debates under the dispensation of the then new Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad, to which the former UKM academic as well as PNB and Guthrie chief executive Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim (later Selangor Mentri Besar) was an early and insightful contributor. At the end of the 1980s, Rustam accepted Nordin Sopiee’s invitation to join ISIS. There, he helped to craft Mahathir’s historic February 1991 speech promising a “Bangsa Malaysia” as part of his Vision 2020 (thankfully translated by Rustam as Wawasan 2020, instead of the earlier Visi 2020), changing the terms of national discourse in one fell swoop. Frustrated by its lack of serious commitment, he left ISIS in the mid-1990s to become a writer, translator and reluctant businessman. Soon after, he agreed to become deputy president of PSSM, later inaugurating the biennial series of international Malaysian Studies Conferences in which we tried to reposition Malaysian studies as a national – and nationalist – discourse, rather than as post-colonial studies. Political involvement However, the events of 1997-99 with the sacking of the then Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim disrupted Rustam's plans and he rose to the popular national call for Reformasi following Anwar’s incarceration and persecution, becoming its most thoughtful “participant observer”. As deputy president of the Parti Rakyat Malaysia, a party his father had founded almost half a century before, he negotiated its principled unification with the political movement which had emerged around Anwar despite several high-profile defections. After the merger with Parti Keadilan Nasional to become the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), he became PKR information chief. Death Rustam died at his home in Gombak, Selangor on 23 April 2008 at the age of 64 due to respiratory difficulties. His body was sent to a mosque near his house at Bukit Lela and he was later buried at the Taman Danau Kota Muslim cemetery after Zohor prayers. References Farewell to a true Malaysian, The Star, 26 April 2008. Notes 1944 births 2008 deaths Malaysian bloggers Malaysian people of Malay descent Malaysian people of Minangkabau descent Malaysian Muslims Malaysian political scientists Political writers Malaysian sociologists Yale University alumni Alumni of the University of Kent Academic staff of the National University of Malaysia Parti Rakyat Malaysia politicians People's Justice Party (Malaysia) politicians 20th-century political scientists