JUNE 18 — You are upset that Pakatan Harapan has not reformed the country enough. You are eligible to vote in Johor or Negeri Sembilan. 

You are tempted to not get into the car and drive to Johor on July 11 or August 1 to vote. 

You are upset reading this because it is the same narrative on repeat using a different font. Also, you skipped lunch. 

Let’s flip this to give it dimension.

Is reform storming in the country? No. Is the deputy prime minister not facing the jeopardy of prison because the government he leads has an attorney-general unwilling to let the defence even try to wriggle out of a well-delivered prosecution, because he paused it? Yes. 

Did you feel giddy in 2018, when Pakatan won, and giddier in 2022 because the messianic-like Anwar Ibrahim, the number one reformist candidate for a quarter of a century, was finally prime minister and was about to unleash the reform Kraken?  Undoubtedly.

You are a disappointed Pakatan voter. Worse if you were one as far back as 2008 when it did not have a name for itself, just a hodgepodge of political parties not inclined to allow Barisan Nasional waltz to two-thirds in Parliament.

After all that, four elections with false starts to get to a tryst with destiny, the Madani Project delivers three and a half years of half measures and qualified successes. 

The country is not falling apart but the feeling it’s still the dreary same is hard to fend off. The Middle-East conflict challenges Malaysia, as it does the world, but it’s manageable still.

File picture of Malaysians casting their votes at a polling station during the 15th Malaysia general election at Sekolah Kebangsaan Puncak Alam 2 on November 19, 2022. — Picture by Miera Zulyana

But what do you do as a voter?

I get this infuriating response from the random irate name on the electoral roll. “I just won’t vote, that will show them!”

Firstly, it shows nothing to no one. 

This is not a typical buying decision. Choosing not to buy overpriced Starbucks drinks over politics has led to X number of stores shuttered in recent years. 

But a country — or in this case a state — is not a retailer, therefore the analogy struggles to translate. 

Voting decides who runs either state, by deciding to not vote, does not mean the respective states are not run for the next five years.  The state is run the next day regardless how many per cent of the electoral roll shows up on election day.

Not showing up to vote means denying yourself the right to affect who gets executive power through accumulation of legislative representation. 

It’s happening whether you like it or not, and no amount of grousing the next five years matters after polling day has as significant an impact as casting the vote.

The pickle in this tickle of retelling the same old is that the prime minister and the members of Pakatan are convinced that a high turnout on July 11 and then August 1, means only good things for them.

In their estimate, those who are mulling “to go or not to go” are disinclined by Pakatan’s performance in the past years but equally disinterested in the other mob.

They are numbed Pakatan voters who are not braindead to know the other lot, Barisan Nasional and Perikatan Nasional and its splinters are committed to limit Malaysia’s social evolution to an acceptable zero.

This is where the Johor and Negeri elections are different from the Sabah election late last year and the impending Sarawak election later this year.  

Over there, state unity is at an all-time high, which seismically shifts choices to local choices versus Semenanjung-infused choices.

Over here in Semenanjung, it is whether apathy mixed with traditional incentives directly or indirectly to the voters yields seats for BN and PN, or social activism mixed with a general sense that things have to be progressive giving Pakatan and some like-minded parties wins.

Are you, the progressive, still upset? Of course you are because it is not ideal. It is a huge shout away from par. 

But actions must be welded to what is possible and not on options unavailable on the menu.

Turn out and vote, if not for Pakatan, there are the other parties drawn to progressive ideas that are not BN or PN. Those in power may have come up short, but those not in power who are traditionalists are not going to pick your values, they are intent on burying them. To steady a Malaysia forever race-based, opposed to equality and divided. 

However underwhelming the present feels, remember you sent a former prime minister to prison, and if 809-pages of a ruling holds out, he is looking at prison till he is in his eighties.

Voting did get things done. Our flag-bearers have poor scorecards but the larger agenda to move us in one direction rather than the other remains. Requires a heck of a lot of fighting daily, but still on the table.

Almost 30 years ago, I put my chips on Anwar not because he was worthy but he was the biggest bat to take a swing at the authoritarian and absolutist BN. 

Anwar was from the system and as such the malfunctions are expected. BN and its splinter PN and every other splinter, are still the same, if anything more convinced in the unique unequal Malaysian solution.

I wrote at the start “four elections with false starts to get to a tryst with destiny.” The last four words were in the opening line of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s inaugural address at India’s independence in 1947. 

He ends the sentence with “we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.”

Not wholly or in full measure. Just substantially. It’s a long game, this.  

And if there is one thing progressives understand, no real gain is realised overnight. On July 11 and then on August 1, Malaysia hears from the south which side of substantial things fall.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JUNE 17 — Once you’re a cancer patient, regardless of whether you’re cured or not, you will never be free of hospitals.

Right now I see my oncologist every three months, my surgeon every six.

I get a mammogram and if needed, an ultrasound, once a year. My latest scans have come back clear and for now, I can feel some relief.

The universe can be amusing; I had just wrapped up a boss battle in Final Fantasy VII: Remake Intergrade when my number was called.

It’s not the easiest of games but it’s not so hard that I quit out of frustration.

Like the game, my cancer journey has been full of milestones or, as I see them, “boss battles” with the final boss being my cancer.

Unlike Final Fantasy I won’t know if the bosses will stay defeated.

The threat of cancer returning looms always but here’s the thing — for some people no matter how clean they eat, how much they exercise, how zen their mindset, it comes back.

Stressing or worrying will not serve me.

Follow-up appointments are now an unavoidable part of my life but hey, I can play games while waiting. — Picture by Erna Mahyuni

This time, I am mapping my own healing journey but instead of slaying monsters, I am recalibrating my body and how I navigate life.

Once you truly understand just how fragile life is, you learn the answer to that question: do you truly want to live?

Many of us barely live.

Life becomes a series of routines, we get hung up on life’s minutiae and sometimes death comes too quickly to even have time for regrets.

I’ve written the first draft of a book, am letting a second one percolate a little in my mind while I get on with the business of living.

Physically I wish I wasn’t carrying a few extra kilos but at the hospital, I felt just so grateful to be able to walk up the stairs without feeling like I was climbing a steep mountain.

I didn’t have to cling to the banister, lean against a wall, drag one foot slowly behind the other, with each step feeling more torturous the longer it took.

For once I felt as well as I looked.

If I hadn’t been bald previously, no one would have clocked me as a cancer patient, too plump, too tan, too outwardly able-looking.

It got to the point I had to perform my cancer, with loud groans, slow shuffles, dramatic clutching of handrails because otherwise I would get stares that asked “why are you here” or “why are you sitting down/taking the lift/crowding the waiting room.”

For now I am free of the shackles of judgement and nosy parkers, with legs that (mostly) obey me and shoulders and arms that hurt a lot less.

While I will spend hours in waiting rooms for as long as I am alive, all that time isn’t wasted — I’ll just play Final Fantasy on my Switch or chase after tricky Pokémon.

No hour is wasted if it’s spent doing things you love and I hope, when I finally encounter that final boss I am destined not to beat, that I will be satisfied with how I played this game we call life.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JUNE 16 — I confess I don’t watch that many Korean TV series. But about two weeks ago someone recommended this one, Teach You A Lesson (directed by Hong Jong-chan), to me on account of my role as a teacher. 

The person even asked me if I recognise some of the problems highlighted in the show and whether they apply to Malaysia?

I wasn’t interested at first. But then I noticed that Teach You A Lesson was trending as the #1 non-English show from early June onwards (and I think it was also #2 across all shows) so I thought what the heck, let’s give it a shot.

After the first two episodes, I was all in. Adapted from the Naver webtoon Get Schooled, Teach You A Lesson is about a special department of the Korean Ministry of Education being tasked to solve deep systemic problems within the nation’s schools. 

These range from bullying to suicide to gambling addiction and so on.

Initially I was attracted by the sheer action. You have one guy taking on multiple gangsters and making it look easier than Jet Li swatting aside karate novices.

Kim Mu-Yeol is second to none in absolute macho coolness as the chief inspector heading into schools to resolve whatever problem is occuring; his aura farming never lets up and will be a hard act to beat. 

I last saw him trading punches with Don Lee (Round-Up: Punishment) and even then he was easily the best villain in that cop series. 

A scene from ‘Teach You a Lesson’ featuring Kim Mu-yeol as the fierce Na Hwa-jin. — Picture from Facebook/Netflix K-Drama News

He’s now buzzing so much that John Cena recently posted a photo of him on Instagram. And yes, they both look alike.

Jin Ki-Joo is perfect as the OTT female inspector who can trash a dozen guys trying to beat her up. P.O. (a rapper apparently) shines as the tech-guy and Lee Sung-Min is perfect as the wise old man overseeing the bureau in charge of fixing things in school.

The good casting and cool action aside, after a few more episodes, it struck me that the initial punches and kicks were just the hook. 

The real message was something more important. Indeed, the series comes across as more of a social commentary  or a national awareness-type campaign regarding issues in Korean education.

National education arguably stands at the centre of a society’s past, present and future. If the system is abused by its key players and innocent stakeholders suffer, that speaks a LOT about the country as a whole. 

The series covers student-on-student bullying, parent-on-student, teacher-on-student, student-on-teacher, parent-on-teacher, etc. 

In light of the best in film-making, the series hits hard on viscerality, drama and realism. 

The bullying scenes, especially, are very in-your-face. You can practically feel the slaps and the cruelty being meted out. 

No student who has ever been bullied will be unable to identify with the heartache, pain and shame of being relentlessly tormented. 

Likewise, everyone who desires even a modicum of justice will absolutely cheer when the bullies get their own medicine deliciously handed to them.

The fact that a macho dude like Kim Mu-Yeol is doing the ass-whooping makes the series even more satisfying. So satisfying in fact that a few days after the series aired, a group of Korean teachers even protested that the series should be banned as it promoted corporal punishment.

I’m willing to bet nobody gave a damn. Even if many viewers disagreed with hitting students, 99 per cent of them would have no problem enjoying a show where some very vicious assholes got their butts handed to them on a platter.

Almost every episode in the series follows a similar formula which, no matter how often you see it, remains undeniably entertaining: The bad guys get to experience the exact torture and pain and hardship they’ve been passing out to their victims.

This show is proof that watching bullies get paid back via tasting their own medicine never gets old.

It also has an important message for many parents who obsess over their children’s education to the point of, well, oppressing their kids.

In one episode, you see Korean parents maniacally seeking to ensure their children get into med school. Since birth (!), the kids have been force-fed tutors, consultants, round-the-clock studying and even ADHD-ish pills to keep them more focused — it would be hilarious if it wasn’t tragic given how close it mirrors what’s happening in many Asian communities.

One parent screams that she’s sacrificing herself for her son. The protagonist tells her in her face that the truth is the opposite: She’s sacrificed her son for her own wishes.

If you’re an educator or a parent or, of course, a student I reckon this series is a must-watch. 

Even more so when Kim Mu-Yeol, just last week, shared that a teacher from Malaysia sent him a note thanking him for the series and noting that the struggles of teachers as portrayed in the show resonated with him.

Indeed, as it would.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.

JUNE 12 — Have you ever presented someone with facts or data which challenged his/her deeply held views, expecting the person to be responsive to the possibility that maybe he/she is not entirely right, only to have him/her doubling down and clinging even more strongly to his/her original belief?

I mean, I know right? 

And, c'mon, this happens with us too, doesn't it? A friend gives us three good reasons demonstrating that our political narrative is less solid than we think – and what do we do? We put up some Captain America shield and stand our ground even more!

Anyway, I recently discovered there is an official name for this phenomenon: the backfire effect. 

The phenomenon suggests that on certain hot-button issues – politics, religion, public health, or other polarised topics – people struggle (or refuse) to distinguish fact from fiction. 

Contradictory information does not always correct misconceptions; indeed, sometimes (or most of the time?) it reinforces them. 

If you've had a recent discussion on, say, vaccines or the Mid-East or US politics you'll 100 per cent know what I'm talking about. 

It's almost as if facts and arguments suddenly usher in some non-normal realm of reality.

Note that these are not cases where a person agrees with you but, for business or vested interests, she has to follow some party line. Example: cigarettes or alcohol or fried food sellers will understandably be less than enthusiastic when presented with facts about, say, the disease-causing properties of their products.

Social media algorithms can reinforce existing beliefs by repeatedly exposing users to information that aligns with their views while filtering out opposing perspectives. — Picture by Yusof Isa

Neither is this a case of information being too complex or complicated to understand, such that people cannot grasp the challenges to their beliefs (hence their non-change of mind).

No, these are cases where there simply are no rational reasons why someone would hold on even more strongly to an original position despite having no pushback or counter-evidence and what-not. 

Efforts to persuade in such cases simply achieve the opposite, back-firing, effect.

Unsurprisingly, backfire effects intensify in highly polarised environments and echo chambers, where information circulates in closed systems. 

Repeated exposure within like-minded groups amplifies beliefs, leading people to selectively accept information that aligns with their views while dismissing contradictions. 

It is also important to distinguish the Backfire Effect from healthy scientific scepticism. 

Researchers routinely question new data, iteratively test hypotheses, and demand rigorous evidence before changing conclusions. 

Not immediately accepting fresh information does not always signal stubbornness; it can reflect a responsible need for time to evaluate it thoroughly.

Why the doubling down?

Several factors appear to drive this reaction. The more emotionally invested we are in a belief – especially when it forms part of our core identity – the more defensive we become. 

Contrary evidence can feel like a personal attack, prompting us to treat it as hostile rather than informative. 

Social media curation algorithms have exacerbated this by creating personalised media cocoons. 

It is increasingly common to see people demonise others based solely on voting preferences or a single “liked” post. 

In such bubbles, individuals become extremely resistant to data that contradicts their narrative. 

There are moments when people simply lack the emotional or intellectual maturity to engage productively with facts which challenge their cherished beliefs.

It can even sometimes be reasonable for us to avoid correcting misinformation in order to prevent amplifying certain sources or adopting their framing.

Despite these risks, correcting basic facts and straightforward misinformation remains valuable and often effective. 

Hard data and statistics tend to work best because they shift the discussion from “intuition versus intuition” to “evidence versus evidence”. 

Fact-checkers should generally not shy away from corrections out of backfire fears, as these interventions improve belief accuracy even if they do not produce complete attitude change.

Two factors consistently enhance correction effectiveness: providing an alternative explanation for the misconception and offering detailed, evidence-based accounts. Both require time, patience, and careful communication from all involved. 

Ultimately, the Backfire Effect is not an excuse to abandon truth-seeking or civil discourse. 

It is a reminder of human psychology’s complexities – our identities, emotions, and social environments shape how we process information. 

In an age of abundant misinformation, understanding this effect equips us better to navigate disagreements. 

It calls for humility, persistence, and a commitment to evidence over ego. Facts may not always change minds instantly, but patient, well-crafted corrections can still move beliefs closer to reality – one calibrated step at a time.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.

JUNE 11 — Fascinating does not entirely encapsulate the insane stratagems underway in Johor and Negeri Sembilan’s elections. 

Granted they are extensions of national anxieties accelerated by these assembly polls.

The Election Commission (EC) meets tomorrow, June 12, to decide polling day, most likely around the World Cup final on July 20.

An overarching theme to the elections is identity politics and its grip on our national politics. 

The July vote counts will put to bed the notion, or not, that race gets an outsized say still in 2026 Malaysia. 

A litmus test of how far the country has come, and whether the spirit of 2022 reemerges.

It’s loud out there. The key developments involve the Perikatan Nasional's (PN) existential crisis, Barisan Nasional’s (BN) return to basics via induced amnesia and Pakatan Harapan’s hold to its tradition driven by DAP.  

Dancing around all this is Anwar Ibrahim, waiting without cutting ties with anyone.    

The grand unity plan

The Islamist PAS turned the heat up to maximum this week by announcing an end to co-operation with Bersatu. 

Yet, this decision does not mean its exit from PN. Read between the lines, PAS feels it took the relationship as far as possible and it’s time Muhyiddin Yassin’s troops vacated the PN residences. 

Funnily, Bersatu feels the same way. A classic separation with paperweights cum partner cum offspring Gerakan and Malaysian Indian People’s Party (MIPP) hoping beyond hope they do not get sent to orphanages.

PAS wants the new girlfriend Reset Malaysia to move in.

And also, extends invites to every Malay-first organisation. It rounded up Parti Pejuang Tanah Air (Pejuang), Parti Bumiputera Perkasa Malaysia (Putra), Parti Berjasa Malaysia (Berjasa) and Parti Perikatan India Muslim Nasional (Iman). Ibrahim Ali gets a lifeboat from his old PAS pals.

PAS reactivated Annuar Musa, former Umno secretary-general and now central committee member, to resuscitate Muafakat Nasional immediately. 

Ask Umno to submit to the greater good, the ultimate unity vehicle. Annuar says it does not matter what it is called as long as all Malay leaders come together, right now. I'd call it Trantor. 

Muafakat gets the firm support from Umno Youth Chief Akmal Saleh but not party president Zahid Hamidi.

Zahid is not amiss to sense PAS wants to overwhelm Umno’s current Rumah Bangsa with its even bigger ambition.

The author argues that the Johor and Negeri Sembilan elections are being driven by a contest over identity politics, with parties trying to outdo each other as more important issues are sidelined. — Picture by Firdaus Latif

PAS wants it all. Because lightweights Gerakan and MIPP are asked to stay despite them allowed zero input to the PAS manoeuvres. 

They are so light, they have to stay, less risk floating away to Neptune, or even as far as Trantor.

Do not misunderstand, the “others” parties are welcome but the goal is to be the unapologetic grand Malay-first coalition. Umno is welcome but this train is departing from the platform, either way.

This is PAS’ riposte to Bersatu, it builds a better supergroup than PN in 2022. Except despite the inroads in that general election for both PAS and Bersatu in the Semenanjung back then, the former did not win any parliamentary seats in Johor or Negeri Sembilan. 

PAS style does not click as much in the south but ambition they believe can take them across the finishing line.

PAS has a single strategy, that Malaysians have got even more polarised, especially the lower age-groups and they will heed the clarion call. That enough Malays will vote for the grand coalition. 

This is more PAS than PN, and the evidence is not only in the decision to use the party logo for Johor. 

It is more evident in how muted PN chairman Samsuri Mokhtar is, ceding authority to his party leaders Hadi Awang and Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man.

Umno gets mirrored

Up to June, when Onn Hafiz set a course for elections, Umno was on the up.

Its 80th anniversary, and the homecoming of who’s who in Malay politics. Even MCA and MIC were out partying in the streets, ready to collect seat victories on the shoulder of big brother.

They felt the only downside was the association with Pakatan inside the Madani government, and therefore the need to put distance between Umno and DAP.

That’s what they thought till PAS went into overdrive this week.

Now, they are in a race to rack up their Malay credentials as PAS and Reset Malaysia play up their romance for the sake of Malays under threat.

It has to politely shy away from PAS’ “true” Malay movement even if Akmal foolishly wills it. 

Expect the op-eds on how Pejuang, Iman and Putra saddling up beside PAS is insignificant. 

After all, as Gerakan Tanah Air (GTA), all three parties lost all deposits at the 2022 General Election. 

Yet, younger voters are a bother.

At the last state polls, with 55 per cent turnout, BN snatched 40 of the 56 seats, or 71 per cent. 

Eight months later at the general election when 73 per cent or an increase of over one million voters, BN only secured nine of the 26 seats (35 per cent). When more showed up, ostensibly more younger voters, BN suffered.

The Manchurian Test

In the 1962 thriller The Manchurian Candidate, a political candidate was brainwashed with a trigger word planted through hypnosis. 

That the candidate cannot help himself, the idea is too embedded in the person that once activated he can only do what he is programmed to do. 

Malaysia may have a degree of the Manchurian Candidate, in our case the voters, not the election candidates. 

That Malay voters — by virtue of living through lives dominated by PAS clerics and Umno right-wingers — cannot refuse the allure of the dream united Malay movement. That once triggered, everything else pales in significance.

For the sake of balance, let’s consider Johor’s challenges.

Facilitate the Johor- Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ) undertaking. While GDP growth exceeds the national average, electricity supply is not amped up to match the investment. 

This is central to the jobs creation venture to raise the state median monthly wage above the national median which is a couple of hundred above RM3,000. With better and higher paying jobs, the ability to own homes in an inflated market. 

While the Johor Economic Transformation Plan intends to raise the game at the other towns — Mersing, Segamat, Kluang and Batu Pahat for instance — it is still about the state capital region gobbling up growth.  

The RTS Link, the game-changer ,kicks off in 2027 but question marks ensue about the Johor end processing 40,000 passengers daily. 

If smooth travels from the Singapore end are met by bottlenecks on the Johor side, all may come to naught.

That’s just a short list, and insanely, none are campaign issues.

Both Umno-BN and PAS-Muafakat are convinced that the votes centre around who is more Malay dedicated and the Manchurian effect triggers as election day looms. 

Which means, if like in 2022, the online vitriol hits fever pitch to drown out all other considerations. 

Scare voters about the spectre of not-Malay enough winners, and therefore government.

There is a toll here. The sanity of the people. The Manchurian effect is about psychological trauma, in this case of entire peoples'. 

That people are constantly made to be afraid of dangers they cannot see and the need to suspend reason and to become completely tribal. 

These politicians forget that these people they milk for votes have to live between elections too. 

Living daily with the fear of the loss of Malay power leaves a regular person troubled. And fuels social ills. Not that the politicians care, they have elections to win. 

JUNE 10 — I'm off work this week and no, it's not because I went and lost my head and bought another plane ticket.

My house needs cleaning, my lawn needs weeding and my gardenia plant needs saving from a bad case of the mealybugs.

Next week I have a follow-up appointment with my surgeon to go over the results of my latest mammogram but next week is next week, this week I'm decluttering.

That includes my hobbies; I have belatedly discovered CEX and the joys of trading in my old video games for new video games.

I no longer game on anything but the Nintendo Switch 2 — it's portable, fairly powerful and was worth selling my older Switch for and I don't miss playing on mobile, PC or the PS5.

While I was cataloging what I had, I came to realise I have a fairly big library of digital games (curse those eShop sales) and a decent amount of physical ones.

Except maybe for the upcoming Fire Emblem release this year, I have a moratorium on buying more games and will attempt to clear at least half of my gaming backlog.

"Clearing" also means being able to be honest with myself about whether I will finish a game. 

First on my list A Short Hike — the reviews were great, the price was cheap and it seemed charming enough. You're a bird. With legs. Going on a hike.

But after two hours I got annoyed by all the puzzles, having to map routes, collect enough golden feathers to be able to scale cliffs and talk to increasingly annoying NPCs.

Maybe it was the cancer, but if I'm not doing things that I need to do (eat, show up for work) or want to do (nap, eat too many croissants) I have decided I will just not do them.

Do I need to finish A Short Hike? Do I want to finish it? No and no.

This Marie Kondo-ish approach also serves me well for house cleaning. Do I need this? Do I want this? Two no's and off it goes into the bin.

What do I want to do? Watch Masters of the Universe a second time because it is leaving the cinemas fairly early. Make a grilled cheese sandwich. Figure out how to make decent French toast. 

What do I not want to do? Give too much of a damn about current political machinations. 

The world turns. Politicians remain selfish and mostly stupid. I will tend my gardenias and focus on the more important things in life — like when the LRT3 will open so I don't have to spend 40 ringgit on return Grab fares to 1 Utama. 

Apart from that I will be playing another game — AI: The Somnium Files. I'll tell you about it next week.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JUNE 4 — The upcoming Johor state election like the Olympics focuses on the medal tally, with Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional trying to hog the limelight. 

Indeed, it will be a minor miracle if none of them hold the mentri besar post when the counting is done. 

Then why bother with the certain also-rans? Because how they fare determines whether they have a future. 

To know if they are set to be serious players in the general election — regardless if months away or in 2028. 

It can also decide if Malaysia is set to have four significant coalitions, or just three restructured ones. 

In the outside lanes

Muda, Bersama, Reset Malaysia and Pejuang can get to the starting line, but are they all just as keen?

Let’s read their vitals.

The easiest one first. 

Pejuang did contest in the last Johor polls in 2022. Forty-two races, trounced in all, losing all deposits. 

A picture of consistency when eight months later at the general election, they and all their allies under Gerakan Tanah Air lost every parliamentary and state race — 168 in total — and lost every deposit. They might have funded the Election Commission’s Xmas party. 

The humiliations included party president Mukhriq Mahathir and his dad, Mahathir Mohamad. 

