This is the 1st part of a 2-part series that aims to elucidate postcolonial Malaysian history. The 2nd part will focus on Malaysian-Chinese relations as an elaboration of the history and contradictions discussed here.
> Each country in the region possesses its own unique and identifiable characteristic; Singapore is a hyper-capitalist dystopia, perhaps the only one in the region that could claim first-world status; Vietnam is a market socialist republic, ironically not unlike its bitter rival, China; Thailand is perhaps globally unique in its mix of royal and military authoritarianism; Brunei is akin to a Gulf State, with its oil wealth and Islamic absolute monarchy whereas the Philippines is more akin to a Latin American nation-state with its strongmen figures, cartel problems and US imperial interference.
> Malaysia on the other hand can be identified by one particular characteristic: its profound mediocrity. It is rich, but not as rich as Singapore. It is authoritarian and corrupt, but never to the extent that can be found in its neighbours such as Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Leaders incompetent as such that they cannot be counted on to save their ass, and reformers so dull it cannot be counted on to pursue. On the whole, Malaysia is always reliably second place to something, in all things good or bad it always falls short of excellence. A jack of all trades, master of none. If Malaysia had another name, one could surmise it to be “Asal Boleh”.[^1]
Malaysia gained independence in 1957 with over 50% of the population living in poverty. The ruling classes, who collaborated with the colonizers in persecuting communists and left forces, were forced to embark on a series of developmentalist policies to negate rising class consciousness among the populace.
Ghana and Malaysia were once taught of as twin brothers, having gained independence in the same year with an economy of a similar size and structure. Now, after more than 65 years have passed, the story could be anything but different. Malaysia’s GDP per capita is now 5 times larger, life expectancy 11 years longer and manufactured goods account for more than 80% of exports. In stark contrast to Ghana, which still is stuck in raw commodity exports, priamrily gold.
Over the course of the 70s, 80s and 90s, a push for industrialisation saw the creation of a national car company, the establishment of semiconductor manufacturing in the northern state of Penang and the mechanisation of Palm Oil production, making Malaysia the world’s largest producer until 2006, when much more populous Indonesia finally overtook the country. Crucially, Malaysia also retained state control of its oil sector under the national banner of Petronas which continues to be a major source of foreign exchange and income.
The aftermath of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis prematurely ended this era of industrialisation. However unlike Malaysia’s neighbouring states, the nation’s state finances were largely positive and could afford to refuse the diktats of the IMF and World Bank that called for much more vast and expansive neoliberal structural adjustments. Additional competition from Chinese manufacturing meant Malaysia’s manufacturing sector was on the downturn during the 2000s and remained stagnant for much of the 2010s.
As the government steps into its 12th 5-year plan in 2020, an emphasis on (re-)industrialisation has now begun. Coupled with its New Industrial Master Plan 2030, the government now seeks to transform the economy to finally graduate from its upper-middle income status by 2030.
This would mark a first for a postcolonial country of a modest size and ethnic diversity to graduate to high-income. It would ultimately also be a first because it is a country that stood more in defiance than support of the West for much of its history.
The “New” Political Economy
However, this defiance in practice is quite restrained, as the country’s open economy means it is unable to antagonise any major economies, which includes the USA. This is reflected in the establishment’s reluctance in leaving the Five Powers Defence Arrangement (FDPA), a remnant of the country’s colonial history that stipulates military co-operation with it’s former colonial masters, the United Kingdom, and her other colonies, namely, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.
Furthermore, there are still structural blocks that are withholding the nation’s ability to bring general prosperity to all. The racialized economic base remains largely unchanged since the colonial era, with one major exception, which is the establishment of an indigenous Malay-Muslim bourgeosie that benefits heavily from the inflated government bureaucracy and extensive network of government-owned and government-linked companies. Outside the public sector, which remains Malay-Muslim dominated, the private sector is still dominated by local Chinese and Indian haute-bourgeoisie that benefit from this racial stratification of the economy.
In the past, the British brought waves of Chinese, Indian and Javanese migrants to Malaya to work in the plantations and mines. Now, this pattern continues with Malaysia’s over-reliance and super-exploitation of foreign South Asian labour that depresses wages locally. Roughly 10% of Malaysia’s population are immigrants, amounting to 3 million, with an additional 2-3 million undocumented. Hosting the largest Bangladeshi population outside of Bangladesh itself.
