Ulasan Makalah / Article Review Will There Be Malaysia Spring? A Comparative Assessment on Social Movements by Nidzam Sulaiman & Kartini Aboo Talib @ Khalid Jurnal Komunikasi (Malaysian Journal of Communication) Jilid 33(1) 2017: 43-58

Abstract

“Will there be a Malaysian Spring?”- as the title suggests, it seems that this article attempts to predict whether the waves of mass uprisings and regime change in the Middle East and North Africa would claim a new ‘victim’ – the state of Malaysia. In the early part of the article Nidzam and Kartini (2017) pay attention to the historical aspect of revolutions and mass mobilizations that occurred around the world, including in several states of Southeast Asia such as Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. According to the authors, the region of Southeast Asia had already experienced an Arab Uprisings style of public protest when mass mobilizations and protests succeeded in toppling several dictators – specifically Marcos of the Philippines (1986), Suharto of Indonesia (1998) and Thaksin of Thailand (2006). The Malaysian regime is a close neighbour that yet seemed ‘immune’ from the ‘threat’ of civil protest. There are several reasons pointed out by the authors which may have prevented the success of regime change via street protests to take place in Malaysia such as those seen during the Arab Uprisings.