Malaysia

Really hate how my government and local media is harping about muh debt to GDP ratio and justifying the most uninspiring liberal think tank market policies known to man.

This is what happens when you outsource tertiary education to Western universities.

No wonder we do so well in those “Economic Freedom” indices. Yes keep attracting FDI, that will surely develop our country…maybe in numbers.

A short history lesson:

During the supposed “Labour” leadership of the UK in 1947, they enacted further anti-union laws that effectively destroyed all of the major trade unions - all affiliated with left-wing and communist independence parties - in Malaya. And when the federation of Malaysia was formed in 1948, the UK arrested thousands of communists and labour union leaders through a declaration of a State of Emergency. Concurrently in 1948, in the coloniser’s turf, the NHS was established.

To this day, unions are completely irrelevant in Malaysian politics. We had no general strike since the hartal in 1947 against the aforementioned British laws. A large aspect of the multi-racial and multi-religious, secular labour and liberation movement defanged and subdued.

This gave way to the rise of political Islam that rejected syncretic and sufi principles that were part of our interpretation of Islam (and how it related to our culture).

Of course this isn’t just putting blame on the colonisers. I have to also blame the bourgeois compradors that was tasked to maintain the coloniser’s superstructure and mostly fulfilled that role.

It’s also important to note that a good chunk of the Malayan liberation movements supported reunification of (the area that consists of modern-day) Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and Indonesia into a single state. This is something that is maybe reserved to history (at least currently) but I personally say is a strong prequisite for a socialist future for Nusantara. However, that is very obviously not wanted by the West - even a capitalist one would counter their aims back then and even now.

Yeah that article is a good example actually. What I find the most disingenous with people invoking “Apartheid” is that they disregard the material conditions of Malaysia in favour of liberal ideals.

Admittedly, the NEP, being designed by the immature Malay-muslim ruling class, is problematic and there are numerous issues. Malaysia would look very different if it followed the principles of China’s SWCC poverty alleviation programme for example, which also notably still maintains affirmative action in education.

I’m writing this sleep deprived but I hope it is coherent enough. This became longer than expected. I am planning to one day consolidate my thoughts on this specific topic even further with some proper writing at an ambiguous later date but as for now, I’ll use the article’s 1st and 3rd axiom as my base, starting with the 3rd which I think will help make it easier understand my points under the 1st axiom.

Finally, “apartheid” , like any theoretical framework that comes from foreign contexts, is in the final analysis extracting the Palestinian cause from the correct historical, political and emotional context of the conflict, to commit the Palestinians to a program and discourse in which the Arab and Islamic depth is neutralized for them.

This is often the immediate issue when liberals (at home and abroad) try to describe Malaysia as Apartheid. They completely ignore the historical context of Malaysia’s development. They would rather virtue-signal to western-minded worshippers about how “racist” the country is (which I don’t necessarily disagee, but that’s a seperate issue).

Even til this day, the Bumiputra are the poorest in the country. Bumiputra being a constitionally defined term, directly translated as ‘indigene’, including Malay-Muslims and Orang Asli (austroasiatic people that settled in West Malaysia), and the Kadazan-Dusun peoples, indigenous natives in East Malaysia of multi-religious composition (mainly Islam, Christianity and local Animist/Indigenous beliefs).

The NEP was prompted by the infamous racial riots of 1969 that saw the burning of Chinese petty bourgeois businesses by the Malay-muslims and (subsequent retaliation of the Chinese owners). This still lead to a majority of the casualties being Chinese, although there were still considerable Malay-muslim deaths. But let me mention it outright: these riots were incited by the ruling party’s (UMNO) Youth group. Some argue that the riots gave pretext for martial law and the NED. I can’t get too much on that now.

Even if the NEP was inherently capitalist or bourgeois, it was still progressive for it’s time. The NED identified a two-prongs approach to solve Malaysia’s issues: “poverty reduction regardless of race” and elimination “of the identification of race with economic function.” This spurred largely indigenous and national industries, coupled with the growth of government-led SOEs. (There is more nuance to this but I I’ll keep it short.)