The successful urbanisation and proletarianisation of a large vast of the Malaysian population, lead to the rise of a modern political Islam that, similar to Mao’s famous saying, is “surrounding the cities from the countryside”. In contrast to this radical political Islam is the rise of an affluent urban middle class, whose ideological pretensions vacillate between comprador anglophilia to “secular” cultural nationalism. This is reflected in the numerous political parties that dot the landscape of Malaysian politics, all with it's own class and ideological affiliations.
Malaysia is now at the crossroads of old and new. Questions of Marxism and Communism, which continue to be slandered in the political mainstream for being extremist, anti-thiest, and antithetical to “Asian culture”, is being countered at an astonishing rate for many who are tired of the old Cold War rhetorics. Figures that were sidelined and entire political histories ignored after the defeat of the left forces, are being rediscovered as many are fed up with the promises of development seemingly only benefiting those at the top.
Malaysia is not exempt from the transformations taking place in the larger world economy. In fact, Malaysian history is defined by its location between trading destinations which caused it to be colonized in the first place. For better or for worse, this central location allowed Malaysia to have an open (political) economy of remarkable fluidity and diversity. Internationalism is never too far from home.
[^1]:Sourced from an online essay titled "The New Cannot Be Born: Reflections on Politics in the Land of Mediocrities" by Anas Nor’Azim. Link.
diplomatic ties, China, Malaysia, anniversary, 31
> MELAKA, March 25 (Bernama) - Melaka will serve as the host for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Malaysia-China diplomatic relations established since 1974, said Chief Minister Datuk Seri Ab Rauf Yusoh.
> He said he had sent a letter to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim earlier to seek the Federal Government's approval for Melaka to be selected as the host for the celebration, considering that the state had established relations with the Great Wall country over 600 years ago.
> "That's why I proposed to the Prime Minister to hold the 50th anniversary celebration of Malaysia-China diplomatic relations in Melaka and it has been generally agreed upon, and we have received a letter from the Foreign Ministry to propose the celebration events," he told Bernama.
> Earlier, Ab Rauf had received a courtesy call from Bernama chairman Datuk Seri Wong Chun Wai at his office in Seri Negeri here today. Commenting further, Ab Rauf said Melaka is very famous among Chinese tourists as it is depicted in the history books of the country during the five visits of Admiral Cheng Ho to the state.
> "The history books of China (studied from elementary school to university) show Admiral Cheng Ho's [Zheng He] route to Southeast Asia, he came to Melaka five times, that's why any Chinese leader who comes to Malaysia must set foot in Melaka.
>"There are Chinese leaders who come to Malaysia, they take sand from Melaka and put it in a bottle, they take it back... (that's) how they appreciate the history between Melaka and China that began 600 years ago," he said.
> Meanwhile, Wong said Bernama is committed to supporting all efforts undertaken by the Melaka state government in the tourism sector including the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Malaysia-China diplomatic ties, Visit Melaka Year 2024 (VMY2024), World Tourism Day, and the World Tourism Conference 2025 which will also be held in Melaka.
>"I asked some Chinese tourists on Jonker Street (in Melaka) last night and they said they are more familiar with Melaka than Kuala Lumpur.
> "For them, Melaka is a historical and very important city and in conjunction with the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Malaysia-China diplomatic relations, many events will be organised, so we assure that Bernama and other media will support the state of Melaka," he said.
> Malaysia established diplomatic relations with China officially on May 31, 1974, thereby becoming the first ASEAN country to extend a hand of friendship to Beijing.
Melaka is the city in which the Straits of Malacca gets its name from. Malacca is simply the old latinised spelling for it.
China did not only interact with Islam in Central Asia, it had a a varied and influential history in Southeast Asia as part of the maritime Silk Road. Some scholars even argue that Chinese traders helped spread Islam in Southeast Asia.
I have something in the pipeline that will hopefully be finished closer to the anniversary. It will cover Malaysia-China relations over the past hundreds of years - the good and the bad, the complexities and contradictions that I hope will give readers an appreciation of SEA history and politics. I also hope it will give a brief respite to the rampant Islamophobia and Sinophobia present in Western circles.
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2124249
Figured this should be shared here aswell.
