Hot in the news last week was Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s announcement that Malaysia is seeking to join the BRICS+ economic group, the expanded version of the international market of BRICS. The announcement generated excitement in Malaysia, long devoid of economic good news. The excitement, and depredation is now sinking in, as Malaysians look at the announcement either as an economic opportunity, or a strategic risk.

What is BRICS+?

The BRICS consist of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, built upon the idea formulated by Jim O’Neill, Goldman Sach’s Chief Economist in 2001, into an economic group that harnesses the principles of non-interference, equality, and mutual benefits.

The grouping is an indirect challenge to the G7 economic grouping, which consists of the world’s largest economy, thus challenging the current unipolar world that came about post-collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.  

The group first consisted only of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa added in 2010. In 2023, the grouping has invited several new members, i.e. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, the UAE, Egypt, and Argentina.

The most important year in BRICS history is 2014. Russian-backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine received military assistance from the Kremlin to oust the Ukrainian military in what is a thinly-veiled Russian invasion. The invasion got Russia the boot from the G8 economic grouping, returning the group to its original G7 size.

Why is the BRICS Move Good for Malaysia?

Malaysia gains to benefit from the move from the following perspectives:

Economic Opportunity

In 2023, just over 40% of the world’s population live within the BRICS nations (Statistica, 2024). While Malaysia has accessed India’s and China’s markets, we have not entered Brazil and South Africa. The move to enter BRICS would also boost Petronas; they opened the first Petronas-branded retail fuel station in Brazil last week.

Cheaper Global Trade

A major plus factor for BRICS is that member countries are countries that are seeking to gain economic independence from the US-dominated international market. These countries prefer to trade in currencies other than the dominant USD.

The problem with trading in the USD is that it indirectly enriches the middle party, the United States. The dominant nature of the USD also saw the US weaponising their currency and economy. USD gets strengthened, and other global currencies become cheaper to the greenback when the relative value of the trade does not change much.

Bilateral trade with these countries can be in their respective currency or our Ringgit. This approach would remove the US (or any other currency) as the intermediary currency and strengthen the respective currencies, which is in line with the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office proposal to prioritise local currencies.

Diplomatic and Economic Independence

The country stands to benefit also from an unspoken economic benefit. Participation in the international market demands compliance with the G7 nations’ economic agenda. Their economic agenda ranges from certain gender affirmation policies to human rights issues, and sanctions regimes. Some of these agendas are contrary to Malaysia’s stance on the global stage, particularly on human rights.

In the past, I had written that we should be wary of jumping onto the BRICS currency bandwagon. That call still applies. However, all that changed post 7 October world. While the West listed Hamas as a terrorist group that sought to destroy Israel and sanctions the group, to Malaysia, the group represents the Palestinians in their seven-decade-long struggle for independence and freedom from colonial occupation and understood why the Palestinians had to take the direct action route. Therefore, being part of the group could be a very valuable counter-weight against the Western-dominated pressure.

Potential Technological Advancement

BRICS member nations have also been innovators in science and technology. Russia and China found themselves on the other side of the Cold War, needing to develop their technology independently from the G7-dominated West. South Africa developed many technologies independent from either side of the Cold War after finding themselves boycotted for its then-Apartheid policies. These technologies now benefited post-Apartheid South Africa.

Associate Professor Azam Abdullah of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the International Islamic University of Malaysia wrote in his New Straits Times column that Malaysia can tap on Brazil’s experience with its Embraer as the world’s third largest plane manufacturer.

Brazil is also a major arms manufacturer, with a Brazilian firm, Avibras, a significant player in the defence sector. During the 1990 Gulf War, both the Saudi Army, then part of the Coalition forces, and the Iraqi Army fielded the Avibras-manufactured ASTROS II Multiple Launcher Rocket System against each other. The system proved its mettle when the Saudi Army’s Astros II took part in the opening salvos to soften the Iraqi Army.

Poison Chalice

Not all things are hunky dory with the BRICS economic grouping. Any analysis without providing an overview of the threats that emanated from a proposed move is just an anal attempt to shove the idea down the wind-pipe, or otherwise. One can’t throw caution to the wind and expect things to fall in line.

The New Cold War

Unfortunately, the BRICS economic grouping may become the very stone which the new multipolar world is drawn upon. On the one hand, we have the G7 nations which follow the US and the Western-denominated narrative. Issues ranging from the Russo-Ukraine war to China’s threat over Taiwan, and even the Israeli purportedly existential threat marked how G7 nations see global issues. Joining the BRICS may see us on the other side of the fence, though BRICS have so far professed non-interference in local politics.