Although a proper Marxist view of it would be this: it was an attempt made by the postcolonial ruling elite (comprised of the Malay-muslim aristocrats and the electoral support of ethnic-minority bourgeois and petty bourgeois class) to create a Malay-Muslim capitalist class - in a state dominated by British and Chinese capitalists with a largely urbanised (read “capitalist”) immigrant minority and a largely feudal countryside for the natives. A semi-colonial semi-feudal country.

The term “Apartheid” is literally the opposite of what happened in Malaysia. There was no settler-colonial population in Malaysia and if anything, it would have been closer to describe a certain segment of the Chinese population as the “settler” (I’d personally rather not go down that route though). These affirmative action policies, however effective it was in practice, was a reassertion of the natives’ socio-political control of an economy largely dominated by foreign businesses.

This lack of understanding and misappropriation of the term “Apartheid” to Malaysia disregards the very real consequences of colonialism in the British-imposed racial economy hierarchy and critiques certain bumiputra only programmes as somehow equivalent to a colony in which the a White settler population succeeded at partly genociding half the country (west south africa). It is even more ridiculous that these liberals argue that the so-called apartheid policies is why capital flight and brain drain is occuring in Malaysia. What is imperialism? What is neo-colonialism?

First, “apartheid” as an approach that aims to achieve legal condemnation (in the absence of a specific vision of what will happen the next day, if it is realized) of the form, content, and practices of the political entity that “Israel” establishes on the land of Palestine (or some of it) against the Palestinians (or some of them) in Palestine and the lands. It is a theoretical and operational framework monopolized by legal circles or utilitarian groups, without any representation or contribution from the Palestinians of the diaspora camps, where the Palestinian national liberation movement began in the sixties, and the Gaza Strip, which today represents the base of the central engagement of the Palestinians with “Israel”. Now it [ending “apartheid”] is not a political program for any of the popular forces of the Palestinians, and by virtue of its characteristics it cannot be.

So those that argue that Malaysia’s affirmative action programmes are racist, advocates for a means tested neoliberal solution instead. Like we haven’t suffered under a (neo-)liberalisation programme since the 80s. They argue that policy must be “needs” based, but under a capitalist regime just means a further restriction of access to those that need access to these services.

Furthermore it invites foreign (mainly western) chauvinism and virtue-signalling; look at these backwards Malay-muslims! These racist jihadists! They should be like me, an enlightened white-washed western bootlicker. No wonder political Islam is on the rise in this country overtaking a weak, faltering “centrist” ruling class.

Those calling Malaysia apartheid are out of touch of the Malaysian masses. They refuse to organise and build a cross-race and cross-regional coalition to carry out what our true independence and liberation movements fought for. Apartheid to the critics, is arguing that foreign and ethnic minority capitalists should continue dominate the Malaysian economy and that the marhaen (‘destitute peasants’) should shut up and allow it.

Most were family vacations. Some were places I studied/lived in.

Perks of the Malaysian passport in a way. Got visa-free access to like 167 UN member states? Equivalent to a lot of Western passports.

And of course, being part of a labour aristocratic family helps.

This is an amazing article that gave me a lot to think about how “Apartheid” is and was used by petty bourgeois liberals and western observers on the conditions and history of my own country.

Thank you for the share.

Only including ones where I stepped outside the airport:

Asia

• Singapore
• Saudi Arabia (Umrah)
• Oman
• Qatar
• United Arab Emirates
• Malaysia
• Bahrain
• Turkey

Europe

• Turkey (both sides of the Bosporous strait, if you count what is normally considered “Asia” and “Europe”)
• France
• Spain
• Belgium
• Netherlands
• United Kingdom
• Norway
• Denmark
• Switzerland

This experience meant I really had only 2 options in my political development, either a “world citizen” neoliberal or an internationalist Marxist.

That’s actually a hilariously apt way to describe it.

Considering the whole point is to act as delegates and have to follow standard “UN speak” (eg. no personal pronouns) really hammers home the larping bit.