> Hello and warm greetings to my fellow news mega enjoyers and to the wider hexbear, lemmygrad and lemmy.ml community,
>
> I've been finding myself browsing the newsmega often and was often thinking of a way that would help me contextualize the discussions and news that I'm reading. I remembered an atlas I had in school that would show the location of industries and natural ressources (and more) and decided try to recreate a digital version similar to https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/. When I stumbled upon lemmy-js-client I found a fun way to display lemmy comments geographically, which I would like to share with you:
>
> https://hex-atlas.netlify.app/
>
> ⚠️ Spoiler Tags are not implemented thus CWs are not hidden
>
> Nexus Features:
> - @SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net Bulletins
> - Hexbear Reading List (Thank you @CARCOSA@hexbear.net for the suggestions)
> - ProleWiki (Thank you Lemmygrad for maintaining this)
> - Wikipedia/Natopedia
> - Anarchist Library
>
> I'm open for suggestions, but would like to continuously add new features:
> - Mastodon.social (well documented)
> - Marxists.org (will be difficult)
> - Moon of Alabama (looks easy) (Thank you @someone@hexbear.net for pointing out the transphobia)
> - Usability and performance improvements
> - and maybe more cool features where the guiding ideas are: "IRL Victoria 3 UI" and a "cockpit for newsmega-enjoyers" (e.g. comparing regions and seeing commodity/capital flows, real-time 1% flight data, vessel data - to enjoy the ansar allah blockade, virgin chad ranking, etc.)
>
>
>
> Basic usage:
> - use query to search location by query e. g. brics and find discussions pertaining to the selected location.
>
> - the query field can also be used to find and filter content by communities that are not listed
>
> - on Mobile long press pictures to unblur it (not fully tested) on desktop hover with mouse
>
>
> It's in a prototype stage so please keep in mind:
>
> - ⚠️ Spoiler Tags are not implemented thus CWs are not hidden ⚠️
>
>
> - It's mostly optimized for desktops. Sry comrades with old hardware - no optimization, yet :(
> @kota@hexbear.net post inspired me to look into this tho.
>
>
> - Provinces/Territories: While I was doing manual edits to some regions I realized I'm doing something very political (duh). Following this, I'm looking for solutions to implement user defined regions (if there's interest from you) e.g. #fromTheRiverToTheSea #brics #udssr #whatever Comrade @SleeplessOne1917@lemmy.ml offered help, but I have only experience with front-end and am not sure how and what to propose. All my ideas are leveraging the current state of development and might be annoying to you. If you have experience, suggestions, etc. on how to make this work, feel free to start a discussion, reach out, etc.
>
>
> - Provinces/Territories: If you want something particularly aggravating changed asap, feel free to start a discussion and vOtE! I'll update manually.
>
>
> - Countries that span two continents are only displayed as belonging to one e.g. Russia - Europe (Dataset used: https://github.com/lukes/ISO-3166-Countries-with-Regional-Codes)
>
>
> - Right now this project is exclusive to hexbear, lemmygrad, lemmy.ml and their federated instances. I have an inner conflict: Generally, fuck intellectual property and I would like to make it foss, but this would make it available for lib/chud content as well. Should I? Help me resolve this.
>
>
> - No login implemented
>
>
> Please consider this a tribute to this community, which I've been lurking and a member since the r/CTH days (nevar forget). I started web development not too long ago and am deeply inspired by dev titans among others:
>
> @nutomic@lemmy.ml
>
> @dessalines@lemmy.ml
>
> @SleeplessOne1917@lemmy.ml
>
> Thank you and the mods and admins for making hexbear/lemmy what it is today.
>
> !rat-salute
>
>
> Enjoy your weekend :)
>
>
> (After I post this I will leave the computer for a while and wont be able to really check and respond for a few hours)
>
> Death to fascism
>
> Death to capitalism
>
> Death to imperialism
>
> Trans rights are human rights
>
> !
This is a repost of my comment on Hexbear’s news megathread.
I figured it would be good to post it here aswell for further visibility and perhaps invite more responses.
Euros being delusional as per usual.
Malaysia’s PM Anwar Ibrahim makes ‘no apology’ for Hamas links on Germany visit
The Malaysian PM visits Germany and gets accused of supporting Hamas by an audience member - but are these westerners completely illiterate?
> Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has defended Malaysia's relations with Hamas, saying he made "no apologies" for his nation's historical links with the Palestinian militant group and reiterating his stance that the Middle East conflict predates the October 7 attack on Israel.
> "What I reject strongly is this narrative, this obsession, as if the entire problem begins and ends with the 7th of October," the prime minister said. There had been decades of "atrocities, plunder and dispossession of Palestinians," he added at a press conference alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin.
Despite the hysteria that the “geopolitics understanders” made about Anwar Ibrahim’s NED credentials months ago, Westerners seemingly forget that his initial rise came from the radical student organizations in the 1970s which were in-part connected with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian Revolution and other influential Islamic movements at the time.