Sanctions Regime

As mentioned earlier, today’s international market sees the US trying to dictate the world with whom a country can trade. The US imposes sanctions control regime via its Office of Foreign Assets Comptroller (OFAC). Even the Belgium-based SWIFT system complies with the OFAC sanctions.

It would be a risk that the government needs to address.

The Stability of the BRICS Economic Grouping

Perhaps, the biggest bull in the china shop is the long-term viability of the BRICS. In another previous analysis, I highlighted several issues that potentially may lead to the BRICS disintegrating. Three member states, China, Russia, and India have overlapping border disputes.

We too face a similar risk, with Malaysia having overlapping maritime border claims with China. Prime Minister Anwar has addressed this issue, but the answer is a tad too similar to past Prime Ministers, being recycled every other year.

Opportunity or Entrapment?

BRICS, like any other international grouping, offers both opportunity and risk to the country. While Anwar may have made the first step to accession, whether the decision is the right move is still too early to be seen.

As long as the benefits outweigh the risks, the move to participate in the BRICS should receive the necessary support for it to succeed, and have inbuilt escape clauses for the country should the situation be no longer favourable. – NMH

Read other articles by the writer:

Diesel Subsidy is No More

PDRM Advises Public To Be On Alert Mode For Mule Account Trap

The post BRICS For Malaysia: Economic Opportunity or Strategic Risk? first appeared on NMH.

When the Malaysian Ministry of Education (MoE) announced the 2023 SPM result, what caught the eyes of the Malaysian public was not how many students scored straight A’s, but the fact that 10,000 students were absent from the exam. Even more eye-watering was there were slightly fewer students registered for the examination in 2023 compared to 2022 (373,525 students in 2023 versus 373,974 in 2022, a reduction of 449 students).

Both mainstream and alternative media pointed out that these students did not take the exam because social media influencers claimed the SPM was not critical. Many students aspire to be social media influencers. Indeed, some school-age influencers flaunted their wealth on social media. One influencer, Yousaf Iqbal, was quoted saying SPM has no value. The young influencer received tonnes of flak for his views, rightly or wrongly.  

But how true is it? I come from a circle of contacts with many teachers and here are a few matters I have noted.

Post-Pandemic SPM Students Absent from Classes

The 2022 and 2023 SPM cohorts are the first batches of post-pandemic cohorts. These students spent a large part of their education years under pandemic conditions; online classes with many do not even have suitable devices to attend schools. Therefore, many students were absent from classes during the pandemic period. Many of them were even absent from their school-level examinations during and post-pandemic. The MoE can glean data from the Aplikasi Pengkalan Data Murid (APDM) to identify schools potentially facing this issue in the next nine years (Malaysia practices the K12 education system).

Disruptive Technology at Play

These post-pandemic students are probably the first batch of students who get to experience full-blown disruptive technology. As the Pandemic forced classrooms to go online, the workforce too got disrupted. Students saw their seniors and even their compatriots opting to work in gig jobs getting handsome pay during the initial days of the COVID-19 pandemic and felt earning big bucks was easy even without the certificates. Despite the gig industry of food delivery and e-hailing drivers having now slowed down significantly, the experience of seeing office workers, factory workers, and other non-essential service providers unable to work and get paid during the Pandemic gave them a skewed view of the working world. Add in influencers that we covered earlier, no wonder they have this skewed view.

Compacted School Syllabus

If anything should be a clue, the batches that undergo schooling from 2023 to 2025 may see an increasing number of students dropping out of the system or missing the SPM altogether. These cohorts had their syllabus compacted significantly to accommodate the time needed to adjust the school calendars back to the pre-pandemic calendar years by January 2026.

Compulsory Extra-Curricular Activities

Despite having a more compact school syllabus, the MoE expects school students to participate in extra-curricular activities. The MoE divides extra-curricular activities into uniformed bodies, sports, and clubs. A student needs to participate in all three activities, even when the activities are supposedly “extra-curricular” in nature, and many schools do not have sufficient facilities for some sports. For example, Malaysian schools have swimming clubs for sports but do not have swimming pools at their schools, and school badminton clubs have hundreds of members even though there are only two badminton courts.

Granted, a student participating in these activities gains good experience in the long run. But under the circumstances we are in, do we need to force these students to attend all of these activities when we already recognise these as “extra-curricular activities” in the first place?

Burnt-Out Teachers

Next on the line is our teachers are having burnt-outs. Deputy Minister of Education, Mr Wong Kah Woh told the Parliament in February this year that 6,394 teachers had opted for early retirement. The figure is a slight increase in the number of teachers opting to retire early in the previous year. He cited financial stability, retirement benefits, health reasons, ever-changing education policies, and digitalisation of education as reasons for opting for early retirement.