Since the debacle Mahathir has left the party. He plays musical chairs in heading and advising a series of parties and movements bent on race first. He is still prominent in Pejuang’s promotional material even after ditching them. 

It’s probably far less difficult to explain quantum physics than to describe exactly what Pejuang is today and what purpose it serves. 

If they throw their hat in Johor and sustain their failure performance rate, when is it time to call it quits?

Pejuang wants to partner with others to be relevant. Unfortunately, the intended targets prefer Pejuang being irrelevant.

BN and Pakatan are non-starters and PN has too many suitors. At this pace, Pejuang might talk itself into oblivion. 

Muda won one state seat courtesy of co-operation with Pakatan in 2022, Puteri Wangsa. 

It’ll defend that one as president Amira Aisya Abdul Aziz (4A) is the incumbent and newly minted as party president. 

The tragedy, however, is that ex-president Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman remains a large shadow; Amira lacks charisma, and Saddiq produces more catchy youth content in a week than Muda has in the past three years. 

Its new leaders fumble most lines between saying they want youth, youth and youth, and then in the next breath urge all Malaysians to back them. 

They have an equally dysfunctional relationship with exclusivity as Umno has, only with colossally less history and victories. 

In its last election foray, the 2023 August polls — Perak, Penang, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan — all 19 Muda candidates lost their deposits. 

If Amira loses this time, and further loses her deposit, what is the party left with? 

Reset Malaysia, let’s be honest, is waiting for a suitable arrangement with PN before nomination day. 

PAS are stuck in a three way love fest, holding Bersatu with their right hand reluctantly and reluctant to let go Bersatu rebels on their left. 

Already PAS Info Chief Fadhli Shari has declared support for ex-Bersatu man Wan Saiful Wan Jan wherever he contests. That’s not an endorsement that makes Bersatu President Muhyiddin Yassin smile.

It was 39 days or almost six weeks between dissolution and nomination day in Sabah last year. 

Hamzah Zainudin’s motley crew face a countdown with no option to reset. Bersatu for their own survival will run down the clock and leave Hamzah ashen. 

PAS being PAS will expect the rest to conclude matters for them. Indecision will dominate and Muyiddin’s field marshall Azmin Ali cannot countenance parity for Hamzah’s unregistered group. 

And Hamzah won’t touch Pejuang with a long barge pole, which further isolates him. He understands best how home ministers tend to be massively unkind to those out of power, like himself. 

Not sure he’d be thrilled to use the mangosteen or tractor for his yikes, independent candidates!

The final outsider contestant is Bersama. Terengganu-born Rafizi Ramli is probably looking at the electoral roll and using several AI tools to spit out the right number of candidates to field. 

He is always convinced electoral victory is a formula away rather than a strong, consistent and honest message away. 

And PKR, already under fire, will want to squash its former deputy president. 

He’d be attacked by his own protege Akmal Nasir, the former PKR youth chief, Johor Baru MP and currently helming the ministry Rafizi exited. 

Akmal would be expected by the party to trample on Bersama. It is obvious that Bersama targets PKR seats. 

It is unfortunate Bersama is asked to contest so soon after kicking off but it cannot choose to shy away from this battle. 

(From left) Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad and Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli raise their hands together on stage during the official launch of the new political branding 'BERSAMA' (Together) at the PJ Performing Arts Centre in Petaling Jaya. May 17, 2026—Picture by Raymond Manuel

No podium, potential in being competitive

Firstly, the goal for these future champions or far too soon to disappear phenomenons is not to win the state but to establish a beachhead. 

Which of the four possess the nous to prevail?

Then look at the measures used to evaluate potential. 

The “candidate to deposit loss” ratio enables a plain view of survivability. Can one in eight voters dare support your party? 

Pejuang never recovered from 2022 and Muda from 2023. This is the figure used by the Internet to denigrate second tier parties. In politics it is better to be hated than to be laughed at. 

Second, exhibiting a spine in electoral arrangements, if it comes to it, matters plenty. Operating from a weakened position they cannot choose to ignore overtures. 

The outcome is beyond small players, as BN, Pakatan and PN dictate terms. 

But they cannot let the process chip away at their credibility. But being beggars shooed away from the negotiation table downgrades parties, demeans them. 

Muda was perpetually treated like that by Pakatan and if they think PN are a classier bunch, they are asking for a repeat.

Malaysians are aware the big boys prefer fewer players and use electoral pacts to bury the competition. 

Eighteen years ago Parti Sosialis Malaysia was unregistered but had an MP and assemblyman each thanks to a partnership with Pakatan. 

Last year, as a registered party but long ignored by Pakatan, it mustered 6 per cent in Perak’s Ayer Kuning’s by-election and lost the deposit. 

The reality check for PSM is that compared to recent years’ outcomes, Ayer Kuning was not a horrible result. 

Strangely, Bersama has a chance to fail spectacularly but impress a nation. Rafizi is the only politician east of Mandalay who identifies himself as a kamikaze and thinks that’s a good thing. 

Spoiler alert, the Japanese did damage the enemy in the Second World War using kamikaze pilots but ultimately lost the war. But Rafizi was a boarding school Malay language debater, those sorts do not let facts get in the way of a story. 

In pursuit of a beautiful defeat, he might spark interest in his party. But that’s the conundrum, he needs to excite people about his party, not just him. 

Which means the candidates and their stories. They are the ones who need to run into machine-gun fire in a ritual of democratic zeal. But that’s not Rafizi’s style. 

Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad is the natural number two to him not because they were long-time PKR leaders, short-lived ministers and alumni of Malay College, but rather due to Nazmi being happy to let Rafizi corner the attention. 

Though, Rafizi might ultimately prove all of us wrong. 

Say Rollo Tomassi

In the first-past-the-post dynamics of our Westminster Parliamentary system, it is a high bar to clear for a party to survive infancy. 

Until 2008, the country had half a century of a fixed coalition against under-strength and divided opponents. Almost a one-party nation. 

By 2020 we accelerated through deceit and backroom deals, into a three-way game. 

Parliamentary democracies naturally limit themselves to two sides until untidy and quick splinters occur which crowd the field and frustrate voters.

Johor may be the first of several obstacles to test the mettle of the established three and the newer players. 

For the former, to top the game, for the latter, to stay in the game. In a cruel way, it is far harder for the pretenders to stay relevant than for the big three to win.  

For the four, it is also auditions. Notch up support for themselves or increase voter turnout or turn into Internet sensations, then the big three have to consider partnerships. 

And from there to the general. There are too many moving parts for now. 

They all won’t hurt their chances if they put on their strategy wall throughout this election this reminder: Go big or go home!

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JUNE 3 — The summer solstice falls on June 21 this year.

I am told we should expect hotter weather as El Nino returns; saw someone saying that no South-east Asian can be trusted who says their favourite season is summer.

Yet as spring dissipates it feels as though I have come out of hibernation.

With the warmer season inching closer my body seems to welcome it even through the discomfort and the menopausal experience of always feeling as though my internal oven is stuck at “burning”.

The political temperature in the country is also rising.

State assemblies are dissolving, politicians are retiring, new political parties and coalitions are emerging or re-emerging.

Two years from my fiftieth decade, I understand now that we can only understand life through cycles. What lives must die, what starts must end and sometimes the same old things come back around.

Yet new cycles can still appear alongside new ideas, new hopes and new crisis. 

My dysfunctional left shoulder blade is slowly regaining mobility and I find myself reaching out with my left arm, no longer fearing sharp pain.

It seems like such a small thing to be able to just stretch for my water bottle with my left hand and yet each time it still feels like a miracle. 

Less than two months ago I would have to turn all the way to my left, picking things up with my right arm because my left side might as well have been made of stone.

All things must pass, whether weather or sorrow. — Picture by Erna Mahyuni

Countless stretches and exercises seemed to have, to my eye, barely any effect but I tried them anyway even resorting to acupuncture which seemed to finally start the breaking of the glacier that was my arm.

There is still a lot of pain.

I wake up during the night feeling aches all over my arms, along my thighs, feel the stiffness of my ankles and the soreness of my hip joints.

Yet I do not take painkillers. It is no debilitating pain, just the aches of a body still learning to move again, and despite the constant discomfort it reminds me that I am alive.

Like the final day of my trip to Taipei when after days of constant rain without even the shortest break, the sun finally came out on that last morning.

I walked across the grounds of Huashan Creative Park and sat on the benches that were too wet for me a few days ago.

No coat was needed to shelter me from damp or raindrops, just the sun, the breeze and clouds that stretched across the blue, reminding me of Sabah’s cloud-painted skies.

Everything must end, I know, and now I am hopeful that includes my living as a stiff mannequin wrapped in flesh.

One day I will be able to dart down stairs quicker, not wince while I’m trying to zip up my dress, and be able to run without feeling like my thighs are made of horse jerky left out too long, stiff and unmalleable.

For now I am happy for every day where I feel or think about the pain a little bit less and welcome the sun even as it burns because if the phoenix can rise from the heat, from the fiercest of fires, so, I hope, will I.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

JUNE 2 — PhD programmes in the country remain quite the rage. Government initiatives like MyBrain 2.0 (or MyPhD) and visa options like Graduate Pass have ensured a steady stream of local and foreign post-graduate students into our academic institutions.

While, as a whole, the increase in the number of PhD graduates should bring a net gain to our country, some issues have already arisen chiefly of which is the high number of unemployed doctoral scholars.

But I want to focus on another pressing issue usually associated with post-graduate programmes, especially PhDs. 

I’ve spent about six years working with post-graduate students and one non-negotiable statistic stands out: The part-timers as a whole do worse than the full-timers.

Yes, yes there are exceptions of course. But these always prove the rule which is that if you’re going to do an MBA, DBA, PhD, etc. your chances of successful completion (within, oh, 20 years or less) rise by a whole lot if you skip the part-time groove and jump in full-time.

One huge problem with part-time is the nasty existence of Parkinson’s Law i.e. that work expands (or, in our context, delays?) to fill up the time available for its completion. 

Put simply, the more time is given the more work people will feel they need to do simply because of the extended duration.

A cute analogy is the average buffet breakfast at any hotel. On a normal day we eat our breakfasts based on our budget and our daily habits which, I guess, would usually be one portion or so. 

According to the author, while, as a whole, the increase in the number of PhD graduates should bring a net gain to our country, some issues have already arisen chiefly of which is the high number of unemployed doctoral scholars. ― AFP file pic

But if we were to stay a few nights at some fancy hotel, suddenly our breakfasts are potentially unlimited since it’s a buffet.

Ditto, the makan version of Parkinson’s Law! (see note 1)

However, I think the problem with a part-time PhD isn’t even that more work actually gets done; it’s the perception slash delusion that one needs to do more (because of the extended time), all of which eventually produces hopelessness and despair. Result? The candidate drops out.

Because a PhD already involves a lot of work as it is. There are the (usually) extensive amounts of reading involved because how do you jump-start an investigation without first knowing what’s relevant, what’s pertinent, what’s already been found, what’s being studied, who the key players and writers are, what’s considered “acceptable” research in the field, what methods are endorsed, future trends and so on.

If holding a PhD in some topic renders you an expert, how can a wannabe expert not spend the requisite time absorbing what every other expert more or less takes for granted on the topic?

Hence, unless we’re going to give up academic integrity and just ask Gemini or DeepSeek to write our 70,000+ words for us, we absolutely need to put the time in to draft out what we have to say.

Like building the Great Wall of China, it’s one brick — or, in this case, one word — at a time. And that’s a whole lot of “bricks” a PhD student has to lay down.

And all this is without the psychological curveball of Parkinson’s Law!

A part-time PhD would, by all accounts, insert this law into a student’s psyche and make that Great Wall feel like an even greater one.

Now for the bad news.

Part-time PhD candidates are usually part-timers because they have a full-time job on their hands. 

This means not only less time to work on their academic research (duh), it also means less “mindshare” or emotional leverage to focus on their theoretical background or literature reviews or what-not.

Hence, again, why in a globe where the average drop-out rate of PhD programmes is 40-50 per cent, part-timers have a categorically higher risk of non-completion than full-timers.

So am I suggesting that you either do a full-time PhD or not at all?

Well, obviously not.

I hope this piece helps as a reminder that when you have more time on your hands (for something as complex as a PhD) it means that time management becomes even more important. 

Make no mistake: A PhD done part-time is more challenging than one done full-time.

Ensure the structure and scope. Don’t allow anyone, not even your supervisor, to tell you to take all the time you need. 

Make sure your thesis is worked out relatively well from the start. Give yourself no mercy on the chapter deadlines. Heck, ask your boss for a sabbatical if possible.

Think and study like a full-timer whatever the official university acceptance letter states.

Don’t let Parkinson’s Law derail your research. All the best.

Note 1: Parkinson’s Law is also displayed every day by every major IT system-integration project that budgets years and years to implement a new system for their organisation. 

Somehow the lesson is never learnt that the longer you “let” a project continue, the more it will be hit with complications and problems.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MAY 28 — Speed, agility and strength are quintessential in track and field’s triple jump events, but all comes to nought without rhythm.

Hop too soon and lose out on distance, worry too much about distance and forget about the step then everything goes off colour, and let’s not even get into the need for a final explosive leap. Rhythm cuts through. A bit zen-like.

Malaysian elections are like that and Anwar Ibrahim understands rhythm better than all in the field presently.

It also helps that he is the only person who knows when the next general election is. He gets to set the pace.

His experience and bitter education with rhythm is evidenced in his meteoric rise, catastrophic fall and prolonged impatient wait to lead the country. They aid him to read the electorate.

He did join Umno in the same year he was named a candidate, won his family’s traditional seat and became a deputy minister in 1982. 

Devastating PAS which felt he was odds-on — not that the party members gamble — set to be a PAS member before eloping with the great enemy.  

He did grab Umno’s deputy president post by the scruff of the neck with the dexterity of a seasoned pro in around 10 years. 

He would have replaced Mahathir Mohamad sooner if he did not mistime his belligerence before the millennium. It probably reinforced a degree of caution in him.

He spent the next 24 years — some behind bars — working around the various administrations’ strategies and tactics.

Anwar holds the cards now, and he is not going to show them until he absolutely has to. 

But news and events are percolating, and the prime minister’s reactions to them are strong indicators that elections are likely to be in 2027.

The author argues that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is carefully timing the next general election around the political rhythms and weaknesses of rival coalitions, with signs pointing towards a 2027 poll rather than an earlier contest. ― Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

Everybody Wang Chung Tonight

The three main Semenanjung coalitions are at different stages today.

Perikatan Nasional’s spine PAS faces an impossible choice to either stay with Bersatu or back its emergent splinter group. 

In its usual default, it lets rancorous divisions with Muhyiddin Yassin’s leadership play out rather than be decisive about it. 

PAS are masters of passive aggressive politics which paves the way to deny they were responsible for any misgivings. 

In their after the fact narrative, it was forced upon them therefore they are innocent and maintain their purity of intent.

Snubs, olive branches, cynical statements, de-escalations, confusions and frustrations will dominate the space until either Muhyiddin’s crew or Hamzah Zainudin’s — if he sorts out his vehicle — is preferred by PAS. 

The Islamists can only replicate 2022’s results if they have moderates with them, like in Padang Serai, Bagan Serai, Kuala Langat or Jasin. They need the dark blue of PN on the ballot paper when in the west coast.

Either way, it’s a protracted process, the choosing simply due to PAS’ nature to eschew it.

Meanwhile, Barisan Nasional is riding high. Rumah Bangsa recruitment, the Negeri Sembilan standoff, the Johor solo resolve complete with its mentri besar apologising to the party president consolidates inwards to display renewal, separation from Pakatan Harapan and readiness to helm the country.

In this GE16 race, there is little doubt BN is pace-setting with the chasing pack a bit behind.

Which begs the question, how far behind is Pakatan under PKR’s leadership?

The Reformasi party reshuffled its election preparedness, lifting the Selangor Mentri Besar as co-election director, leaving more queries about deputy president Nurul Izzah Anwar’s exact role rather than the fluff of overseeing strategic development and grassroots development. 

A new war-room is up and running with Anwar’s political secretary Azman Abidin heading it.

The numbers continue to circulate about PKR’s chances in a general election. Mood matters, and PKR won’t want an election when people feel its support is suspect.

Key partner and electoral safety net DAP however has a plan A, B and C with a readiness for any eventuality. 

It fears losing its credibility, and the July 12 party congress is interested in the soul of the party rather than its place in the federal Cabinet. DAP may ask more of Anwar before the year ends.

There are nuances within the PKR-DAP relations but it remains not frayed.

Anwar sees Umno is ahead in preparations despite PN lighting itself up and screaming in its flames. 

Is he caught unawares or since he has a date in mind knows Umno-BN is premature and PN can continue its cremation?

Scheduling, scheduling, scheduling

First week of June will be done when the last Raya Haji holiday-maker’s car arrives back in the city, and the countdown to the World Cup begins. 

The final is played on July 20, and once the euphoria dies down the Merdeka month energy kicks in until mid-September.

The window for a general election is between late September till November ends. And thereafter holidays and year-end merriments compete for space.

If the Anwar administration straddles the situation calmly and weathers the global oil supply, he has no pressure to go to the polls before 2027.

And 2027, politically, only kicks off in April, since the fasting month followed by Raya fills up both February and March.

Perhaps this was in Anwar’s mind all along.

That Umno runs out of overexuberance by year-end. It’s a party that requires enough rope to hurt itself. Anwar might be supplying it.

A few more unfortunate decisions in court, or trouble with the palaces or outright power struggles cannot be ruled out. 

There are a lot of forced smiles inside the party presently. And at some point, Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar’s turns to speak plaudits about the most excellent Zahid Hamidi and his leadership of purpose and integrity which is beyond reproach may turn the population vertigo. And accelerate Planet Zygo’s invasion of earth.

Parallelly, PKR picks up steam with a bevy of good news from around October beginning with the Budget. Pardon, election Budget.

Which is why this column is convinced he is preparing his hop, step and jump for 2027 rather than 2026. 

If events beyond his control force it this year, there is real fear that the Pakatan campaign is off-tempo, and the seat count proves it.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MAY 27 — I’ve been a Tottenham Hotspurs supporter since 2001 and every year when my friends and I discuss football my joke is, hey, as long as Spurs isn’t relegated this season I’ll be happy.

Little could I have imagined, especially back in the glory-power days of Dimitar Berbatov, Robbie Keane, Gareth Bale, Harry Kane, etc. that my beloved football team would have to fight all the way to the final day of the season to see if they can stay in the English Premier League.

With a huge sigh of relief, I’m glad to say that it worked out well. Spurs beat Everton 1-0 at home, their first home win in 10 games, to seal 17th place and stay in the league. West Ham, Burnley and Wolves were relegated instead.

What a ride it’s been.

Some time in mid-March it became clear to many folks that the reigning Europa League champions could face the very prospect of being kicked out of English football’s top tier.

Spurs had already fired Thomas Frank who, whilst beginning the league strongly, had left Spurs languishing around 15th place with about 2.5 months to go before the season ends.

They replaced him with Igor Tudor in an attempt to bring a respectful end to the season.

However, a 0-3 defeat to Nottingham Forest sealed Tudor’s fate and the club’s leadership removed Tudor (after seven matches in charge) and brought on Roberto De Zerbi.

This last-ditch attempt was Tottenham’s last play. There’s no Door Number 3. The season was almost at a close and very few (if any) managers would be willing to take on such a responsibility to drag a famous club away from the brink.

De Zerbi didn’t start well. His first game was a 1-0 away defeat to Sunderland (despite Spurs being on the attack consistently), followed by a 2-2 draw with Brighton (where a last-minute mistake by Kevin Danso cost Spurs precious two points.

Things only took a promising turn in late April when De Zerbi managed back-to-back wins, both away, against Wolves (Spurs’ first league win of 2026!) and Champions League contenders Aston Villa.

A big screen displays a thank you message to Tottenham Hotspur players after the Premier League match against Everton at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, Britain on May 24, 2026. — Reuters pic

By this time, also given West Ham’s poor form, Spurs had gradually moved out of the relegation zone (which they waded into for a while) but they weren’t safe yet.

A draw with Leeds and a defeat to Chelsea (again, despite playing well) left the relegation battle down to the wire.

The final win against Everton, thankfully, held off the unthinkable. And the Spurs can go marching on for another season.

Nevertheless, the real work must begin now. As De Zerbi said during his post-match interview, there are lots and lots of changes required.

Read between the lines, the manager said that about half the team isn’t showing enough commitment. This is drastic and absolutely must be addressed.

The Tottenham Board must repair a perennial mistake and spend good money on world-class players, players who can ensure the team doesn’t face a relegation battle next March.

Overall, the 25/26 season has been like a wilderness experience. It’s brought about pain and desolation which normally produces only two outcomes: hopelessness and despair or determination to better one self.

I know I speak for all Spurs fans that we hope the club has learnt well from the past year to take the latter route. Come On You Spurs.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MAY 27 — When you begin to understand that endings and outcomes are out of your control, that only your effort is what you can determine, life, and decisions, get easier.

I have found that just letting my nose, and not Google, decide where to eat serves me pretty well when I’m in a strange place.

A café opened in a PJ mall and I rightly predicted it wouldn’t last long.

It served coffee and pastries but when I walked past it, I could smell neither.

A place I used to frequent for its bamboo noodles is now off my list because the store is now poorly-ventilated, the air stale, the ghosts of old smells lingering and what used to be a bustling eatery is now nearly empty at lunch time.

How awful it must be to be on holiday and have a cold.

Scent, as much as taste, determines the level of enjoyment when it comes to food and in Taiwan I followed scents but also sounds, the crackle of scallion pancakes on griddles, the busy clatter of rice bowls and spoons and where there is no sound, nor good scent, there can be no good food.

Yu Chocolatier was what I’d hoped it would be — a chocolate and dessert place good enough to make me call an Uber.

I am cursed (some say blessed) with a rich person’s palate in a peasant’s body because I can taste the difference between a cheap or fake chocolate and ones that would make me cry as I hand over my card.

Yu’s specialty is bonbons, the chocolatier’s founder being so enamoured with chocolate in his teens that he tried, as a teen, to learn the secrets of its making at home.

What bonbons would you like, they asked.

Surprise me, I said.

They did. I am glad I don’t live in the city; in a few weeks I would soon resemble a bonbon.

In Taipei you can find comfort food in rice and chicken or fine pastries. — Picture by Erna Mahyuni

With chocolate you need to get the ratios right, with bonbons you need the chocolate to be at just the right level of sweetness to counter the bitterness of cocoa.

You don’t want the chocolate to be overly thick, nor too insubstantial. It needs to last just long enough so you can savour the notes as you would a good wine, with a taste that would linger just enough to be memorable.

I also ordered the dessert of the day. It was a decadent, gorgeous creation with a fancy name I cannot remember but I do recall that it was pleasing and as lovely to taste, though not as lovely as the bonbons, as it looked.

I only visited one night market when I was in Taipei as I didn’t think my legs would be able to endure them for too long.

Yet I forgot how sore my legs were and I walked miles before I realised my endurance was spent, hunting down food like it was prey.

I walked through markets, through quiet streets, up stairs, past rows and rows of shoplots, never stopping until I found something worth stopping for.

By chance I happened on this stall that had won a Michelin star at Ningxia Night Market the 方家雞肉飯 (Fang Jia shredded chicken on rice).

It doesn’t look like much. A small quarter-cup of rice, with shredded chicken drenched in sauce on top, with little else.

Yet when I sat there, in the compianable presence of locals, it felt like the best thing on earth to have.

It’s so easy to eat, the warm, savoury combination of soft meat with rice just what you could appreciate after a long day though the uncle next to me ordered a couple of other dishes to have along with his bowl.

After finishing my bowl, the air felt less cold, my bones less grating and I could forget, for a while, the melancholy that dogged me in my final months of treatment.

Warm food in my belly on a cool night out, the simplest of pleasures.

The first place I would probably go to when or if I go back to Taipei is however NAKA Taipei, a lovely little coffee place with interesting combinations.

It is my only regret that I could not taste all the coffee on its menu because one needs to sleep after all.

The lychee long black at NAKA is an unlikely delight of a pairing; I was expecting something odd or cloying, but no, it’s like they made a long black with the spirit of a lychee drink, refreshing on even the warmest of days.

I also tried their tiramisu latte, which is also another surprising combination of dessert and coffee, each mouthful like drinking liquid tiramisu but in the best possible way.

They say food is best shared with company but sometimes, if the food is good enough, it is enough to keep your heart warm even when there is just one seat at the table.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MAY 21 — A free society dances to the beat of civil disagreements. The presence of differences embodies, nay, advertises such a society.

