Library For Social Democracy

Happy belated from REFSA! Have a look at some recent our team recommends.

Let us know in the comments below what you've been reading 👇

Our education minister takes it upon himself to encourage a reading culture amongst Malaysian. What is your response to ?

: APAKAH 10 BUKU KEGEMARAN ANDA?

Saya berhasrat untuk menjadikan Malaysia sebagai negara membaca tahun 2030. Bererti, rakyat Malaysia rakyat paling banyak membaca pada tahun 2030. Kayu ukur kepada pendidikan yang berjaya ialah budaya membaca yang tinggi. Membaca ialah seruan pertama dalam Islam (al-Alaq:1).

Saya mengalu-alukan sesiapa sahaja untuk berkongsi 10 buku kegemaran mereka daripada pelbagai genre dengan tagar (hashtag) . Saya mulakan dahulu dengan diri saya.

1. "The Alchemist" karya Paulo Coelho.

Perjumpaan pertama saya dengan penyelia PhD saya di University of Durham, beliau minta saya p**ang dan membaca buku ini. Saya tidak faham kaitan buku dengan tesis saya. Perjumpaan seterusnya beliau minta pandangan saya tentang buku ini. Benar, buku ini tak ada kaitan dengan tesis saya, tapi ia memberikan saya semangat yang kuat untuk terus belajar dan menyiapkan PhD saya. Antara kata-kata dari novel ini yang sangat bermakna bagi saya ialah "You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it’s better to listen to what it has to say."

2. "Trust: The Social Virtue and the Creation of Prosperity" karya Francis Fukuyama

Banyak yang dihuraikan oleh Fukuyama terutama sekali tentang kesalinghubungan antara sosial dan ekonomi. Kepentingan untuk tidak bersikap individualis yang bakal merosakkan keseimbangan ekonomi negara sangat cemerlang dihuraikan oleh Fukuyama. Kata Fukuyama, “To truly esteem oneself means that one must be capable of feeling shame or self-disgust when one does not live up to a certain standard.”

3. "Manuklon" karya Rahmat Haron

Sebuah novel futuristik yang penuh dengan peristiwa kembara, dijiwai oleh manusia biasa dan klon yang saling bertentangan demi untuk mendapatkan kuasa. Golongan manusia yang ditindas oleh bangsa manuklon berjuang bermati-matian untuk membebaskan tanahair mereka manakala pemerintah manuklon p**a berusaha sedaya upaya mereka untuk mempertahankan kuasa mereka. Ya, sangat banyak yang boleh kita lihat hari ini begitu real seperti yang diimajinasikan Rahmat Haron.

4. "Intelektual Masyarakat Membangun" karya Syed Hussein Alattas.

Untuk seorang ahli akademik, Syed Hussein Alattas sangat menekankan keperluan untuk ahli akademik menjadi sarjana yang bukan hanya di dalam dewan kuliah, sebaliknya di jalanan dan di tempat-tempat awam demi membangunkan pemikiran masyarakat.

5. "Rasuah" karya Syed Hussein Alattas

Syed Hussein Alattas juga sudah lama mengkritik budaya rasuah yang begitu kronik dengan memberikan sebab musabbab yang jelas bahawa budaya ini benar-benar akan merosakkan negara.

6. "Sejarah Umat Islam" karya HAMKA.

Saya sentiasa sarankan buku ini kepada pelajar saya apabila mereka mahu bermula membaca sejarah khususnya sejarah Islam. HAMKA berjaya melukiskan dengan sangat jelas tentang garis masa dan peristiwa-peristiwa penting termasuklah sedikit analisa yang menarik di dalam sepanjang sejarah Islam. Di akhirnya, HAMKA juga menceritakan bagaimana Islam sampai ke Kep**auan Melayu.

7. "Al Tawhid: Its Implications for Thought and Life" karya Ismail Raji al-Faruqi.

Di dalam buku saya Risalah Buat Pemuda Muslim terbitan Telaga Biru, saya menghuraikan kepentingan tauhid dalam kehidupan seorang 'homo-Islamicus'. Tauhid syarahan Ismail Raji al-Faruqi begitu real, praktikal dan sangat besar peranannya dalam kehidupan harian kita.

8. "Al-Munqidh min al-dalal" atau diterjemahkan sebagai "Guide for The Perplexed" karya Al-Ghazali.

Ini antara buku autobiografi yang saya s**a. Penuh dengan ilmu dan hikmah. Siapa yang tidak kenal Al-Ghazali? Dan siapa yang jatuh cinta terhadap buah fikirannya tetapi tidak membaca buku ini?

9. "Al-Kimiyya al-Sa'adah" karya Al-Ghazali.