If you get to talk to a teacher, especially those assigned to be class teachers (analogous to homeroom teachers in other countries), you will find them getting an increased workload. Not only do they have their normal teaching duties, but they are also responsible for obtaining student welfare data; every year, these classroom teachers need to identify students who qualify for financial assistance by getting the students’ parents to declare their financial position. These additional responsibilities do not come with additional pay.

Pre-Bestari.net era, this responsibility means the teachers need to update students’ performance and attendance in the classroom record book. With the introduction of APDM, they now need to update the same details in the APDM AFTER tracking the student’s attendance and performance separately.

We have not gotten into their responsibilities as the extra-curricular activity teachers-in-charge, which includes accompanying students to competitions and other activities.

Assistant Teachers

Years ago, there was a promise of appointing assistant teachers to help out at schools. These positions are non-teaching positions for people to assist in school data entry. We have not seen any change to the promise, the latest being mentioned in March 2024. We might want to have another checkpoint in 2037.

Other often-heard complaints within my circle of friends who are teachers are the often long hours of late meetings. This problem is less apparent at single-session schools, as the school can conduct the meeting after school hours. But at many Malaysian schools that are two-session schools, that means meetings that may even end at late midnight!

Malaysian teachers did try to share their problems. But like any other things in Malaysia, they either get transferred to rural schools or worse, might find themselves needing to resign from the teaching service. One such teacher, Cikgu Fadli Salleh who often criticised the Malaysian education system, decided to throw in his towel in February this year.  

How about students who did not make it to SPM?

Forget the 10,000 students who were absent from the SPM examination. How about those that fell into the cracks? Students drop out of school because they are delinquent. Students who choose to participate in the economy as low-wage earners for their families. There is no clear analysis of the number of students who registered for schools when they first entered the system against the total number of students taking the SPM and the equivalent certificates in private schools in Malaysia. Until then, we do not know how badly our education system suffered under years of neglect and unfulfilled promises. – NMH

Read other articles by the writer:

Diesel Subsidy is No More

PDRM Advises Public To Be On Alert Mode For Mule Account Trap

The post SPM Absentees: What The 10,000 Students Are Not Telling You first appeared on NMH.

During the recent Sasana Simposium 2024, the Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM) and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) collaborated to conduct a seminar titled Empowering Youth in the Digital Payment Landscape: Decoding Mule Account.

Representing PDRM was ASP Muhamad Aizat bin Shukor from Bukit Aman’s Commercial Crime Division intelligence section. Vijayadurai a/l Singgatore represented BNM.

According to ASP Muhamad Aizat, the number of mule accounts had increased from 17,000 cases in 2019 to about 34,000 cases in 2023. This figure may exceed further in 2024, with 19,000 cases recorded from January to May 2024.

PDRM Explains On Mule Accounts

ASP Muhamad Aizat explained that mule accounts are accounts that scammers or other unscrupulous individuals have manipulated to commit their nefarious activities. The manipulation can be as simple as asking a person to borrow their account to buy goods or receive money or as complex as taking over an unwitting person’s banking or eWallet accounts. They would use these accounts to commit fraudulent transactions or layer and integrate stolen funds into the financial system.

He reminded attendees that individuals who unwittingly allowed others to use their accounts are liable for the actions of these scammers. They could find themselves prosecuted by the law under Section 424 of the Penal Code, where they could land in jail for five years.

Additionally, these individuals may find banks closing their accounts and barring them from opening accounts in the future. Even worse, many companies have resorted to checking with the police before hiring a new employee.

Despite the dark outlook, he advised individuals who had gotten tricked by these individuals to report their unwitting participation to the police. The move would help the police to investigate these incidents.

Scam Red Flags

On other matters, he advised the public to be wary of scam red flags. Amongst others, he pointed out that scammers often make too-good-to-be-true offers. Most recently, some scammers are ‘offering’ RM10 durian king offers.  

When asked if it is advisable to engage in small talk with Macau scam calls, he discouraged the public from engaging them as some scammers would have gleaned the caller’s information from social media accounts, which would make it easy for them to crack the victims, whereas the victims do not know them. Additionally, he advised not to accept these calls if possible, as the scammers may record the voice to replicate it using AI.

On the safety of buying from online sales platforms, he advises the public to avoid accepting offers from these merchants to contact the merchants off-platform, either via WhatsApp or SMS, as these online platforms monitor these on-platform chats to prevent undetected scammers from misusing the platform.