Of course he will be anti-Israel. That has been the hallmark of Malaysian foreign policy since the beginning - even with our 1st PM in 1957 - and he was the most Western friendly of them all.
As the article mentions: > Anwar's staunch support for the Palestinians can be traced back to his years as a student leader in the 1970s including as the leader of the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement.
> Muslim-majority Malaysia does not recognise Israel's statehood. It has long been a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause, hosting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1984 and 2001 and welcoming Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal, leaders of the political wing of Hamas, in 2020.
This reminded me of when multiple “Israeli” news outlets accused Malaysia of being the most anti-semitic country on Earth, despite historically having no native Jewish population, and a residential population that at it’s peak only reached the teens. Completely unhinged and insane.
And then there’s the palm oil issue.
Banning our palm oil will not change the fact that we were able to succesfully industrialize its production and outcompete your local biofuel industry. Europeans needs to stop barking like a rabid dog. It isn’t the 1800s or even the neocolonial late 1900s anymore.
These deindustrialization policies will not work, especially when you yourself have lost any capabilities of enacting economic warfare. Hiding behind a facade of environmentalism doesn’t change reality.
As Bloomberg noted, there will be other markets that the palm oil could be sold to. You are kneecapping yourself just to appear “environmentally friendly”.
Perhaps it’s just the final cries of a region declining into subordination. The garden after all, will inevitably be reclaimed by the jungle. It just takes time.
Also I read the worst thing ever when I was researching for the post, titled “A Close Encounter With Asia’s Anti-Semitic Capital”.
Warning: Terminal crackerism.
Kind of funny that there are those in West that still cling onto the notion that Chinese production is inferior while over here people say if you want shit done you call China lol
💯
However I'd like to add your analysis a bit. Excerpt from my other comment again:
the material harm NGOs cause to people are two-fold.
On a societal level, they aim to circumvent and build alternative structures to the current government and thus without the “democratic accountability” that these governments have to face (even if they are bourgeois dictatorships, they still have to manage the contradictions within society to remain in power). This can be seen in many colour revolutions that have occurred the past 50 years.
They also introduce and import foreign concepts, what I call “academic lib phraseology”, without the democratic consultation and “diffusion” to the masses. The masses here aren’t dumb when they realise that these NGO liberals speak the same as any other NGO liberal in other countries or those in the West. This is not a coincidence.
On a local level, despite their claim to the contrary, they actually maintain and sustain the oppression of LGBT people. Since they do not address the material basis of the oppression and are funded by foreign elements, their only justification and purpose for existing IS the existence of the oppression of LGBT people in the targeted Global South country.
Why would an LGBT rights NGO founder want to achieve LGBT liberation? The founder would lose their only source of income and their entire career!
This is similar to when the labour aristocrats in a trade union stops representing the interests of the rank-and-file.
This also means that the NGOs feature the worst of the liberal activists, who are often groomed by the West in the first place through their scholarship programmes. They are filled with opportunists and careerists, because to them, civil society is their way of climbing the corporate ladder and for their “professional development”.
As a counter argument I’d think that any organization or activist that is founded like this would be highly suspicious to the local governments, so they can’t really be effective.
I mean the existence of these orgs is enough for the West to cry foul "authoritarianism" or "muh freedom" or "LGBT oppression 😢 " if the global south government tries banning them.
See Belarus, Armenia, China or Russia lol.
Unfortunately many of the governments are themselves pocketed by the West and these NGOs ensure "discipline" of Global South governments so they do not stray too far from the neoliberal programme.
So there's this popular Ex-Muslim youtuber that I used to watch a while back.
They became a raging Zionist.
Average "Ex-Muslim" Westerner be like.
They make some noise about it sometimes but when you country is fully intertwined with Global Capital liberal media tends to look the other way.
There is a classic quote I usually refer to when someone asks this question regarding Geographical Determinism.
It is from Stalin's 1938 Dialectical and Historical Materialism itself:
There can be no doubt that the concept "conditions of material life of society" includes, first of all, nature which surrounds society, geographical environment, which is one of the indispensable and constant conditions of material life of society and which, of course, influences the development of society. What role does geographical environment play in the development of society? Is geographical environment the chief force determining the physiognomy of society, the character of the social system of man, the transition from one system to another, or isn't it?
Historical materialism answers this question in the negative.
