Rethinking Ourselves: Justice, Reform and Ignorance in Postnormal Times

by Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim

Change has run amok! Technological advancement measures its frequency in minutes. Much of what we think we know about the world is fading in front of our eyes. How we are, how we know, and how we live our daily lives is changing quicker than we can cope with. We find ourselves in a confusing, uncertain and volatile age.


Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia’s tenth Prime Minister, asks how we might rethink ourselves to adjust to accelerating change, and to shape more just and sustainable futures. His passion for truth and justice is rooted in his own he has been behind bars for over a decade through three separate miscarriages of justice, from his days as a student activist to his time as Leader of the Opposition.


Woven through the reflections on his time in prison are critical investigations into justice, post-colonialism, Islamophobia, democracy and world order. Anwar brings together the ideas of scholars and other thinkers from the East and West, North and South, to explore how we can create a new inclusive synthesis—one that genuinely promotes good society and a just and sustainable world order. Vividly told, expertly dissected, this is a timely book for our turbulent age.


Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia’s Prime Minister, is a public intellectual and founder of the People’s Justice Party, who endured a decade of imprisonment for his staunch anti-corruption and reformist politics. Formerly based at the University of Oxford, and Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities, he is the author of The Asian Renaissance.

339 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 14, 2025

Reviews

[Luqman Tarmizi]

Honestly, I didn’t set any particular expectations when I started reading this book. I was told that this book was mainly based on Anwar’s notes from his prison time, and it was later elaborated further by Ziauddin Sardar, his own intellectual sparring partner, and of course with Anwar’s admission to be later incorporated and published as his own words.

I mean, do you expect the Prime Minister to write 230 pages, heavily loaded with critical discussions on theoretical, technical and practical issues, all by himself? Come on.

So where do I begin?

First and foremost, I think this book just proved further Anwar’s consistency on the issues of Third-Worldism, post-colonialism, democracy, and placing Islam within the context of universal values, especially in front of global audience.

Speaking of which, I think this book is mainly intended for international readers, rather than his own compatriots. This perhaps justifies the jargons, bombastic words and in-depth philosophical discussions that might be hard to chew for some.

So many issues can be traced back to his previous book The Asian Renaissance, appealing to universal values from diverse traditions, calling for a dialogue between civilizations, humane economy and cultural understandings.

Unfortunately, in many instances, this book seems to avoid from elaborating specific details or direct answers on difficult issues, instead circling around generalities and abstractions. Thus, the author(s?) suffers from trying to cover so many issues, but fails to really make their case convincingly on many of them. There is an instance at the beginning of the book, where the issue of Malaysia’s delicate racial demography since the independence was touched, but it stopped short of delving further, making me rather dissapointed.

But to his (their?) credit, numerous concrete arguments and firm stances were made, most notably on the issues of Orientalism and Islamophobia, tracing their Western and Christian origins which were perpetuated and expounded throughout the history of Islam.

The ‘literature review’ on the evolution of trends in Orientalism discourse was deliberated extensively, ranging from those early Orientalists who are ‘trying to make Islam more compatible with Western values e.g Philip Hitti, H.A.R Gibb, to the those who misrepresent Islam as a threat to mankind in the discourses of "intellectuals at the service of the empire" e.g Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis. The crusade was later led by polemicists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Tom Holland and his ilk, discrediting Islam as a religion of ignorance, terror and backwardness.

I also noticed an overdependent on selected few Islamic scholars while discussing Islamic issues, namely Khaled Aboul Fadl, Hashim Kamali and Ziauddin Sardar himself, as if the Islamic tradition lacks credible names that can be presented to the global audience, as the book intended.

No reference mas wade whatsoever to traditional mufasir when discussing Quranic verses, nor to contemporary scholars on Maqasid Syariah, nor to distinguished Islamic economists. The contrast is stark and glaring; while discussing issues such as theories of justice, democracy, Artificial Intelligence etc, the pages were repleted with numerous endnotes, whereas the discussion on Quranic verses was treated like a passing commentary.

All in all, this book does not really captivate me. Several pop culture references and jokes here and there, did manage to tone down its rather academic nature, but I can still feel the cold and dry ambience. Perhaps more anecdotes, storytelling and personal sharing might render this book more enjoyable to readers. But again, maybe I am not the target market.

2.5/5, that's it.

Last but no least, big thanks to my boss for lending me his copy!

[parareads]

#RethinkingOurselves by our 🇲🇾 Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Justice, Reform, and Ignorance in Postnormal Times. I love how PMX takes us through the story of his political journey in the prologue Eye of the Storm; from his early involvement, to being thrown into prison, and then rising again to lead the nation. His worries about this country, Islam, the world, and the future are beautifully wrapped up in this book.