He also urged participants to share with their friends and families to help combat the scourge. – NMH

Read other articles by the writer:

Diesel Subsidy is No More

The post PDRM Advises Public To Be On Alert Mode For Mule Account Trap first appeared on NMH.

This week, the government announced the end of diesel subsidy for Peninsular Malaysia. The clappings and jokes aside, it is something we have been expecting, and unfortunately, we need.

Back in 2017, the then-BN administration was on track to implement fuel subsidy rationalisation. But the then-opposition campaigned on three main things; abolishing GST, maintaining fuel subsidies, and investigating the 1MDB scandal. Of these, they have abolished the GST but introduced a plethora of taxes in its place.

Even now, there are talks of reintroducing the GST or other similar value-added tax. 1MDB is an ongoing process, never-ending it seems. And now, partial rationalisation of the fuel subsidy, came not too long after a veiled threat to get the citizenry to register into the PADU database.

Dependency On Petroleum

The nation’s coffer has been too reliant on petroleum revenue ever since the formation of Petronas. No money? No problem. Get Petronas to pay the dividend.

The blanket fuel subsidy amongst others had helped to ensure the cost of living in Malaysia to be low, artificially. With artificially maintained low cost of living, employers don’t need to increase income. The impact is our income tax base becomes low. While we do get to attract foreign investors to capitalise on our ‘cheap’ employees, the distortion has forced our youths to seek employment overseas.

Globally, there is this move towards ESG, or Environmental, Social, Governance. Under this ESG, sustainability is a key concept. Revenue from petroleum is not sustainable in the long run as petroleum is a non-renewable resource. Even today, Petronas is finding it hard to sustain its dividend to the Malaysian government.

And now is the dilemma. The government that the people elected on the promise of maintaining the subsidy is now rationalising the subsidy, even if the subsidy they are rationalising now is just the diesel subsidy. This move will cause an uproar. Or rather it is already causing an uproar.

The fact that they had extended the subsidy by seven years, means we have delayed the inevitable for seven years.

Interestingly, BN supporters from 2017 are choosing to poke fun at the PH government and their supporters, not so much demanding the continuation of the subsidy.

Abolishing Diesel Subsidy The Right Move?

As we are already late by seven years, I am not sure if the move to abolish the subsidy directly for diesel is the right move or if it would utterly shock the market. Best case scenario, the market would right itself. Unfortunately, that would usually mean an increase in the cost of living. As mentioned, they rationalised only the diesel subsidy and only in Peninsular Malaysia. Would the impact to the overall fiscal burden over diesel subsidy be sufficient to impact the nation’s fiscal prudence?

Employers would need to increase their pay base to prevent staff-pinching, as employees would start to look for jobs to account for their expenditures. Some would turn to overseas.

The worst-case scenario would be that the seven additional years have distorted our market and it would be difficult to exit the addiction. Micro-SMEs and SMEs get a big hit. The prospect isn’t good. We can only hope that the so-called big data is there to identify who needs help and whatnot. Otherwise, we would be dishing out plates of overcooked fried calamari.

Signing off for now.

Note:
Feel free to support or dispute. No insult, please. You can have fried calamari, but be mindful of getting gout later. – NMH

The post Diesel Subsidy is No More first appeared on NMH.

On 12 April 2024, Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, the former Defence Minister who leads the Malaysian Advisory Group on Myanmar, commended the Myanmarese National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) for repealing the 1982 Citizenship Law, giving way for Rohingyans citizenships. As the current chair of the advisory group, his endorsement of the Myanmarese sounds positive, giving rise to hope and emphasising the importance of the NUCC’s action towards inclusivity and equality. 

The repeal of the law is significant as the Myanmarese government used the law to discriminate against the Rohingyans, barring them from Myanmarese citizenship. Overnight, the Rohingyans lost access to citizenship, enabling the junta government to persecute the Rohingyans, forcibly evicting them from the Rakhine region. When the Rohingyans refused to leave, the military beat them or, worse, killed them.

Thus, from the 80s onward, Rohingyans left Myanmar in droves, ending up in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Malaysia. While they sought refuge in Malaysia, the presence of legal Myanmarese foreign workers in Malaysia turned into a deadly mix. The hatred and anger festered and exploded in 2014 a group that Malaysian police described as Myanmarese Muslims from Rakhine murdered around 20 Myanmarese workers in a series of gruesome murders. 

Many Rohingyans fell prey not only to the repressive Myanmarese government but also to human traffickers, who sent them to the seas in rickety boats and, once nearing their intended destination, damaged the engine to force these countries to accept them as boat people.

