, the Mother of the US civil rights movement, who passed away recently at the age of 92.

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