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NYT – Artifacts Show Sophistication of Ancient Nomads

March 13, 2012 in Articles, Spotlight

PRESERVED Some of the most illuminating discoveries dispelling notions that nomadic societies were less developed than many sedentary ones are now coming from burial mounds, called kurgans, in the Altai Mountains of eastern Kazakhstan, near the borders with Russia and China

Published: March 12, 2012 | By 

Ancient Greeks had a word for the people who lived on the wild, arid Eurasian steppes stretching from the Black Sea to the border of China. They were nomads, which meant “roaming about for pasture.” They were wanderers and, not infrequently, fierce mounted warriors. Essentially, they were “the other” to the agricultural and increasingly urban civilizations that emerged in the first millennium B.C.

As the nomads left no writing, no one knows what they called themselves. To their literate neighbors, they were the ubiquitous and mysterious Scythians or the Saka, perhaps one and the same people. In any case, these nomads were looked down on — the other often is — as an intermediate or an arrested stage in cultural evolution. They had taken a step beyond hunter-gatherers but were well short of settling down to planting and reaping, or the more socially and economically complex life in town.

But archaeologists in recent years have moved beyond this mind-set by breaking through some of the vast silences of the Central Asian past.

These excavations dispel notions that nomadic societies were less developed than many sedentary ones. Grave goods from as early as the eighth century B.C. show that these people were prospering through a mobile pastoral strategy, maintaining networks of cultural exchange (not always peacefully) with powerful foreign neighbors like the Persians and later the Chinese.

Some of the most illuminating discoveries supporting this revised image are now coming from burial mounds, called kurgans, in the Altai Mountains of eastern Kazakhstan, near the borders with Russia and China. From the quality and workmanship of the artifacts and the number of sacrificed horses, archaeologists have concluded that these were burials of the society’s elite in the late fourth and early third centuries B.C. By gift, barter or theft, they had acquired prestige goods, and in time their artisans adapted them in their own impressive artistic repertory.

Almost half of the 250 objects in a new exhibition, “Nomads and Networks: The Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan,” are from these burials of a people known as the Pazyrk culture. The material, much of which is on public display for the first time, can be seen at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, on loan from Kazakhstan’s four national museums. Two quietly spectacular examples are 13 gold pieces of personal adornment, known as the Zhalauli treasure of fanciful animal figures; and the Wusun diadem, a gold openwork piece with inlaid semiprecious stones from a burial in the Kargaly Valley in southern Kazakhstan. The diadem blends nomad and Chinese characteristics, including composite animals in the Scytho-Siberian style and a horned dragon in an undulating cloudscape.

Artifacts from recent kurgan digs include gold pieces; carved wood and horn; a leather saddle; a leather pillow for the deceased’s head; and textiles, ceramics and bronzes. Archaeologists said the abundance of prestige goods in the burials showed the strong social differentiation of nomad society.

Jennifer Y. Chi, the institute’s chief curator, writes in the exhibit’s catalog, published by Princeton University Press, that the collection portrays “a world of nomadic groups that, far from being underdeveloped, fused distinct patterns of mobility with apparently sophisticated ritual practices expressive of a close connection to the natural world, to complex burial practices and to established networks and contacts with the outside world.”

Walking through the exhibit, Dr. Chi pointed to nomad treasures, remarking, “The popular perception of these people as mere wanderers has not caught up with the new scholarship.”

Excavation at the Altai kurgans, near the village of Berel, was begun in 1998 by a team led by Zainolla S. Samashev, director of the Margulan Institute of Archaeology, on a natural terrace above the Bukhtarma River. Some work had been done there by Russians in the 19th century. But the four long lines of kurgans, at least 70 clearly visible, invited more systematic exploration.

Of the 24 Berel kurgans investigated so far, Dr. Samashev said in an interview, the two he started with were among the largest. The mounds, about 100 feet in diameter, rise about 10 to 15 feet above the surrounding surface. The pit itself is about 13 feet deep and lined with logs. At the base of Kurgan 11, he said, the arrangement of huge stones let the cold air in but not out.

This and other physical aspects of the pits created permafrost, which preserved much of the organic matter in the graves — though looting long ago disturbed permafrost conditions. Still, enough survived of bones, hair, nails and some flesh to tell that some of the bodies had tattoos and had been embalmed. Hair of the buried men had been cut short and covered with wigs.