Myanmar Military Junta

The Myanmarese military junta crackdown is not limited to the Rohingyans. Ethnic Karens, who are mostly Christians too, suffered under the military junta, and many sought refuge in Malaysia. However, their numbers have trickled after Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi won the landmark election 2021.  

However, the NUCC’s decision comes with a catch. They are not the ruling government. 

Today, Myanmar is under military junta rule. They launched yet another coup in February 2021 and placed the elected government, including Aung San Su Kyi, in house arrest. She is currently serving a 33-year jail sentence handed to her by the military junta-run court. 

The people protested, but the military cracked down on the protest with deadly consequences. By March 2021, at least 500 had lost their lives. 

This time, the people did not stay quiet. The pro-democracy supporters launched a revolution. They are further encouraged when soldiers and police, disgusted at the junta government’s crackdown, defected to the pro-democracy side. Al Jazeera cited that at least 10,000 defectors are now part of the revolutionary forces, comprising 3,000 former soldiers and 7,000 former police officers.

Meanwhile, the UK’s Guardian cited that at least 14,000 soldiers and police officers had defected to the pro-democracy forces. The defection also involved pro-government militia who had even switched sides after decrying the harsh and lethal crackdown the military junta had made against the pro-democracy forces.

Military Setbacks

Fast forward to 2024, the Myanmarese government army, the Tatmadaw, has now suffered continuous military setbacks as the much-reinvigorated rebel forces took control of several major towns, with the border town of Myawaddy being the most recent town under their control. 

The Tatmadaw found that they had difficulty recruiting soldiers to replace those killed, injured, captured, and deserted. 

To compensate for their losses, the Tatmadaw announced in February 2024 that they would initiate conscription beginning in April 2024, targeting 5,000 recruits. 

However, the conscription may have backfired. Young men and women are leaving Myanmar in droves to avoid conscription (female citizens are also part of the eligible pool of recruits). Perhaps the biggest irony of the conscription is that it pushed more civilians to join the revolutionary forces as they sought to escape from the military conscription. Many saw the move to join the revolutionary forces as a natural progression of their activism against the oppressive military junta.   

Despite having the repressive Citizenship Law that discriminated against the Rohingyans in place, that did not stop the Myanmarese junta government from recruiting the Rohingyans into the Tatmadaw. The recruitment of the Rohingyans was ironic, as just years ago, they were persecuting these Rohingyans. 

Human Rights

Human rights watch groups claimed that the Tatmadaw had already either forcibly recruited or kidnapped at least 1,000 Rohingyan men and boys from the Rakhine region since February 2024 as soldiers, much earlier than the claimed conscription date of April. Those who refused to fight were either beaten to death or had their families beaten up instead. Worst still, the men did not receive the citizenship promised.

They received only two weeks of military training before the Tatmadaw deployed them in combat. An unknown number have since died in battles. 

The promise of recognition of Rohingyans’ right to citizenship may become a factor in attracting the Rohingyans to join the Revolutionary forces, further depriving the Tatmadaw of a potentially fertile recruitment field. 

However, the NUCC decision can only occur if they defeat the military junta in the civil war. And there is this nagging concern: Is this Malaysian Advisory Group a sanctioned government concern? If yes, would this group’s commendation of the NUCC interfere with Myanmar’s internal affairs and breach the ASEAN spirit? Regardless, the stance is correct, but it should have been an ASEAN-level effort to preserve the movement as a viable international body. – NMH

The post Myanmar Citizenship for Rohingyans after 40 years! first appeared on NMH.

When the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Tan Sri Razarudin Husain, made the surprise announcement of the capture of an Israeli man in Ampang, Kuala Lumpur, on 28 March 2024, the country was abuzz with questions galore, considering that Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is drawing the world attention to the atrocities. Whether he is a Mossad operative is something everyone is asking.

Considering that Malaysia does not recognise the Zionist state of Israel, the man’s presence in Malaysia definitely raised eyebrows. A further revelation was that when the police arrested the man, Shalom Avitan, they found in his possession six pistols and 200 rounds of ammunition. The revelation sparked further questions about whether he was an Israeli Mossad operator on an assassination mission.

The IGP, in his press conference, also revealed that Shalom Avitan had confessed that he was trying to kill another Israeli man who had come into Malaysia for hiding after trying to kill Shalom, or his family members, with a grenade attack in Tel Aviv. The police have since arrested three other persons, all Malaysians, suspected of supplying the firearms to the Israeli man.

Before we delve deeper into the story, here is some background for a better context.

Israeli – Malaysia ‘Non-Existent’ Relationship

History

In June 1948, Malaya was reeling under the threat of a communist uprising. Suspected communist agents had executed three British planters in Sungai Siput, with two other planters narrowly escaping from the killing squad. The failure to prevent the communist uprising saw the Colonial Office recalling Sir Edward Gent to London. He died as his plane crashed into another plane while attempting to land in London. 