I’ve done MUN at the “middle” and “high” school levels (in quotes because we don’t call them that). I am sure that it may as well be different at university, and I am by no means saying you shouldn’t do it - as someone also very socially anxious, taking opportunities for public speaking is always good! - but I want to temper your expectations a little bit.

In my experience, Model UN is for those with petty bourgeois and labour aristocrat inclinations and amount little to actual and insightful discourse.

This may be due to the age of the participants, but Model UN was really nothing more than just a glorified social gathering and CV booster. People are more obsessed with fulfilling their designated country’s caricatures and create ‘drama’ rather than discuss anything meaningfully. This may vary with the size of the event. There are high profile international MUNs, which I expect is taken more seriously.

Again, don’t get me wrong, it’s still a good experience for learning how certain UN bodies work and social skills, but don’t take it too seriously at the same time. Make sure to socialise, as not only will it get really boring, but your anxiety will spike if you never participate in any of the debates, opening speeches or caucuses.

As for the position paper, a good start would be to see how your chosen country voted through key resolutions related to your topic. From your description, it seems like it’s something related to climate change?

I would say at least look at the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement as good starters. It should be noted that a “background guide” is usually given, tailored towards the specific committee and topic you will be under.

To think about it broadly, a position paper gives the context and specific solutions/clauses you would look for in a resolution. That means specifying your own country’s position, the context behind your country’s position and why it affects your country, and as mentioned before, the proposed solutions.

As for countries, smaller/lesser known countries are always a good choice.

To elaborate on the other comment, this quote might be useful:

This is why ASEAN should steer clear of either bandwagoning (i.e., openly and exclusively aligning with a stronger power) or hedging its bets (i.e., playing both sides) via the IPEF – which could well be inimical to the pre-existing RCEP and other areas of strategic cooperation and make joint-development (JD) in the SCS even more difficult to achieve.

Joint development of course, being one of the only well-thought out plans that can actually resolve the SCS dispute. (Which is why the West hates it so much.)

The Western Pacific region or rather the southwestern Pacific is different from the rest of the wider region – with its own perspectives and concerns and vision. Geo-economic linkages and supply-chains don’t necessarily extend to geopolitical/geo-security alliances, at least for ASEAN as a whole. And even (regular and customary) joint-military exercises don’t necessarily translate into concrete military commitments in the form of a Nato-like alliance.

Source.

Which is also why I very much cringe at overly online liberals when they picture ASEAN as nothing but just either a US or China pawn (showcased through their lavishly sadistic WW3 maps), like we can’t assert our own independent politics.

Mainly nonfiction. I find fiction books a bit too daunting personally - I never really know where to start.

I’m glad that the only (white) South Africans I have met IRL were left-wing if not explicitly communists.

Also, somewhat unrelated, but do you have any recommended books/articles for South African history?

I know of the history vaguely, but I am especially interested because there’s some commentators in Malaysia who often describe the (Malaysian) New Economic Policy enacted in the early 1970s as Apartheid.

I disagree - but I personally don’t know much about Apartheid rather than some face-value things and would rather understand it more before refuting such claims.

• Read more regional histories
• Finally tackling Capital…
• Practice coding more
• Practice my native language more, reach a high school level proficiency by the end of the year, like CEFR B2 atleast.
• 10,000steps minimum everyday.

I would say finally start organising but due to some personal circumstances, technically it’s illegal for me to do so and I may get deported as a result so I’ll bide my time as of now.

Reminds me of my first ever post on this site.

I remember when he echoed this sentiment I found a lot of with some right-wing circles that christianity lost its self-respect and that unlike christianity, muslims kill people who insult their religion. Something that should be strived for apparently.

I find that the most funniest shit like how out of depth do you have to be?

But of course I know why: he unironically believes euro-fash propaganda.

And the history of Islamism/Political Islam is a history of almost being dead but being resuscitated by the West (directly and indirectly) so he should really support the neoliberal order if he likes Islamism so much.

