Special Guest Speaker

HRH Raja Zarith Sofiah binti Almarhum Sultan Idris Shah

HRH PRINCESS Zarith Sofiah Idris studied at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, England, before reading Chinese Studies (a 4-year undergraduate programme) at Somerville College, University of Oxford. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in 1983.

HRH Princess Zarith Sofiah is Royal Fellow at the School of Language Studies and Linguistics (SoLLS), UKM, and is also one of two Pro-Chancellors at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). She is also actively involved in several NGOs : she is the Deputy President of MAWAR or the Johor Ladies’ Council; the President of the Persatuan Pandu Puteri Johor (Girl Guides of Johor); Royal Patron of the Spastics School of Johor Bahru; Patron of  the Rotary Club of Tebrau Foundation, and Patron of MELTA (Malaysian English Language Teachers Association). In October 2006, she was made  Chairman of the Community Services Committee,  the Malaysian Red Crescent Society (MRCS). MRCS is an auxiliary society which works together with ministries within the Malaysian government.
HRH Princess Zarith Sofiah has a keen interest in writing : she was a columnist for the New Straits Times from 2000-2004, and currently writes a column called "Mind Matters" for the Star.  

In November 2005, she delivered a keynote paper titled “Shared Reality: The Media and Us” at SoLLs.INTEC in 2005. (SoLLS INTEC is a two-yearly international language conference organized by UKM.) The paper subsequently became the prologue to the six volumes of books published by Pearson-Longman Malaysia (2007). HRH Princess Zarith Sofiah has also presented another paper for SoLLS INTEC in 2007.  In January of 2008 she delivered a public lecture "English as a Global Language : The Use of the English Language in 21st Century Malaysia."

HRH Princess Zarith Sofiah also paints and has taken part in some painting exhibitions. She admits to spending many hours on the Internet as part of her research (rather than pleasure) in presenting papers for SoLLS.

A Global Warning : The More We Know, The Less We Understand
At a time when there is a glut of news and information, we find that ironically we haven't learned to live with each other in a spirit of tolerance, understanding and acceptance. Despite the ease with which the Internet offers us information on almost every subject that can be of interest to us, as well as facts and figures about gender, religions and races, it seems as if we have not used them for our benefit or more important, the benefit of our peers, our fellow citizens and those from other countries. On the contrary, it may be argued that we have become more insular and self-serving.
 
The availability of news via mass media has not lessened the apparent paranoia that some of us display. We have become more distrustful of each other.
 
This paper tries to answer why we react the way we do, and why there is less trust and more paranoia, even when telecommunications and technological wizardry offer us so much that we can surely find interactions better and easier