The Colonial Office appointed Sir Henry Gurney to replace Sir Edward Gent as the High Commissioner of Malaya. 

Sir Henry Gurney was a Foreign Office veteran. He was previously the High Commissioner of the British Mandate in Palestine. There, he failed to stem the Jewish uprising led by the Haganah, the Irgun, and the Stern gang. It was during his time as the High Commissioner that the tragic Deir Yassin massacre occurred on 9 April 1948. More than a hundred Arab civilians died in the massacre. Israeli records blamed him for instigating the Arabs against Israelis, while in Malaysia, some writers reviled him as the architect behind the Zionist expansion in Palestine, leading to the Nakba.  

As the British exited Palestine, not only did Sir Henry Gurney lose his job, but hundreds of former British Mandate police officers, too, lost their jobs. 

With his eventual appointment as the High Commissioner of Malaya, he appointed Colonel William Nicol Gray, a former British Mandate Police officer, as the Malayan Chief of Police. At least 200 hundred experienced police officers followed him to beef up the Malayan Police Force that took the fight to the communist insurgents. 

Ascension into the United Nations

When the British finally decided to grant independence to Malaya, Tunku Abdul Rahman revealed in his book that Israel was amongst the earliest countries to support its admission into the United Nations. However, he did not pursue any further approach with the Tel Aviv regime as he saw their mistreatment of the Arabs. Therefore, Malaysia never established any diplomatic relationship with Israel. 

Diplomacy

Despite not recognising Israel, Israelis have entered Malaysia on many occasions. Many Israeli tourists have flaunted their visits to Kuala Lumpur on social media. Nusier Yassin of the Nas Daily is the most infamous of these Israelis, who entered Malaysia using a Caribbean passport. 

On one occasion, the Malaysian government allowed Israelis to attend sporting events. In 1997, then Prime Minister Tun Mahathir allowed an Israeli cricket team to attend a competition in Malaysia despite massive protests. However, he declined their entries when a similar opportunity presented itself in 2019 with the International Paralympics.

In 2010, two Malaysian journalists and ten other Malaysian humanitarian relief aid workers were on the MV Marmara, an international aid ship attempting to enter Gaza to provide relief aid, when Israeli Navy commandos boarded the ship, shooting dead ten Turkish activists, including an American Turkish activist. The Israelis released the Malaysian volunteers a day later after the Turkish government’s intervention. 

Economic Relationship

Despite not having any diplomatic ties, the two countries do have an underground trade. Malaysia recorded a total of USD9.99m in exports in 2021 while importing goods amounting to USD9.01m in the same period.

However, Malaysians have been at the forefront of an international attempt to boycott global companies that have traded in Israel via the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions, or BDS. 

Past Incidents 

Now that we have a bit of background of Malaysia and Israel’s relationship, we look into a couple of incidents allegedly involving Israel in the past six years. 

The Murder of Palestinian Lecturer in Setapak

In 2018, Fadi al-Batsh, a Palestinian lecturer specialising in drone technology which was continuing his studies in Malaysia, died in a hail of gunfire after two unidentified motorcyclists gunned him down at Jalan Langkawi here in Setapak. Fadi, who was also a member of Hamas, had been living in Malaysia for at least ten years before his murder. The two gunmen managed to escape. 

Last year, Hamas officials claimed that they had captured a traitor who helped Mossad target Fadi. 

The Alleged Kidnapping of a Palestinian Man in Jalan Mayang

In 2022, the New Straits Times broke the news that a team of Israeli secret agents had intercepted and kidnapped two Palestinian men. One of the Palestinian men, Omar A, under the protection of Turkish intelligence, had previously hacked into the Israeli Iron Dome system for Hamas. Days later, the police managed to release the two Palestinians, but the captors were all Malaysians. 

The police also called the NST editor about the news coverage, as the police claimed that the reporting had leaked some pertinent investigation details and interfered with the investigation. To date, the police have not confirmed if the kidnappers were indeed linked to Mossad. However, the Daily Sabah, a Turkiye-based media outlet, revealed that the Turkish intelligence agency, MIT, tipped off the Malaysian police force on the kidnapping and the location where the kidnappers were interrogating the Palestinian men. 

Is Shalom Avitan A Possible Mossad Agent?

Now we have a clearer picture of why Malaysian police are taking extra precautions with the suspect. There is no way that Malaysian police can verify if he is indeed just a gangster trying to kill the people who tried to kill him.

