Kuala Lampur, Aug. 9 -- Malaysian politics has an uncanny ability to return to where it began. Few places demonstrate this better than Baling, Kedah.

Baling is not merely another parliamentary constituency in northern Peninsular Malaysia.

It is a geographical marker of some of the most consequential episodes in Malaysian political history. It is also, quite accidentally, a useful metaphor for contemporary politics. In Malay, baling means to throw or hurl.

Malaysia has gone, figuratively speaking, from Baling to baling: from a place associated with the struggle to establish political order to a political culture in which accusations, grievances, identities and economic frustrations are constantly being thrown at one another.

The histor...