Partial Kuala Lumpur: ethnicity, class, sexuality, and protest

What happens in capital cities often serves as a metonym for that city's nation. Politicians and protestors alike seek to make their presence felt in capitals not just out of convenience, but because what happens there makes a statement. Visionaries build landmarks there to impose their vision on the country, and to send a message to the world. We seek here to explore Kuala Lumpur for what it says of Malaysia and its imagined future. In the space that this essay allows, we bring five foci, each intended to reveal a further layer or element to an understanding of the ways in which people have sought to impose themselves in the national imaginary. We explore the imposing Petronas Twin Towers for what they say about ethnicity, the razing of slums for what it reveals about class, protests and graffiti for what they show about democracy, and sexual minorities for what they demonstrate about the visibility of diversity in Malaysia.