Kudos to the police for not discounting the possibility that he is an actual Mossad agent in-country to coordinate another assassination attempt. With the current atrocities that Israel is committing against Gazans, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim openly voiced out and defended the Palestinians on the international stage. Therefore, it is not too farfetched if the Israelis are trying to intimidate other countries that dared to voice out against their atrocities.  

Shalom entered Malaysia using a genuine French passport. As mentioned earlier, Israelis entering Malaysia use a different passport, as the Malaysian Immigration Department does not recognise the Israeli passport. The use of a dual citizen passport is, however, a departure from past known Mossad assassination operations overseas. Mossad had used fraudulently obtained Canadian and New Zealand passports in the past. In 2004, New Zealand expelled two Israeli men suspected of being Mossad agents for trying to obtain New Zealand passports fraudulently. 

Regardless of whether Shalom, the suspect, is an assassin or just a mere mobster planning to murder his compatriot who had tried to kill him earlier, Shalom is still a security threat. Every Israeli man and woman above 18 has undergone military training. Those who have served at least two years with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) are reservists. If Shalom is here under a sanctioned IDF mission, it would be conceivable that any details coming out of Israel would cover his mission. 

Court of Justice 

Now that Shalom Avitan is under arrest, we should allow the police to complete the investigation and charge him in court. Granted, by and large, the interrogation that he has to go through and our criminal court system will not compare to what any Palestinians that IDF arrested ever had to go through. 

Last bit of thought: As someone with dual citizenship, it is interesting to note that there is no news that the French have provided any consular support. – NMH

Note: The third paragraph on the History section should read Sir Henry Gurney instead of Sir Edward Gent. Thank you to sharp-eyed reader, Mohd Asri Yusof for pointing out the error.

The post The Mossad Saga And The Israel-Malaysia Relationship first appeared on NMH.

On 14 March 2024, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill formally banning TikTok in the US. TikTok as we know, is a wildly popular social media app, and it belongs to ByteDance, and the US move comes with a proviso that ByteDance’s parent company sells off the controlling stake to a US-owned company.

ByteDance, a Chinese-owned company, is a strategic competitor to the United States. There are fears that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be using the social media app to influence opinions in the United States, with the app now having 170 million users in the United States alone, up from just 100 million in 2020.   

Are US Concerns Valid?

Comical Interrogation

There is always a question of whether the US concern is valid. In the days before the House of Representatives passed the bill, they had summoned ByteDance CEO Sou Zi CHEW. The session turned out very comical, with US Republican Senator Tom Cotton repeatedly asking Chew, a Singaporean National, if he is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party, being unable to distinguish between race and nationality. The comical session, unfortunately, hurt the US House of Representatives’ ability to convince the world that they have a case with ByteDance’s Tiktok. 

The War in Gaza on TikTok

The US’ growing concern over TikTok’s operation in the US has been ongoing for quite some time. However, the concern ballooned further as Tiktok’s unfettered coverage of the Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip became apparent to the world. TikTok became a conduit for Palestinians in Gaza to share their plights with the world, showing the grizzly images that mainstream media had been censoring for years. 

Many US youths who have access to TikTok have become disenfranchised by their government’s support of Israel in the bloody conflict and, for the first time, supporting the Palestinians. 

Israel was also unable to influence TikTok to bring down these videos as much as they have with other social media platforms such as Meta and X, further hampering their effort to control the narrative surrounding this conflict.

It is also not helped by the fact that many Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers too freely shared their deeds, which, if conducted by soldiers of any other nation, would be classified as war crimes on TikTok. The soldiers’ actions even forced the IDF’s Chief of Staff, Major General Herzi Halevi, to issue a communication forbidding soldiers from committing revenge on 21 February 2024. This communication came after a damaging New York Times report on the revenge videos that IDF soldiers have uploaded onto TikTok. 

Operation ZunZuneo

But what legitimises the US’ concern that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using TikTok as a subversive tool to subvert the US is that the US themselves had tried to use social media to bring down other nations. 

In an expose by the Associated Press published in 2014, the AP discovered that in 2009, USAID, a US government agency responsible for international humanitarian aid, began a covert project to build a social media app called Zunzuneo in Cuba. They intended to foment social unrest in the communist island nation, with the communist authority none too wise. In mid-2012, the Cuban authority discovered USAID’s involvement and blocked the application. By then, Zunzuneo had about 40,000 subscribers. Users were stunned when they found out that the USAID was involved. 

The fallout from the project was massive. US Senator Patrick Leahy, who oversaw funding for foreign activities, was stunned that the US State Department had run the project without consent and had the head of the agency testify in Congress in 2014 on the ‘dangerously misguided effort’. 