However, a tedium-bent segment objects to free society’s vibrancy. It is disruptive, in their estimation. 

Better to silence people for their own good is their thinking. Acceptance and subservience maintain the path to peace. They also probably eschew rock and roll.

They prefer if Malaysia is less free. Far less free. It appears, unfortunately, hardly anyone stands up to them. 

In their own minds, it is the freedom which fosters discontent and threatens fixed values.  

It invites us to dissect the cacophony of voices inside the typical free society. And ask, are these detractors correct? After all, a free society is decidedly noisy.

This, this and this, you ignoramus

The anatomy of a civil argument is as follows.

Let the other fellow speak just as much as you, quiz the opinion. Once both are aware or made aware of each other’s argument, they have choices, a myriad of them. 

A free society thrives on civil disagreements, where differences are part of its vibrancy. — Bernama pic

To switch opinions, to clarify their position, to admit to the glaring weaknesses of their position, rebut, present fresher arguments. 

At the end, and it can feel a lifetime at times, they look each other in the eye, and if unable to recognise or concede, instead end up more opposed, then they can walk away from each other.

Adamant he is talking to a fool, while the other bloke stares at his rival’s retreating back and sniggers about the departing fool. 

But in the best of debates, few concede the whole argument. The ego overwhelms. Maybe later, sipping tea at home, both wander through the opponent’s rationales and admire them more than either wishes to admit. 

Neither is better for agreeing or disagreeing, no, both are in better stead because now better informed about the issue, regardless on which side. 

Better informed is a universe better than sticking to your guns in order to protect an idea.

This is for disagreements in person, in a legislative chamber, in a social media post comment section.

Agree, disagree, everyone ends up in bed. To toss and turn, and even deeply unhappy about your opponent’s ideas. But no one dies.

The other option, which dominated most of human history, involves body counts.

Might determines outcomes in the alternative. Opponents quickly turn into combatants. 

If in a restaurant, stab each other with dinner knives till one yields or in the case of gentlemen of a certain social standing of a different millennia ask to meet at dawn with pistols.

Or in the strong state, investigations and witch-hunts ensue.

There are no pretty choices in physical altercations to determine the correctness of positions. 

If this was extended to a whole nation or people, it’s war or riot. Imagine the Somme or Mahabharata's Kurukshetra, and the LA 1992 riots or our own May 13, 1969 for the latter.

They only bring regret.

I really hate you, are you staying for drinks?

A free society prides in its inhabitants possessing severe antithetical views, diametrically opposed on a range of issues, yet sturdy and resilient to not let those differences compromise the state’s integrity. 

To understand that the very nature of man is to hold differing opinions — from the very central like who must rule, to the personal like who can die or kill, or the silly but at times really personal like who gets relegated from a football league. 

Since disagreements are to follow man, even in the absence of a state, it is in man’s interest and his safety to find means to manage disagreements.

Either to stifle him to prevent disagreements which were always prohibitive, now made impossible by the AI age, or to set the rules of engagement.

Which leads to the background we choose for these inevitable disagreements.

Is a free society desirable?

Only Malaysians can answer whether we are in a free society, or that we rather not be free in our society. Or the existential whether this is our society to begin with.

There are those who claim freedom is subject to predetermined societal norms. 

I disagree. I do agree though they have a right to disagree with my disagreement. I earnestly believe, my free state exists beyond the confines of my mind.

If my side prevails, they get to argue with me and my ilk ad infinitum, till the end of existence.

If their preferred reality triumphs, those like me are made to shut up, full stop. Like Orwell’s “imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

I’ll shut myself up by winning

Like this conservative I know who yaps daily in my WhatsApp group, filling up 20 per cent of chat space and dominates with his inane links. 

He rails against the excesses of freedom, liberty and pluralism, without any self-reflection in the irony of these ideas which defend and protect his right to flood other people’s timelines.

And as much as it annoys me, and boy oh boy, those words annoy me to the tip of the Kilimanjaro, it exhilarates me that I live in a society where the most annoying, impudent, ignorant and tone-deaf get their chance, get their voice. 

And those who are of the same inclination, gather around the campfire even if to listen to each other vilify humanity.

The Internet has done far more to champion Article 10 of our Constitution, the right to associate, than the government since formation through its agencies like the Registrar of Societies, Election Commission and RTM.

Democratised Malaysian homes

Senior citizens recall the various ways their parents physically beat them, with wistful nostalgia. 

Young parents today gallop left and right to persuade the children to correct behaviour, also reverting to bribes if all fails.

When new Malaysians are raised to speak up, even for the wrong reasons, how are they to accept a state that wants to reduce public disagreements and ardently wants complete support of the state view? Modern parents are literally pushing their kids to ask why?

And they do.

A culture of asking why is the fertiliser for civil disagreements. Malaysian parents are populating a free society, which is the upbeat ending for this session which started with an ask, to dance. To actively disagree and see it as a societal strength. 

Malaysian leaders have to stop asking people to stop asking, and rather listen and explain. Be ready for the civil disagreement. Be ready to be a member of a free society.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MAY 20 — “Would you like a cup of tea?”

It was not a question I expected, as I stood there at the entrance of SunnyHills Café in Taipei, bedraggled and a little damp after trying (and failing) to figure out the city’s buses.

Just 20 minutes prior to arriving at the cafe a harried bus driver had yelled at me for taking too long to get off the bus.

My post-cancer treatment legs were still too stiff; going down steps was and still is a painful affair and while the pain has ebbed a little, the stiffness keeps rushing back like waves to sand.

So I wasn’t angry at the bus driver, I couldn’t even understand what he was saying.

But from his frustrated tone, I get that he was upset.

If I was a much older woman, if I still had a bald head and cane, perhaps he might have been a little more patient or perhaps not.

As hard as it is sometimes to deal with a physical facade that does not match my reality (“You look good/You’re all better now, right?”), I will take the stiff legs, the awkward halting steps, the ever present pain as trophies hard-won, souvenirs from a battle where I claimed the ultimate prize — coming out alive. 

Yesterday I woke up and my left shoulder felt lighter than it had in over six months and I rolled my arm around and around, hearing the clicking of my shoulder blade as if it had finally come to life, like a thawing of ice after a long winter.

Back to my cup of tea.

I am used to the usual “CanIhelpyou?” I get at Malaysian stores that actually mean “Are you here to buy something, I hope you’re here to buy something, I’m here for you if you buy something.”

Instead the pleasant staffer asked if I wanted tea, and when I said yes, ushered me to a long, polished wooden table, with many seats as though prepared for not just one mussed and confused visitor but as many as could make it.

Sometimes all it takes is a cup of tea to warm the soul. — Pictures by Erna Mahyuni

On a little plate was a pineapple tart, the Taiwanese kind, a slender, rectangular cube, still in its wrapping and next to it, a cup of a pleasant oolong tea.

I should have asked what kind of tea it was but instead I sank into a chair to have my tea and tart.

There’s a very good reason SunnyHills pineapple tarts often win in local “what is the best pineapple tart” polls.

Part of it is the pastry. You can taste the butter, good butter at just the right ratio to keep the shell moist and the filling, ah, you wish local pineapple pastries could come close.

The filling is generous and the flavour gets the right mix of not being overly tart nor overly sweet but I confess I love the apple tarts most.

My friend says the reason SunnyHills’ tarts taste so good is that they use only pineapple instead of substituting in some wintermelon.

I think that’s only part of the charm. What the tarts get right is that lovely mouthfeel where you get just the right amount of dough and filling with each bite, without leaving a doughy aftertaste or an unpleasant overly sour flavour from poorly prepared pineapple jam.

There was no attempt to immediately ask me why I was there or to show me what they had in-store, the wares were on display after all.

When I looked curiously at the apple tarts, the salesperson asked if I would like a sample and I said, sure.

She handed me a whole tart.

Bear in mind, Taiwanese pineapple tarts are the length of my palm and thick as two fingers and being the typical Malaysian who is used to free samples being the size of a fingernail, this was an unexpected bounty.

So you see, dear reader, you can hardly blame me for buying two boxes of tarts, some banana waffle biscuits and a gift set of tarts for the friend who was the reason I was there in the first place.

She had asked me, “Are you going to SunnyHills? No pressure.”

I said, “Well, I could.” I could and I did, because my itinerary was as loose and as free as the passing clouds. 

After looking at my receipts, I realised I wasn’t even charged for the cup of tea, nor was there a fee for the tart that accompanied it and of course, the apple tart sample was free too.

Perhaps it was hospitality.

Perhaps they just knew that once you tasted their tarts, you wouldn’t be able to resist taking some home with you.

If there is one memory I will hold most dear about Taipei, it is that one cup of tea and the kind of simple hospitality you don’t get as much in big cities so when you do find it, when you’re standing on shaky legs in the rain, it’s something to savour, like you would a very good, buttery tart.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MAY 14 — Have you seen the number of school books kids in national schools (from as young as Standard 1) are required to bring to school? 

Some of them look like they’re hauling luggage in the airport for a two-month trip in Rome. Is all this backpack-like activity helpful for the spines and backs of eight- and nine-year-olds? 

Most importantly, is there some reason why e-textbooks remain like something from the far future? Have we not entered the digital age like, uh, two decades ago?

Note that at present the only government initiative on digital textbooks is DELIMa (Digital Education Learning Initiative Malaysia, see note 1). This is the Ministry of Education’s main digital learning portal (rebranded from earlier MOE Digital Learning efforts post-Frog VLE). 

It provides access to hundreds of digital textbooks along with other resources like interactive modules, videos, and tools from partners such as Google, Microsoft, and Apple.

However, this platform is only a supplementary or optional resource for most primary and secondary schools. Long and short, students still need to lug their backpack-like bags to school almost every day.

More than a decade ago marketing author Seth Godin already proposed that schools produce PDF versions of textbooks, send these to kids and update them as and when necessary. 

Also, with the explosion of video lessons, interactive learning websites, educational games, etc you really wonder if buying (let alone hauling) huge textbooks is absolutely necessary at all.

Tech guru Kevin Kelly even talked about the screening phenomenon in which the future will consist of accessing information, images and messages from “wherever” (phone, office walls, traffic junctions, etc.), after which they can do mash-ups, share their work, etc. 

In light of the advent of such a tech-soaked society, are physical textbooks really the best we can do? 

Shouldn’t the education sector be preparing our kids where the ‘book’ is no longer delimited by physical binders, where information flows (from producer to producer) rather than remain static? 

Shouldn’t the education sector be preparing our kids where the ‘book’ is no longer delimited by physical binders, where information flows (from producer to producer) rather than remain static?  — Bernama pic

Isn’t the preference for physical textbooks (as opposed to e-textbooks) analogous to being stuck in an era of Encyclopædia Britannica (as opposed to Wikipedia)? 

And need we even remind ourselves about the advent of AI and how that may completely transform education very, very soon?

Finally, wastage is a serious issue. Year after year, new copies (as in thousands and thousands of them) of the same books are printed then chucked aside after the final exam. 

It would appear the only beneficiary of that are the book-sellers; the rest of society picks up the cost of this externality.

Quite a few private schools have already chucked aside physical textbooks. When will our public schools follow suit?

Check out DELIMa’s website at https://delima.moe-dl.edu.my/

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MAY 14 — We are shaped by our past.

Anyone walking past a university’s history department would half expect to come across a poster like that. Nothing gaudy like dinosaurs or Roman slaves rowing a galleon as backdrop pictures but it is not hard to imagine. The poster, not T-Rex or abused collaterals.

However, hardly anyone has a carbon copy recollection of “what occurred before” exactly like another person in the same room, even in a very large room, say the population size of a metropolis. In its very nature, history is divisive.  What is less mentioned, it is deeply personal.

Ask 10 persons in a family about a commotion 10 years ago and various accounts are produced. That’s one family. 

Multiply that by the millions living and dead over an average of a 150 years across two parts of Malaysia which is equal to the size of Germany, then imagine the infinite number of accounts to reconcile when historians try to figure out our federation. Historically, speaking.

Easy answers are a mirage. Easy answers when compiled is historical absolutism because it is lazy. Yet easy answers are what Malaysian governments tend to rely on and dish out to us.

Being a history aficionado it thrills to know there’s a massive interest uptick, recently. 

However, the enthusiasm seems less “want to learn” and instead morphs into “See, we are right” vacillations. Suffice to say, humility is constantly absent.

They are history rebels rather than history buffs, because the historical absolutism nauseates. They go off the state approved grid by going to the Internet.

Time to enter the vault to open the imaginary time capsule.

The controlling present

How fiction is treated provides an insight to how facts are filtered constantly.

Spectacularly, our fiction is obsessively contained. Made-up stuff inside novels require approval, to protect the people from threats. If even fantasy is policed, consider the paranoia about details of the past.

This leads to what are state sanctioned history facts.

Malaysians are constantly asked to respect the official account, which the government releases, and alters occasionally. Remember the time we were informed the country was never colonised to fit an ongoing separate political narrative?

Official account is truth — those in power insist — because it is official and from the officially appointed departments. Our officials can go all day and night repeating the mantra about how official “data” is true “data”.

So, to belatedly expect academia to have a spine is disingenuous. The only historians allowed to have a successful academic career are those willing to dispense with their spines.

The cynical view, those who contradict the “official” version reach their glass ceiling far quicker.

Inside the confines of academic forums, symposiums and exchanges, a degree of latitude exists, but when it is presented in our syllabus it better be close if not a printout of the official version.

How history is taught in schools affects the tone Malaysians hold. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

The masses roam the Internet

This context is necessary when examining the chaotic study of the past among Malaysians.

Indoctrinated in their school years, restrained in their university years, conditioned by a dominant state media, now that they can ask their best bud Anthropic or ChatGPT, they behave like children let loose in a toy store.

Can they be blamed?

In the information age, our government is adamant to tell the people rather than to discuss with the people.

History is sanitised to a painful conclusion. Those in power have always been right. Those who are not in power receive less adulation. This is a country without any regrets, just ups and more ups, according to our leaders.

Resulting in two types of Malaysians. Those who swallow whole the state’s interpretation. And the others, the growing segment, are disillusioned and search for their own absolute version. 

And no, while the dissenting group grows by the news cycle, it is also at odds with itself. Disagreements are rife. All absolutely fixed on their version and aghast at alternative takes.

Remember this…

How history is taught in schools affects the tone Malaysians hold.

Ironically, my best history teacher back in school was the most openly racist. Mr Thiru was the most colourful for the life lessons he imparted. 

Mrs Foo for witnessing Ah Pit punch the living daylights out of Shamsula — which was history in its own way.  

On that same token Mr Baharuddin for smashing Shamsula’s face the year before. 

Learning history was easiest with Mrs Maimun. Knowing institutionalised racism is also easy through Mrs Maimun.

The temptation is to ask students to memorise. To her credit, Mrs Maimun made us live history in our classroom, even if it was primarily from her point of view.

History is about talking about it. I recoil reading comments that being reminded of the past only opens unnecessary wounds. Where is the fine print that learning should not hurt?

I cringe when people claim the past is so definitive that the only sane thing to do is to accept it verbatim. If the Americans never got their act together in the second half of World War II, this is our 80th anniversary as Indonesia Raya. 

Malaya and Kalimantan as vassal states attend the annual festivities in Jakarta. The population from Aceh to Irian Jaya, adept with Indonesian and Japanese. 

Anyways, back to the classroom.

History teachers in developing countries act primarily as propagandists, it is inevitable. But if they did not, in my utopia, they’d facilitate our young to know the material through discussions.

In fact, examinations should rely equally on regurgitation of facts and the interpretation of those very facts by the students. The test is part memory but also a test of reasoning.

Success is rated by the extent the average student wants to acquaint with history after graduation.

Greying lines

Multimedia can blur lines. The current global hit film Michael is pilloried by critics and embraced by fans. 

The slur is that it is a whitewashing exercise of pop star Michael Jackson by omitting the avalanche of sexual allegations against him. The fans are enamoured with the entertainment and dance moves.

As a movie it works, ticket purchasers are not complaining. As a biopic it crashes.

So much of the analogy applies to Malaysia.

The state supported historical absolutism is held up by many Malaysians. It still fills seats. It gives the thrills necessary for fans even if it avoids the inconvenient bits. But that is not sustainable.

Not when the Internet lurks in the shadows.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MAY 13 — Google Taipei travel recommendations and it’s invariably many variations of “hot springs”/”night markets”/”bookstores”/”food tours.”

Within my first day in the city, I learned something no travel guide told me about: Taiwan is weeb paradise.

There were gachapon machines everywhere, Hello Kity, Pokémon as well as various other cute mascots from all the Japanese popular IPs everywhere from pharmacies to cafés.

I confess my wallet trembled even if my inner five-year-old was ecstatic.

A little shamefacedly I admit that when I wasn’t eating Taiwanese food, I was eating Japanese cuisine instead, but it was very good Japanese food, all right?

Japanese food, brands, clothes, pharmacies...I wondered if I’d bought myself the wrong plane ticket.

I will talk about the food some other day but I was rather mystified at the many things I recognised as Japanese, considering Taiwan was under Japanese rule for 50 years.

Contrast that with the very fraught relationship between South Korea and Japan.

Back to my shopping temptations.

I am a fan of the Sentimental Circus line from the brand San-X.

San-X is the brand behind the fluffy mascot Rilakkuma and the equally cute and fluffy Sumikkogurashi.

Sentimental Circus is a different character line and perhaps the one with the saddest backstory.

”Stuffed animals abandoned in room recesses and on street corners that sneak away at night to form a secret circus. Tonight, their strange friends will gather together before showtime.”

When I was a little girl and often, as eldest daughters are stuck doing, I would have to entertain (keep out of trouble) my younger siblings.

Sometimes it would be some roughhousing, but often It would just be me staging little pantomimes with our stuffed animals, making various voices and inventing what passes for drama for under 10-year-olds.

Sanrio, San-x, Pokémon, Nintendo: There were so many Japanese IP goods it was almost like being in Japan. — Pictures by Erna Mahyuni

How could I not be charmed by the premise of stuffed toys deserted by their owners finding some meaning to life by creating their own little “sentimental circus?”

That’s the thing about sadness and pain; it’s easy enough to sit in it, cling to it as though it wasn’t bleeding you of the will to breathe. 

A friend of mine once said that making sense of the world, and its sadness, is something writers do very well — and that is why so many of them are so very sad.

So it felt like a blessing, or maybe a little nod from the Gods of Emptying My Pockets Via My Whims that Instagram told me there would be a Sentimental Circus pop-up store happening right around when I would be in Taipei.

Getting there was a bit of an adventure; I do not read Chinese characters (I really need to get on that) and I was trying to get to the Q Square Mall.

As always, the map apps decided I needed a lot of exercises so I found myself going back and forth, up stairs, up escalators, through tunnels and various doors until finally I saw a sign that said Q Square was in that direction.

The little pop-up was very charming. One part of it was dedicated to more Sentimental Circus merch than I had ever seen in my life, and another part to another San-X character.

While I did like looking, nothing caught my eye until I saw a plush from an older line, that had the label “Eat Me” stuck prominently on its side. 

Ah, an Alice in Wonderland reference.

Again it felt like a nod to my childhood when I’d read nearly everything by Lewis Carroll though it is such a pity to find out now he was a paedophile. 

Such is life.

Plush in hand, I decided to venture to another mall that was also accessible via train to go to another holy grail — Taipei’s Pokémon Centre. 

It is the largest Pokémon Centre outside of Japan and I hoped at the very least it would be less dull than Singapore’s.

When I arrived it was crowded, adults and children excitedly looking at Pokémon goods with long queues.

Again, I picked up another plush, of a Pikachu with pineapple goggles, a nod to Taiwan’s famous pineapple tarts. Then I bought some of the said tarts as souvenirs along with Pokémon-themed seaweed snacks, a shopping bag and then I was free to wander around the city and get dinner.

All through the day, my first day in Taipei, it rained nearly non-stop but not harsh or heavy rain just a constant patter of raindrops, sometimes light, sometimes more persistent with the clouds blocking my view of the sky.

It should have felt depressing but I was too busy navigating the malls and trains to be put off by the weather.

Compared to the Klang Valley’s torrents and flash floods, Taipei’s March rain didn’t feel so bad. If I get to return anytime soon, I’ll be sure to pack a much nicer coat... and a larger suitcase.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MAY 10 — This one is dedicated to all the JPJ, UTC and post office counter officers who I’m sure have seen this happen a million times. 

You go to renew your driver’s license or what-not face to face (at the post office or JPJ). 

Since the government is encouraging everyone to go digital, you’re asked only for your IC and told that your renewed licence will be updated and the updated details will be reflected in your MyJPJ.

You go, “Okay, terima kasih.” You pay for your licence renewal, you wait four minutes, voilà (!), your licence is renewed. Hooray. You wish to get some visual confirmation, so what do you do? Here is where it gets interesting.

You are told that in order to see the latest details you need to open your MyJPJ app. Great, you open your MyJPJ app, happily expecting to see your driver’s licence expiry date moved a few years into the future. Only to be told that you can only log into MyJPJ via MyDigital ID.

FYI, as of May 2026, MyDigital ID will be mandatory for logging into major government apps. One, uh, login to rule them all sort of thing.

And here is where we expect to see numerous folks standing and typing awkwardly and in half-panicky mode at post offices and JPJ branches and UTC offices nationwide.

As of May 2026, MyDigital ID will be mandatory for logging into major government apps. — Picture via Facebook/MyDigital ID

Because some people (perhaps thousands) still have not downloaded and installed MyDigital ID.

Because some people (perhaps thousands) who installed MyDigital ID can’t remember their password to that app to save their lives. Can hardly blame them with the dozens of passwords we have to hold in our heads like juggling balls.

Because some people (perhaps thousands) are using old phones which have trouble opening so many apps already and thus tend to freeze when MyJPJ automatically opens both MyDigital ID and the web browser. God bless these people if they have cache issues.

Because many people (surely more than thousands), despite having none of the above issues, still have trouble logging in to MyDigital ID due to high demand and system overload.

Ergo? Lots of people taking up space in many government agencies, standing around and getting stared at because they’re taking an eternity to check their licence or road tax or vehicle ownership details and so on.

From the look on the face of the guy serving me at the Taman Paramount post office last week, I can tell he was thinking, “Sigh, yet another dude who can’t remember his MyDigital ID password and will hog the space and stand there awkwardly until he either miraculously finds it or gives up entirely and storms out.”

Moral of the story? Make sure you know your MyDigital ID login details like the back of your hand.

I can just imagine in the future if a policeman stops you and asks for your driver’s licence and, because you dah lupa your MyDigital ID password (or just cannot log in), you and him wait for 30 minutes while the “hour-glass” showing on your phone spins on and on and on (face palm).

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MAY 7 — Umno turns 80 next week and the grand old party needs a redo. Call it a rebrand? Abandon race-first and embrace nation-first, or slip into decay and extinction. Sorry to rain down on the ongoing “Rumah Bangsa” parade, which is at least in its defence consistent with the party’s theme, to lack originality and substance.

There are various elements which require examination in order to provide a basis for the rejection of Umno in its present form, rendering the dilapidation inevitable.

Spoiler alert. It can walk out of this conundrum victorious, as the United Malaysian National Organisation. Change and still be Umno. With a massive upgrade.

It’s been OK all these years

Sorry, that mischaracterises the uneasy border Umno reinforces inside the country between its people.

Malaysians who are not Malays have never been OK with Malay-first, and increasingly neither are educated and worldly Malays comfortable with race exclusivity in politics.

A whole generation of younger and smart-phone connected Malaysians cannot explain a system which wants to divide its people as a nation building platform. It sounds an anathema to those above 50 but those below 30 in the majority feel so.

Umno can lead on this rather than spend time to persuade more Malaysians to adopt race exclusivity as necessary.

Umno leaders attend the Umno 80th Anniversary Convention at the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur on May 2, 2026. — Bernama pic

The adjustment can be seamless

Higher Education Minister Zambry Abd Kadir said on May 1:

“Bumiputera education must be approached in a comprehensive manner, spanning early childhood education, formal schooling, skills training, higher education, and a culture of lifelong learning.”

If he removed the word Bumiputera, all Malaysian parents would nod in approval.

Learning in the modern world with its modern tools and vastly shifted social dynamics is a monumental challenge. Why make the distinction?

Umno wants TVET, all Malaysians could do with more TVET.

Why separate Malaysians?

Your problems are my problems too, why not face them together?

