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.

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.

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 was debating whether to insert this within LGBT+ or Islamic Leftism but I do think ultimately it might fit here better because it covers the specific experience of French indigènes, which makes it more relevant here.

I feel like in these sort of online Islamic “progressive” spaces, there’s no genuine discussions happening. These spaces are often almost defensive in nature - like the existence of this community is just to prove to disapproving whites that Islam isn’t this, or isn’t that. This is a result of being in a Western dominated space in general.

Gender and sexual minorities is a very important phenomenon that must require a response, yet it is almost ignored or never spoken about because this muslim-homophobia dichotomy is so engrained that people are (rightfully) scared to even talk about it, especially across the White left.

I’d of course invite everyone to treat this article critically, and contribute if you have any qualms against their conclusions, although I will admit my opinions have slowly drifted closer to the article as the years went by.

I was reading Socialism's Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism by Ramin Mazaheri, and they mentioned something that has become a common sight here too: Islamic finance.

Iran is leading in Islamic financing, with Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the UAE and Qatar filling the rest of the Top 5 according to this report.

For those who don't know, it's basically finance but with Islamic principles as accorded to the Quran and various Madhhabs (schools of jurisprudence).

Some of it's principles are (quoting Wikipedia), among others:

1. Paying or charging interest. "All forms of interest are riba and hence prohibited". Islamic rules on transactions (known as Fiqh al-Muamalat) have been created to prevent use of interest.
2. Investing in businesses involved in activities that are forbidden (haraam). These include things such as selling alcohol or pork, or producing media such as gossip columns or pornography.
3. Charging extra for late payment. This applies to murâbaḥah or other fixed payment financing transactions, although some authors believe late fees may be charged if they are donated to charity,or if the buyer has "deliberately refused" to make a payment.

Has any comrades read much on this?

How viable do you think is such a financial system, especially now, with renewed interest in de-dollarisation? (see what I did there?)

Can it fully live up to it's socialistic principles in a world capitalist system?

About the multiracial, working class hartal I mentioned before that took place prior to the supposed communist emergency in what was then Malaya.

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.

Copied below.

The BRICS countries have backed a Chinese suggestion that the bloc should be expanded, but have not named the candidate countries.

A joint statement by the foreign ministers of the bloc – whose other members are Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa – following an online meeting on Thursday supported its first expansion in a decade, but said they needed to clarify relevant guiding principles, standards and procedures.

Although no candidate countries have been named, earlier this year Argentine President Alberto Fernández said he wanted his country to join, and analysts have said Indonesia is another likely candidate.

Brazil, Russia, India and China initially formed the bloc in 2009, with South Africa joining in 2010.

The meeting of five foreign ministers, including Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, was the first since his country invaded Ukraine in February. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi repeated Beijing’s position calling for peace talks and criticised Western countries for providing arms to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia.

“Delivering arms cannot bring peace to Ukraine, and pressure by sanctions cannot solve the European security dilemma,” Wang said, according to a readout from the Chinese foreign ministry.

He said China opposes the weaponisation of international economic and financial cooperation and coercing other countries to choose sides. He also called for an effort to reduce the spillover effect of the war, which has hit international trade and food supplies “especially in supporting vulnerable developing countries to tide over the difficulties”.

The minister also urged the other BRICS countries to be “independent” and “fair” over Ukraine.

Three BRICS members – China, India and South Africa – earlier abstained from voting on a United Nations resolution to condemn Russia for its aggression against Ukraine.

The joint statement, with a brief address on the Ukraine issues, said the foreign ministers “supported Russia negotiating with Ukraine” and “discussed concerns over the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and beyond”.

Without naming the United States, Wang called on the bloc to resist the creation of “parallel systems” to divide the world. He also said BRICS nations should oppose all kinds of unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction”.

The 25-point joint statement issued after the meeting included pledges to work together on issues such as global governance, climate change, anti-terrorism, arms control, human rights, and AI technology. China and Russia also expressed support for the three other members playing a greater role in the United Nations.

Argentina was among the nine developing countries and emerging economies taking part in a separate meeting with the BRICS countries on Thursday night.

Argentina’s ambassador to China, Sabino Vaca Narvaja, said the invitation to take part “was extremely important,” and constituted a step toward “formal entry” into the bloc. The other eight participants were Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Senegal, the United Arab Emirates and Thailand.

Jiang Shixue, director of the Centre for Latin American Studies at Shanghai University, said the expansion of BRICS is seen as an “irreversible trend” by many observers.

“Facing an increasing attack by the developed countries led by the United States, developing countries and emerging economies should expand our strength to play a bigger role in global governance,” Jiang said.

Jiang said China has been making efforts in this direction since the “BRICS Plus” formulation was first mooted in 2017 with the objective of widening the bloc’s “circle of friends”. Xu Hongcai, from the China Association of Policy Science, said the bloc should invite Group of 20 countries with international influence and large economies, such as Indonesia and Argentina.

“The G20 is composed of major developed and developing countries, BRICS lacks representation in ignoring other developing nations. It will be a good idea to first select G20 member nations to join the bloc,” Xu said.