🇲🇾 Between The Lines explains all

Hello friends!

I’ve been watching on in Malaysia these last few weeks and becoming both increasingly confused and mad. Lawmakers have shut themselves off from the world for another round of House of Cards, and the people have come together to support each other during a very trying period of the pandemic.

Some of this is the regular argy-bargy of domestic politics seen in any country at any time. But for a moment there, it looked like the government may collapse. Daily newsletter Between the Lines sounded the alarm in my inbox with subject lines like ‘Does Malaysia still have a prime minister?’ and ‘11k infections a day, and it ain’t gonna improve soon’. And I knew I better give editor Darshini Kandasamy a buzz.

She helped me understand the bigger picture here with the balance between politics and the pandemic and has given us an excellent primer on what to expect soon. The controversial Emergency order will expire on August 1, which will give Malaysia its first chance to see who has the support with a show of hands in parliament. 

The coming weeks will be huge for the country — the only way to stay across it is with Between the Lines. 

Erin

The Star has laid out how last week looked. From July 11th until Saturday the 17th, the country saw cases grow by 44 percent and deaths rose 26 percent. This equates to a record 78,660 cases identified within that week. Still, the vaccine programme has continued to roll out with an increase in supplies translating into the best week yet for getting vaccines into arms. 

For Darshini Kandasamy and the team at Between the Lines, the current state of the pandemic saddens but doesn’t shock. Monitoring media reports and maintaining a close watch on case announcements from officials is a daily staple for most Malaysians, but particularly those producing daily analysis newsletters. 

“We’ve been very careful to draw the line because we don’t want to be guilty of fear-mongering,” Darshini says. “We want to make sure we’re fair, but at the same time, we also want to note where there is progress. We don’t want to give this unrealistic doom and gloom without telling people what the counter-arguments are.”

As the crisis deepens, that’s becoming harder. “Unfortunately, it hasn’t been so great the last few days because there isn’t much good news we can give.” Still, she notes, even if there’s no good news we can temper the bad. 

In recent weeks, countries across the region have been compared to India where shortages of oxygen and healthcare workers led to runaway deaths and panicked the world. It’s a comparison that Between The Lines finds unhelpful and has argued against.

“We cautioned people against comparing our situation in Kuala Lumpur to India. Yes, the early signs of what happened in India are there but we haven’t reached that point yet. But of course, the word of caution is that if things progress like it is, then we could get there.” 

The government has largely fallen short of its own 150,000 tests a day across the country due in part to disorganisation and the overwhelmed public health systems we’ve seen all over the world. It also, whether by design or quirk, gives the government a convenient response to critics.

Darshini points to previous comments made by officials who suggest high case counts have been largely confined to areas already identified as hot spots and placed under Enhanced MCO, the strictest of a tiered lockdown system.  

The frustration with the government’s response — 18 months into a global pandemic and in a country once considered among the world’s top responding countries — has given birth to the White Flag (Bendera Putih) movement. Launched online with a specific focus on mental health worries, the movement calls for people in need to literally wave a white flag from their homes to seek help from neighbours and the community.

It also prompted the formation of the Black Flag movement which is more interested in turfing the government and replacing it with one better suited to helping the people. Naturally, it’s now under investigation for sedition. 

The government should’ve seen this coming, Darshini says. “A lot of the issues we’re seeing now have been long-simmering issues which have never been addressed with proper institutional reforms. A lot of the stimulus packages have been accused of being ‘band-aid’ solutions, including financial packages and unemployment aid because there are really short term measures.”

A lack of financial support for those who need it means staying at home is not an option, which is why many clusters of cases identified in recent months are around workplaces and factories, she points out. Likewise, a decision to not ban interstate travel during Ramadan back in May led to an explosion in cases.

“They were choices which went in the face of what experts locally and internationally were advising at the time,” Darshini says. 

Those simmering issues are spilling over. “It’s really reached a head because now the government has decided to lockdown, but it really seems that it is targeted at the people. Factories are still open, but a lot of those in manufacturing either do not care or are not able to comply with distancing and other SOPs.”

“Lots of workplace clusters are coming out while regular people are losing jobs. They’re unable to go to work and must stay at home. The issues of poverty and starvation and mental health degradation have all been bubbling and bubbling and now, because of the protracted lockdown and the nature of COVID-19 and the virulent variants, I think it’s all coming to a head now.”

“People are becoming very frustrated, you can see the lockdown isn’t working. It’s just coming at the cost of the common folk. The political elite and the upper crust of society seem to be immune. There are cases of them breaking the SOP and they have not been investigated or given only a paltry fine, which means nothing to them.” 

Darshini underscores the importance of the Sheraton Move in explaining the bizarre situation Malaysia is now in, in which the people are locked down and the politicians are constantly duking it out for power. 

“They’ve lost touch with the end goal here, they’re preoccupied with getting back the throne and, in my personal opinion, they’re invested in the long game here. Eventually, with vaccinations, this pandemic will end and someone needs to be here to lead the country.”

“Very sadly for Malaysia, the opposition is really anemic and both sides are equally engulfed in politicking. There are no clear leaders that are coming out of it.”