Moral fortitude to walk into difficult conversations

Umno-run governments have never been able to dislodge unity obstacles like vernacular schools and economic monopolisation. They were unable because they are accused of the same hypocrisy held by their opponents.

A single public school system is the future, to get best-bang-for-buck in an AI-age education. However, Umno leaders cannot win the argument since they are not committed to a single system themselves.

An all-inclusive Umno has the moral standing to hold discourses and ask others to invest in the country rather than their race.

We are mixed up

Every year, the statistics are debated.

About how the official Bumiputera and then the Malay count climbs. It does.

However, by the year, mixed marriages are the norm.

When I was born, there were only Tamils in my extended family. Today, it is a potpourri of identities. There’s a bit of Raya with the Deepavali, if you know what that means.

And that’s across the country, mixes of all hues. An increasing number of constitutional Malays are not at ease with conscious efforts to separate them from their own kin, in policy and development.

There is more openness to talk about roots.

The country lives more in flats than villages, community dynamics shift constantly, parties like Umno cannot reverse the trend, only navigate it on its own terms.

Exclusive parties inside disjointed BN

The speed at which Barisan Nasional collapsed in 2018 proved that nothing but power kept them together. Within two months, Sarawak BN left to become Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS).

In 1972, Razak Hussein wanted to end partisan politics by having a single government of all interests, by expanding the Alliance into BN. Not unlike the Chinese Communist Party.

There were 14 parties in it when GE14 removed them from power. It splintered.

They reassembled in 2020 after the Sheraton Move, but when they split easily when they contested in GE15, it was evidence that the identity-first politics of BN made friendships only about interests, not ideology.

What type of coalition can Umno manufacture now, other than to co-opt all former allies into the party as equal members?

Only in a third of the country

Umno exists effectively in one-third of the federation. Two-thirds is East Malaysia and they do not want anything to do with Malayan politics, and Umno is only about Malayan politics.

The 30 year-experiment to transplant Malayness into Usno as Umno Sabah, began evaporating when Shafie Apdal climbed too high in the national party ascendancy and was promptly kicked out in 2015.

In the euphoria of his new vehicle Warisan’s Sabah victory in 2018 he overextended to Semenanjung only to get burnt.

As there was a glass ceiling for Sabahans inside Umno Malay-first structure, there was a worse ceiling for Borneo wanting to spread inclusive state-first structure to the West.

Umno is the vanguard against pluralism and equality which threaten racial supremacy.

Umno Sabah is only an outpost in name, in the last six years morphed into a Sabah-first entity, as has Bersatu Sabah and any race based party. Sarawak, has completely gone state-based.

Untenable sea and ideology separation

Umno cannot spend its way into the East anymore. The recent financial autonomy for Sabah and Sarawak means they can use both the physical distance and cash to stave off Malay-first ideology Umno intends to enforce in the Semenanjung and export to Borneo.

It is the West’s 165 to the East’s 57 parliamentary seats, but the divisive structure in Semenanjung led by the Umno DNA in itself, Bersatu and PKR causes perpetual and dangerous incohesion.

The country needs a national rather than an ethnocentric spine to sustain an ideological consistency in both East and West.

Ask the members

Unfair to expect a democratic party to change without a democratic mandate.

Why not just hold a referendum? Ask the members, do they fancy opening membership to all Malaysians?

If Umno members in the 1990s accept Sabahans, from locations they’ve never been to, why would they struggle to include their own neighbours into their party?

Was it odd for ex-Umno members to sit with the others when they formed PKR?

Obviously, there were repeated episodes of resentment but the party got over it, the members got over it.

Umno leaders might want to have more faith in their own members.

Some like race exclusivity

Yes, they do. They are also called bigots. They generate negativity in that their core explanation for all deformities is the presence of those who do not look like them.

They are also the type who pour bile senselessly on the Internet.

Umno will shed a percentage when it goes inclusive.

It also wins a percentage. It can only up its overall quality even if the quantity with the ins and outs ends up the same. A home for MCA and MIC members clamouring for a political base.

Let go the past

To have beginnings, there must be endings.

The Umno ride in its present form has run its race, literally.

There are enemies, there’ll always be. However, when defensiveness is the only value proposition, one is blinded. To not see those who stand beside us, who have by a function of time become our reality. Our comrades in this journey as a country.

  The contestation of ideas ends with one idea sidelining the other, which is rectified at an election. The ideas are contested again and again, ad-infinitum, improving the country along the way.

The contestation of identity only scuppers relations. One no election can fix. Umno must mature into being a party of ideas and not merely a party of identity, for its own sake. To be a Malaysian party.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MAY 6 — The best time to fly to Taipei, or even Tokyo for that matter, from Kuala Lumpur is 6 or 7am in the morning.

You arrive early enough in the afternoon with plenty of time left to explore.

It is also my least favourite time to fly.

As it's impossible for me to sleep the night before an early morning flight, I usually just head to the airport at midnight and kill time at a cafe.

Airport food is terrible and expensive but missing my flight is worse.

I'd daydreamed while I was stuck in bed during my cancer treatment about visiting Japan but my budget would only stretch as far as konbini meals and shared dormitories for the moment so rather than suffer, Taipei seemed to be the more affordable option.

An uneventful journey

My fairly affordable travel package included return flights on Batik Air. I upgraded my seats to ones with more legroom because I still struggled to get in and out of chairs (less so now) and the added expense was worth the comfort for my stiff legs.

I find Batik Air for the most part fine for a no-frills airline, nothing really stood out for me about them, which is, with my lack of tolerance for terrible service, a point in their favour. 

Taipei's Taoyuan Airport, travel guides will warn you, is quite a distance from Taipei proper.

Malaysia and Taiwan have a reciprocal agreement to allow each other's passports to go quickly through the e-gate, no uncomfortable lines and (possibly) surly immigration officers to meet.

It's not automatic — there are signs that direct you to a little kiosk where you register your passport for e-gate usage and once you're done, just head to the nearest passport e-gate and boom, you're in Taipei.

Weeks before, I had bought from Shopee an EasyCard, Taiwan's far more useful version of our Touch N Go travel card, but decided to wait until I was in the city to top it up and use it.

At the airport there's a kiosk where you can just buy your airport train token, the quickest and second-cheapest way to get to Taipei from the airport, the cheapest being the buses.

You get your little purple coin, tap it at the entry point then find yourself a seat. 

The trains are wider than our KLIA Express trains and brighter too but locals, I found, were quiet. If you heard someone talking loudly, you knew it was a foreigner.

Right across from me was a group of Americans whose plans for the next hour were foisted on my ears against my will.

Anyway, kids, this is why noise-canceling headphones exist.

The train would stop at Taipei Main Station, the hub for trains and buses as well as a central connecting spot for various malls. 

My hotel Hua Shan Din was just a few stops away from the station but I needed to change to the Bannan line, also known as the Blue Line. After I figured out where it was I then made my way to my hotel that I chose primarily because the reviews stated their rooms had very good bidets.

I am Malaysian; I like having the option to clean my bum with water and not just toilet paper.

Hua Shan Din also happened to be right next to Huashan 1914 Creative Park, that was formerly a winery and sake distillery but is now a creative arts centre and events hub, becoming the blueprint for other creative parks that came after it such as Songshan Cultural and Creative Park.

My hotel was charming; it had art on the wall as well as a guided tour you could sign up for where you would have someone explain the art on display and there was also art that you could purchase.

Alas, neither my wallet nor my one medium backpack would allow me an art purchase but it was nice to have an art gallary right within the premises.

The hotel itself used to be an old bank warehouse and right outside was a statue of their bank vault mascot "Baobby", its name a very cute play on the Chinese term of endearment 宝贝 (baobei, meaning treasure or precious one).

Hua Shan Din also has its own boardgame, which sadly I also had no room in my luggage to purchase my own copy. 

As for the rooms themselves, mine wasn't particularly large but I didn't feel too hemmed in. I liked that the shower and toilet were in separate enclosures, which I think people traveling with companions would appreciate.

What is with all those transparent bathrooms in hotel rooms these days, honestly?

Yes, the bidet was fairly modern though not as fancy as the American Standard bidet I encountered at a Bangkok hotel. 

The best thing about my hotel was how central it was, with a train station and bus stops just five minutes walk away and, I would discover later, that there was plenty to eat in the vicinity as well as a coffee bar that still haunts my daydreams.

We'll get to all that next week, dear reader, but in more current updates, I can finally lift my left arm over my head again and I can write my next column in a far cheerier mood than of late.

APRIL 30 — Life is imperfect. Democracy is an earnest attempt to enable the rule of the people. 

It’s rife with imperfections, like my relationship with Sugu, my Seremban cousin through marriage who knocked out a tooth off me, after I did the same months earlier. 

We would have been between eight and nine years old. 

Sugu died some time back but Negeri Sembilan democracy may resuscitate if actors act in good faith. 

Actors dictate democracy’s efficacy. 

Why? In a universal direct participatory democracy, all decisions require all to vote on and removes the principal-agent problem inherent in representation. 

For instance, if all Negeri Sembilan adults are asked to vote today on whether Aminuddin Harun should continue as menteri besar, a conclusive outcome prevails. Except this is not possible. 

A general view outside the Negeri Sembilan State Legislative Assembly before the opening of the First Sitting of the Fourth Term of the 15th State Legislative Assembly in Seremban on April 23, 2026. — Picture by Yusof Isa

Therefore, the conduct of those in power decide whether things are smoother or a complete wreck. 

State voters elect their state representatives who then pick a menteri besar. This happens ideally every five years, as it did in August 2023. 

The majority of state representatives known as assemblymen picked Aminuddin in 2018. They were all Pakatan Harapan members. 

In 2023, Pakatan contested in tandem with its new ally Barisan Nasional. Both Pakatan and BN dwindled to 17 and 14 respectively, shedding five seats to Perikatan Nasional. 

Those 31 Aduns from Pakatan-BN chose Aminuddin to continue. A super-majority in the house, Pakatan-BN was a solid coalition. 

There was a squabble involving the feudal lords and the state palace last week. The column won’t weigh into it, the subject is firmly about Aminuddin’s future. 

It was, however, a pretext for why the 14 BN electors withdrew support for Aminuddin’s administration which brought this kerfuffle.  

It’s a curious development. Months pass without any mention of Negeri Sembilan. On a ranking, the state south of Selangor is quietest in the country. 

Only three men have been mentri besar in the last 44 years. Even the longest serving, Isa Samad (1982-2004) serves a prison sentence for his shenanigans as Felda chairman, not as Negeri Sembilan’s menteri besar. 

There’s hardly any stories of rifts and betrayals from Seremban. Yet, this happens. 

The actors

The DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke is omnipresent, not only because he is an assemblyman but that his party is 11 of the 17 Pakatan assemblymen. This is shared a lot, including the discourse DAP-Umno relations are at a lowpoint. 

What is not shared as much is that of the 14 BN assemblymen, and all of them are Umno representatives, the most senior of them is former MB for 14 years, Rantau assemblyman and party deputy president Mohamad Hasan. Which is why all the pictures of BN assemblymen display only 13 individuals. 

Also, as foreign minister at a time of international jeopardy and intrigue, Mohamad or affectionately known as Tok Mat, has plenty of occasions to speak to the Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, also Aminuddin’s party and coalition leader. 

With all these criss-crosses or matrix reporting lines, how did we end up in this swamp?

Who is truly disgruntled? 

Cascades into a political race

2025 ended with drama and a change of MB in Perlis.That has not fully settled. 

Perak was the test case of Umno-DAP relations in 2022, which is the bedrock of the Madani government. If Negeri Sembilan continues to unravel, attention turns to Perak, and then to Johor which needs an election next March.

A round of switcheroos occurred in 2020 after the Pakatan federal government imploded. Another is on the cards if those in Cabinet are unable to cease the bleeding in Seremban. 

There are obvious questions about relationships inside Umno and Pakatan from the current political stalemate. 

Already DAP is ready for elections at the federal and state levels this year, and in a way, the situation brings it to a head, the long term viability of persisting with a fixed alliance between Pakatan and BN.

The other rumour

The word around the campfire is that Negeri Sembilan is a ruse to test the waters. Whether voters are keen or not on Pakatan and BN going in different directions in the lead up to GE16. 

Expectations are that the matter resolves itself in a fortnight. 

A way to see how organised PN is to take advantage of the indecision among Umno ranks. 

And finally, to remind Aminuddin who is closely linked to out of favour former PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli, who are those that have the patronage to sustain his stay as MB. 

The early signs indicate that a contained disjointment is manageable.

It is excellent for both BN and Pakatan to score the situation.

They’d both be happier to face each other in the general if indeed it’s a two way battle for supremacy.

Glad to trade blows in a general election and still be cousins with an outside chance of forming government again together if they cannot muster the majority on their own. 

It is not a great advert for the progress of democracy in Malaysia, but a sign of several schemes in play, just not in plain sight. 

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 29 — “You feeling all better now?”

I know the people who love me mean well when they ask if I’m well, if I’ve gotten better, if I’m cured.

You don’t ask the survivors of a war if their lives are back to normal now do you? 

On Friday my legs had started swelling again after an hour at the mall, so I eagerly got to the nearest open seat on the train going home.

Right across from me, a much older gentleman was looking at me with disdain.

All he saw was someone who looked perfectly fine.

Nothing about me now, from a cursory glance, would reveal that just a year prior I was spending most of my free time at the hospital.

Stairs, my forever nemesis

Some days I can go down steps normally but early in the morning or late in the evening my legs are either stiff or swollen or both.

The elevator is my best friend most of the time but sometimes when it’s broken or just too far away, the only option is to take that torturous journey while also dealing with my decades-old fear of falling down steps.

When I feel the back of my ankle brush against the back of a stair, it should be a comfort, a way to know I am firmly on the step instead of too close to the edge.

Instead something in me recoils.

It’s not something I can explain, this revulsion when I feel the back of my ankle or foot touch the back of a stair, worst being the grooves of an escalator.

One of those things that can’t be helped as I wear a size 8 so most stairs just barely accommodate my feet.

In Taipei they again became my cross though not quite as torturous as Bangkok’s nightmare long flights where I thought my heavy backpack would topple me over down, down, down like Meryl Streep in Death Becomes Her.

So it was fitting that with the Year of the Horse (my birth year) I would finally visit that land not far from Japan, in a complicated relationship with China.

Why Taiwan?

Taiwan’s capital had long been on my bucket list but when I had money, I had no time; when I had time, my money needed to go elsewhere. 

Taiwan had always been on my bucket list and it’s nice when dreams come true. — Picture by Erna Mahyuni

Thanks to internet promos I paid slightly less than RM1,800 for flights and board for a 4D3N trip.

If I wasn’t currently made of tofu, perhaps I could have stayed longer by staying at a hostel but if I was to survive the trip, I would need a decent bed or I would not be able to leave it at all the next morning.

Taiwan isn’t Japan, where I would need to be checking my currency converter lest I accidentally spend a week’s groceries at a restaurant.

Cheap eats could be had, train and bus fares are very affordable as is, suprisingly, Uber.

Outside of souvenirs I would roughly be paying prices similar to the Klang Valley and that would not be much of a hardship.

Being affordable wasn’t why I wanted to go to Taiwan.

I’ve been to China and Hong Kong but what drew me to Taiwan was how much it reminded me of my own hometown.

In Sabah I grew up around Hakka speakers and it pained me that I while I could find Cantonese, Mandarin and even Hokkien books for my mini language library, I had yet to add Hakka.

That was my main mission — to acquire Hakka books, preferably about the language but I would settle for Hakka literature classics.

While I failed spectacularly at that mission due to bad luck and shyness, I found other things in Taipei.

When everything about you is broken

I understand now why people call travel “healing.”

It seemed fitting to finally make it to Taiwan in the Year of the Horse. — Picture by Erna Mahyuni

Once, I would scoff at seeing people on TikTok waxing lyrical about “healing” at various locales, whether it was waterfalls, islands or those music festivals where youngsters basically wear outfits consisting of a handkerchief and one shoelace, adorned with sequins.

When I went to Bangkok last year I was in the throes of depression even if I could not admit to myself.

I know what depression looks like, after all.

I have read books about it, attempted to write a book about it, talked to a doctor about it and called it “healthcare.”

What I told people was that I just needed to be anywhere but here.

When you’re chronically ill your body feels like a prison.

How do you escape it when you carry it with you everywhere you go?

The only answer is to take it, bars, chains and all to where you can forget how the walls seem to close in on you.

While Bangkok was a frenetic change of pace, Taipei was a place both entirely strange to me while promising to be spiritually familiar.

I miss it already.

The next few weeks I’ll write about the too-short time I spent there and then what possessed me to then pencil in a trip to say “Hi” to Mom.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 29 — 2026 seems to be the year of running sensations. 

First, Australian teenager Gout Gout smashes 100m and 200m records, inviting comparisons with Usain Bolt. Then last month Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo broke the world half-marathon record. 

And last Sunday? Kenya’s Sebastian Sawe showed the world it’s humanly possible to run a marathon (42km) in under two hours.

The London Marathon was Sawe’s fourth full marathon, and he won all four. But this last one was special.

Sawe ran a literally world-beating 1:59:30 at the London Marathon last week, being the first man to complete a sub two-hour marathon under race conditions (see note 1). 

The breath-taking fun fact is that Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha also broke the two-hour barrier with a time of 1:59:41 in his debut (!) marathon.

In case anyone’s wondering what the “fuss” is all about, what Sawe and Kejelcha did — when drilled down to its details — appear nothing short of super-human. 

Kenya’s Sebastian Sawe showed the world it’s humanly possible to run a marathon (42km) in under two hours. — Reuters pic

I mean, have you ever tried running 400 metres in less than two minutes? That’s about one lap around a stadium track. 

About once a week I run at my apartment’s track which measures about 400 metres. I usually manage to finish the loop in about 1 minute 40 seconds by which time my lungs have nearly collapsed and I’m about two steps from the ICU. 

I kid you not even doing ONE lap of 400 metres running as fast as my body can push itself leaves me half-dead. Now, consider the fact that Sawe ran 2.49 minutes per kilometre (which translates to just under a minute per 400 metres) — and he did this 42 times!!

Or, he ran 100 metres at a 17-second pace and he did it 422 times. It’s absolutely insane.

A Son of Nandi

Then again, when you look at Sawe’s brutal Kenyan training regimen it would appear that running under two hours would be just a matter of time (pun intended). 

Like practically every elite Kenyan runner, Sawe hails from Nandi County, Kenya’s world-class running highlands. 

If Kashmir produces top-quality rugs and Cremona has the best violin-makers in the world, then Nandi churns out great marathon runners. Indeed, almost the whole Kenya Rift Valley area is famous for producing champions because of the altitude, rolling terrain, and strong running culture. 

Seven days a week Sawe’s routine involves getting up at 6am, run 10-25 kilometres before sunrise, makan, gym, afternoon workout, dinner, lights out at 9pm. Rinse and repeat the next day.

The final six weeks before the London Marathon saw him preparing with a 10-day cycle which involved four days of 25-40 kilometre runs, two days of short interval runs and hill repeats and four days of lighter recovery runs. 

In those weeks, he ran at least 200 kilometres per week, with one week reaching 241 kilometres.

But there’s a humble and simple side to Sawe. His pre-run breakfast was simply two slices of bread with honey and tea. After his win he just had water, rice and a piece of chicken for dinner. None of that champagne stuff.

He used the simplest entry-level watch from Garmin with only basic features. But the tech humility stops there as he wore the ultra-light Adidas Adizero Pro Evo 3, a super-shoe supposedly weighing less than 100 grams. 

Religious about fairness and integrity, Sawe and his team asked to be tested all the time. His sponsor put up US$50,000 (RM197,625) to the Athlete Integrity Unit. The tests are run independently, no advance notice; Sawe went through 25 drug tests in two months.

Because of people like Sawe and Kejelcha, the joke about a PhD being a marathon and not a sprint doesn’t apply anymore. Speed is now irreversibly on the table.

Note 1: In 2019 Eliud Kipchoge broke the two-hour barrier (clocking in at 1:59:40) but that was under optimised conditions (weather, straight road, etc.) with a laser-emitting pace car and multiple world-class pace-makers in front of him to reduce the “air drag” and so on. That project was sponsored by Nike. Sawe, without the optimised set-up, was faster by 10 seconds and wore Adidas.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 26 — Right outside my apartment there’s a small van that’s been sitting in the same parking lot since right after Lionel Messi won the World Cup (kid you not). 

Every day I pass it. Every day it collects more leaves, more dirt, more rust, most pamphlets (fancy that). It’s literally become part of the landscape.

And why? Because its previous owner decided the vehicle wasn’t worth repairing or selling or maybe something happened to him or her.

That’s not the only abandoned vehicle of course. The ominous thing is that there’s (obviously) no official record of how many vehicles are left to rot so we can only make guesstimates based on the number of complaints lodged and those numbers are disheartening.

Across the country between 2018 and 2023, north of 60,000 abandoned vehicles across Malaysia were reported. 

Kuala Lumpur itself saw more than 9,600 complaints resulting in about half the number towed. 

Early this year, around 1,159 damaged/abandoned vehicles were recorded in Federal Territory public housing schemes alone.

Long and short, the numbers are high and serious and that’s why the recent Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) drive to ramp up the removal of abandoned and obstructive vehicles can only be applauded and encouraged. 

I’ve heard it said before in the context of primary education that what you permit, you encourage, something surely relevant if you want to put a halt to the number of cars being chucked along the side of the road.

Indeed, this “epidemic” of discarded vehicles brings to mind something from my university days: the broken windows theory.

DBKL’s crackdown targets derelict cars as KL sees thousands of abandoned vehicle complaints. — Unsplash pic

This theory states that visible signs of neglect or defiance or just bad behaviour within an environment can and will promote further anti-social and even criminal behavior. 

The idea is that if a window in a building is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares, leading to more windows being broken, and eventually, more serious crimes.

We can see this theory in operation in any office where people slack off without being reprimanded, contributing to an overall culture of inefficiency, delays, etc. 

You can also argue that Malaysia’s severe problem with traffic accidents caused by lorries has a similar basis i.e. so many lorry operators see other lorries and operators going around with minimum or zero checks, maintenance, driver-vetting, etc such that nobody’s really motivated to fix any problems, until dangerous lorries become run of mill.

Another unpleasant case is that of folks urinating in stairwells. I’m willing to bet a roll of toilet paper that the more the smell of dried pee persists in any quiet area of the building, the less uninhibited the next dude will be relieving himself in said area.

This is also surely why if you walk around Suria KLCC you’ll sometimes see the security guards telling people sitting on the floor to get up. What at first looks a bit harsh may, in fact, be a smart move in ensuring that such shopping malls maintain that aura of class, an aura surely threatened by many folks sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Thus, in addition to DBKL’s tactics of logistics enhancements, increased disposal capacity and stronger inter-agency co-operation, perhaps there’s one more powerful element which needs to be implemented: increased surveillance to pinpoint such irresponsible vehicle owners so they can be punished?

APRIL 25 — One of the biggest complaints you’ll hear from local audiences with regards to mainstream Malaysian movies, especially the Malay language ones, is that there isn’t enough variety in the types of films being made.

It seemed like we’re being served with only a few types of mainstream movies – rempit movies, horror flicks, gangster movies and slapstick comedies.

There is some truth in this blanket statement, but only if we’re talking about the situation from say, five years ago, or maybe even more.

If five years ago was the last time you went to the cinema to watch a local mainstream movie, or even worse, the last time you paid attention to the cinema release slate for Malaysian mainstream movies, then yes, that statement will ring true.

However, the last few years have seen all sorts of local films playing in cinemas here in Malaysia, from sci-fi mind-benders like Imaginur and Reversi to tear-jerkers like Babah and Badak to action hits like Paskal and Coast Guard, and that’s just scratching the surface.

Look further into non-Malay language local films, and you’ll find gems like the Tamil language Macai and Simple Manusan, or Chinese hits like Close Ur Kopitiam and Money Games.

2026 is already looking like it’s going to provide a very healthy amount of variety, as evidenced by these four new mainstream Malay films, opening one after another in local cinemas in the last few weeks, with quite a few more to follow in the next few weeks. Is something brewing here now?

An undated file photograph shows seats in a cineplex hall. — Picture by Ahmad Zamzahuri

Libang Libu

In the interest of full disclosure, yes, this film was directed by my high school friend, Bobby Husaini, who’s making his feature film debut here, after years of directing TV commercials.

Opening this week in Malaysian cinemas, if you’re looking for laughs, laughs, and more laughs, then Libang Libu is the one to watch.