Yes I read about that too. Qatar, Kuwait Bahrain and UAE has liberalized their visa policies and from what I understand and (some) abolished the Kafala system in the past decade or so. But just because certain laws are abolished, or enacted, it doesn’t mean the issues are necessarily gone or enforced.

Not to mention unionisation is still illegal for all foreign workers even til this day.

I’ll never forgive the global North for propping up these monarchies and basically funding/supporting their existence throughout the past century.

@Aru@lemmygrad.ml.

I hope the ping works? Here’s the “essay” you asked about all those months ago lol.

I have to reiterate that this is just one person’s account. Does that mean that I am without bias? No. Is my assessment 100% accurate? Undoubtedly, there will be mistakes. Therefore I am also planning to write a proper essay with references and sources later. The main thing delaying it is that I have some articles and writings that I would like to read first (not all are explicitly Marxist) and I have a lot of assignments due after New Year’s.

I would also appreciate it if anyone had any recommended writings related to this topic.

Some of the pending readings include:

• Federici, S. (2004) Caliban and the witch: women, the body and primitive accumulation, Brooklyn: Autonomedia.
• Massey, D. (1994) Space, place and gender, Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Bakker, I. (2007) ‘Social Reproduction and the Constitution of a Gendered Political Economy’, New Political Economy, 12 (4), 541–556.

Why did I write this personal account?

The World Cup has passed. There has been lots of mud slinging from the West and the national ruling classes of these countries rejecting their critiques. I want to make it clear that for all intents and purposes, this isn’t a black and white issue. The labour aristocrats in these countries live in their own privileged worlds, whereby the working-class lives in toil of the everyday.

I also have to say, I don’t have any personal stake on this issue. It’s now been years since I lived there. When I was living there, I was part of the labour aristocracy, or at least, my family was/is and I am a male. I do not have first-hand experiences with this issue I’m describing as I was a child in school. In fact, my own personal concerns about this are inherently selfish: I had asked myself, why are most of the so-called ‘unskilled’ labour (fast food workers, cashiers, etc) were female southeast Asians – people that look like me, or like my sisters, or cousins or aunts. It was a pattern imprinted in my young brain that didn’t make sense. Little did I know back then that what I was seeing was a process of racial capitalism and the everlasting consequences of colonialism.

Another reason I wrote this was we must stand against what one local organizer in my country called vulgar geopolitics. As communists we must see the material conditions for what it is. The fact of the matter is, what makes these AGM despotic, is their reliance on stolen surplus from migrant labour. That is a fact of many of these monarchies. We must not make excuses for the exploitation. Yes, many of these countries are shifting away from the petro-dollar, but their entire societies were built by south and southeast Asian labour. We must recognise that. I hope one day the sacrifices the global south working class had to make for the Arabian Gulf skylines will be commemorated and fully recognized.

So the US indeed justified it’s use of chemical defoliants in Viet Nam by it’s use by the British in Malaya.

This was prompted by a comment I made before.

I actually finally had time to watch the lecture I linked in the comment and they showcased a quote from a memo made by the Secretary of State to Kennedy.

I was able to eventually find it here.

The use of defoliant does not violate any rule of international law concerning the conduct of chemical warfare and is an accepted tactic of war. Precedent has been been established by the British during the emergency in Malaya in their use of helicopters for destroying cops by chemical spraying.

I hate anglos so much.

Selamat Hari Natal comrades!

I went on a spiral by reading a report from a free market think tank and then came across some self described “centrist liberal” news site, with their token non-white authors of course.

And they are all so bad. Like not only through their misuse of statistics, but in general, I can’t help but after reading it their very Western, and White, worldview that plagues everything they write.

Not to mention their protestations of “trans ideology”.

The rest are just some funny quotes I like to share with you all.

It’s time for us all to recognise that China is hostile to the West, and bent on world domination by any means. We need to bite the bullet and be prepared to pay extra for products not made in China.

After reading that, I genuinely burst out into tears. I was expecting something more sadistic, ie. justifying war, but instead it’s the painfully liberal “lets not buy any made in China products”, that broke me.

