Visitors to Kuala Lumpur could be forgiven for thinking that they have landed in a highly developed nation. From the gleaming steel and glass of the international airport to the Petronas Twin Towers, once the highest skyscrapers in the world, the trappings of ‘progress’ in the city are everywhere.
South of Kuala Lumpur, the federal administrative centre of Putrajaya features a magnificent touristy mosque, lavish buildings and an imposing prime minister’s office topped with a green onion-shaped dome. It may be a metaphor of sorts testifying to the accumulation of power in the centre, especially in the office of the Prime Minister, along with a process of Islamization coming head-to-head with the symbols of export-oriented economic growth.