Geographical environment is unquestionably one of the constant and indispensable conditions of development of society and, of course, influences the development of society, accelerates or removed its development. But its influence is not the determining influence, inasmuch as the changes and development of society proceed at an incomparably faster rate than the changes and development of geographical environment. in the space of 3000 years three different social systems have been successively superseded in Europe: the primitive communal system, the slave system and the feudal system. In the eastern part of Europe, in the U.S.S.R., even four social systems have been superseded. Yet during this period geographical conditions in Europe have either not changed at all, or have changed so slightly that geography takes no note of them. And that is quite natural. Changes in geographical environment of any importance require millions of years, whereas a few hundred or a couple of thousand years are enough for even very important changes in the system of human society.
It follows from this that geographical environment cannot be the chief cause, the determining cause of social development; for that which remains almost unchanged in the course of tens of thousands of years cannot be the chief cause of development of that which undergoes fundamental changes in the course of a few hundred years
In the academic discipline of Geography, this sort of inevitable determinism, has been rejected since about the 1950s for both it's colonial assertions, but also it's patently inaccurate claims. No serious social scientist of any background would take the claims of geographical determinism at face value.
If you would like to entertain a more serious and dialectical understanding of Geography and it's relation to class society, I would recommend a A Theory of Imperialism (2017) by Patnaik and Patnaik. There has also been numerous other works dealing with Uneven (and Combined) Development within an urban, urban-rural, and of course, international contexts aswell.
Hell, if anything, Marxism's pre-occupation with the peasant question and primitive accumulation IS already a valuable theoretical and practical contribution to understanding the role of Geography in society. And unlike the vulgar geographical determinism of the Eurocentrists in which colonialism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, Marxism has always been a few steps ahead of conventional western science in that regard.
[Long post ahead]
Frankly, I was a bit confused at first at the responses to Hakim's supposed misdeed. I saw practically nothing wrong with his post.
This is speaking as someone who considers themself "ex-muslim" and rarely practices any of the daily rituals of being muslim.
I have read through both the Hexbear thread and this one here on Lemmygrad. Firstly, I would like to say I agree with Aru's comment on the other parallel thread running right now.
I'd like to address some of the contentions people have about the post. Hakim starts his post with this statement:
How do the Palestinian people persist? As muslims...
Not because they ARE muslims, as in, Islam was the only way in which they were able to carry out anti-colonial struggle, but rather they carry out the anti-colonial struggle through BEING muslim. Islam in this context is a material force, precisely because it is imbedded in the people - the colonized and the working classes, in their decision-making and power. It becomes entrenched in the material base.
It is in the masjid where muslims congregate and form communal bonds. It is in the masjid where people recieve their political and cultural education. It is the masjid that organizes the local community. It is in the masjid grounds in which people partake in the political economy.
To say that if Palestine was fully christian or any other "religion", they would still reject colonization, misses the point. It doesn't matter about some hypotheticals that you concoct in your head. That's as useful as saying that if China was 100% Christian they would still be communist - what is the point in engaging in idealist hypotheticals? To simply compare it to Christianity, is idealism. Because you are not comparing the reality in which these cultural traditions, epistemologies, and beliefs operate. You are comparing one idea to another, utterly deaf to the material context behind it. The material reality of the ummah, the material reality of Palestine, means that Islam is the force in which anti-imperialist and anti-colonialism is carried out.
So yes, perhaps for many muslims, the Quran, the life of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) becomes the starting point of their political conciousness, and to somehow call it immature, backward, or a type of "false consciousness", is to fall into the orientalist idealist tropes of the days of direct colonization.
Throughout the entire Islamic world we have seen numerous secular and communist organizations that directly collaborated with the colonizer, that never gained support from the muslim masses and that also had to face a visceral reactionary force funded by the West. To say that secular movements only failed in the Islamic world because they were being pitted against reactionary Western-funded movements ignores the fact that if these secular movements truly had the mandate of the people - truly did listen to the working masses, they would have succeeded in maintaining power in the first place.
To act like this analysis is somehow "idealism", when it is actually idealism to ignore history and material conditions in favour of a dogmatic secular understanding of class warfare.
Why is it when state secularism and athiesm is mentioned, we only mention those in AES, like the conditions of the ummah is somehow exactly one-on-one the same as that of China or the USSR? Why doesn't anyone ever mention about the beacon of liberal modernity and secularism - France - in which if you ask anyone in the ummah what they think about it, they would vehemently reject associating with that Islamophobic "secular" state. Why is it immediately assumed that when someones says they want an Islamic country, it is immediately assumed they want a monoreligious populace with forced conversions on heretics and heathens? Why is it assumed when we say something is Islamic, it means that it cannot involve people of other faiths (or lack thereof)?
