The Simon Says Podcast

Since the declaration of Malaysia Day as public holiday in 2009 by former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, there has been slow but growing awareness to celebrate Malaysia’s formation and diversity. The likes of Merdeka-themed community arts festival such as Peszta has been held to celebrate Malaysia’s culture and community. In this episode, 3 Malaysians sat down to discuss at length what formation of Malaysia means to them.

On a world stage, Malaysia cosies up to Russia with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s working visit to Russia in early September 2024 to advance Malaysia’s interest by strengthening ties with Russia. While many has lauded Anwar Ibrahim’s explosive statement on the Israel-Palestine conflict, Prime Minister of Malaysia seems to have taken a liking to threatening his fellow Malaysians to use all of his power and strength to ensure continuation of groupthink and compliance to “Eastern values”.

Malaysia’s position in the World Press Freedom Index tanked 34 places to 107th position this year as compared to previous year, yet the position taken by current administration is that such ranking is still good compared to the previous administration. It’s becoming alarming when Anwar likes to lecture other countries about freedom but believes that Malaysians can do without. In this podcast episode, we discuss such vintage strongman rhetoric that Anwar Ibrahim has demonstrated.

What an irony when PMX Anwar Ibrahim kicked off his National Day 2024 themed “Malaysia MADANI: Jiwa Merdeka” address by giving stern warning against any party supposedly sowing disharmony that the government will consider amending related laws if existing provisions are insufficient to snuff out racial tension. Fahmi Fadzil, the Communications Minister, explained that Jiwa Merdeka expresses the freedom of the people from any negative elements in interpreting the patriotic spirit through the aspects of thinking; yet we see grouses from Perikatan Nasional leaders on the restricted freedom of speech in their statements in conjunction with Merdeka Day today.

In this episode, three Sarawakians explored their journey in coming to a reconciled understanding of the significance of both National Day and Malaysia Day, and what we wish to see in days ahead for Malaysia, a rainbow nation in the making.

According to Nielsen, the television ratings of the first night of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) sunk 22 percent from 2016. The ratings crash came after the media spent countless hours hyping Biden’s D.E.I. hire, Harris’s “historic” candidacy. It appears that the Democrats are so desperate to even spread a lie through TMZ on “big surprise performer” on the final night of DNC.

While many mainstream media are quick to defend and erase the fact that Harris was a D.E.I. hire, we see the contagious power of hope that Michelle Obama proclaimed when she acknowledged that Kamala Harris’ mother moved here from India at 19. Clearly she knows Harris is an Indian.

In this episode, we observed that it didn’t take long for Harris nor Obama to make it abundantly clear that former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is living rent free in their heads, going on and on about him in their divisive rant.

We saw the media broke the day after the conversation between billionaire Elon Musk and former President Trump went live in X for two hours. Many headlines from legacy media that followed the conversation were ones that were slanderous in nature where we see “Musk Interview Showed Trump Doesn’t Know How to Run Against Harris” or “The dumbest climate conversation of all time”.

The truth is the legacy media were panicking following Musk’s endorsement of Trump where he said to Trump, “We’re at a fork in the road of destiny of civilization, and I think we need to take the right path, and I think you’re the right path.” It is an interesting election cycle happening in the United States of America this year, even more so now that you see a billionaire that’s making cool electric cars coming out to urge those in the moderate camp (and data showed most millennials tuned in to the conversation) where he thinks they should support Donald Trump for president.

For full and clear conversation between Elon Musk and former President Trump, listen to https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1823430600872878321?t=LY-zC5cy6ePBKB4xe8fljg&s=19

If you like reading key takeaways, here are two great resources - https://thenationalpulse.com/analysis-post/trump-musks-historic-x-space-slams-the-brakes-on-kamalas-momentum/ and https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1823187201233973283?s=46&t=X_S-jxeftPy-Iv0yj2SMbA

In a recent news where the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, expressed his dismay over the backlash against the effort to bring in the injured Palestinians for medical treatment, we explored the power of social media platform in regulating contents. The minister of truth in Malaysia, who acts on behalf of Prime Minister Office, even demanded an apology from Meta on the grounds of removal of Facebook post of Anwar to be an act of discrimination against the situation in Palestine and its leaders.

Anwar strongly condemned Meta on the removal of his Facebook post - ”Tidak masuk akal apabila hantaran menghormati seorang pejuang yang berusaha memerdekakan tanah airnya daripada kezaliman dan penderitaan dianggap berbahaya.” While differing opinions may be expressed on Hamas and its former leader Ismail Haniyeh, we want to know if you think social media platform should act as publisher and content regulator.

Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, joins in the choruses of those who deemed the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh to mean the more moderate voice within Hamas is off the table. Whilst Anwar Ibrahim tries very hard to woo the religious conservatives with the Palestine Freedom Rally, many critics have accused him of exploiting the issue to score political points. Is he gaining or losing traction? We will see.

In recent week, we saw an uproar in the internet when former President Trump questioned the racial identity of Vice President of United States, Kamala Harris. CNN reported that Donald Trump falsely suggests Kamala Harris ‘happened to turn Black’. Like CNN, BBC wrote, “Ms Harris is the first black and Asian-American vice-president, with Indian and Jamaican-born parents. She attended Howard University, a historically black university, and joined the predominantly black Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.” I think we Malaysians know and can tell an Indian from a Black, and it sure isn’t because one joins a predominantly black university. Join us as we discuss many interesting events that unfolded over the past weeks, from Biden dropping out of presidential race to Harris’ sudden coronation, Trump surviving assassination attempt, and many more.

Recently, an AI image of “All Eyes on Rafah” surges on social media after what the cable news coined as “deadly Israeli airstrike killing dozens of civilians” based on reporting by Hamas-controlled local officials. Other alternative medias reported verified sources from IDF that strikes were conducted outside of designated humanitarian areas.

Increasingly, we are seeing schism caused by media biased which influence our political worldview. In this episode, we attempt to break down our thought processes and present ways to view news objectively without being overly emotional by the reporting.

Credit: Cartoon by Vitaly Podvitski