The Kazakh conservator of the artifacts, Altynbekov Krym, said that remains in several kurgans were a challenge. “Everything was jumbled together, getting moldy almost immediately,” he said, and that it “took six years experimenting to create a new methodology to clean and preserve the material.”

Dr. Samashev said that his international crew, which is limited by climate to summer work, had excavated at least one kurgan a year. Several were burials of lesser figures. These were usually only a man and one horse. Kurgan 11 had a man who apparently met a violent death in his 30s; a woman who died later; and 13 horses, dressed in formal regalia before they were sacrificed.

So many horses, found in a separate section of the pit, affirmed the man’s lofty social status. Their leather saddles with embroidered cloth survived, as well as bridle and other tack decorated with plaques of real and mythical animals — like griffins, which had the body of a tiger or lion with wings and the head of a bird.

Soren Stark, an assistant professor of Central Asian art and archaeology at the N.Y.U. institute, said networks of contacts with the outside world were crucial to the political structure of the people throughout the Altai and Tianshan Mountains.

On the most basic level, they moved with the seasons by horse and camel, tending the flocks of sheep and goats that gave them the meat, milk, wool and hides of their pastoral economy. To make the most out of grasslands that were only seasonally productive, they went in small family groups into the highland meadows for summer grazing and returned to the lowlands in winter. They crossed broad plains to avoid overgrazing any one marginal pasture.

At their late autumn and winter campsites, herders assembled in large groups and engaged in tribal hunts and rituals. The exhibition includes bronze caldrons, presumably for preparing communal feasts, and several bronze stands, including one with a seated man holding a cup and facing a horse, that have the experts puzzled. Equally enigmatic are the symbols on rock faces that perhaps mark sacred places.

From the camps, parties of mounted warriors set out to raid settlements, both to supplement their meager resources and to obtain luxury goods coveted by their leaders. Dr. Stark said the nomad elite considered such goods necessities to be displayed and distributed to key followers “to build up and sustain their political power.”

As their networks widened, foreign influences, notably Persian, began to appear in nomadic artifacts from the sixth to the fourth centuries B.C. The griffin, for example, originated in the West by way of the Persian Empire, centered in what is now Iran; the nomads modified it to have two heads of birds of prey topped by elk horns.

Beginning in the third century B.C., Chinese luxury items, like the Wusun diadem, appeared in nomad burials, mainly associated with Han dynasty. According to Chinese accounts, the Wusun nomads may have furthered contacts between Central Asian nomads and Han China, at the time expanding westward and in need of horses in its campaign against borderland rivals.

For all their networking, the nomads of the first millennium B.C. never failed to apply imaginative touches to the foreign artifacts they acquired. Dr. Chi, the curator, said the nomads transformed others’ fantastic animals into even more fantastic versions: boars curled in teardrop shapes and griffins that seemed to change their parts in a single image.

By these enigmatic symbols, a prewriting culture communicated its worldview from a vast and ungenerous land that it could never fully tame — any more than these people of the horse were ever ready to settle down.

“Nomads and Networks” will continue through June 3 at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 15 East 84th Street, Manhattan. Information is at isaw.nyu.edu.

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Huffington Post – Lincoln’s Signature

February 3, 2012 in Articles, Spotlight

*Image from apples4theteacher.com

February 2, 2012 | By Howard Kissel

How much can a piece of paper be worth?

