“Reformasi changed everything”

By Zedeck Siew (The Nut Graph)

DURING the March 2008 general election, election campaign posters for Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) parliamentary candidate Nurul Izzah Anwar showed her smiling. Wreathed in a glowing aura, she seemed to be gazing into a bright Malaysian future.

Now the parliamentarian for Lembah Pantai, she is still seen as a poster-child for Pakatan Rakyat (PR)'s younger set of politicians. Her test — forging a distinct voice from under opposition leader and father Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim — is emblematic of the challenge her entire generation is facing.

The Nut Graph talks to Nurul Izzah about growing up as Anwar's daughter, the pressing issues in Malaysia today, and what she thinks the country she has already inherited should be, going forward.

TNG: We are all pendatangs. Where do you come from?

My mother has some family members in Pasir Mas, Kelantan; the rest of her family is from Kedah. I think we're quite diverse: my maternal great-grandfather had some Arab blood, and my great-grandmother had Korean ancestry, somehow — hence my Chinese-looking eyes.

But everyone in Malaysia is, somehow or another, like that.

Read more at: http://www.thenutgraph.com/reformasi-changed-everythinge