“Libang libu” is a Perak slang that means to be in a state of chaos, confusion or restlessness, and the movie’s narrative truly lives up to its name by bombarding the audience with plenty of narrative stops, starts and hilarious flashbacks to keep us in that state of mind.

In short, if neatly tied up plots are the main reason you go to the movies, then this one isn’t for you, which is not to say that the plot here is incoherent, but it’s just designed to push and pull you back and forth with all the chaos, just to wring a few more laughs out of you.

The real reason to see this is in its loving, sly, and almost casual mockery of all things Malay and kampung related, with a specific focus on Perak.

If you’re familiar with all three things (like I am), then you’ll enjoy this even more. In short, is this the best film of the year? I don’t think so. Could this be one of the funniest films of the year? I think we have a very strong contender already!

Gayong 2

Last year’s Gayong was a decent box-office hit and this sequel is more of the same, with our hero Meor (Beto Kusyairi) now a police officer in 1950s Singapore fighting corruption within the police force.

If the first film was like a Malaysian version of the Ip Man movies, this sequel, with its shorter running time and increased focus on fight scenes, feels like one of those Tony Jaa hits, efficient action potboilers with deficiencies in the storytelling department.

Not terrible but not great either, it’s a passable time at the movies, especially for fans of fight flicks.

Malaikat Malam

On the surface this might look like just another rempit movie, as it’s centered around the life of a bunch of Malay motorcycle and racing enthusiasts, but if you do take the time to watch this one, which is already one of the year’s biggest local box-office hits with RM14 million and still counting, it’s actually more of a tender romance involving a mat rempit and a blind girl.

Debuting director Nazifdin Nasrudin handles the romance part really well, and I enjoyed the first two-thirds of the movie quite a bit, when it’s operating in this mode.

But when the third act arrives and the movie takes on the traditional rempit movie formula, it stumbles really badly, with the kind of gaps in logic (even when just applying it to the logic of the movie’s world) that will make you want to tear your hair out.

A mixed bag, then, but still a refreshing take on the usual local movie formula.

Mikael: Pemburu Dua Alam

We very rarely get fantasy supernatural films like this, so when one arrives in the form of Mikael: Pemburu Dua Alam, the latest film from Zahir Omar (who made his name with the critically acclaimed Fly By Night), naturally one has to sit up and take notice.

Playing like a Malaysian mash-up of Constantine, RIPD and Van Helsing, the film is led by Remy Ishak as Mikael, an elite police officer in a secret unit that’s tasked to keep the divide between this world and the underworld in order.

Expect plenty of fights with ghosts, djinns and the like, and expect a pretty rollicking good time, even with its flaws aplenty.

But if you ask me, the main reason anyone should see this movie is the star-making comic sidekick performance from Norreen Iman as Winston, which will leave you in stitches.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 23 — Umno turns 100 in 2046, and there’s every chance if it heads the federal government then Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar is prime minister.

Of course, if in 1961 someone posited Mahathir Mohamad will be PM 20 years on and repeats the act in his nineties they’d be laughed off to a mental health facility.

Barring deaths, here’s how the leadership clubhouse would look like in 2046. Anwar Ibrahim is 99, Zahid Hamidi 93, Mohamad Hasan 89 and Hadi Awang 99.

The leadership vacuum in the horizon.

Which is why staying in the race is far more critical than having clever things to say in the interim. The last 80 years of national politics instructs this, almost too cruelly. The battle is one of attrition, not talent.

Forty years ago, Donald Trump was synonymous with sordid divorces rather than sorties into Iran. Imagine that! Time always confounds the unprepared.

So, it can be great for 70-year-old Khairy in 2046.

Suitable for the vacant position

A dozen years ago, this column prophesied “…the stars are aligning well for Khairy.”

At that juncture, he was sports minister after being sidelined four years before for being his father-in-law Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s sidekick between 2000 to 2009. After being out in the cold, a political pathway re-emerged to Seri Perdana.

But I forewarned then, he is not the hope middle class Malaysia yearns for. Najib Razak picked him after four years of toeing the line and unflinching loyalty. The period when Terengganu Investment Authority metamorphosed into 1MDB and the Wolf of Wall Street was in production. The Oxford boy radiated obedience throughout. He is well trained not to look where trouble brews.

Today, Khairy picks Umno as the best vehicle for his personal ambitions, not because he wants Malaysia to be ambitious. Malaysians tend to misunderstand his personal urgency.

Am I being unfair? Let’s enquire.

Khairy Jamaluddin (left) shares a moment with former Pasir Salak MP Datuk Seri Tajuddin Abdul Rahman on April 17, 2026. — Picture from Facebook/Dato Sri Tajuddin Rahman

Where is his vision for Malaysia? Three years in the wilderness, he played it cool in his podcasts, and jumped about in a radio studio. However, he did not stand unequivocally for anything. Committing to a position would require defending a position. A halfway, non-committal sort of yes and no, is much easier to squirm away from.

The years away have been a prolonged job interview. To appear strong but not actually too strong as to alienate people he’d need later.

The political celebrities lined up to be on his show because no one was excoriated when invited on. It was in mutual interest. You look good, I look good, but nothing of substance occurs.

As for the viewers?

Malaysians are trained to look on as the blueblood sits on stage and speaks down to them while being cordial to each other.

Neither Khairy nor partner Shahril Hamdan echo David Frost or mimic even a weak version of Hardtalk. No one is embarrassed.

Compare Khairy with Mahathir in his years out of power after being sacked by Umno’s second president Abdul Rahman Abdul Hamid.

His Malay Dilemma explained the Malaysia he saw and the Malaysia he was determined to engineer. While many disagree with Mahathir, not the least this column, there is no confusion about where Mahathir stands on ethnic superiority and the Malay-first agenda.

You know why you hate Mahathir, or love him as the misguided tend to be.

With Khairy, you are certain he is for all the great things which are possible, unless if they are not great things, then he is not so much for them. The details, he prefers to skip.

He will give the ideas more polish, and avoid the faux pas avalanche Rafizi Ramli hits with alacrity. One is a diplobrat, the other merely a brat.

Two general elections, maybe more

Now that Umno took back the boy wonder, it needs to offer him a spot. A worthy spot.

But men like party deputy president Mohamad Hasan who inherited Khairy’s Rembau parliamentary seat in 2022, rather he jogs and not sprints to the next general election.

I said before GE15 that Khairy in the Dewan Rakyat is an unnecessary threat to Tok Mat. Still true today.

Maybe a bit of jeopardy by shipping him out to Kedah — maternal links — instead of letting Khairy have a crack at Jelebu, Jempol or Kuala Pilah — all traditional Umno seats in Negeri Sembilan. Tok Mat runs the table in Negeri Sembilan for Barisan Nasional.

Khairy has repeated a bit too enthusiastically that he is here to serve the party and not to pursue party positions. They may restrict him to serving in the short-term.

In the “keep him on a short leash” scenario, the party welcomes his campaigning for GE16 without being a candidate and rewards him with a minister position via the senator route. Just like Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz before he fled to PKR. This way, president Zahid Hamidi and Tok Mat are in control.

Zahid did not craft Rumah Bangsa and disguise it as a race love initiative instead of the party recruitment tool it actually is, only to have the recruits usurp him.

The party president may not be worldly, but he is a great warlord in the organisation.

Either way, it’s forward

The conveyor belt is now firmly in motion. Khairy’s ascension in the party is inevitable but the timeline is up for debate.

Even if he fails to become numero uno, he’d be a central figure in the party. The other question, increasingly pertinent, is how central will Umno be to Malaysian politics in the long term?

It has steadily lost pace in the last four elections; is an uptick on the cards because of Khairy?

At least, Khairy has more room to manoeuvre from inside rather than looking in from outside.

He can reap Umno’s success by staying loyal. Already it nauseates hearing him express his gratitude to Zahid whom he fought against for the presidency in 2018.

The old acrimony has dissipated. He is mum about Zahid’s get out of jail play with the 47 charges and the Bar Council’s efforts to U-turn the DNAA at the appeals court.

The only thing he cannot stop yapping about is his ardent love for Umno. A party which has a pedantic fervour to claim “the others” are threatening Malays while looking directly at a large section of middle-class Malaysia which roots for him. The party of principle and justice, just not for all Malaysians.

All of this is academic. The only objective of this column this week is to remind you, very little has ever changed, whether with Khairy, Umno or their common agenda. Twelve years later, it is clearer the road to glory for one man.

The consummate diplomat. They are excellent emissaries but forget not representatives are vague to do their master’s bidding.

Khairy did the tai-chi for three years, to look serious and fun, verbose and sporty, to look the part. But always in audition mode.

While it gets you the gig, leadership sets the agenda. Hanging on for the Umno lifeboat, which has arrived, shows he never was willing to “take it on” by himself. It might ultimately not be what he’s built for.

That’s what you get with this package.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 22 — It’s been nearly a year since my lumpectomy and the stiffness that came on immediately after, still lingers.

My physiotherapist says my shoulder blade isn’t working like it should and despite stretches, exercises and supplements I cannot easily raise my left arm.

I thought that perhaps after my immunotherapy sessions stopped, the stiffness would ease some but apparently sudden onset menopause will do this to you.

As I figured I had nothing left to lose (besides money) I might as well try acupuncture.

There is a practitioner right around the corner, next to my regular GP but I decided to look online for more options and settled for a practice that had an all-female staff.

The whole endeavour would be awkward enough; being around women would be a comfort, especially ones who specialised in women’s health issues.

My acupuncturist/TCM doctor was very nice, super chirpy and rather young but seemed self-assured and wasn’t overly pushy.

I wasn’t sure what to expect besides being poked with needles.

The ensuing session was enlightening.

Thirty minutes, a handful of needles, and a small step toward moving freely again. — AFP pic

So, because my issue was with my left shoulder I would apparently not just be getting more needles but those needles would be attached to a current.

On top of said current, I also had a red heat lamp pointed on top of my shoulder area.

Speaking of needles, I had quite a few of them placed on top of my head, along both hands as well as my feet.

All the needles were inserted while I was lying down on my back in a sarong, and once the needles were placed, a call button was placed under my hand and an alarm set.

There wasn’t anything I could do besides lie down and wait for the 30 minutes to be done; it would have been nice to nap but getting zapped by electrically-charged needles made that a little difficult.

Could have been worse, really.

Someone I know had to see an acupuncturist first thing in the morning, had needles inserted into her head and then was told to just go about her day — with needles, I repeat, in her head.

I didn’t really feel much pain besides the sensation of pricking when the needles entered my body but they did feel uncomfortable when I tried moving my free hand around.

If you’re the kind who cannot sit still I don’t think acupuncture would be wise.

A week has passed since my treatment and the biggest difference is that lifting my arms is less of a hassle.

Yet I find I can somewhat simulate the sensation with my trusty TENS machine, that I forgot about, after no longer needing it once my chemo-induced neuropathy faded.

It’s easier to do my stretches now, my left shoulder blade seems to be more active and relearning to do the things it should have been doing.

In other news, I thought my neuropathy was stopping me from pressing on my aircon remote effectively.

No, the remote was faulty.

I suffered, a whole year, of jabbing the damn button multiple times needlessly but at least the replacement OEM remote was only RM18.

As I don’t really like having to travel for yet another health procedure I think my acupuncture experience will be a one and done, and I will instead continue my physio exercises, un-retire my TENS machine and maybe next month I’ll get my own red light therapy lamp.

I’d like to think the acupuncture treatment helped realign my neural pathways or maybe eased some residual inflammation but who knows, really?

What I do know is the pain has decreased, my mobility has improved and I would say it’s a nice complementary treatment to help manage side effects.

I was told at the centre that one of their clients was a Stage 4 cancer patient who was a regular, having acupuncture to help ease swollen ankles from regular chemotherapy.

That’s where I think alternative treatments should start and end.

It’s important to first see a doctor, get a proper diagnosis and only rely on things like acupuncture, reiki and the like to improve quality of life.

Sadly there are people who turn first to their herbalist, acupuncturist or masseuse for their health issues and only go to the doctor when it’s too late for it to help.

My acupuncturist says my Qi is strong (judging from my pulse) and overall I seem fine though my spleen is a little weak (according to my tongue).

As neither my acupuncturist nor my oncologist feel I need extra medication or therapy, perhaps I am, health-wise, in a better place than I realise.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 19 — The official answer is, of course, yes. The unofficial truth may be more lengthy.

Yes, but…

Since most university students are adults, it’s really up to them. We can’t be checking on every assignment submitted by every student. 

They paid their fees and it’s their education, so ultimately, they have to be responsible for the quality of their own learning. 

No doubt chatbots have made it much easier to submit “fake” assignments but, hey, even without AI detecting cheating isn’t fool proof because a student can simply ask another person to do their work for them.

And if you’ve got hundreds of students, how is it feasible for the lecturer to be checking everyone?

Of course, the option of making every student sit for handwritten exams is there (and this is still being widely done). But online assignments remain part of the course, and they cannot be removed entirely. 

And aren’t institutions supposed to move away from traditional modes of education and assessment?

The author argues that while institutions officially oppose AI-written assignments, practical constraints — from detection limits to cost and scale — make enforcement inconsistent, leaving responsibility largely with students themselves. — Reuters pic

Yes, but…

AI detection software isn’t cheap and their rates are rising. Institution funds are already tight, so sometimes we encourage lecturers and/or students to do their own AI checking and maybe submit a declaration of originality.

Furthermore, many foreign students (or students struggling with English proficiency) use AI platforms for translation purposes all of which “show up” as high AI use. 

Needless to say, it’s very hard to distinguish “co-pilot writing the student’s assignment” (bad) and “Gemini translating the student’s assignment” (neutral).

Yes, but…

Even if the AI-detection software flags some “inappropriate” use of AI there’s still the question of whether the student actually used AI to write that particular sentence or whether it’s simply an error on the part of the software. 

There have been many cases where such software claims that a paragraph wasn’t written by a human but in fact it was. Eg, simply run the Gettysburg Address through a few “anti-AI” programs. Chances are some portions of the speech will be flagged.

A huge problem with AI detection is that, unlike plagiarism-detection, it often cannot be “proven” that a student used Deepseek (or whatever) to write her assignment. 

With plagiarism, it’s easy: Anti-plagiarism software can simply list down the websites and paragraphs which look very very similar to what the student wrote.

With a chatbot, however, it’s almost impossible to prove that a student used said software to construct a paragraph.

Almost the only way to verify if a student wrote something is to conduct interviews with said student. 

This works very well especially for post-graduate students. But if the student numbers are very high (say, into the hundreds) it becomes impractical.

So, do educational institutions care about AI-written assignments?

It’s, uh, complicated.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 16 — The obvious issue plaguing our daily lives the past month needs no introduction.

I’d like to address the transportation and existential elements of the situation here in Malaysia.

A myriad times infinite is the actual number of things to examine related to the 15 per cent of global fuel not passing through the Strait of Hormuz currently which domino effects adversely affect the world, not limited to manufacturing across China or the prospect of the Republicans losing both houses in the November US Elections.

Fascinating as they are, tremendously important as they are over in the Middle East, our fixations are firmly domestic. To aid, some questions, which inadvertently forces more long-term reflections for the Malaysian people.

Do I need that drive?

Millions of government and GLC employees are holding conference calls — while they shoo away young children and other distractions from their makeshift workstation — at home.

Home is where the heart is, also where the office is until they tidy up the landmines and store up the rocket launchers around the Arab peninsula.

Private sector workers follow the beat of their management.

While the bulk of conversations revolve around fuel price, the actual worry in the medium term is fuel supply. It won’t matter how much the price is if there is none to sell.

This is where the government seeks to lead behaviour. Millions of litres of petrol are not utilised by millions of government employees daily if they are at home. Should they order out or can they do more of their bit to conserve by cooking their own meals?

Yesterday was day one of work from home (WFH) and the city traffic was about the same.

This is early days, of the effort to reduce fuel consumption. The current fuel supply uncertainty is not in Malaysia’s hands, how to respond to it, is.

Millions, private or public sector employees, make that decision every day, are they choosing restraint when possible?

It is really about perspectives, which is why it is a moral decision for the individual.

Do you drive back to Ipoh or Johor Bahru this weekend to visit the parents? It may not be an extravagance if care-giving is involved.

There are multitudes of examples and contexts, but the question still remains if a conscience still persists.

In this regard, moral leadership is necessary from the government. It may want to do less telling and find ways to get more Malaysians on board through persuasion.

Unfortunately, almost every government ever in this federation gets afflicted by the “Do as I say, not as I do” syndrome.

A man holds a fuel nozzle at a petrol station on March 25, 2026. — Reuters pic

Do I take before the others do?

Kiasu never went away.

Fuel shortage engenders the typical response in the masses: fill up before the others do. “The last one at the pump is a sucker!”

Psychologists have libraries filled with reports, publications and Hollywood-ready scripts on how the worst comes out of people when scarcity sets in.

In a perverse way, some may reckon, if oil is finite and the next supply uncertain, better use more of it now. Better do that coastal drive to Butterworth now, and not cry about it later. FOMO, fear of missing out.

Trust in each other is the building block of a country. Regrettably, three generations of politicians thrived on mistrust and made it the building block to their electoral victories.

Yet trust is necessary to curb panic and hoarding. So too profiteering, prices upped at the first opportunity.

I remember in the aftermath of the Japan tsunami in 2011 and the Fukushima nuclear meltdown which dislodged over 150,000 people. Yet, queues for food and supplies were orderly even if long and time-consuming. Looting was absent. A conscientious collective is unnoticed until tested, and reputations last a lifetime.

How would Malaysians score?

Where’s the bus stop again?

The buses and trains should be fuller if more in view of global predicaments choose public transportation.

Perhaps this will be a spectacular time to see public officials themselves using the system, presenting themselves as berjiwa rakyat.

There’s not much to add since the arguments are self-evident, the real resistance wall is indifference.

The trains and buses already run, jumping onto them does not add to the petrol consumption count, if anything it reduces cost per rider, and therefore the efficiency of public transportation.

Whose job to deliver steady supply of cheap petrol?

It’s less about politics and more about self-entitlement. We arrive from the back of a petrol-state past, with no state effort to correct our misguided notion of deserving constantly replenished cheap petrol.

Government facilitates, and in our present situation, Malaysia does not dictate to the world.

Even if there is a government change there is no evidence that the reactions will be different or that they have a better plan to deal with oil shortages. Some might whisper, looking at the alternatives available, they may worsen things.

Malaysians may need to readjust their expectations of the government, and demand more from themselves.

The sky’s not falling but we can be better

It’s not dire straits presently. There is every chance a solution soon softens the impact on Malaysia to a period of discomfort only.

Yet, every episode allows us as a country to be introspective.

Not touched here is food security vulnerabilities. Again, a myriad times infinite, the number of issues.

What Malaysians should ask — more of themselves even if they can demand from the government — is whether attitudes must shift from the lessons of the current crisis.

Would we all drive less because it is bad to consume so much fuel?

Would we ask a whole bunch of questions to ourselves all of the time to own more of our problems?

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 15 — I have watched more anime in the last two years than I have in my entire lifetime; mostly because I now find Western storytelling very dull.

Whenever I see the Booker list I wonder which tale of midlife crisis/adultery/diaspora disenchantment but written to appeal to Caucasian high-brow tastes made it to the list this time.

My favourite recent read has been Taiwan writer Yang Shuang-zi’s Taiwan Travelogue; I wasn’t sure if I’d like the fiction pretending to be non-fiction literary gimmick but it was entertaining and as someone who loves food, particularly Taiwanese food, it did not disappoint.

One of my hobbies is collecting foreign language books and books about learning foreign languages.

I feel they mock me sometimes, from the shelves.

One of the books is my Russian copy of The Master and Margarita, a gift from a friend who said she got it for free because the bookseller was amazed a non-Russian had heard of it, and wanted it.

There is still time for me to pick a language, pick a book and attempt to understand it in its original tongue but I am paralysed by the demands on my time and the bounty of choice.

So instead I procrastinate by watching anime.

I’ve just finished watching Kaya-chan Isn’t Scary and it has an interesting, and weirdly personally relatable premise (for me).

Little Kaya, a preschooler, is psychic.

She can see things others can’t, including monsters that mean her and her fellow preschoolers harm.

The teachers and her classmates see her as a “problem child” when all Kaya is trying to do is protect them from the monsters.

Kaya isn’t afraid of the monsters. Being psychic she has more spiritual power than even some spiritually-attuned adults and can ward off even the scariest bogeymen with a single punch.

(Spoiler alert) Then in one episode, Kaya meets a foe she cannot fend off, and one abetted, unwittingly, by adult onlookers who should have protected her.

Kaya meets a monster but he is an ordinary man who can’t resist trying to walk away with her, a child lost and without her guardians.

Despite her protests the other adults laugh and think she is just having a tantrum.

It takes her distant cousin who happens to be walking by to rescue her from her would-be kidnapper, who instead of showing remorse, admonishes him for not looking after Kaya better, before disappearing into the crowd.

Kaya’s cousin, also a psychic, then picks her up and tells her there are some monsters she can’t fight.

I found the scene harrowing because I empathised with it too much.

When, as a child, I was assaulted in a library I had thought even then, why is this happening? Isn’t this place supposed to be safe?

All children deserve to feel safe.

It feels unreal to read about the Epstein files, the recent report about a toddler being assaulted in ICE custody and the recent paedophile ring arrests in Johor, as well as widespread child sexual abuse in a children’s home in Selayang.

The crowd who feels the need to scream that “women can be sexual attackers too” need to quiet down because women being the perpetrators is the exception and not the rule.

Women are told to learn self-defence, to be careful who they go out with, where they jog, who they date, who they marry and when assaulted, always have to deflect the blame put on them for not “making better choices.”

Do children have the choice in deciding not to be fodder for paedophiles?

I was a little depressed post-cancer looking in the mirror, at my flabby abdomen, menopausal acne, sagging jowls but having had to endure strange men even trying to harass me at my front gate, it’s kind of a relief to be free of male attention.

So when I was back in Sabah for a few days (mainly so my mother wouldn’t decide to give me a heart attack by flying here) I felt nothing but irritation when a passing man on a motorbike catcalled.

It is not women who decided to cause the current West Asian conflict, nor are they behind the troubles in Sudan, and the Congo.

It is not women who keep making themselves the scapegoat for low birthrates, with men now outrightly suggesting that perhaps braindead women could be kept on life support to be used as surrogates or in Russia, women who refuse to have children will be referred to psychotherapists to help convince them motherhood isn’t a bad thing.

As though we are less than human, merely attractive breeding stock not allowed self-determination.

There are young women who are preemptively on birth control so if on the off-chance they are raped, they won’t likely get pregnant.

Serial killers? Mostly men.

Suicide bombers? Also men.

There is something fundamentally wrong in society for men to be so much more skewed towards violence and depravity, and we cannot keep making excuses and calling it “human nature.”

Do not look for bogeyman under beds or in closets; the real monsters have always been, in the flesh, men.

Stop blaming women for men being lonely or unmarried because the problem has always been with them.

At least you won’t have to worry about your cat or dog plotting to kill you.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 10 — So I woke up on Wednesday morning and saw some hopeful news on my phone: Both the US and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire as a sort of prelude to formal negotiations on April 10th to end the war.

Great! Yay!

Except about half an hour after I read the ceasefire news I also read that Iran had fired missiles into Israel and her Arab neighbours, Israel had fired back and – omg! – it looks as if all talk of “cease firing” was a very short-lived joke. 

A few of my friends even expressed concern that the continued rockets and hostilities – barely an hour (or less) after an official ceasefire announcement – was proof that this war could end up being a forever war.

Thing is, it’s guaranteed that many people who were at first joyfully anticipating an end to this war (and all the economic problems it’s been causing) must’ve felt their hopes dissipated.

Thankfully, though, if history is anything to go by we can be assured that the ceasefire announcement on Wednesday is a major (albeit fragile) first step towards ending this conflict. 

Because, believe it or not, most official ceasefires do not mean the warring parties actually cease firing.

Consider last year’s Asean Summit where President Trump and Prime Minister Anwar witnessed the signing of the Kuala Lumpur Peace Accord by both the Thailand and Cambodia prime ministers. 

This very formal and official ceasefire agreement, significantly, did not result in a complete cessation of hostilities (in fact, another ceasefire agreement had to be signed a few months later) but, crucially, it represented the first steps towards ensuring peace.

As of now – fingers crossed – the fighting has more or less abated.