Quite a lot, if it has Abraham Lincoln’s signature on it. The actual value of the over-sized sheet of paper that went on display Wednesday at the New-York Historical Society has not been disclosed. That, after all, would be vulgar. And vulgarity has always been the bane of the Historical Society.
The sheet of paper in question is a handwritten copy of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, signed by President Lincoln. David Rubenstein, head of the Carlyle Group, recently acquired the document and has lent it to the museum, where it will be on display until April 1.
For Rubenstein, a collector of historical treasures (including one of the 17 known copies of the Magna Carta), the Thirteenth Amendment marks a crucial turning point in American history. He explained its significance Wednesday noon to a group of New York City schoolchildren, in the eighth and eleventh grades at three New York schools, I.S. 259, the Kipp Academy and the Notre Dame Academy.
Rubenstein was introduced by the president of the Historical Society, Louise Mirrer, who quoted historian David McCullough that we are living through “an epidemic of historical illiteracy.” She went on to say that “history has the power to change lives,” citing particularly “the indelible thrill of living history by examining original documents.”
Rubenstein began by quoting “the most famous sentence in history, written by a 33-year-old in Philadelphia” more than two centuries ago: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The statement, he said, contained two fatal flaws. The word men excluded women and it meant specifically white men.
“We fought a Civil War over that.”
On Jan. 1, 1863, he pointed out, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the states that had seceded from the Union (and were thus no longer under his jurisdiction.) Nor did the Proclamation cover the Border States. It was not until January 1865, when the Senate finally ratified the 13th Amendment and the Civil War was close to being won by the North, that the slaves were actually freed.
“The president is not required to sign amendments,” Rubenstein noted. “But Lincoln considered it an important document, which is why he signed his full name rather than just A.Lincoln. It is a symbol of our country finally getting rid of one of the fatal flaws in the founding documents.”
One of the students asked Rubenstein if the document would have been worth as much if it had been signed by Andrew Johnson, who became president when Lincoln was assassinated.
Rubenstein answered that Lincoln was one of the most important men in history and has probably had more books written about him than anyone except Jesus Christ. As a result, he said, “I’m happy to have paid a higher price than I would have if it had been signed by Andrew Johnson.”
After the presentation the students went downstairs to the new DiMenna Children’s History Museum. The walls on the staircase leading to the basement have important historical dates leading one back to 1600, before the arrival of Europeans, when, as the murals depict, the island of Manhattan was wild forest.
The new children’s museum, part of the Historical Society’s recent $65 million renovation, uses interactive exhibits to bring history to life.
In one exhibit you select an election year. The computer screen shows you a gallery of photographs and asks which people could vote. Since the year I chose was 1852 I knew that none of the women could vote. Nor could the African-Americans. But nor could one of the white men I clicked on. He was not eligible because he didn’t own property.
In another exhibit one can follow the life of Margrieta von Varick, who emigrated to Brooklyn in the late 17th century. She had been born in Holland but had grown up in Malaysia. She had a store in her house, selling items she had acquired in traveling to the New World from Malaysia. The exhibit shows the extent of her worldly travels, which spanned four continents.
When she died an acquaintance made an inventory of the items that were left — giving us a detailed glimpse into life in New York 300 years ago.
Another exhibit outlines the life of James McCune Smith, the first African-American to become a doctor. His mother had been a slave and when he was born, in 1813, New York still had slavery. His superior intelligence was noted early on and the community paid for him to go to medical school in Scotland — African Americans were not accepted in American medical schools.
He returned to New York and opened a pharmacy. He became an abolitionist and a good friend of Frederick Douglass, a statue of whom now stands outside the 77th Street entrance to the Historical Society. (Lincoln greets visitors on Central Park West.)
The new emphasis on children is, one hopes, an antidote for McCullough’s “epidemic of historical illiteracy.” I encountered this epidemic recently when I was in the hospital. I was chatting with a nurse who lamented the fact he did not have a college degree. I noted that a college degree no longer implied that the possessor knew anything, citing a statistic from many years ago, that an appalling percentage of Harvard graduates could not identify the time frame of the Civil War.
I asked if he knew when it took place.
“1500?” he replied.
I wish I could remember his name so I could urge him to visit the Historical Society’s children’s museum. The exhibits are so well designed even an aged person like myself found them instructive and entertaining.
For someone who has known the Historical Society for nearly four decades the changes are quite startling. In the ’70s, the museum might almost have been described as a well kept secret, except for every few years when it put items from its collection of the original Audubon drawings on display.
The museum had a kind of stodginess that jibed with its being the oldest museum in the city.The New-York Historical Society was founded in 1804. The hyphen was part of the original title. Back then it signified that New York was an adjective modifying Historical Society. Few today are so fussy about punctuation. But fussiness was also part of the institution’s identity.
Its founder was John Pintard, who was alarmed back in 1804 at how rapidly the city was changing — and destroying its past, a lament that has echoed down the centuries. In the ’70s the museum was still governed by families with names that personified Olde New York.
Like the old families in Edith Wharton novels, who had dignity and taste but less and less money, the museum was becoming down at the heels by the ’90s. In the new century a change of management was receptive to new money. The airiness of the design of the renovated museum suggests the fresh air that now fills the place.
As I was leaving I noticed that there is now a restaurant on the main floor, an elegant Italian place called Caffe Storico. I couldn’t resist. I had a bresaola panini and, for desert, an amaretto semifreddo with heirloom squash confit — both delicious and quite unimaginable 40 years ago. The sunlit restaurant, which has dishes from the museum’s antique collection on its walls, faces the south facade of the American Natural History Museum, that is, the landmarked side.
I was surrounded by people who would have to be described as chic. In Edith Wharton’s time this might not have been considered a good thing. But I believe she’s dead. Assuming that the diners have actually spent time in the museum (you can enter the restaurant without paying the museum admission fee), they can dress as chic-ly as they wish. That a museum once musty is now fashionable can only bode well.