Salah satu daripada elemen pendidikan yang akan diterapkan ialah kebahagiaan. Pendidikan yang menjadikan semua manusia bahagia. Konsep kebahagiaan yang begitu mendalam dihuraikan oleh al-Ghazali dalam buku ini. Hakikatnya, kata al-Ghazali, kita semua manusia yang inginkan kebahagiaan. Kebahagiaan yang paling tertinggi ialah kebahagiaan bertemu denganNya.

10. "Hikmah Hati" karya Maszlee Malik

Bukan kegemaran pada membacanya, tetapi pada menulisnya. Saya sangat terpengaruh dengan banyak karya arwah Azizi Hj. Abdullah sehingga di situlah minat saya terhadap sastera muncul dan cubaan untuk menulis karya kreatif telah saya mulakan. Buku ini masih ada di pasaran.

Dr Maszlee Malik
Menteri Pendidikan Malaysia

Thank you all who came for our event 'US-China Trade War and the impact on Malaysia'!

Professor Woo Wing Thye, Professor of Economics at University of California at Davis, USA; and Sunway University, Malaysia, spoke extensively on the topic to a room of packed audience in our library space. He spoke on emerging markets, and the motivations underlying the trade war between US and China, and its impact on Malaysia. In the talk, Prof Woo makes the argument that the current focus on currency devaluation, trade deficits and technological theft detracts attention from the endemic structural issues of both the American and Chinese economy. On the American side, more needs to be done to increase taxation to reduce deficits and for the Chinese, adequate social safety nets has to be installed so that the high savings rates can be reduced.

Professor Woo reflects on the need to differentiate strategic-military competition from economic competition in order to defuse the current trade war: 🇺🇸️🇨🇳️

"As for the US, it should stop equating strategic competition (often a zero-sum game) with economic competition (which may be zero-sum in the short run, but creates win-win outcomes in the long run). National economic dynamism and resilience emerge from allowing international competition, not from insulating domestic high-tech firms permanently."

Please register via our eventbrite link to confirm your attendance: https://eventbrite.com/e/woo-wing-thye-us-china-trade-war-and-its-impact-on-malaysia-tickets-47941795200

Wing Thye Woo - Project Syndicate Wing Thye Woo is a professor at the University of California, Davis, Sunway University in Kuala Lumpur, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. 

In this collection of essays, scholars of Malaysia and Singapore reflect on the state of multiculturalism in the two countries. The article our librarian particularly enjoyed was one by Philip Holden. He shows how the desire for Straits Chinese in the post-independence period to carve out an Asian cosmopolitan identity was also a project that reinscribed racial and class tenets into the differentiation between upper class Straits Chinese and their working class, recent migrants and native counterparts. Worth a read!




The library is open 9am - 5pm on working days. Pay us a visit!

About our speaker:

Wing Thye Woo is a Penang-born, Harvard-trained economics Professor at University of California at Davis, at Sunway University in Kuala Lumpur and at Fudan University in Shanghai. His current research focuses on macroeconomic management of open economies, and on the growth challenges of the East Asian economies. His upcoming publication, which will be published at MIT press, is titled 'A New Global Reserve System for a Transformed Global Economy, and the Design of the East Asian Component'.

It is not too late to register through our event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/354520691745714/

We, idealists, librarians and bibliophiles, still believe in the value of print material. 💪💪💪

"To understand how the closed nature of digital book ecosystems hurts designers and readers, it’s useful to look at how the open nature of print ecosystems stimulates us. ‘Open’ means that publishers and designers are bound to no single option at most steps of the production process. Nobody owns any single piece of a ‘book’. For example, a basic physical book stack might include TextEdit for writing; InDesign for layout; OpenType for fonts; the printers; the paper‑makers; the distribution centres; and, finally, the bookstores that stock and sell the hardcopy books."

Stagnant and dull, can digital books ever replace print? – Craig Mod | Aeon Essays Digital books stagnate in closed, dull systems, while printed books are shareable, lovely and enduring. What comes next?

Hello! Wondering what to read in the post-election period of calm as things return to normal? 📒🇺🇸

In 'Taming the Wild', Dr. Manickam traces how 'Orang Asli' as a set of precolonial cultural and lifeway markers were made into static categories of racial identity by a colonial administration intent on systematising racial differences. 'Orang Asli' acquired an entrenched meaning of referring to a particular class of people, as backward, as pre-modern and rural, eventhough these lifestyle habits were loosely defined, constantly negotiated and ever-shifting. In our attempts to refigure a post-racial political landscape, it is pertinent to come to terms with how Malaysia's legacy of colonialism has structured and influenced understandings of our racial identities.


Our library is a treasure trove of social studies and literary books. We are open weekdays from 9 to 5.

The Library for Social Democracy is open for booking as an event venue for events/talks/forums (Subject to approval).

If you are interested, kindly send us a message.