First responders gather at the site of an Israeli airstrike in the village of Habbouch, southern Lebanon on April 10, 2026. A ceasefire in name, conflict in reality – even after agreements are signed, fighting often continues, underscoring how fragile the first steps towards peace can be. — AFP pic

Ceasefires are announced with fanfare: diplomats shake hands, headlines proclaim “Fighting Stops,” and the world breathes a tentative sigh of relief. 

The point is that skirmishes, violations, artillery duels, and opportunistic attacks often continue – often immediately. A ceasefire is rarely a true end to violence; it is usually a tactical pause dressed up as progress.

The fundamental reason most ceasefires fail to deliver lasting quiet is because they represent a suspension of hostilities, not a peace treaty. 

It does not resolve the underlying political, ethnic, or territorial disputes that caused the war. 

Without robust enforcement mechanisms – neutral monitors, demilitarised zones with real teeth, or mutual exhaustion – parties will obviously retain both the means and the incentive to keep testing and hurting each other. 

In fact, for the 2,200 plus ceasefire agreements made from the start of the 20th century up to today, practically all have met with post-agreement hostilities (see Note 1) but – crucially – this does not mean that the ceasefire was pointless. Whilst ceasefires do not mean a cessation of firing, the eventual peace could not have come about without them. 

Seen pessimistically, one could argue that hostile human nature will always find reasons to fight and not stop. But looked at optimistically one could say that without these ceasefire agreements, the wars would either get worse or be well and truly indefinite.

Ceasefires and armistices remain important.  They save lives in the short term, allow aid to reach civilians, create much-needed space for negotiations and buy political breathing room. 

Comprehensive agreements with verification teams and clear red lines tend to perform better than vague declarations. Yet total cessation of all firing remains extraordinarily rare. 

Announcing a ceasefire should never be confused with ending a war, but wars rarely end without one. It brings brittle (and often failed) anticipation for peace. But in times like these, surely even the smallest glimmer of hope helps.

Note 1: It appears only two ceasefires in modern history have resulted in practically zero hostilities in the short term: the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. These were rare exceptions where clear and strong mutual interests translated into genuine and sustained calm and stopped renewed fighting.

APRIL 9 — Destination currently reads, nowhere. He’s fading faster than expected.

It’s as though after being kicked out of Bersatu, Hamzah Zainudin stands in the parking lot, toying with his smartphone while it is on flight mode and pretending to book a ride.

Raised in Umno, to posture is second nature but the Larut strongman is steadily losing momentum by, well, just posturing.

The defiance shown after his sacking by Bersatu by having a gathering the day after with most of the party’s MPs in attendance was a strong start but two months are about to pass and few outside or inside Perikatan Nasional are aware what the leader of the Opposition is up to.  Or where he intends to go.

Everyone is fairly certain who he is against, however hardly anyone is aware what he is for going forward.

PAS have appointed a chairman for PN and by June, do not hold your breath, they’d appoint a new Leader of Opposition from their ranks.

When that happens, unless other developments precede it, he’d be without a party, a coalition or a meaningful position.

It’ll just be Larut in Dewan Rakyat, seated next to Muar and Bukit Gantang in the Siberia of the lower chamber. Political indecision is a career-killer even in risk averse Malaysia.

It probably makes a lot of people at Umno’s headquarters chuckle. How about them apples?

The author argues that Hamzah Zainudin’s post-Bersatu trajectory is marked by indecision and lack of direction, with his failure to articulate a clear political path risking his relevance as support within Perikatan Nasional wanes and rivals move to fill the vacuum. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin

The Attrition Method

He had a charmed life in politics till about eight weeks ago.

Hamzah jumped ship from Umno in 2018 to a Bersatu chaired by Mahathir Mohamad. By the time president Muhyiddin Yassin’s crew ousted Mahathir from the party and as prime minister, Hamzah was already a senior figure in the nascent party. 

Appointed home minister in the pandemic Cabinet. When PN failed to deliver in GE2022, it was still an up for Hamzah as he was catapulted to become the coalition’s face in parliament as leader.

Last year in June, Hamzah worked with the leadership to prop himself up as deputy president, thanks to pliant Ahmad Faizal Azumu or Peja relegating himself from deputy to vice-president, to enable the manoeuvre.  And being declared at the party’s October polls as the unopposed number two was just a step away to the top post.

Thereafter, lead the party and coalition to GE16 and the highest office in the land.

That quickly? Can be if it is a charm offensive in tandem with an internal ouster of Muhyiddin. Dance with the committee while assassins wait in the dark with silencers.

Gathered statutory declarations (SDs) from 120 division chiefs asking for a polite leadership succession. To Hamzah it was stratagem, to Muhyiddin it was a hostile takeover.

A series of sackings and suspensions followed, culminating with Hamzah’s own axing.

Future researchers cannot claim it a misunderstanding, as there were elaborate and painstaking efforts to undermine the president with the active role of the Perak Man. A hundred-twenty division chiefs do not randomly submit SDs.

Traded blows, in the sick-bay

Hamzah knew a standoff was building from the year-end Perlis putsch which precipitated Muhyiddin and allies’ resignations from PN posts. Yet it seemed the only thing he was ready for was for Muhyiddin to hand over the reins rather than fight.

Both were bloodied by Hamzah’s sacking. The ex-deputy had 18 MPs but no  platform. They’ll wait but not forever. Politicians must consider options. Former Srikandi chief and Melaka chieftain Mas Ermieyati Samsudin has a state election in December, which determines her own political future. She backs Hamzah, for now.

Muhyiddin has perhaps six MPs including himself. While he can enjoy Hamzah’s struggle, he’d rue his party’s diminished stature. Even more so when there’s a global economic situation to rival the 2008 meltdown. Sitting governments are often punished and the benefactors will be the Opposition parties.

The Bersatu implosion forces PN to stutter as PAS is ill-equipped to step up due to its own deformities.

Surf conditions are perfect, and they cannot find a single surfboard among them to ride the wave to glory.

Panderers are Yellow Pandas

Knowing how Hamzah got to this predicament and PN’s preoccupations with being preoccupied explains the malaise. Yet, seeing Hamzah’s no-agenda method explains his own ineptitude.

The initial conversation was refashioning the inactive Parti Keluarga Malaysia, which unfortunately shares the abbreviation of the defunct Parti Komunis Malaya (Malayan Communist Party).  It seems Hamzah is less comfortable to speak about the PKM ties.

Days ago, he intimated he may opt for PAS membership.

He cannot just pack and leave one major party for another and expect seamless integration. The entry of ex-PKR leaders into Bersatu lent to the power struggles between him and Muhyiddin.

PAS is a 75-year-old party which has navigated itself firmly as a cleric led movement the last 40 years. How does a soon to be 70 quantity surveyor turned Umno-style corporate bigwig position himself in PAS? And does he also drag along his 18 MPs?

Being open to options in the first week was prudent. Not narrowing choices after two months starts to give a scent of uncertainty. Which then makes supporters nervous. Umno is aggressively seeking to recoup ex-leaders who bolted, that’s the majority of MPs with Hamzah.

If the new leader does not deploy a pathway to power for the followers, and the old grand party opens its doors, doubt seeps in.

Mas Ermieyati is the Public Accounts Committee chair and grassroots leaders in Melaka, Umno only get stronger with her back as Masjid Tanah MP. Ronald Kiandee is a six-time incumbent at Beluran and can up Umno’s appeal in Sabah and give a valuable seat  to tip the count on election night.

Umno rubs its hands with glee in anticipation in case Hamzah is a zero, they can become the hero and embrace old guards back into the fold.

While Hamzah has succeeded in the past, it has been on the shoulders of giants in Umno and Bersatu. Now, when the opportunity presents itself to him to kick off his own vehicle he displays more hesitation than enthusiasm. 

It’s fun being angry and rewarded for wild fury all the while, but leading at the top means having a vision.

Perhaps this was always beyond his pay grade.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 7 — As I write this I’m having a little pity party.

It’s been 11 days since I caught an upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) and I have yet to shake it off.

My brain has decided to go on an extended holiday and I am writing this by the power of whichever brain cell did not fit into the suitcase.

So I looked up why I’ve been so ill for so long and apparently thanks to the combo of post-cancer and being on tamoxifen, my immune system is as effective as the new Kelantan airport terminal at keeping motorbike racers out.

It might be years before my immune system gets stronger, and I also found out that another common experience post-cancer is URTIs taking a lot longer to clear.

Well, I guess I am never visiting any country in winter.

It also means that I need to be strict about masking again because it’s been a miserable week with my bedside table looking like a tissue sculpture installation of Mount Fuji.

Will I be well enough to endure the trip to Penang in a few days? We’ll see. At least I’m going by train, I’m not coughing (just leaking enough fluid to float a dinghy) and I still have Vinda tissue.

My housemate and I (this is not an advertisement) use Vinda because cheaper tissues tend to disintegrate when wet and Vinda wet wipes also make excellent mop pad replacements.

You know how wet wipes often dry out because the seal often gets weak? I realised I forgot to close a Vinda wet wipe packet and lo, it was still moist and usable.

In a perfect world, I would use reusable towels but in my heavily immunocompromised world, disposables are the only thing between me and a mountain of pathogens.

My hips, knees and arms still ache. I still approach stairs with caution.

I have recovered enough of my taste buds that my spice tolerance has reduced; I thought I was getting better at eating hot food but no, my cancer treatment had just destroyed the surface of my tongue.

Some days I feel a little more flexible, and it feels less painful to get out of a chair or a car.

Other days all I feel is tiredness and a stiffness that threatens never to leave.

Healing isn’t a linear route; some days you’re the trainer, some days you’re the one in the Pokémon Center. — AFP pic

I wish I could give a far rosier picture of my post-cancer life but healing, I’m finding out, is something that will happen on its own schedule and not mine.

When I get to Penang I’ll probably avoid queuing (I had enough of all the lining up in Taipei, as delicious as the end results proved).

Maybe I’ll laze by the pool.

Or I’ll learn to play Pokémon Champions, the new game that I can show to the taxman to prove that I really am competing in e-sports, because it’s probably the only sport I can play without keeling over.

Competing in Pokémon e-sports is like chess...except you choose which pieces you will bring to the board from a whopping 1,028, with hundreds of possible movesets, conditions and strategies.

It’s very hard but maybe pitting virtual monsters at each other might be the kickstart my brain needs because lately I’ve been struggling to remember names and places — seeing them in my mind but the names fail me.

Life is dull and tiring now, especially with the conflict in West Asia as a backdrop, but I will remember again that saying I came across long ago, that the life you’re living might be someone else’s dream.

The least I can do is make mine a good one.

APRIL 2 — I have a friend who only got one A in her SPM, back in the 1980s.  

I met up with her a couple months ago. We talked about old times and I found out that, wow, nowadays she flies from Malaysia to France regularly as the regional manager of a medical organisation. (So much for “1 A in SPM” leading to sleeping on the street!)

Also, something she did made me realise how she was so successful despite a relatively poor SPM performance. Her superpower was one I absolutely don’t see often: Her listening skills. 

She spent more than 70-80 per cent of the time asking about me and our friends. Almost devoid of ego, she only talked about herself when specifically requested to or if a story made sense in the context of the on-going chat. 

She showed the entire group of us that she actually much preferred hearing our stories and histories as opposed to showing off what she’s achieved (which was hardly miniscule).

I’ll come back to my friend later but, before I forget, a big shout-out to everyone who aced their SPM results! 

Your hard work paid off, and your family and teachers must be beaming with pride. 

But if your results didn’t meet your expectations or you outright didn’t pass? That’s honestly not a bad thing either — it might just mean your future won’t hinge on academic scores alone.

Doing well in exams is awesome, no question. But don’t let your grades define you, and don’t let a disappointing result crush your spirit. 

But if your results didn’t meet your expectations or you outright didn’t pass? That’s honestly not a bad thing either. — Bernama pic

School can teach you valuable skills, but it can also stifle your natural curiosity or make you think “success” only comes from acing tests. 

It can trick you into believing learning only happens in classrooms or that high marks equal real-world readiness.

If you scored a string of As, that’s fantastic — celebrate it! But don’t let those grades become your whole identity. 

They’re a solid foundation, but life’s got bigger tests coming. And if you’ve been wrestling with studies from primary school to Form 5, maybe that’s a sign academia isn’t your thing. That’s not a flaw — it’s a hint you’re meant to shine somewhere else.

To the extent that the SPM still relies heavily (although not exclusively) on MCQs, these exams could end up being not much more than a memory game. 

SPM could thus take on game show vibes i.e. general knowledge/trivia, guessing, luck, fastest to the timer, individual memory, abstract and “useless” information, closed book, IQ, etc.

But life is more like a reality show isn’t it? The big winners all possess people skills, organisation/managerial skills, planning/forward-looking, negotiation/persuasion, relationship-building, conflict management, “open book”, EQ, i.e. people skills.

Treating education as a chance to develop our “reality show” slash relationship skills is quite an adventure. 

You end up forcing yourself to learn about things you probably never learn much about in school i.e. how people think, what makes them tick, how to cool down tense situations, why “soft power” may be more effective than its opposite (certainly a relevant theme given the situation in Middle East?), how to change minds to meet your objectives, and so on.

Truth be told, most people can ace a math paper but couldn’t haggle successfully over a basket of fruits to save their lives; people with such skills certainly have an edge.

Like my friend, the world has a lot to offer to anyone with great people skills and just about anyone willing to learn something new.

All the best to you.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 2 — Bizarre to say the least that the 80th anniversary of the Malayan Union yesterday went without mention.

That seminal moment in this country about to start its jog to independence whence neighbours claimed it in a sprint with a sprinkle of gunpowder.

Malayan Union would have rendered Jus Soli the law of the land. Citizenship as a birthright. If you were born in Malaya, by definition you were Malayan.

It would have formalised Malays as a demographic minority in the country.

The genesis of Umno is from there. The genesis of the “us versus them” also was formalised when the Malayan Union was upended.

Umno’s vision trumped Putera-AMCJA’s People’s Constitution recommendations via British complicity, in the form of the Federation of Malaya structure which shaped independent Malaya’s constitution.

Is Jus Soli or Jus Sanguine (birthright by parents or ancestral links) as a debate still valid in 2026?

Because most Malaysians born in the last 30 years are both delivered here — Sunway Medical Centre or Hospital Ampang, like that — and with both parents born here. Probably ushered in from the womb by doctors who were born here to Malaysian parents.

So much has changed, as time does to any society. Time melds people together.

Today, is it still “us and them”, or worse, “us versus them”?

It seemed in 1991 when Mahathir Mohamad in his tenth year in office declared Bangsa Malaysia as part of Wawasan2020 that the past of re-examining “us and them” was over.

It was symbolic since Mahathir was from the initial generation of Umno, the party that held on to “us versus them” as its raison d’être — reason for existence.

It felt that his generation came around to the fact it’s Malaysia first despite the past and that being Malaysian mattered more than other demographic details. From Padang Besar to Semporna, a nation of Malaysians.

The enthusiasm for Bangsa Malaysia was palpable. It did not last long. At the first sign of critics asking whether Bangsa Malaysia trumped Bangsa Melayu, the whole campaign collapsed.

No Umno leader, including Mahathir, and then vice-president Anwar Ibrahim, was willing to clarify the ascendancy of Malaysian citizenship.

It was a wishy-washy discourse of how kaum and bangsa are two separate constructs or interchangeable terms. It went back and forth with no conclusion that the millions who lived then and live still struggle to explain to others what did Bangsa Malaysia actually mean then, or even now.

It is poetic in that sense that Wawasan2020 is almost forgotten and that 2020 is more synonymous as the year of Covid19. Poetic indeed it was the year Mahathir exited unceremoniously for the second time as prime minister.

It was not reassuring that his replacement was Muhyiddin Yassin who in 2010 uttered the infamous lines which have followed him long before criminal trials: “I am Malay first, but being Malay doesn’t mean I am not Malaysian.”

The Malayan Union lasted just two years, but the fault lines it exposed have lasted eight decades. — Picture from Facebook/446

‘Us and them’ with concrete foundations

I have some good news.

Despite the online vitriol in a country infested with cybertroopers it is safe to declare “us versus them” is dead. There are no battlelines today between those whose great-grandparents were about to benefit from Malayan Union and those whose great-grandparents opposed the Malayan Union.

However, this remains a polarised nation. Hard to find a country as old as us and rich as us with the level of polarity present here.

So, unfortunately, “us and them” has not been weeded out. It renders us fragile, for events, developments, tragedies and mistakes are seen far more through the lens of race than polite.

Too many Malaysians preface their racism with the lines “I do not want to be racist” and too many present when it’s said stay silent.

Is that a fair summation?

Yes, if you consider the overwhelming number of times Malaysians threaten fellow Malaysians that “they should go back to where they came from” and an equal number of Malaysians bellow to their opponents “You are not from here too, go back also.”

The mistrust from the Malayan Union era persists.

The story of us

“Us and them”, will eventually morph into just “us”. It’s inevitable despite the best efforts of dissenters. What will be the first problem for the just “us” generation would be to worry too many have departed since they were too tired to wait for the “us” age.

There would be a time when those from a hundred years after Malayan Union who’d find the idea that there were Malaysians who opposed Jus Soli a century before an anathema. In the future, the past always appears petty.  Can we of the present countenance slavery which was common for several millennia? Yet, it was for a long, long time.

It is the speed of us getting there that is in doubt. Braver leaders accelerate shifts. Our passage to nationhood was stalled, not the least in the 1990s when Mahathir was unwilling to back Bangsa Malaysia with substance and his own political capital. He could have traded the title longest serving prime minister with a meatier title. Our own Lincoln, Ataturk or Mandela, only if.

The Malayan Union is a reminder that the best intentions do not yield without a ready population. It is a stark warning that prejudice warms up to more people than a conviction around principles.

It’s a reminder that when a system is rejected by fear and bigotry, that in the distant future when the system is forgotten like it was yesterday, the fear and bigotry associated with it and seen as the winner carries on as a stumbling block even in a different time.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

APRIL 1 — Riddle me this: is it not disingenuous to be marketed all these promo airfares and travel packages in the middle of what is likely to be a very long energy crisis?

No, travel booking website, I am not going to book a vacation just in case they manage to negotiate a ceasefire.

Perhaps it was divine providence I followed the strange pull that drove me to book three trips with less than two weeks between them, with my last one happening next week.

Or I was just stir-crazy after barely being able to walk four metres during my cancer treatment without getting winded and now all I want to do is walk.

Yet the reality is this — the world’s never ending love affair with fossil fuels continues torridly.

Malaysia is more insulated than most because we do have a domestic oil and gas industry but our reserves can only hold for so long, and it’s simply not feasible to just “stop” exporting oil and using what we produce locally.

Finding out we sell the nicer oil and buy less nice oil for domestic use was certainly eye-opening.

That means we are still going to be affected by price hikes; I feel sorry for those who commute on the Labuan ferry because service has now been paused due to high diesel prices.

I remember during the pandemic people still foolishly thought they could travel and then ended up being stranded due to Covid-19 measures.

Being stuck in a foreign country with no confirmation on when you can return is scary and very expensive.

Hearing that many of those stranded overseas in the earlier days of the current conflict were not covered by travel insurance, due to war being a standard exclusion, I was just very thankful that I had never had any desire to visit Dubai nor fly onboard any of the Gulf airlines.

Yet I expect more tales of people being stranded while on vacation because there will be people who will travel anyway, whether due to non-refundable bookings or the knowledge that the “safer time to travel” might not come.

I hope that if you travel, you have enough savings or at the very least, enough to hunker down until you can evacuate if the war comes to your doorstep anyhow.

My next trip will involve trains and ferries and of course, a lot of walking.

Right now though as I’ve been sick with what is likely the flu, my walks have mostly been in the world of Pokopia, traversing seas, mountains and decayed buildings to build houses for the worst interior design clients ever — Pokémon.

After my upcoming train adventure. my only trips will be virtual. — Pokopia Screenshot 

You try building a house for a creature who decides roofs make things too “dark” and are only satisfied once you strip down your building to a door and one low wall made up of 10 stones.

I did end up crying a lot while playing, not so much because of the game itself (building homes for cute monsters isn’t that harrowing) but the writing.

The game doesn’t outright tell you what happened to all the humans, why all the Pokémon are left alone but instead you find little clues as you go along, playing the little missions, deciding which Pokémon would be happier rooming together.

It’s the little things, like how one monster keeps saying they hope that whatever you, the main character are doing, that it’s enough to persuade the humans to come home.

Ditto, the Pokémon you play in the game, is perhaps the saddest of them all — being able to mimic or shapeshift into anyone or anything, you instead choose the shape of the person you loved most, your human trainer.

When I get back from my next trip I hope I have enough stories to tell because I am rather tired of commentating on the state of the current world.

Mocking politicians has gotten stale now they’ve become expert at becoming self-mockeries so here’s to telling stories of travelling, recovering and mending my broken body and threadbare heart. 

At least we’ll always have Pokémon.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 27 — I left the mamak shop just before half-time last Sunday. The match didn’t appear disastrous yet; Spurs looked the more dangerous side, Forest could barely get one shot on goal in the first 40 minutes.

As I was walking home, I messaged my cousin and said this match could go either way but I was optimistic.

By the time I opened my front door, Forest had scored the first of three unanswered goals. As Hudson said in Aliens, “Game over man, game over!”

Last Sunday was the 15th loss in the Premier League for Tottenham this season. That’s two losses more than they suffered at this stage last year, where they achieved 17th position (yet somehow won the Europa League).

There is a very very real possibility that the Lily Whites may be relegated this year, not least given how they managed to let in three goals that day to a team that has changed managers four times this season!

The home fans certainly thought so, flooding the Tottenham Hotspur stadium before the game, embodying the 12th Man more than ever before.

Only to see their team crash 0-3 at home to a team positioned 16th in the league.

Tottenham Hotspur fans look dejected in the stands during the Premier League match against Nottingham Forest at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London on March 22, 2026. — Reuters pic

Now Spurs sit one sickening point above the drop zone. Ten home defeats this season. Six losses in seven league games. The great stadium, built on dreams of glory under Mauricio Pochettino and Daniel Levy’s restless ambition, has become a house of mourning.

Last year when Ange Postecoglou was overseeing defeat after defeat in the league, there was nevertheless a sliver of hope in that Spurs’ progress in the Europa League continued (albeit semi-miraculously).

Without fully believing it, the fans sort of told themselves that, okay, since we can’t get any more honours from the league, why not throw everything at winning a European trophy?

The rest, as they say, is history as Postecoglou brought Tottenham their first trophy in 17 years and also the club’s first European one since 1984.

Like some shocking Game of Thrones twist, Ange was fired barely two weeks after that glorious night in Bilbao, Thomas Frank took over and was asked to leave after eight months and here we are.

There is now no quasi-consolation over Tottenham’s terrible league form today as there was last season as barely two weeks ago the club was knocked out of Europe, losing to Athletico Madrid 7-5 on aggregate.

So what happens now?

There are seven games to go and nobody can say with certainty that Tottenham won’t leave the Premier League by the end of May.

Nobody knows what the central problem is, although there are many theories. Season-missing injuries to key players like James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski and a hundred others.

Lower wages which fail to attract better players. Poor managerial tactics. Non-committal management which appears more concerned with stadium revenue than team performance. And others.

As someone who’s supported the club since 2004 when Martin Jol took over — and the likes of Dimitar Berbatov and Robbie Keane rocked the football world — I can only say I hope this nightmare ends fast.

For the love of God, get in some manager who’s fought tooth and nail in relegation battles and save this club from sinking.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 26 — Organ transplants are impossible in Malaysia, and our legislators share a large blame.

We have performed 3,106 transplants here. Which is a decent number if it represented 2025. It does not. It represents every procedure since 1976, or 50 years or half a century. Which averages 62 annually in a country of 34 million.

And at least 70 per cent of those are from living donors, mostly kidney and some liver. About 18 transplants from the deceased, like heart, lungs or corneas occur. It’s grim for those waiting for those types of organs.

Safe to say if there was a World Cup for organ transplants, Malaysia would not qualify for the finals.  

So, it is not inspiring to know, the compulsory adoption of MySejahtera health tracker, pumped up the donor list to over 400,000 but to no end. 

Almost half a million people say if they die others are free to have their organs, only to not know post-death, that’s not what happens.

Good news of record number of donors translates to not good enough because their wish — their last lasting contribution to humanity — is nullified by family. For here, an organ pledge is only facilitated with family consent.

A pledge is only facilitated if the family agrees also.

There, mystery solved.

Ramping up the donor list is a fool’s errand since the dead don’t get their way.  So around 62 people agree to give hope to strangers, which is wonderful, except only 62 strangers benefit. 