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The Star – Myths, prejudice and history

January 27, 2012 in Articles, Spotlight

*image from oxygen.org.au

Question Times by P.GUNASEGARAM

It is next to impossible to make history objective, but we must give it L a damn good shot.

LEGEND is a lie that has attained the dignity of age. – HL Mencken The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice. – Mark Twain

Remember Jalan Birch in Kuala Lumpur, near the Merdeka Stadium? It’s been called Jalan Maharajalela for many years now, Birch becoming a victim of a programme of Malaysianisation of road names.

But Birch also became a victim of Malaysianisation of history – from hero, he became a villain, and his killer, yes, Maharajalela, became a hero in the flash of a road sign change.

Few things can so poignantly illustrate the change in historical perspective as a country changes.

JWW Birch was a British resident (adviser to the Sultan) in Perak in the 19th century. The British used a system of residents to control most Malayan states. A local called Dato Maharajalela assassinated Birch.

Although the reasons why he did this are obscure, Maharajalela is now hailed as a nationalist who opposed colonialism and died in the process – he and his accomplice were hanged.

Hence his elevation to hero status and Birch’s relegation to villain, a representative of an occupying force.

I remember my early history textbooks post-independence put Maha ra jalela in bad light until years later when the historical perspective began to shift.

We studied in our history books that Sir Francis Light was the founder of Penang which is ridiculous from a Malayan/Malaysian perspective because Malayans must have known the existence of Penang long before it was “founded” by Light. To this day, Wikipedia states that Light founded Penang. How confounding is that.

When the British “founded” places, it meant they then established a system of governance with rules of law. There is a court system and a police force. Prior to their “founding” there was no such legal system among the locals.

Then, there was Sir Stamford Raffles who similarly was said to have “founded” Singapore conveniently and erroneously erasing the arrival earlier to that place by a prince from Palembang, Sang Nila Utama, some 500 years earlier.

It seems like even Singaporeans believe their history started with Raffles. I was at a performance put up by Singaporean MBA students in 1991 which started off the history of the country from the time Raffles “founded” it in 1819. How unfortunate! It was with great amusement that I read many years ago of a stunt pulled by an American (Red) Indian.

After arriving in Italy via a commercial flight, he promptly announced that he had founded Italy.

And what right did he have to make that outrageous claim? The same that Christopher Columbus, an Italian who sailed on behalf of the Spanish monarchs, had when he proudly claimed that he had discovered the Americas (at that time Columbus thought it was the East Indies) in 1492, a land already in habited by millions of others.

Now, Prof Emeritus Tan Sri Khoo Kay Kim has controversially raised lots of heckles and temperatures by saying that Malay warriors such as Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat were mere legends – myths invented by fertile minds for the amusement of others, much like the Greek gods.

He is, however, a renowned historian with no political ideology, racial or national axe to grind.

To his critics he has this to say: “If you don’t agree with me, bring out the sources to show I am wrong. You cannot simply say you don’t agree. I am saying that these things were not true because no reliable sources confirmed they existed.”

That is a clear indication as to how we should go about clarifying history.

History must be based on facts. It must seek to recreate – without any ideological, national, racial or any other bias – what happened to who, what, when, where, why and how, the journalistic five W’s and one H.

Otherwise it remains a myth and legend.

Just as in the case of Hang Tuah, one should seek to ascertain whether Maharajalela was indeed a hero by trying to establish, based on facts, his motives for killing Birch.

Otherwise it becomes a mere speculation and interpretation which is not history.

We are a relatively young country and yes, we would need to rewrite history from the perspective of Malaysia and Malaysians. No, Light had not founded Penang and Raffles, Singapore.

There may be many questions we can’t answer but we must make an effort to find them. And we need a proper system of archiving so that future generations know things the way they were.

History in school must not be a tool for nation building or used for any other agenda but to paint a true picture, as far as that is possible given all our collective prejudices, of Malaysia and of the world.

It needs to have balance, fairness and most of all truth about everyone’s contribution to nation building.

It must not seek to aggrandise one race or religion at the expense of others.