In my eyes, the answer is simple. It is because the Western left still carries the mental burden of colonization, of cultural genocide, and they project it onto the global south - onto the ummah.
Are we suppose to ignore the Islamic influence of for example Southeast Asian foreign policy, Arab nationalism, or North African decolonization? How about the Islamic Axis of Resistance pushing back against the Zionist Entity and other US imperial projects in West Asia? Islamic socialism and Islam has been, and continues to be, materially closer to anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism and communism than Western Marxism could ever even dream about (that is - if they even recognize imperialism). Islam is the form that the anti-imperialist essence of the ummah takes.
Is it the "muh slems" that are idealistic, or is it the Western's left misunderstanding of the "unity of opposites"? If you can only percieve reality in absolutes, in black-and-white, then "religion" is always "immaterial"; that means you will be unable to identify your friends from your enemies and it also means you will never understand Islam and the ummah.
On the top right there is a drop-down menu with the letters "KP". If you click on it you can choose English instead.
The colour for Malaysia is outdated. North Korea-Malaysia diplomatic relations were cordial in the past but worsened in 2017 after the assassination of Kim Jong-nam in 2017 in KLIA. Relationships soured further in 2021 after Malaysia expedited a North Korean businessman to the US in contradiction to north Korean wishes.
Further information by an official Malaysian government website. Another Malaysian site detailing the timeline of events.
Here is north Korea's official response by their Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
It is important to note however the Malaysian establishment is in favour of positive diplomatic relations with North Korea. Friendly relations is especially advocated by Mahathir, a member of the traditional Malay-Muslim ascendant national bourgeoisie that governed as PM from 1981-2003 and 2018-2020. He did leave remarks that he wanted to improve relations with North Korea when he was in power. However after the Sheraton move, and subsequently 2 governent reshuffles and the 2022 election, diplomatic relations with North Korea is stuck in limbo without any sign of change in the short term.
In terms of national ideology and foreign policy, North Korea and Malaysia have more in common than differences. To speak of it in a Malaysian perspective, Malaysia was one of the first member of ASEAN to normalize relations with communist countries. Despite being a middle-power state, it has more than 111 diplomatic missions in 85 countries, with a passport holding visa-free travel through 168 territories.
Although the current circumstances is unfortunate, I don't doubt that eventually Malaysia-North Korea relations will warm up again - especially with the decline of US-led Western hegemony.
Personally, this whole situation is a bit saddening as I did plan to visit North Korea one day - and tour guide prices weren't too pricey (when they were running).
Hello, how’s everyone?
Went and touched some grass for a month.
If everything goes well the next few weeks, I’ll have a lot of free time the next few months for some effortposts on SEA history and politics.
One I especially wanted to do for a while was comparing South Africa vs Malaysia, specifically comparing the racialised class structure of their economies.
This is because in my preliminary research I found out that the the South African BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) programme (for all it’s faults) were inspired by Malaysia’s NEP (New Economic Policy) that aimed to redistribute wealth among the racialised classes in Malaysia. I wanted to explore more on that and also assess the failures of the aforementioned policies in actually transforming the racialised economic base of both countries (and improve my understanding of their histories as well).
Stay tuned for that.
If anyone has any material relating at all to this, by all means share it with me.
This is exactly my thought process. I really don’t see a big deal here.
I didn’t put forward an argument in my original comment because I genuinely thought there was nothing much to argue about.
It’s so trivial.
Let the people have fun and participate in community events.
It is, from what I gather, a small town anyways. It will affect like, what, 0.0001% of the entire population?
I don’t really see a problem with this to be honest.
Just a quirky local tradition.
opinions elsewhere
Oh boy I thought I would cool it with the controversial LGBT stuff on this site but my country was pulled into the Western culture war this time (making my blood boil as per usual).
The British band The 1975 decided to do a stunt where 2 male band members kissed on stage. Which was proceeded by a rant and behaviours that was very liberal, only could be done by someone who grew up in a hyper-capitalist and alienated society in which individualism festers like a plague.
Needless to say, but this sort of "activism" doesn't work. That's obvious enough.
Then the liberals that consume too much American media (or lives in America) comes out of the woodwork bashing the government for over-exaggerating, and/or praising this pathetic attempt at lecturing the barbarians for their bad values. Liberals really showcase remarkable cynicism and hatred of the masses.
