The Malaysianist

The Malaysianist

A nation of second chances

When the government is the deepest well of capital and, ever more, the only hand that catches you.

Sep 16, 2026
∙ Paid

Selamat Hari Malaysia.

I was thinking about what to write today.

Usually, being the dan lain-lain1 that I am, the knee-jerk reflex is some pretentious musing on what it means to be Malaysian or that displaced, awkward, weird struggle of finding oneself in this country.

Or to vent about the haze while inhaling steroid-filled vapour through a nebuliser.

Corruption, haze, remind me of the allure of Indonesia again?

And why Asean is a five-letter word business and political personalities reach for when they’re irrelevant.

I’ll leave those for another day.

Today’s newsletter is a short one, so let’s get to it.


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Throwback to 2019. Hoping we’d be smog-free one day. Photo credit: iStock/tobiasjo

After 63 years, what can we say about Malaysia that matters to this newsletter?

I was thinking of second chances, hope, something along those lines. And then it hit me.

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