You make an excellent point, imo. The fear I have for the West is not China, but the so-called progressive movement. It has become detached from reality and, among other things, seeks to silence (aka cancel) its critics and redefine language to suit its own ends. It is attempting to dismantle the freedom of speech you identify as so important. So far, the progressives seem to be winning. Western society so lacks core values it seems incapable, even unwilling, to effectively oppose the progressive nonsense. China’s greatest threat is its own totalitarian ideology, not the West. The West’s greatest threat is its homegrown progressive ideology. I don’t know how we stop the internal rot.

Both taken from the comments of this article, which is funny in on itself.

And of course this amazing quote from this article:

One of the signature aspects of the culture war is the weaponisation of history, particularly by the new, academically-aligned Left. Decolonisation now dominates thinking about university curricula, as well as hiring practice, while museums have embraced its agenda with open arms.

The first sentence already a marvel to read.

Meanwhile, the ongoing return of Benin Bronzes from museums and, most enthusiastically of all, from Cambridge (116 are in the latest planned shipment back to Nigeria) involves an even more naked use of history as a grenade; most reports on the Bronzes’ return don’t even refer to the massacre of the British that preceded the looting, nor the fact that they belonged to slave-traders in the first place.

NOOO not the deaths of colonizers. I’m crying rn.

If you complain about coal power this or that it simply falls on deaf ears because a significant part of the world doesn’t even have stable electricity. Something that affects the day-to-day life of the people. Something that is needed for development.

Electricity outages is felt sometimes in the West, during extraordinary weather events usually, but it is not a constant threat. This is what a lot of westerners struggle to grasp when it comes to environmental issues.

Development unfortunately requires these tough calls, which means succumbing to coal for the short term. Especially in the current political climate. Haphazardly banning certain energy sources, like some environmentalists clamour for, would do the opposite of actually mitigating climate change and would lead to far more harm than good.

Controlled phase outs are needed. China’s plan (NDC) for the past few years (which they reiterated time and time again) was a carbon emissions peak in 2030, and from their current 5 year plan, an espousal for a ‘ecological civilization’, I have high hopes that they’ll achieve their NDC.

But to answer your question: is it fast enough, ie. is their NDC ambitious enough?

According to this site, no it isn’t.

But again, we have to consider, the West still unequally benefits more from the environmental devastation of the global south. See for example, ecological unequal exchange and its role in core-periphery relations.

The burden is not only on global south nations, when western countries must not only fulfill their own NDCs but should also provide the necessary (unconditional) aid and financing to global south nations.

I used to think this way until I lived in the UK lol

(Context being, the UK has lower than average sunshine hours than most of the world, and definitely lower than the places I lived before)

same here

Here’s the actual resolution for anyone interested.

Here’s a summary:

Source.

On a slightly seperate note, I really do hate how UN resolutions are phrased, but that may just be me.

And to be fair, they are all westerners. I’ll never ever trust them to depict indigenous, global south histories at any level of accuracy, diginity or respect.

Because in the end, for many of these channels, history is just a hobby for them. It is divorced from their own realities, and as such, they never have to think about the implications of getting shit wrong.

I attended this talk whereby the researcher, working with local Cuban academics to improve living spaces in Cuba, mentioned how in their experience the locals are very much involved in the decision-making process of their local neighbourhood (and politics generally), which I found completely stark to many bourgeois capitalist democracies we have today.

And this assessment seems to be reflected in the video. (Unsurprisingly.)

Yea, in my original comment I should have referred specifically to chemical defoliants akin to Agent Orange and similar.

Good question!

I read this factoid so many times that it didn’t even occur to me to even pinpoint the exact chronological timeline.

I realise now that I wrote way too much for such a simple question. Scroll down to the images for the answer to your question.

Right so I quickly searched online for any sorts of sources. Most of them cite pretty much nothing (ie. some form of circular reasoning) and take it for granted. See for example this.

Other articles, such as this one, which is a very good read to get the jist of the ‘Malayan Emergency’, and this (before anyone mentions it: yes I know this site is NED funded), mentioned a NewScientist article as the source.