When there are over 10,000 people in the waiting list, they have less of a chance to have the winning number than those lined up outside lottery shops.

The Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad’s team in its usual ingenious manner came up with a winner of a solution, a public awareness campaign. Warisku, Hormati Ikrarku or My Family, Respect My Pledge. Launched in August 2025.

The masterplan: We’ll ask them, nicely. And wait. Brilliant.

It is doing the bare minimum to appear as though a real effort is being expended.

At this juncture, comparing apples and apples, gives perspective. Or organ box with organ box, though boxes without organs ever in them are not organ boxes, just merely boxes.

To compare, a short trot across the causeway.

Hota, eh Hota

Singapore’s Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA) 1987 was amended in 2004 to include the liver, heart, and corneas, and expanded to cover all causes of death, not just accidental death, and further amended in 2008 to include Muslims.

Therefore, all Singaporeans and permanent residents are donors. Tonight, 4.2 million people are present on the island as potential donors, except for those who explicitly removed themselves from the list. 

Opt-out and by choice one is relegated below those who remain put in the list. If you don't want to give, you won’t likely receive.

It is not a heartless episode, the steps to harvest organs in the eventuality.

Donors’ families are consulted but in general the process is not compromised.

The author argues that legal reforms are needed to ensure individuals’ decisions to donate organs are respected, reduce reliance on family consent, and allow more lives to be saved. — Freepik pic

Considering the chasm between the countries, Malaysians in Singapore with permanent residency, are strongly recommended to access the island’s healthcare if they require an organ.

Singapore’s legislators felt compelled to lead their people in the matter, rather than hope that one, people sign up to be donors they are automatically co-opted and second, not allow the system to disintegrate into paralysis because families turn reluctant.

All bioethics is heartbreaking by its very nature, but the Singaporeans chose the path of help rather than woeful indifference to not look bad.

Hey, family

One of the worst kept secrets about death is that the dead are incommunicado.

The living must cope. Few of us are spared the grief death brings to families.

To hand over a brochure to a family in their despair — the most suitable donor is a brain-dead person in the intensive-care-unit (ICU) — after discovery that the dear departed is a registered donor, is likely to be met with resistance.

Families are embroiled in their own pain and are too stricken to consider the plight of a different family.

The reaction to the knowledge that the person they loved — and now is no more with them — wants to part with his insides to help others cannot be other than upset.

Medical professionals can comfort them in the minutes after since the decision is out of the families’ hands like in Singapore, but it is a different kettle of fish to expect the doctors and nurses to persuade the families to respect the donor’s decision.

There is the delicate matter of time. Organs need to be removed within hours. Tissues (skin, corneas, heart valves) can be donated up to 24 hours after death.

The family has no time for these cold things since they are in the midst of funeral arrangements.

Which is why asking families to take the responsibility even though the individual has already decided is rough.

Don’t ask the family to respect the pledge, tell them they are legally obligated to oblige and morally beholden to the wishes of the deceased. Which is only possible if there is a Malaysian version of the Singaporean Hota.

It is a bridge too far in novice Malaysia to enforce an automatic opt-in but a first stage law can defend the opt-in decision.

The decision is better out of the hands of the family. If the donor made a wilful choice while alive, it should be respected by default, not debated in a hospital corridor.

A family is always many, and there will be enough who hesitate. Rational discussions are non-starters. 

A divided house would also result in the safer choice not to donate. It would have to be a family inundated with Vulcans to think of the recipient and his family rather than stay in their personal emotional roller-coaster.

In this hallowed chamber

This is Dr Dzulkefly’s second go as health minister, after a four-year gap.

If the bravest his ministry can offer to this predicament is a campaign, then excuses rather than solutions are the go-to for this government. 

To be absolutely clear, the other guys, those who claim clairvoyance and a monopoly over good, and ready to take over are just as afraid to moot bold policies.

Our politicians are mired in minimalism. They are happy to take all the credit but they will not do more than the absolute minimum in a brittle national political landscape.

These are matters that Dewan Rakyat is supposed to debate. Because it is a real issue suffocated by the fact a largely ignorant society only feels the pain when they have a family member in the 10,000 plus recipient list.

This is where leadership must emerge. In championing the practical even if it is easily manipulated by those wanting to score cheap points. 

To say families know best, or that living wills are western constructs which negate eastern values.

Yet, a Bill to allow donor pledges to have legal protections when they are activated is exactly the kind of legislative measures which reflect a progressive society.

Only allowing 62 persons a year on average the benefits of life-saving modern medicine disappoint.

It seems crude to be impersonal about the family of the deceased when they are distraught but if they are guided by the state through a firmer law, they can enable another family to avoid a death or suffering, when their family member is a successful organ recipient.

The advancements in medicine only quicken and our present policy on organ transplants and meek efforts to cheerlead people into being OK with it will yield very little.

MARCH 25 — I am not trained in economics, but it’s easy enough to deduce the compounding effect on prices.

Everything will cost more and people already struggling will feel the pain first.

Some of us will glibly announce we will start making our own coffee now but for others it’s a smaller portion of an already meagre ration of rice.

There is one small dim silver lining to Trump’s madness.

“It doesn’t affect me,” people say about politics, global affairs, everything outside their comfortable bubble.

We can’t stuff the genie of globalisation back into the bottle.

Perhaps some of us will finally understand that none of us will be safe from suffering until everyone is.

Maybe it is wishful thinking, to hope for a better world and better people to emerge from this world on fire.

Yet that is what I must believe.

We are a species defined by belief.

Animals do not need to believe in anything.

Even atheists believe.

Their dogma, believing this life is all we have and that there is nothing beyond the doorway of death, is still a kind of faith.

What I think is that too many of us are fixated on the end times.

An Israeli self-propelled howitzer artillery gun fires rounds towards southern Lebanon from a position in the upper Galilee in northern Israel near the border on March 20, 2026. — AFP pic

Every year I have been alive someone has declared the world is ending.

I guess God is also the god of procrastination.

We do not truly live in unprecedented times.

We have just forgotten that powerful idiots will constantly destabilise the world just because they can.

Since we can never be free of idiots, we can only free ourselves from our own idiocy, even if it’s just the little things.

A friend confided in me that looking back on when her daughter was small, she had been so preoccupied and stressed by things she now sees were just trifles.

The world’s troubles will affect us all in the coming months so perhaps it might just be what wakes us up, if we’ve been sleepwalking most of our lives.

It has been shown that in the hardest of times the best in us will still prevail, the way it did during the early days of the pandemic.

Let’s hope it doesn’t again take the worst of times to bring out the best in us.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 19 — Future democracy, just like pensions, will be paid for by those who play on the streets today.

Prepping those to lead the future is a grave matter.

Except here, in Malaysia, we beat our young blue and black until they lose the fire of defiance.

There’s a one-word mode preferred for our young, don’t. Don’t do, don’t be, don’t see, don’t dare. When in doubt, don’t. When action is necessary, don’t.

To be absolutely objective, it is brilliantly clear. No way to misunderstand the instruction. Inertia is the state’s enemy and our youth must avoid it like leprosy.

They are told, as I was told, as millions are told on a daily basis, growing up.

As are a student group in Universiti Malaya told to cease use of the university’s logo. In the Madani spirit, the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) steps in and asks for consultation between the parties. Universiti Malaya and Liga Mahasiswa Universiti Malaya (LMUM).

How would the negotiations be?

UM: We own the logo

LMUM: No university without students

UM: Register as a valid university organisation and then you can use the logo

LMUM: You won’t register us

UM: Yes, but you can apply.

Instead of negotiations, let’s do this. Let’s not negotiate. It is standard operation from those in power, to buy time. 

Keep talking about recognition and the dissident students would have graduated by then.

The immensely potent side of the don’t ethos is that time is a friend, not a foe.

The law is on the side of the university, since they derive their authority, appointment and funding from those who make the laws. 

The government backs the universities’ administrators in the whole, in exchange the administrators back the government. It is completely circular. 

In any given time, the university will be in the right, and the students in the wrong. The power dynamics are so one-sided it barely deserves a discourse.

The Universiti Malaya crest is pictured at the entrance of its campus in Kuala Lumpur on January 22, 2024. — Picture by Firdaus Latif

A super quick history of organisations

Liga Mahasiswa Universiti Malaya (LMUM) is an organisation I do not know much about, other than their limited press releases and their social media posts. Same also for New Gen or Umany. I don’t need to. 

As long as they adhere to the general principles of peaceful association, whether inside or outside the university, they have a right to exist. 

That’s not me, that’s the federal Constitution Article 10(1)(c). Nor is the government a referee to determine who deserves to avail Constitutional guarantees.

I do know, however, it is mightily difficult to organise in Malaysia. Ask those who run from resident associations to cultural organisations to political parties. It is an exercise of pain, to bring Malaysians together even if it is for their own gain.

It’s a dual challenge, though interrelated. Firstly, legal.

The Postal and Telecommunications Co-operative Thrift and Loan Society Limited Company was the first co-operative society to be registered in the country, officially recorded on 21 July 1922. 

It’s been a trudge, to form associations, through the recession in the 30s to the second world war and then the march to independence. 

The deregistered Malayan Communist Party (MCP) mounting an armed insurgency in 1948 did not reflect too well about how societies aid public order. 

Two, the hiccups of the past and government conditioning, have institutionalised nationwide paralysis. People have completely morphed into inactivity since it’s dangerous to participate, and it’s safe to not participate.

We are generally people who want social evolution — better drains, trains and brains — without us rolling up our sleeves.  

Just look at our politics. Beyond identity politics, the adults cannot form arguments. Worse, they struggle to form sentences.

Which is why fidgety university administrators fear active students. They challenge our long established culture of praying for social progress rather than fighting for it.

It’s spectacular that despite every measure to demotivate them, trap their inertia and scare out of them any enthusiasm, these students came out wanting to stand for something.

In among the 20,000 odd students, small collectives of bold actors venture out to speak about their rights, their thoughts, deliver their demands and say they have as much right to own the university as those who run it.

They do so while the threat of disciplinary action hovers over them. It is magnificent to watch.

2050

It’s the future now. Malaysia is still around.

A round of troubles arrives with the adjacent turmoil. Threatening the long-term prosperity and durability of the country.

Those who were 21 in 2026, are 45 presently. They lead the country.

Who’d we from the past want to deal with those challenges? If we can choose today the future doers.

Those — from the legitimate student councils — who diligently accept guidance from the university administrators, relegate student issues as secondary to making the vice-chancellor and his adults happy their overwhelming priority, and take cute pictures with blazers when they collect commendation letters and medals from the university, or the rebels?

Those who drill themselves to stamp out all initiative, because this way the great leaders are not upset, or those who constantly have new ideas and stand by them?

Those who appreciate personal gain through the demonstration of repeated obeisance to university administrators, or those who challenge the university administrators at every turn over principles and general ideas of human rights?

The snivelling, whingeing and docile creatures of the establishment have always been celebrated here. They usually get titles. They don’t get ideas.

I don’t know whether any of the people at these upstarts like Liga Mahasiswa, New Gen or Umany stay the course or give in to the temptations of the easy road, because condominiums with swimming pools and business class holiday travels do not pay for themselves. But they have started on a journey which demands courage, versatility and cleverness.

The prime minister himself was a rebel in that university in the late Sixties and a firebrand activist in the Seventies. The deputy minister at MOHE, Adam Adli Abd Halim,  is a former leader of student agitators in his university and afterwards into a series of social issues.  

It can all go wrong, and most often life gets in the way. But to refuse the space or the chance to defend a place for the young, vibrant and loud today stillborns a better future for the country. 

Universiti Malaya does not need to be proud of them or understand them, but it can sense they have gumption. That’s not the worst thing to be associated with, as a university. 

That won’t embarrass the logo of the country’s oldest university, if anything, it gives it character.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 18 — I had my latest echocardiogram yesterday.

My immunotherapy drug Herceptin has a known side-effect of increasing the risk of heart failure, causing cardiac issues in every one out of four patients.

It is why taking regular heart scans is part of my cancer treatment protocol.

The good news is that my heart seems to be ticking steadily on, with no marked reduction of heart function nor were any abnormalities detected.

It is my last hospital appointment in the Hospital Kuala Lumpur specialist building.

I can’t deny I’m relieved because it means I no longer need specialist care for my cancer.

After this, it will just be regular monitoring and checking-in with the oncology department so if recurrence should happen (pray it won’t) I won’t be caught off-guard.

The Lord of the Rings films are screening again and last week I watched The Two Towers and again, Bernard Hill’s turn as King Theoden still moved me as much the first time.

Bernard Hill's performance as King Theoden was still affecting after all these years. — Film still from New Line/Warner Bros

“No parent should have to bury their child,” he said, playing a king recently woken from madness to find his only son has died before he could say goodbye.

It was a line that wasn’t in the original script, as the trilogy aficionados will tell you — Hill had heard it from a parent who had lost their child during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

I have not been a particularly good or attentive daughter; too wrapped up in my own personal struggles and hampered by the distance between where I live now and where I was born.

What I will not do is let my parents bury me; as imperfect as I am if I can spare them that one sorrow, to at the very least outlive them both I don’t think that is too much to give.

I say this not because I think I am particularly “strong” or “special” in surviving cancer.

It is because not long ago I said I wouldn’t bother seeking treatment if I had it because I knew it was tedious and expensive.

Yes, it certainly was.

The whole cancer experience is like being taken apart and put back together, beaten down to the point you don’t think you could get up again.

Yet you learn you can.

Being confronted with life’s fragility means you get a little less hung up on hypothetical futures.

Five-year, 10-year plans? I only think about short term plans and bucket lists.

Like watching the final movie in the LOTR trilogy later this week.

One of the interesting bits in Tolkien’s lore is that death is considered a gift bestowed upon humans; and yet humans resent the elves for being immortal.

Elves live long lives but that also means eternities to mourn, grieve and suffer. In JRR Tolkien’s mythos there is a weariness and sorrow where being an elf means that while you remain (mostly) the same, you watch the world and its people change around you.

That uncertainty of how many days you have yet to live and knowing that all things, including your life, must end makes each day more precious.

These particular lines from Tolkien’s Two Towers are particularly poignant for me these days:

“Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?

Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?

Where is the harp on the harp string, and the red fire glowing?

Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?

They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;

The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.

Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning,

Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?”

The world is burning and war festers, children dying if not from hunger, from shelling.

Would that I could with one giant hand destroy all weapons of war but that is a fantasy — in this reality all I can do is bear witness.

So I will live because my heart has refused to give up on me, as have the people in my life, I will live, because life is not guaranteed, not even for a millisecond.

Death will come when it is ready without even the courtesy of setting an appointment.

So in the meantime I will be busy with the business of living a full life, with a full heart.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 17 — Almost the only positive thing about the Covid-19 pandemic is that it pushed the idea of work-from-home (WFH) away from abstract theory and into hard reality.

WFH simply became a fact of life for companies and workers. When the pandemic ended, things went back to normal but six years later, we’re raising that question again — literally, as the Cabinet (at the time of writing) intends to moot the possibility of WFH for civil servants.

What everyone else is thinking with regards to the Cabinet session is why not extend WFH to as many sectors as possible not least because a) traffic in the Klang Valley has been murder of late and b) thanks to the Iran War fuel prices may skyrocket?

Well, why not indeed?

The sheer practicality and convenience of WFH arrangements (if the job suits it) makes the prima facie case for it an enviable one.

Many Malaysian employees and students see no reason why they can’t be allowed to stay at home especially if their jobs don’t require client facetime very often.

And with Zoom and MS Teams and what-not taking care of meetings, there is almost no reason to come to office if deliverables can be produced outside of it.

Furthermore, employers may gain an advantage by offering WFH as a perk. A frequent sticking point among Malaysian white-collar workers is this concern that bosses do not “trust” them.

A WFH arrangement more or less puts that idea to bed, leaving the ball in the employees’ court i.e.. “prove that your quality doesn’t fall with WFH”.

I personally know quite a few data analysts and content creators who, I’m sure, work even more efficiently when they do it from the comfort of their own bedroom or hall. I can’t say this is the majority of Malaysians but such folks exist for sure.

A still shows a video conference with Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson (top row, left) chairing a remote session with his Cabinet on March 31, 2020 in London. — AFP pic

What’s the downside to WFH?

Back in 2023, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, in an interview with CNBC, suggested there were moral considerations involved in the entire notion of working from home (WFH).

Musk labelled Silicon Valley engineers a part of “laptop classes living in la-la land” not least because WFH folks like them usually expected others (especially service workers) to show up at work or be in the office.

If we go to a bank and expect to see someone at the counter — and if we’d be pissed if someone wasn’t — shouldn’t we apply those requirements to ourselves?

Do we want our entire economy to be a WFH one? Would we be glad if groceries, cinemas, restaurants, hair salons, cafes, hotels etc were all devoid of human personnel?

Thus, if these sectors of the economy still require people to go work from the office, how can other sectors demand WFH as a kind of entitlement?

Whatever you think of Musk’s perspective, I think the point he raises about the inevitability of service workers needing to leave their homes to earn a living needs to be heard.

Do I have the right to feel “robbed” of WFH privileges when so many others simply don’t have that option?

Many Malaysian employers in their late forties and older have spent too many decades working in an office to feel comfortable allowing workers (especially highly paid workers) to remain absent from office.

Many people associate “time for productivity” with “time in office” and, because they’re the ones paying out the salaries, they probably believe this debate is a waste of time.

Nevertheless, WFH may result in lower costs for some companies. Surely we’ve all heard of some start-ups which don’t need to rent office space because their team is 24/7 remote and mobile.

Also, I guess if fewer people show up in the office, this could result in lower costs for electricity, broadband and maybe even man-power costs if employees accept slightly lower wages in exchange for not having to commute every weekday.

Long and short, this debate will rage on whatever our Cabinet (or Musk) declares or doesn’t.

In the end, I guess the market will do the talking and that in the end is really how every final outcome will be decided.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 14 — It’s that time of the year again where everyone gets a little bit excited about the awards season and the kind of films that usually win these awards, and the end of this year’s awards season is coming with the impending arrival of the Oscar ceremony this coming Sunday, March 15 (or Monday morning for us Malaysians). 

If you’re one of those who love to join the various Oscar prediction contests out there, here are a few tips to maybe help you win a prize or two.

The end of this year’s awards season is coming with the impending arrival of the Oscar ceremony this coming Sunday, March 15 (or Monday morning for us Malaysians). — Reuters pic

Best Picture

If it was up to me, this year’s Best Picture award would be a straight fight between The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value, but since this is the Oscars we’re talking about, for a foreign language film to even be nominated in the Best Picture category is already a win. 

And just by looking at the sheer number of nominations scored, the clear frontrunners here are Sinners and One Battle After Another, but after sweeping the Best Picture award at the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, Critics Choice, Directors Guild and Producers Guild Awards, it is almost a certainty that this award will go to One Battle After Another at this year’s Oscars.

Should win: Sentimental Value

Will win: One Battle After Another

Best Director

The same reasoning for Best Picture should and most probably will apply to this category as well. 

In addition to the undeniable momentum that’s been building for One Battle After Another director Paul Thomas Anderson, there is also the small matter of Anderson not having won an Oscar before, despite having films like Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, The Master and Phantom Thread in his filmography. 

If there’s one thing that the Oscars love to do, it is to give an award that is long overdue to someone who’s long deserved it. 

While I have immense respect for the subtle craftsmanship displayed by Joachim Trier in Sentimental Value, Anderson has deserved to win this award for a while now.

Should win: Joachim Trier

Will win: Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Actor

Any one of the nominees should win this award on merit, that’s how good the performances have been across the board in this category. 

My personal pick would probably be Wagner Moura for his performance in The Secret Agent, but a commanding win at the Screen Actors Guild Awards for Sinners for Best Ensemble and with Michael B. Jordan taking home the prize for Best Actor, this looks like Jordan’s award to lose. 

The fact that he played two characters in the movie should make things even more irresistible for the Oscar voters.

Should win: Michael B. Jordan

Will win: Michael B. Jordan

Best Actress

Probably the only “easy” category to predict this year. Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) has won every major precursor award so far, sweeping up at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice, BAFTAs and Screen Actors Guild Awards, all of which share members/voters with the Academy, so it would be a major, major shock if someone else took home this award come Oscar night. 

Sure, I’d love to see Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value) or Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You) take this home, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Should win: Renate Reinsve

Will win: Jessie Buckley

Best Supporting Actor

Probably the hardest major category to predict this year, as there hasn’t been any consensus choice or clear frontrunner in all of the precursor awards. 

I’d personally give this one to Stellan Skarsgard for his excellent turn in Sentimental Value, but his win at the Golden Globes was followed by zero nominations for Sentimental Value at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. 

The closest we have to any sort of momentum in the precursor awards is Sean Penn’s performance in One Battle After Another, which nabbed him wins at the BAFTAs and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, so the most logical choice is for him to win this one as well.

Should win: Stellan Skarsgard

Will win: Sean Penn

Best Supporting Actress

Another hard major category to predict, because the precursor awards have been split in this category. Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another) won at the Golden Globes and Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) won at the BAFTAs, but wins at the Critics Choice Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards make Amy Madigan (Weapons) a very possible winner here, especially since the Oscars also love to reward veterans who very rarely get nominated. 

Madigan is now 75 years old, and this is only her second Oscar nomination, so the odds are very good that she’ll take this award home as well.

Should win: Teyana Taylor

Will win: Amy Madigan

Best Original Screenplay

As much as I loved the screenplay for Sentimental Value, this category has one clear favourite – Sinners. 

Sinners has won the Best Original Screenplay award at almost every single precursor awards ceremony, including wins at the BAFTAs, Critics Choice and Writers Guild Awards. 

Unless you’re a high-risk high-reward kind of person when it comes to betting, there’s just no way that this one will go to any other film except Sinners.

Should win: Sentimental Value

Will win: Sinners

Best Adapted Screenplay

One Battle After Another has dominated the precursor awards in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, with wins at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Critics Choice and Writers Guild Awards, so a win for any other film would be a major upset, even though a strong case could be made for any one of the other nominees. 

I’m especially fond of how beautiful and lyrical the script was for Train Dreams, but films this small very rarely win Oscars, so I’ll be more than happy with another win for Paul Thomas Anderson and One Battle After Another in this category.

Should win: Train Dreams

Will win: One Battle After Another

Best International Feature Film

This is another tough category to predict. Personally, I think it’s a toss-up between Norway’s Sentimental Value and Brazil’s The Secret Agent, both very different films that I love for very different reasons. 

However, with nine Oscar nominations including for Best Picture, that shows that there are enough fans of Sentimental Value in the Academy to make a win very likely. 

But, I won’t discount an upset win for The Secret Agent as well because it’s also a Best Picture nominee, and Brazil has a pretty good track record of wins in this category, so we definitely cannot discount the power of the Brazil block when it comes to votes. 

Should win: Sentimental Value

Will win: Sentimental Value

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 12 — Last week, a smackdown happened, but maybe it did not.

The Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) walked into a large room. Imagine everyone is in the room, all of Malaysia’s citizens and migrants — legal, illegal or merely expatriates. About 35 million folks. It’s a well-lit room, so millions can see clearly, the proceedings.

CAS walks over to Football Association of Malaysia (FAM).

This is exactly a soap opera, so there’s a backstory. A pathetic one, I did say a soap opera.

When FIFA, the global overseer of football, accused FAM of fielding biologically and culturally — and I accuse emotionally — disconnected players, FAM got incensed. 

FIFA in its misguided and completely ludicrous notion of trying to be fair wanted to ensure countries just did not buy players to advance the fortunes of their national teams. 

Apparently, fairness is a universal thing and not really just a thing a country, actually solely Malaysia, gets to determine based on its historical baggage and demographical realities. 

Right can be judged by even strangers according to FIFA but FAM is a Malaysian institution therefore is completely entitled by Malaysian standards to feel aggrieved at anything anytime.

In FIFA’s defence, this is not new, the rule that a player even if granted citizenship by the new home country, has to prove a residential record or biological tie. 

Even the great Alfredo Di Stéfano who won five straight European Cups with Real Madrid could not play for Spain in 1953 because he was born Argentinean and spent most of his first living years there. He waited four years to play for his new country. 

So, FIFA and its ancient rules said that Malaysia had misled it when it approved seven players to play in the famous 4-0 victory over neighbours Vietnam on June 10, 2025.

When FIFA, the global overseer of football, accused FAM of fielding biologically and culturally — and I accuse emotionally — disconnected players, FAM got incensed.  — Bernama pic

This it said in September after an investigation. Malaysia appeals, FIFA’s appeals board listens. It says in November the evidence still points to cheating. Appeal overturned. Worse, it gives a glossary list of errors on November 18, 2025.

