Thinking against Coloniality from the Malay World: A Personal Reflection

Abstract

My thinking against coloniality began from the earliest days of my childhood when I was in elementary school in Singapore. This started in 1968, the year after my family moved from Malaysia to Singapore. My father, Syed Hussein Alatas (1928–2007) was a University of Amsterdam-trained sociologist who was to found the Department of Malay Studies at the University of Singapore in 1967, now the National University of Singapore (see Alatas 2024).