Bestinet’s endless encore
Why the show never ends.
There’s an influenza bug go around town as I write this. Yes, I caught it. No, I didn’t get vaccinated and I should have.
I procrastinated, what can I say? The show must go on, however.
Today’s Sunday read takes a look at the latest controversy around Malaysia’s management of foreign workers and the figure at the centre of it — Bestinet’s Aminul Islam Md Nor.
First, some comedy.
Gobind Singh Deo is trending on X for all the wrong reasons.
The digital minister quietly (yes, the right adjective this time) deleted his glowing tweet about visiting Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School in Johor’s Forest City or as how he and his fans would say, “on an island near Singapore”.
But X users are piling on with screenshots and snark.
I’ve written about this kooky experiment before, so it’s amusing it’s only blowing up now.
Balaji, the self-proclaimed “Tech Zionist,” openly draws inspiration from Israel for his Network State vision: blockchain-powered breakaway societies where techbros buy land, bend governments, and declare digital independence from pesky nation-states.
In every single way, the Network School is antithetical to what Malaysia supposedly stands for: anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist fervour, secessionism, sovereignty.
Balaji’s even been making inroads here as an investor, name-dropped in Malaysian collectibles firm Collektr’s latest press push.
Inviting the guy who dreams of sovereign startup utopias on Malaysian soil?
That’s exactly the plot twist that makes even the boldest minister hit delete, even if done posthaste.
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There should be more to Corporate Malaysia than just Aminul Islam Abdul Nor and Bestinet.
But it seems that every time we read about reforms in the foreign workers’ space, the same names and the same company find their way back into the room.
This past week, they did so again.
The story begins ten days ago: Bangladesh’s expatriates welfare minister Ariful Haque Choudhury flew into Putrajaya for his first ministerial visit since the BNP government took office.