The 3️⃣ Things:

🌏𝑷𝒐𝒔𝒕-𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒔𝒕 & 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝑼𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒉
Every explanation he gives is always tied to Islamic concepts. The idea of post-colonialism, including modern forms like digital colonialism, is something I found really interesting. I like how he keeps highlighting the idea of the ummah in a way that’s realistic in today’s world. He also dives us into so much about world history and timelines.

🔍𝑶𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒎 & 𝑰𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒐𝒑𝒉𝒐𝒃𝒊𝒂: 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒓𝒄 𝒐𝒇 𝑰𝒈𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 🧭
Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism becomes a major reference for PMX in expressing his frustration with the West, especially how they interpret us. I love when he talks about “the West, the East, and us.” He touches on Islamophobia that’s spread by both external and internal forces and the importance of finding our own identity and history instead of letting others define us.

🧠𝑻𝒐𝒅𝒂𝒚’𝒔 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑨𝑰
Of course, he couldn’t skip AI when talking about future challenges. He explains how AI can bring both good and bad opportunities and its impact on the nation and the world. I love his concern for the country as a whole, and the fact that he highlights literature and encourages reading makes this book an even bigger plus, definitely a must-read for anyone interested in our PMX’s political views.

✍🏻: @anwaribrahim_my
🖨️: @penguinbookssea
📄: 304
⭐️: 4/5

Thank you @putrifariza and @times.reads for giving me this advanced copy. #parareads #timesreads #PMX #RethinkingOurselves #nonfiction #penguinbooks

[Nrlhakimin]

Postnormal refers to a world driven by contradictions, complexity, and chaos. In this book, our Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim, reflects on six big themes: Postcolonial Angst, Justice of Our Time, Liberating Democracy, Reconsidering the Ummah, The Arc of Ignorance, and finally, Rethinking Ourselves. Each chapter is filled to the brim with ideas and quotes from books, scholars, history, political timelines, and literature from around the world, all woven together to make sense of the present and imagine a just, sustainable world order.

At its core, the book asks us to rethink, rechallenge, and reform everything we’ve been taught because postnormal times require fresh perspectives. We need to unlearn old frameworks, uplift the voices long silenced, and confront the truth that we may have lost faith in happiness. PMX urges us to return to morality, compassion and humanity.

In Liberating Democracy, he highlights the flaws within modern democracy and argues that fixing the backbone means embracing plurality and bold new ideas. After all, the real enemy is stagnant minds. In Reconsidering the Ummah, he confronts the harsh truth that we were never truly united as an ummah. We are fragmented, disjointed, and this allows Islamophobia to spread. The remedy? Combating ignorance. Next, I found The Arc of Ignorance particularly fascinating. He outlines three types of ignorance: plain ignorance, vincible ignorance, and invincible ignorance. To overcome them, we must unlearn, imagine creatively, and cultivate awareness and that awareness is always, always the first step.

My favourite parts, though, are the prologue and epilogue. While the chapters lean toward academic writing, these two sections offer a glimpse into Anwar’s life: the political storms he weathered and his deeply personal reflections from his incarceration. The prologue opens with him narrating the storm of 1998—beautifully referring not just to Malaysia’s political upheaval, but to the weather and to the turbulence within his own life. The use of weather imagery is simply hauntingly beautiful.

He also shares the books and literary works he devoured during his imprisonment, which explains how profoundly literature has shaped both his worldview and political journey. His reflections are rich with songs, films, and literary references from Shakespeare to P. Ramlee. No surprise there as he holds a BA in Malay Studies and pursued his MA in Literature at UKM while being imprisoned from 1974 to 1975.

I especially love how he draws lessons from all sorts of books, stories, and films to understand the world because, truly.. we are all actors on a global stage! He quotes Hamlet, Lear, even references Sarjan Hassan to make sense of modern realities. In a way, his imprisonment liberated him, giving him time to think, rethink, and find an inner freedom that turned resilience into a superpower when he re-entered the world outside.

This book requires focus, patience, and a willingness to question things you’ve never questioned. If you love history and politics, give it a go. He has been criticised for showing emotions, having fun, being expressive.. But to me, being human and genuinely human, is one of his best traits as a leader.

All in all, I truly enjoyed reading his ideas and reflections, all filled with songs, stories, and life. 4/5 stars because postnormal times are finally making more sense to me, because I love how he romanticises literature and art in real life, and because he lives unapologetically liberated from the chains of old ways and history. And of course, because he is one brilliant, badass leader.

Thank you Putri and Timesreads for gifting me this! It feels so good to consume this!

[Isabelle Chua]

I am only 28, but have written enough in my life to know the feeling of looking at the jumbled assemblage of ideas I wrote as a tiny child and thinking: Oh, what a naive little clod! What bumbling prose! I'm sure that in another decade I will look back on this review and recoil in anguish.

Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, esteemed tenth Prime Minister of Malaysia (affectionately termed PMX) was 49 years old when he wrote The Asian Renaissance. This book is published in his 78th year of life. Already, the comparison sort of falls apart; the man was close to the zenith of power in Malaysia when I was born, and before I had formed my first full sentences had fallen all the way from the top. Reading Asian Renaissance and Rethinking Ourselves side-by-side, though, does make me feel this sense, and I'm sure he must feel it himself. For all the ups and downs, Anwar's ideas have remained grounded in the same humanistic principles with which he started out, marred a bit here and there by the need to act out his ideals in the real world. The prose has remarkably improved, and whereas Asian Renaissance is and feels like a somewhat hodgepodge collection of essays with tenuous links the entirety of Rethinking Ourselves is woven together tightly.

I do not have much to say about Anwar's ideas because they are generally somewhat agreeable to anybody who has some heart. He never was a ruthless rationalist, and never will be; his (I say this with the greatest admiration for the man) bleeding-heart ideas on the potential for different cultures to behave harmoniously somewhat sidesteps the daily brutalities of states' quests for power and what they are willing to do to get there, which is something that is rather necessary to consider for a politician and a political thinker. In other words: yes, it is possible to get cross-cultural interactions and harmony, but whether that truly affects states' behavior is somewhat up in the air.

Culture, culture, culture; that's really the main thing you think about when you consider Anwar Ibrahim. He is an intensely cultured man who can bat back and forth on obscure medieval history, something I enjoyed reading about despite having some disagreements with his conclusions. As someone who mainly peddles in Western cultural ideas and discourse, it is admittedly also a bit funny for me to hear someone of a notionally liberal bent talk about truth and justice in the religious conceptions of the term since this is mainly the domain of right-wing cranks in the West these days. But I do believe that it is important for a leader to be deeply moral in a genuine way. We see everyday the costs of having purely careerist and opportunistic people in politics.

Ultimately, Asian Renaissance and Rethinking Ourselves leave me with the thought that it is better that Anwar be in power than his alternatives. There is such a paucity of the bookish, thoughtful, human, kind sort of person in politics these days. I suppose I should be happy as well that at 78 he is much less of a cynic than I am.

[aemynadira]

Let's be honest. A politician's philosophical essays are usually the last thing you'd pick up for a good read. They tend to be dense, self-serving, or both. But this is a stunning exception. This isn't your typical political manifesto or dry academic text. Instead, it feels like a series of long, thoughtful conversations with someone who's been in the eye of multiple storms, from political prisoner to prime minister, & has used that forced solitude to question everything. Anwar writes with a scholar's mind but a humanist's heart, weaving together Islamic philosophy, Western political thought & a deep concern for justice in a way that felt surprisingly accessible.

The sheer range of his reading is impressive & almost dizzying. He returns often to Shakespeare, mining the Bard's play for timeless wisdom on power, morality & human folly, a refreshing source of philosophy for a modern statesman. Beyond that, in a single breath, he connects Aristotle to John Steinbeck, or weave together thoughts from some economists & historians. I had to smile imagining the reaction of voters anywhere if a leader casually cited Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich as a favorite book. It's a refreshingly intellectual flex that seems detached from chasing cheap popularity. Rethinking isn't an intellectual exercise, but a necessary act of humility. Reading about his own evolution felt less like being lectured & more like being challenged in a good way. It made me reflect on my own certainties. Where had I stopped questioning? Where had I confused tradition with truth, or progress with purpose?

Finishing the book, I was left with a sense of admiration, & a bit of wistfulness. The power for me lies in its stubborn hope & the overwhelming impression is of a rare mind in public life. Here's a man who has endured immense suffering, yet the prose is never bitter. It's urgent & optimistic. The central question he circles isn't about winning the next news cycle, but about how we build ethical societies in turbulent times. It's a profound call to do the hard work of rethinking, starting with yourself.

[Elvina Zafril]

Rethinking Ourselves is a thoughtful, demanding read. One that asks you to slow down and question how we live, think, and respond to a world changing faster than we can process. Anwar Ibrahim reflects on justice, democracy, faith, and global order against the backdrop of rapid technological and social change.

What stood out most to me were the sections drawn from his time in prison. These moments give the book its emotional core, turning abstract discussions about justice and power into something deeply human. Many readers note that these reflections are the strongest parts of the book, and I agree. They linger long after you finish reading.

The book can feel dense at times, especially with its wide range of philosophical and political references, but it’s clear this comes from a genuine desire to bridge ideas across cultures and traditions. While not always an easy read, it’s a meaningful one.

Overall, I think this book offers something more valuable which is a reason to pause and rethink ourselves in an uncertain, volatile age.