Was able to find a subject index at first, but finally got to a secondary source.

But finally, I was able to find a list of primary sources here. A particularly capitalist quote I like to mention from the article is this, in the context of using defoliant for warfare:

The UK chemicals giant ICI saw it, according to the Colonial Office, as ‘a lucrative field for experiment’ (CO, 1953b and 1953c).

I was also able to find an online conference/lecture regarding this topic here (it’s the second one, starting roughly 1hr in), for those interested.

Now for evidence of American inspiration; that I was unable to truly certify. A NYT article reiterated this claim (like the other articles mentioned), but it cites no sources.

But it really isn’t too much of stretch to assume that the Brits and Americans had shared intel over matters such as this. If anyone has any information on this do let me know.

We also have to keep in mind that the British purposefully burnt colonial records through the aptly named Operation Legacy (see also this;290-291 and The Guardian; for something less overly academic) before they finally left, leading to the Malaysia we know today.

In addition, the current Malaysian government doesn’t want to shine a light on to the communist ‘terrorists’, so the effect of ‘trioxone’ and its extent in Malaysia, is still unknown. And perhaps, it may never be known. It is just a sad, practically insignificant note in a vast and bloody battlefield that is history.

A little unknown fact, the first use of chemical warfare was the British fighting the communist ‘insurgency’ right here in Malaysia. It is said that this first use then inspired the Americans to use it in Vietnam.

Malaysia 🤝 Singapore

Disgusting and inhumane drug laws, with just as much systemic disenfranchisement and racism you’d expect.

Let’s see if the newly formed Malaysian government actually fulfil their pledges, and table the bill that would finally abolish the mandatory death penalty.

I have no real answers to that question really.

Surely, it would make sense for those (especially in rural areas) which have not been exposed to different cultures to atleast be weirded out. That is fine. Indeed, it is normal. Reminds me of the time that my grandparents didn’t know what pizza was. Culture shocks exist, like I was shocked on how drinking is part and parcel to many European cultures.

It leans onto racism, for me, once it becomes patronising and they act like their cultural practices are superior. But I would say the distinction may not particularly be helpful. If anything racism stems from a lack of cultural sensitivity (and also promotes the lack).

I do think that this disdain, apart from the obvious orientalism, is also due to hyper-individualist cultures brought about by capitalism (and perfected) in anglo-western societies especially. The contrast is there, the subservient asiatics versus the freedom-loving westerner.

Thankfully, although Christmas is celebrated in my country, they don’t play any of the music.

What I find funny though is the obviously wintry christmas decorations in a country that never sees temperatures drop below 18C.

In the article I linked they even mentioned how USFDA guidelines said COVID transmission from food is very unlikely.

there will be no democracy in Africa as long as democracy is in crisis in the ostensibly developed countries, which today face the same difficulties as the so-called Third World. In fact, great democratic regressions can currently be observed in the West. One could say that these countries are now themselves on the road toward the “Third World.” Maybe then we can talk to each other as equals.

Amazing response to end the interview with.

Ah I just meant it as “LGBT Westerners (read compradors)”, referring to a specific subsection of westerners that are diaspora and weaponise their country of origin to fuel regime change propaganda.

But structures are bad and they ignore people’s agency and is economistic, deterministic and blah blah blah (insert postmodern lingo here).

We use the idea of an iceberg economy to acknowledge the economic diversity that abounds in this world. The iceberg also allows us to explore interrelationships that cannot be cap-tured by mechanical market feedback loops or the victories and defeats of class struggle. Once we include what is hidden below the waterline— and possibly keeping us afloat as a society—we expand our prospects for taking back the economy. We potentially multiply the opportunities for ethical actions.

This is what they say.

I was also confused when I first saw the figure but I reserved judgment before reading the actual book. Now after reading the first chapter… my initial confusion and hatred is justified.

When I was reading the chapter I was in such disbelief that they really used an example of changing consumerist practices and unionisation as ‘ethical’ actions that can ‘change’ the economy with regards to fast fashion and gendered (unpaid) labour exploitation.

Edit: Clarity.