USAID Head Rajiv Shah has since denied the allegation in Congress.

China’s Reaction to the Bill

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese government was unhappy with the bill’s passing. Chinese officials criticised it. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs cited its passing as an example of double standards protecting freedom of speech.  

China’s reaction, though, is not without irony. While they have freely penetrated the US market without much barrier, they also banned Western-based social media apps such as Meta’s FaceBook, Google, and X from entering China. A double irony is that TikTok is not available in China. Instead, another app by ByteDance, Douyin, is available. 

International Geopolitical Power Struggle

So, is the proposed ban fair? Or is it just a cover story to obscure the truth behind the ban? 

But what is apparent today is that the attempt to ban TikTok, like China’s ban of Meta’s Facebook, X, and Google, is part of an intricate, deeply strategic international power play in which we, the users, are just pawns in their overall game of controlling the narratives and popular support. 

Freedom of speech, in other words, is not about the ability to tell the truth as it is but merely a tool to create the narrative they want us to hear and believe in. – NMH

The post Tiktok Ban By US Is Like Kettle Calling The Pot Black first appeared on NMH.

Ramadan 2024 is finally here. In the Muslim month of Ramadan, Muslims worldwide observe fasting from dawn to dusk for 30 days. Fasting is the third of five Islamic tenets observed by Muslims worldwide. Muslims observe this tenet to instil self-discipline and humility as they understand the sufferings of less well-off people.

Ramadan is also when kurma, or dates, are readily available. Though the fruit is available all year round, its presence during Ramadan is the most cherished.

However, many Muslims are abstaining from the fruit this time around, not only in Malaysia but worldwide. This move follows a global effort to boycott Israeli products to economically force Israel to stop its genocidal oppression of the Palestinian people.

With Israeli retaliation against Hamas in Gaza for the 7 October attack, which already caused the deaths of almost 30,000 people, including women and children, and the utter destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza in full swing, this clarion call to boycott against Israeli dates grew even louder.

But wait. Malaysia does not have any direct economic ties with Israel. Then, how did we import dates from Israel?

A 2020 Al Jazeera opinion revealed that 40% of Israeli date exports came from Israeli-controlled plantations in dispossessed lands in Palestine. The Israeli companies sold these dates internationally under several different names, often obscuring the source of the dates.

Ramadan Without Dates

The Islamic Human Rights Council (IHRC) in 2020 also called out to Muslims to be wary of Israeli dates purposely labelled as Palestinian dates to obscure their origins.

In another Al Jazeera report in the form of a short video, one Muslim influencer even categorised these dates as blood dates, in the same fashion as labelling diamonds mined in central Africa during the Angolan, Congo, and Sierra Leone civil wars to finance the civil war as blood diamonds.

Last week, a Malaysian company apologised for importing dates from Israel and selling the repackaged dates. In the press release, the company claimed that they had bought the dates from a middleman in Greece.

The Palestinian Plight

While we are on this topic of boycotting dates from Israel, I would be remiss if I did not point this out.

Often, the media portrayed the Palestinian issue as a Muslim or Arab issue. That has been the case for more than 60 years. However, the Palestinian people are a diverse people of different religions and political ideologies. While the majority of Palestinians are Muslims, there are many Jewish and Christian Palestinians and they, too, suffer under the same occupation force.

Even earlier Palestinian liberation movements were diverse; the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was a secular Marxist group. Before that, George Habash, a Palestinian Christian, formed the Arab Nationalist Movement, which was part of the tristate Baath Party, a secular Pan-Arab nationalist party that formed the governments of Syria, Egypt, and Iraq.

And there is also the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), which today forms Fatah. Currently, Fatah controls the West Bank, where there is no Hamas, but still embroiled in frequent battles against both Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and Israeli settlers.

How Does this Boycott Impact You?

For the Muslim Community

For Muslims, the boycott of these dates is simple. They avoid buying dates whose origins are obscured or are from Israel. Not only does this mean they are in solidarity with their Palestinian brethren, but it also clears their conscience from participating in the extermination of their brethren.

For Non-Muslim Community

While eating dates is not part of our culture, many of us would like to buy dates as gifts for our Muslim friends, neighbours, and colleagues. Similar to how our Muslim friends buy moon cakes for us. Should we buy dates as gifts for our friends, please ensure the importers do not source Israeli dates before buying. Not only do you get to build a healthy relationship, but at least you did not participate in acts that are made possible by genocide. – NMH

The post Ramadan, Blood Dates and Palestine: Important Issues For Muslims first appeared on NMH.