FAM remained unperturbed. As a Malaysian institution by definition ought never be wrong, the national association in charge of football is duty bound to show the finger to the world, in this case, to FIFA.

Where then?

When they go low, Malaysia goes high. The national officials gather in a circle, and speaking in tongues, they decide, to the CAS.

If window dressing was a sport, Malaysia would win a bunch of gold medals every Olympics. Going 15 rounds of nonsense, FAM files a police report as asked by FIFA in its written motivation. To complete the charade, all FAM exco members resign en masse.  

Malaysia’s love for CAS was unrequited. Rather than just agree with Malaysia, which is the polite thing to do, the court in Lausanne ruled in favour of FIFA. It was not a very difficult decision to arrive at. One side was peddling fairy tales, and the other side exclaimed, “Fairy tales!”

FAM never had a leg to stand on, but conceding last June or September or November or ever means the game is up. 

In Malaysia, the game is never up. Truth has to stand in line behind pomp, ceremony and imagined greatness of the special ones, who can only be celebrated not denigrated.

CAS is unfamiliar to the Malaysian way of life. It went with common sense, looked at FIFA’s information and made its judgement.

This was the disciplinary whack CAS gave FAM in the very public room last week, watched by all.

The gasps were palpable. 

In the minds of the sensible, usually an attribute that damages anyone applying to be Malaysian, the whole library, not just the book, would be thrown at FAM and everyone involved in the matter, even the janitorial staff. 

Instead, in the aftermath, there is nothing.

There are two dudes in the movie Dumb and Dumber. The audience are dumbfounded constantly on who is, well, dumber. Either one of them can figure out what actually occurred in the FAM situation.

But here we are in Malaysia. It is not possible to adopt Occam’s Razor or anything remotely intelligent. Everyone has to play along, to get along.

So, the 35 million people are asked to leave the room. Leave and do not think too hard about it.

This is between FAM and FIFA, FAM and CAS, FAM and the sports ministry, or FAM and destiny.

What it is not about is the Malaysian people.

We are all expected to look the other way. And in time, this won’t matter anymore. Slip into the cracks of history. There are enough international tournaments for Malaysia to fail to qualify for.

When the new sports minister gave us the advice to learn from the debacle when nothing actually is done, it dawns upon us. If there is someone to be blamed, then it is the Malaysian people.

Every time we win, it is due to our courageous, diligent and aspirational leaders. They have such imagination, such gusto.

Every time we fail, it is due to our limp, passive and morbid rakyat. We have no knowledge, no gumption.

One way to look at the diabolical outcome is to confront the truth that those who love to cheat got caught, and now must face the music.

Another way to look at it, the way our leaders want us to accept it standing outside the room, was that at least they tried to help Malaysia and failed, and our eternal gratitude should be to them for trying, unlike ourselves. 

In fact, we should punch out any doubt we had of our leaders. And the memory of doubting.

What smackdown? Everything is blissful here in heaven on earth. Even the football.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 11 — I came very close to having either a stroke or aneurysm last week.

This was mostly due to some very bad experiences with customer service (or more like, lack thereof), which made me escalate things very quickly.

My sister says I have a tendency to “go nuclear” on very short notice.

This is where I throw my father under a bus.

You see, when I was little, I remember us all going to have KFC in the middle of town.

This was when KFC still had metal cutlery, mind you.

My father was lining up for chicken and a tourist happened to come to the counter.

According to the author, sometimes, only sharp and forceful words seem to get people’s attention. — Pexels.com pic

Instead of serving my father (who was there first), the server immediately turns to the Caucasian man and asks for his order.

My father was not having it.

He immediately delivered a blistering lecture to the KFC staffer and the incident had such an impression on me.

Little me thought her Papa was very much justified.

Of course you should speak up, I thought, it is the obvious thing to do.

And that is how I have become very talented at getting into trouble by speaking up and also getting people into trouble, also by speaking up.

The other day I was in an establishment to run an errand that I thought would take just 10 minutes.

What I did not expect was to be completely ignored by the staff.

I’ll save you the long, tiresome account of what happened as it is really just another day of dealing with poorly trained retail workers, a bit of a malady in Malaysia.

CCTV proved that my anger to the point I was writing a terse email to Corporate Affairs was justified.

To their credit at least my email was acknowledged and at least I did not have to start screaming in the middle of the store — I was sorely tempted to, just because.

Alas, a courier service is apparently sitting on my package in a warehouse and thanks to AI agents there is no one to receive my terse email.

The next step would probably be escalating it right up to MCMC (courier services not doing their jobs is under their purview) but I will stay my hand for one reason — as soon as the package arrives, I’m returning it for a refund. 

To further raise my blood pressure to incredible levels, a Shopee seller is arguing that, after I complained about them being unresponsive, that responding to me faster (I just wanted an update, my good man) would not mean the package would arrive faster.

I could feel a blood vessel threaten to explode somewhere around my temple.

Then the seller insisted that there were customers who only got replied to after one or two days had passed and did not complain.

My response: their lack of standards and accepting less than the bare minimum of acceptable customer service is not my problem. 

To tell you the truth, I wish I was more amiable, the kind who used honey instead of napalm to win battles.

I have burned more bridges than most people walk on in their lives and sometimes, I regret it.

Yet I know that sometimes the only things people will respond to is fire and metal, in the form of words that cut and burn.

Let others more suited be the peacemakers; I have resigned myself to be the General of (justified) Karens who will wage war on poor customer service and government agencies that need a lot of yelling at before they release welfare funds for a late stage cancer patient.

We all have our place in the world and I guess mine involves a lot of yelling.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 8 — A few days ago, the Federal Territory Ministry announced an 80 per cent reduction in gym licence fees from RM50 to RM10 per square metre. 

This was ostensibly to tackle obesity. KL has an overweight/obesity rate of 40.6 per cent  the highest in a country where our belts are already dangerously bursting at the seams. 

According to 2025 data, 60 per cent of adults in Malaysia are overweight or obese; we’re like #1 in Asean.

Will reduced gym fees help tackle this problem? The research stats are not optimistic.

In the US, free or subsidised gym access often increases gym visits, attendance, and moderate physical activity levels, but benefits are usually short-term or limited to specific groups like hypertensive adults from minority communities. 

School-based interventions to increase physical activity were more effective, not least in curbing childhood obesity. Likewise, university rebate programmes boosted gym visits by ~20 per cent short-term.

Interestingly enough, in the UK schemes providing free leisure facility access increased gym  attendances by 64 per cent in a certain locality.

In Australia, nutrition labelling, junk food advertising bans, and improved food quality in public institutions are the most popular obesity policies, while exercise incentives are among the least popular.

Hence, unfortunately, cheaper gym access has little if at all impact on national obesity rates. 

The author argues that slashing gym licence fees is unlikely to significantly reduce Malaysia’s obesity rate, as research shows population-level weight problems are driven more by diet, lifestyle and public health policies than by gym access alone. — AFP pic

Sure, most studies show increases in activity or gym use, but these are not consistent, large-scale reductions in obesity prevalence or BMI at population level. 

Effects on weight are often small, short-term, or seen only in subgroups (e.g., those with hypertension or already somewhat active). 

Even exercise referral schemes (doctor referrals to subsidised exercise programmes, common in the UK) find weak evidence for sustained physical activity increases and inconsistent effects on fitness/health indicators like weight.

Then again, did we really need official research to tell us that Malaysia’s obesity problem isn’t going to be even marginally improved by cheaper gym fees (even assuming the gym operators reduce their fees in the first place!)?

In at least two of the previous companies where I worked at, the office buildings had a free gym. I recall out of more than a thousand employees, barely three were regular gym goers.

Think about your few close friends who have weight issues. Are they that way because they cannot afford the RM200-ish a month at the gym? How many would be excited if we gave them a year’s membership FOC?

Speaking of zero-cost exercise, everyone knows there are parks, jogging trails, hills, etc. Ergo, it isn’t fitness-centre costs that are holding back the battle on Malaysian obesity.

The same research which tells us subsidising gym sessions isn’t going to shift the national shirt size from XXXL to M also gives some ideas which actually help.

Taxing unhealthy (especially sugary) products is one. All those chips, buns, chocolate bars, processed meats, 8-teaspoons-of-sugar drinks, biscuits, donuts, candies and what-not need to be priced for the dangerous goods they are. 

Problem is, right now the stuff is way too cheap. The government should also clamp down on companies advertising tasty but crappy meals, although good luck going up against the big boys like KFC and McDonald’s.

Likewise, lowering the price of healthy food (eg, vegetables, fruits, lean fresh meats, sugar- and salt-free snacks, etc) ought to help, especially if these are coupled with health promotion/marketing programmes (not least in schools).

Needless, like charity, fitness begins at home. As parents, how are we modelling health and vigour to our kids? Do we encourage our children to work out and eat well and in moderation, and to have an active lifestyle the way we push them to study and have good manners? 

Or are we usually sedentary, scrolling our phones non-stop and stuffing ourselves with karipap all day?

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 5 — How do they see it, and how many will show up, which way will they choose?

Coalition partner’s impatience probably turns 2026 into an election year.

Speaking of an election, the usual chatter is about parties and candidates.

As in, wonder if certain coalitions are on the precipice, and fear if the grand unity friendship instituted post GE15 persists then all surprises are doused.

Within these umbrellas, or outside them, sit candidates who hope to be leaders.

That’s the supply side, how about a view of the demand side of the equation, the people who cast ballots. How do voters see it, and how many voters will turn up, and which way do they cast their votes?

A ballot box sits on a table at a voting centre during the 15th general election at Sekolah Kebangsaan Seksyen 17 in Shah Alam on November 19, 2022. — Yusof Mat Isa pic

Voters filtered

In this age of AI-dominated media, perception likely drives attendance and choice.

Yet old truths remain profound. Two angry online accounts are not as valuable as the single voter who turns up. 

Voters choose based on few issues, often one. Voters are very fickle. They are risk averse in the general and are unfortunately not as invested in the process as the politicians and their parties.

Today the discussion focuses on those who show up. While everyone interacts online with political information all year round, the power is totally in the hands of actual voters.

Turnout evens out the effect of a larger youth share of registered voters. Less than half of those below 35 are expected to vote, and 80 per cent of those above 45 are expected to vote. Essentially, those above 40 have a firm grip on the election outcome since they’d assiduously vote.

So, what do these likely voters look at? Again, this is from the vantage point of the average voter.

Economy (or am I going to feel pain)

There is a trade war ongoing in the world, but Malaysia is doing A-OK. If the ringgit marches up anywhere close to RM3.50 to the dollar by nomination day, the government will chest-thump from here to Tawau.

The Rahmah grocery credit is welcome among families, so are the various handouts to Malaysians. 

There is a culture of entitlement, and handouts are expected and therefore not necessarily rewarded with votes for the party in power. Yet, critically, they are expected.

This is not a financially disgruntled country, not yet. Not in 2026 or even 2027.

The economy is about perception. Look at the US. President Biden shepherded a good economy in 2024 but too many voters felt things were too expensive. Trump benefitted from perception despite positive economic findings.

Malay insecurities

Perikatan Nasional will seek to find a way to build a narrative of Malays being left out in an economy built for others.

But here is the kicker, these do work with a section of Malay voters, however, they have the opposite effect on other voters. 

They did max out the fears in 2022 and there is a sneaky feeling that shouting about oppression when they are engulfed in their own internal power struggles, that includes PAS, Bersatu and the ex-Bersatu troops, begins to sound hollow.

There’s the elephant in the room. DAP ministers have hardly put a foot wrong.

Despite misgivings about the insistence on UEC, Chinese schools and passive racism, there is a limit to goading.

It did not go down well that Jamal Yunos asked Teresa Kok to open a pig farm in her home a week before Chinese New Year. He was cross that the court forced him to auction personal effects to pay legal fees owing to her.

The economy and race-relations are interconnected, and Pakatan is ahead on this.

PM choices to pick

GE14 ended the debate about the value of a presumptive nominee to be prime minister.

Pakatan naming Mahathir Mohamad as its PM candidate took away stress.

No talk of whether Bersatu’s President Muhyiddin Yassin helms in case of victory, or PKR President Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to hold the post — as she is keen to do — till Anwar Ibrahim arrived back.

After the votes were counted on May 9, the wait was when Mahathir swears in, not if others are vying to be prime minister.

Average voters do not care generally whose name is on the ballot. They want to know how their choice impacts the selection of the prime minister.

Anwar is the head of Pakatan. Vote in enough Pakatan MPs and Anwar remains as PM.

No one is PN’s chief. If there are enough PN MPs, this will lead to many late-night meetings between PAS, Bersatu, ex-Bersatu and perhaps even Umno to discuss.

While hardcore PAS folks are just ready to leap into polling stations to tick the moon, swing voters may hesitate.

This is the clearest lead for Pakatan. Anwar is Pakatan’s only candidate. PN has six months to get its act together which is adequate but the noise emanating from inside the coalition does not assuage concerns.

A myriad of others

There are multiple issues which may impact voters but PN does not fancy them. Throws all its chips into identity politics. Pakatan can only beat who is in the ring. PN is the only viable large coalition.

Meanwhile, Hamzah Zainuddin is party shopping with Parti Keluarga Malaysia the key target.  Though, it is very clear that the leader of the Opposition has never run solo before, and news reports speak of the 13 MPs backing him, rather than 19 a week ago. 

As Zuraida Kamaruddin found out with her Parti Bangsa Malaysia, support is fleeting when the idea is absent.

Umno, in six years of jumping in and out of bed with PN and Pakatan, has lost its own sense of destiny. It gives an old mansion feel when it goes completely melancholic about nostalgia. 

It helps not that Najib Razak is missed by the base, a sizeable number loathe Zahid Hamidi as president, another part wants Mohamad Hasan and Johari Ghani to rise as top two and one part fantasises about Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar and other rejects to sweep back into the party.  

To top it all, MCA and MIC are perpetually sore dual anchors slowing down the Umno vessel. 

In June, Rafizi Ramli promises a reveal. Hate to be the wet blanket, however, Rafizi is prone to overestimating his promises. It might be a New Age solution no one — for probably sane reasons — has heard of before.    

Syed Saddiq Syed Rahman announced this week he is staying out of the Muda party election. He wants full acquittal from the Federal Court before returning. 

A new party built by the personality of its founding president without its symbolic head is just kidding itself.

To the voters, PN is too entangled, Umno lost in time, Rafizi an acquired taste and Muda is restless.  

Maybe DAP is not completely loco to ask for joint polls this year end. The competition threatens to give them a walkover. 

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 4 — Five days after I turned 48, the Pokémon franchise turned 30.

Why yes I do feel positively middle-aged now thanks very much.

To get me out of the house (else I would rot under the blankets) I have picked up Pokémon Go again and now must make the daily trek to collect Pokéballs and catch random monsters along the way.

So if you happen to be around Petaling Jaya and hear a disgruntled woman mutter “Get in the ball you little s***,” at her phone that’s probably me.

I have also added new people to my game friend list, getting nice in-game postcards from as far away as the US and Germany.

Sometimes at odd hours of the night I get invitations to storm the castle...I mean, do a Pokémon raid.

Raids are battle groups where you use strength in numbers to take down a particularly powerful Pokémon.

It’s harmless, wholesome and a great way to make friends or bond with fellow players (like the one who lives with me).

Aggression is an inescapable facet of human nature.

There is a reason why martial arts, shooting ranges and video games exist — to excise the aggression in our DNA that, in some people, is more volatile.

Manners evolved, I think, as a way to ensure unchecked aggression does not lead to our mass extinction.

Yet the spectre of war has not lessened.

I miss the old days when beauty queens would breathlessly say they wished for “world peace.”

So do I, Miss Colombia, so do I.

It’s 2026 and the US has decided that the rules of engagement are now dictated by the President’s whims and fancies.

Congress buy-in? Who needs that when the GOP is content to look away from the bombs, inflation and the Epstein files?

The upcoming Pokémon Pokopia game is the best reviewed Pokémon game ever and releases worldwide on March 5.

Yes, I did preorder a copy.

The game’s premise is that it mixes Pokémon with elements of the popular Dragon’s Quest and Animal Crossing games, set in a dystopian future where the humans have all disappeared leaving the Pokémon bereft and bewildered.

Reviews are already out and Pokopia looks set to be a strong contender for Game of the Year.

The upcoming ‘Pokémon Pokopia’ game is the best reviewed Pokémon game ever and releases worldwide on March 5. — Picture via Nintendo website

It’s telling how much cozy games — games that differentiate themselves by providing a relaxing experience — have become a huge genre now.

The world is on fire and people are looking for a safe haven wherever they can find it, even if it’s just on a gaming console.

This week too TGV is screening the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring, which is my second-favourite film after Return of the King.

J.R.R. Tolkien, whose books were the source material for The Lord of the Rings films, experienced war as a soldier.

He watched people die.

He saw the horrors of war up close and in his books the people he saves most of his admiration for are not the great warriors or powerful wizards.

In his words, Tolkien’s greatest affection is reserved for the hobbits.

On his deathbed, the dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield says to hobbit Bilbo Baggins: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, the world would be merrier.”

If only we lived in a world that cared more for children’s lives than for oil reserves.

No matter how hard the world gets, we still have stories, books, songs and yes, video games that let us remember what it is to love the world as a child does — for all its bright wonders and possibilities.

I just hope mankind gets its act together because as it is now, this is a world where fewer children are being born or living to adulthood... because we forget that this world is not just for our present but for them, our ultimate hope and future.

To hobbits, to dreams, to the joy of catching Pokémon and to the hope of better days even in this current darkness.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

MARCH 1 — It’s all Spotify’s fault. Each time you create or listen to a playlist there’s this option of allowing the app to play hits from outside the list.

Before I knew it, AI-generated songs had taken over my playlist — literally before I knew it.

I was enjoying my regular evening walk with my earphones and Spotify blasting into my head. Two songs by a certain artist, Room, came on. I liked them, didn’t think much of it, added them to the playlist and moved on.

A few days later, an absolutely soul-groover, Midnight By The Shore, by Harusoupe (I swear I thought it was some Korean or Japanese band at first) stopped me flat while on the LRT. 

What an awesome guitar and bass line, very hip, so smooth I couldn’t help but sway in the train-car.

I went to Harusoupe’s page in Spotify, skimmed through some of the music, found another fantastic song Almost Told You Tonight which I’ve since listened to a million times.

But one thing left me curious and after checking with Grok I realise this is the first red (or should it be green?) flag that a certain band/artiste and their songs are AI-generated: There’s next to nothing in the “About This Artist” section.

AI-generated songs had taken over my playlist. — Reuters pic

My suspicions were more or less confirmed when I ran Room and Harusoupe through Grok and asked AI itself if those two were AI musicians. 

The answer was Yes, very likely. Why? Because there is no clear real-world presence or human identity and many folks on forums like Reddit and even YouTube were convinced the music was AI generated.

Grok’s reasoning (that selected bands or singers are AI) itself reflects an interesting irony in that it’s hard to be 100 per cent certain that a piece of music is AI-generated. 

Somehow AI musicians rarely explicitly declare themselves. As if keeping people guessing is part of “machine consciousness”?

When I found out these four songs were (quite likely) AI made, I confess some ambivalence hit me. 

Are my musical tastes so low and cheap that I can be duped and impressed by music sliced and pieced together by a bunch of pattern-recognition and data-organising programs? 

Are we humans so easily drawn in by lyrics ‘written’ by a software which has fed on millions of songs, by a “voice” conjured up by an impersonal voice-mimicking app?

Sure, AI-generated music has been around since the mid-50s but the advent of ChatGPT and the like have super-charged their quality and popularity. 

As with education, writing, video (cue Seedance and those Jackie Chan vs Thanos videos!) and a lot more sectors, music’s realm will soon be AI-overshadowed (if not AI-dominated).

Consider that Deezer reports more than 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks are uploaded daily and tagged 13.4 million AI tracks over 2025.

Spotify has removed over 75 million “spammy” tracks (many AI-related, like short clips for royalty farming or impersonations) in the 12 months leading up to September 2025

AI music generation tools like Suno generate north of 7 million songs daily, equivalent to Spotify’s entire catalogue every two weeks (!).

And there I was being tripped up by only four songs. Soon, not unlike the case with phone calls from unknown numbers and a lot of online news, our first thought will be: Is this stuff real?

I guess, just as in the other areas, a few fundamental questions spring to mind: How important is it for music to be created by a human? What is “real” music anyway? 

What about individuals mixing electric with humanly created music? Something like a grandmaster playing chess with a computer? Centaur artists anyone?

In the meantime, I’ll tell myself it’s fine to enjoy Harusoupe. But Taylor Swift and Michael Bublé better up their game.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

FEBRUARY 28 — It’s been a pretty slow February when it comes to big new movies in Malaysian cinemas, with the exception of those targeted at the Chinese New Year crowd, of which we had quite a few. 

With no big Hollywood movie in sight throughout the month, it’s really been up to genre films to stir up some excitement for me to go to the cinema to watch some films, and I basically had to wait almost a month to compile the ones I’m most excited to talk about and share with all you dear readers out there.

Some of these have already been released on digital, with probably only two titles still playing in local cinemas, so you can just pick and choose however you want to watch these movies, if they sound interesting to you.

Workers clean a movie theatre in Bukit Tinggi, Klang on March 3, 2021. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

Blades of the Guardians

Hands down the biggest movie to open in February, at least for those of us in Asia, where names like Yuen Woo-Ping, Jet Li, Wu Jing, Nicholas Tse and Tony Leung Ka-Fai are big enough to excite us the moment the film’s poster and trailer dropped. 

Despite the number of underwhelming duds he’s had recently, like The Thousand Faces of Dunjia and the pointless sequel Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, the now 80-year-old Woo-Ping is back to doing good things again with this one. 

The narrative, as is the case with most wuxia movies, is at once simple and convoluted, with plenty of characters popping up that the audience will struggle to remember.

But no one comes in to wuxia movies expecting story first, because we’re all buying tickets to this to see the fights, and even though I still think some of the iQIYI movies, like the Eye For An Eye films, Black Storm and Blade Of Fury, are better in terms of the fight scenes, Blades of the Guardians is still one of the best wuxia films in recent memory. A solid 7 out of 10 entertainment, now we wait for the next instalment!

Send Help

Whenever a new Sam Raimi (director of the original Evil Dead films) film rolls into town, you can bet that I will be one of the first to rush to get tickets to watch it in the cinema. 

Even when doing a big Hollywood blockbuster like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, he’s managed to slip in elements that made fans love his signature style, which in that particular case was zombies. 

His new film, Send Help, will particularly delight fans of Drag Me To Hell with its mixture of gore and dark comedy.

Putting a toxic male boss, Bradley (a deliciously frat bro performance from Dylan O’Brien) and a mistreated female employee, Linda (Rachel McAdams giving what’s probably her finest performance yet) together on a remote island after a plane crash, the film plays like a gloriously loony mash-up of Swept Away, Triangle Of Sadness and Six Days Seven Nights. 

One of the most entertaining films you’ll see this year, this one’s a blast!

Whistle

When it comes to horror films, formula and familiarity is very much a given, and are widely accepted by fans of the genre, as long as the films are delivered in an exciting enough manner. 

This is definitely the case with Whistle, the latest film from The Nun director, Corin Hardy. 

Clearly inspired by the Final Destination franchise, this is another one of those teens-die-because-of-curse films, with all the formula and familiarity one will come to expect in its plot. 

The curse this time comes from blowing an ancient Aztec whistle, in which a group of teenagers who dared each other to blow the whistle, take turns to die in creative, agonising ways. 

Sort of a mash-up of Talk To Me and Final Destination, the surprisingly creative kills here ended up making this wholly predictable movie quite worthwhile. Definitely stream this one!

Primate

Johannes Roberts is definitely a second- or third-tier name when it comes to modern-day horror directors, but his is still one I’ll always look out for because even though not everything he touches turns to gold, he’s made enough enjoyable movies, like F, Storage 24, the 47 Meters Down films and The Other Side Of The Door to make me look forward to whatever his new project may be. 

Primate is another solid banger in his filmography, a movie about a pet chimp gone wild because of rabies. 

Paced like a rollercoaster with only the bare minimum of time spent to set up the characters, Roberts takes full advantage of the film’s R rating by showcasing plenty of jaw-snapping, head-crunching, bone-crunching and even face-tearing violence, delivering a snappy, muscular and efficient thrill ride, making this a B-movie that has no right to be this slick and this good.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.