It must have enough of a mix of subject matter to ensure Malaysians have sufficient appreciation of Malaysia and how it has come to be where it is as well as an unbiased understanding of the state of the world. Anything else and it would become poor propaganda instead.

The best way towards this is to have a curriculum drawn up by historians and true educationists and to put in place a rigorous means of verification if we need to change history or at least what we learn of it.

You can interpret history but you must not rewrite it without factual basis.

It is next to impossible to make it objective but we must give it a damn good shot nevertheless, if we are not to live in and perpetuate a lie.

Independent consultant and writer P Gunasegaram (t.p.guna@gmail.com) says we need an accurate history before we learn anything from it

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NST – Hang Tuah goes the way of Robin Hood

January 25, 2012 in Articles, Spotlight

January 25, 2012 | By A.Kathirasen

A reassessment of our history will prove profitable to the nation

ROBIN Hood has always fascinated me. In primary school, I lapped up the stories about him. He was one of my childhood heroes, second only to the three musketeers.

At least once a week, I would be in my neighbour’s house to watch The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Richard Greene, on TV. Years later, I was mesmerised by Errol Flynn’s rendition of the outlaw of Sherwood, when I watched it on VCD.

One day, I read that Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest did not exist. What? Blasphemy, I cried.

I discovered that there were — and still are — two debates over Robin Hood. One is whether he was from Nottingham, England, as we have all been taught to believe, or Barnsdale in Yorkshire. The other questions his very existence.

And now, we are told, Hang Tuah, that icon of courage and loyalty, did not exist. I knew that tales of this hero had been highly embellished, just as I knew that some people, in recent years, had questioned the historicity of the legend. But I never doubted that he lived in Malacca in the 15th century.

Now, respected historian Prof Emeritus Tan Sri Dr Khoo Kay Kim, who sits on a committee set up last May by the Education Ministry to review the History curriculum, says there is no proof of the existence of Hang Tuah, Hang Jebat, or Hang Li Po.

But doesn’t the   Sejarah Melayu (The Malay Annals), which records the history of the Malacca Sultanate, mention Hang Tuah? Yes, says the Historical Society’s Kedah branch chairman, Wan Shamsuddin Mohd Yusof, but that document is filled with myths and legends.

No, Hang Tuah existed, insists Malaysian Archaeologists Association president Prof Emeritus Datuk Dr Nik Hassan Shuhaimi Nik Abdul Rahman. As an example, he cites the tomb of Hang Tuah in Malacca. And the debate is on.

Saying History should not emphasise mythical figures but should teach facts, Khoo suggests a revision of the History syllabus.

This is precisely what a group of scholars and non-governmental organisations, which calls itself Campaign for a Truly Malaysian History, wants the ministry to do. It wants accuracy in history texts, a more balanced coverage of the different religions and cultures in Malaysia, and better focus on world civilisations.

Historian Ranjit Singh Malhi says there are too many half-truths and factual errors about our nation in our history books today.

In answer to these voices, the ministry established a 10-member History Review Committee whose chairman, Datuk Omar Mohd Hashim, said last week that the panel had indeed identified shortcomings in the current history curriculum and textbooks for secondary schools.

It reminds me of what the Greek historian Polybius said: “That historians should give their own country a break, I grant you; but not so as to state things contrary to fact. For there are plenty of mistakes made by writers out of ignorance, and which any man finds difficult to avoid. But if we knowingly write what is false, whether for the sake of our country or our friends or just to be pleasant, what difference is there between us and hack writers? Readers should be very attentive to, and critical of, historians, and they, in turn, should be constantly on their guard.”

The panel and the education authorities should keep this in mind.

Khoo is right in insisting that only facts should find their way into history textbooks. For instance, Perak Man is a fact and the paleolithic-age discoveries in the Lenggong Valley, Perak, should be featured in the new syllabus.

The Bujang Valley civilisation, too, is a fact. It is a shame that students are not taught about this rich part of our history. Teachers could make learning so much more fun by taking students to Lenggong, and the Bujang Valley in Kedah.

One of the reasons for misunderstandings in our society is a lack of knowledge of all of our past, especially that before the Malacca Sultanate. The writers of our school texts have been too selective about what they want students to learn and pass on. A reassessment, starting with the story of Malacca, will prove profitable to the nation.

But the question of the existence of Hang Tuah, just like that of Robin Hood, is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. Like Robin Hood, Hang Tuah has a life of his own: both have transcended textbook history.  Even if they do not live in textbooks, they live on in people’s psyches. I still relate to Hang Tuah, as I do to Robin Hood.