The sheer chauvinism in which you come into another country as a guest to perform and then lambast government policy in which you yourself are not affected by and in which you agreed to beforehand, while at the same time breaking many social norms - well that takes the cake.
Thank you for giving right-wingers ammo to further politicize and police "LGBT" communities in this country - making it worse for everyone here by enflaming the already vicious identity politics prevalent here (referring to the local identity politics - not commenting on the American one).
Good job, colonizer. I see that the Brits still think that anyone cares about what they have to say.
The coverage by the Rolling Stone and The Independent is as chauvinistic as ever. I'd prefer it if you just called us primatives directly instead of this whole fake concern for human rights.
Atleast Reuters had the decency to mention that:
> Friday's incident sparked uproar on Malaysian social media, including among some members of the LGBT community, who accused Healy of "performative activism" and said his action could expose the community to more stigma and discrimination.
but in typical fashion doesn't mention that such behaviours, even if advocating for something the majority of the people agree, is not acceptable. It's a concert, not a political debate. Narcissistic behaviour and dysfunctional interpersonal skills (as determined by our culture and society at large) isn't something that should be promoted. Furthermore, this isn't even mentioning colonial history and ongoing imperialism.
Liberals needs to be sent into re-education camps for decades to deworm their minds from their terminal brain disease.
Alhamdullilah that most people here don't have it and recognised the chauvinism for what it is. (All non-english and many English replies on this tweet for example.)
I can understand the practical realities of moderation in an anonymous online space in which such sentiments can quickly escalate to a personal level.
But we really need to kill racial ideology. I don’t think we should be that uppity about it.
We SHOULD be racist against “White people”!
Because it doesn’t exist in real life!
Why are we treating a colonial stratification of peoples into “races” and “ethnicities” at face value? Why are we offended like there is a global White genocide?
People in the global south don’t need white guilt. They don’t need self-flagellating whites on one hand and white supremacists on the other. They need “white people” to help tear down this globe-spanning economic and ideological system of stratification that has caused so much pain and suffering.
The hatred of white people is a hatred of this racist system of Capitalism that forcefully and continuously suffocates the entire world.
Mental colonization runs deep in postcolonial societies - and when the colonized lashes out, it is an expression of the humanity that has been denied. The least of my problems is when the oppressed uses the oppressor’s language to demonstrate the false justifications of the oppressor’s existence.
To phrase this another way to make it really on the nose: there are 1.5 billion Global Northerners, while there are 6.5 billion Global Southerners, and since might makes right, “white people” should really be the ones oppressed (lol).
I myself am uneducated on this area, and people more educated than me can chime in if I got something wrong, but I found an article that may interest you:
China and the Antarctic: Presence, policy, perception, and public diplomacy by Nong Hong (2021).
There’s no sci-hub copy available though but I’ll try summarize from my quick read-through.
China rejects expansion of the MPAs due to conflicting interpretations between the duality of “rational use” and “conservation” as stipulated in the CCAMLR (the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources).
Another example exhibiting China’s willingness to ‘play by the rules’ are in the MPAs in the Ross Sea and East Antarctica [77]. All CCAMLR resolutions require consensus for approval. In October 2012, China was in agreement with Russia and Ukraine to oppose this proposal, as it believes that the scientific evidence is not solid enough to justify the creation of such large, restricted areas. In their views, in the absence of clear scientific analysis, “rational use” should gain greater consideration over “conservation” in any future agreement. Beijing also objected to the lengthy time period in which the proposed boundaries will be imposed (until 2064 for the Ross Sea and 2043 for the East Antarctic Reserve) [52].
Another concern of China involves the management and enforcement of marine protected area restrictions. China does not yet have the capacity to consistently contribute to enforcement activities. That responsibility will fall on the United States and Antarctic territorial claimants, including New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Argentina and the United Kingdom. MPA enforcement could cause China to lose influence over maritime governance and put it at a distinct disadvantage if existing territorial claimants try to reassert their sovereignty over disputed regions [49], [64]. The Ross Sea region MPA was expanded as a result of inserting an additional zone, (Krill Research Zone), which was proposed by China and represented a compromise between China and USA reached in 2015 [103]. China agreed to the terms of the new Ross Sea MPA since it included a Krill Research Zone which reflects China's long-standing view on the balance between conservation and rational use. The MPA was activated in December 2017 and will then be reviewed in 2052 with another consensus vote needed for a continuance [71]. Hence, China's changing position towards marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean sets a positive implication for future Antarctic governance. The Antarctic case provides concrete evidence that China’s rise in Antarctica provides a poignant example of how active engagement in global governance institutions can simultaneously enhance China’s power and foster peace and security in the international system [52].
I am unsure about the specific areas mentioned in the news article, but I am taking on the assumption that it may be due to similar reasons.
We must also be aware that China is often portrayed as an environmental polluter versus the ecofriendly West, which has been going on, for what, decades now? So I’d be extremely sceptical about any claims about the environment by the country with the largest historical carbon emissions and highest carbon emissions per capita, the United States, who year after year downplays their necessary carbon intensity goals (and other environmental conservation goals) to deride Global South countries for not doing enough. Not to mention the psyops and NGOs.
Also a quick look through the mentioned organisation in the article - the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, showcases totally not nepo babies and overwhelmingly American government affiliated people on the board (mainly USAID but some others), an organisation based in Washington DC (of course), and in general staff who are all are Western educated and/or a Westerner.
I actually forgot that Shit Reactionary Says existed for the past few months. Actually made my experience here really pleasant.
I unblocked it recently to see what’s up but quickly blocked it again.
I don’t know how some of you all do it.
There is only so much AnonymousNazi has to say before it gets really boring and the same arguments get rehashed over and over.
Also I expected it to become more active since the recent surge in users but seems like it’s been steady.
I really have 0 tolerance for these people because they really are unashamedly chauvinistic in the most idealistic way possible.
I’ll support my homophobic country everyday rather than any liberal utopian reincarnation these people concoct in their heads because the fact of the matter is that the people here are overwhelmingly queerphobic.
That is the reality.
I’ll support China’s BRI building a highspeed rail line right through my gasp homophobic hometown.
What a naive, ahistorical and disgustingly parochial view of international relations, politics and society.
Taliban deploys heavy reinforcements to Iran border
Videos circulating social media on 31 May show Taliban forces heavily reinforcing the Afghan border with Iran on 31 May, after significant escalation regarding a water dispute between the two countries, which resulted in heavy border clashes between the two sides over the weekend.
…
The outbreak of fighting came a week after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned the Taliban to respect Iran’s rights to water from the Helmand River shared between the two countries, under the 1973 Afghan-Iranian Helmand River Treaty. Iran has long accused Afghanistan of restricting the flow of its water to Iran and causing droughts or dry spells.
…
Despite videos showing reinforcements on the border, Iranian media reports suggested that some “elements are trying to provoke the parties involved with rumors and fake news.”
Set in a feudalistic fictional world, the song espouses a liberal (to use the term a bit anachronistically) feminist form of class collaborationism.
Although both expresses ill-feelings toward the heteronormative patriarchy that they live in, the film tries to make a false equivalence between both of their lives just because of their gender. Erika exhibits false consciousness believing that a princess has the same experiences as her, an indentured servant whose forced to work due to her parent’s debts.
This is clearly shown in the first few lines of the song, where Erika had to manually toil away in hard day’s work to even feed herself and yet brushes it off as being ‘used to it’, while Anneliese (the princess) just ‘has to ring a bell’ to have an omelette delivered to her bed. Erika, being kept ignorant by the ruling class, exclaims that they have the same lives.
To use Frier’s analysis, it can be seen that Anneliese, although still part of the aristocracy, is denied humanity (agency) not only through her gender but also due to her class as shown by the song’s chorus ‘We carry through to do what we need to do’. Showcasing how everyone is oppressed to some extent in class society.
Westerners crying that China helped subsidized their shitty liberal democracies since the 2000s and subsequently probably saved them from an even worse crisis than they are facing now. From Pew Research Center.
Quoted from South China Morning Post (paywalled): > Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said populations in Singapore and Malaysia were more “primed towards pliancy to authority” and tended to place more emphasis on economic performance.
I really do hate this rhetoric that somehow Malaysia/Singapore values authoritarianism (whatever that means). Liberal politics will never understand how even if the 2 countries are functionally 1 party states and may not be the most socially liberal places in the world, the parties carried and boosted economic performance, making both nations the top 3 in GDP per capita in southeast asia.
Personally, they would never get how economic performance has allowed my family to literally escape from poverty and peasant level subsistance farming to clean, modern houses and high-school/university education. Of course they wouldn't understand. Muh liberal values and hooman rights.
The West would rather see us fighting for scraps and being unstable and war torn like the Middle East. Fuck them.