“Only a good-for-nothing is not interested in his past.” — Sigmund Freud.

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NST – Celebrating 50 years of friendship

January 12, 2012 in Articles

North Borneo and Sarawak Peace Corps director Dr John L. Landgraf (centre) talking to reporters outside the information centre in Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu) in August 1962. (File pic). By 1967, the Peace Corps programme in Malaysia was the largest in the world.

January 12, 2012 | By Paul W.Jones

The spirit of the Peace Corps continues today

FIFTY years ago today, a group of 36 young Americans arrived in Kuala Lumpur on a typical warm, humid day to work as Peace Corps volunteers in villages and towns throughout what was then known as Malaya.

Then deputy prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein personally welcomed the volunteers, thanking them for providing skilled and trained manpower to assist national development in this young nation.

These 36 Americans were just the start.  By 1967, the Peace Corps programme in Malaysia was the largest in the world.

During the 21 years that the Peace Corps served here, it brought more than 3,500 American volunteers to live and work in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak.

American Peace Corps volunteers worked hand-in-hand with Malaysians to improve lives and promote livelihoods.  Some volunteers provided math, science and English education to tens of thousands of Malaysians.

Another group helped establish agricultural organisations and public works programmes to improve agriculture.  Yet another group was critical in the fight against tuberculosis and improving public health.

These volunteers gave their time, energy and even their lives (six volunteers died during their service in Malaysia) helping the people of Malaysia to develop this nation.

When the Peace Corps programme concluded in Malaysia in 1983, former prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra al-Haj stated, “we have been most grateful to (the Peace Corps) for the help they have given us and we feel proud to have met and known them.  May this feeling continue for all time… the service they have rendered us will long remain in our memory”.

Tunku’s comments continue to ring true almost 30 years later.  I have been fortunate enough to travel to almost every part of this beautiful country.

All across Malaysia, whether in Rompin, Pahang, the Danum Valley, Sabah, or here in Kuala Lumpur, I’ve heard stories from my Malaysian friends across all levels of society about their unforgettable experiences with Peace Corps volunteers.

I was touched reading the comments from former Peace Corps volunteers attending a dinner hosted by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in Honolulu in November.

Happily, the spirit of the Peace Corps continues today.  Just last week, another group of young Americans arrived in Kuala Lumpur on a warm, humid day.

These 50 Americans, part of the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant programme, will soon be settling into local communities in Terengganu, Pahang and Johor.  They represent President Barack Obama’s response to Najib’s request for United States’ support to English-language education in Malaysia.

Following in the footsteps of past Peace Corps volunteers and English teaching assistants, these Americans will help educate Malaysia’s next generation of leaders and provide the critical English language skills necessary to succeed in our globalised world.

Peace Corps volunteers and English teaching assistants have helped cement deep ties between our countries, and I see a strong foundation for expanding understanding, prosperity and collaboration that befits both of our peoples.

We are working together to promote shared prosperity.  The US is the largest foreign investor in Malaysia, providing jobs to more than 150,000 Malaysians and helping Malaysia on its path to become a high-income, knowledge-based economy.

We look forward to completing the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and expanding trade even further.

We are also working together to promote sustainable development.  This includes support for Malaysia’s efforts to sustainably manage forests and to protect coral reefs and endangered wildlife. We also share goals to enhance energy efficiency and incentivise green growth.

The US is committed to peace, stability and security in the Asia-Pacific region, which helps fuel the extraordinary growth and potential of the region.  Our bilateral and multilateral military partnership has grown steadily.

Bilateral exercises, port calls and professional development programmes for military personnel help both of our countries to improve our abilities to respond to disasters, promote maritime safety and fight piracy.  Together, we are making a difference.

Thousands of Malaysians have studied in the US. You can find alumni of US schools and exchange programmes in every corner of Malaysia. Likewise, there are thousands of Americans who have come to Malaysia for education and enrichment.

These experiences have left lasting memories and established people-to-people networks for mutual understanding and respect between our peoples.

They remind us that we are connected beyond the material forces of politics and economics.  We are linked by thoughts, ideas and conversations.  We share an openness of mind, a curiosity about the world and an appreciation of arts and literature.

From President John F. Kennedy to Obama; from Tunku Abdul Rahman to Najib, the US and Malaysia have been partners and friends.

As we celebrate the Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary here in Malaysia, we look forward to continuing this heartfelt spirit of friendship and cooperation in the years to come.

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