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In the words of our own defence minister – when confronted for hosting zionist weapons manufacturers at the NATSEC military expo in May 2024 – the supremacy of the free market reigns over the mass graves of Palestinians.

Our moral duty to support the colonised – despite once being occupied by British imperialism ourselves – is inferior to, for example, 80 million dollar deals with Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems for AN/AAQ-33 Sniper Advanced Targeting Pods.

There is an increasingly prevalent refrain by so-called progressives, that Malaysia, and by extension, Malaysians, somehow unconditionally support Palestinian liberation but fail to express sufficient solidarity when it comes to every other “humanitarian” cause. While true in Malaysia’s largely racialised and reactionary context, the genocide of Palestinians has become a convenient heuristic cynically instrumentalized by middle-class liberals, who are not normally concerned with anti-colonial liberation, to lazily drum up support for a neglected progressive cause, or expose the hypocrisy of their perceived political opponents without actually doing the work of building solidarity with the oppressed. Not only is this dehumanising to Palestinians going through an ongoing Nakba, it undermines any effort to build a collective movement for the liberation of the Global South.

This prevalent rhetoric, often adopted as truth without question, does not hold up to reality within a neocolonial and imperialist context. In truth, the symbols, discourses, and language of Palestinian liberation are merely appropriated, sanitised, and co-opted by the ruling elite and capitalist companies to preserve their cultural hegemony amidst growing anti-US, anti-zionist sentiments.

What is perceived as Malaysia’s support for the Palestinian cause is in fact the weaponisation of the Palestinian struggle by right-wing ethnonationalist groups to mobilise support for fascist racial and religious ideologies; crushing the potential for genuine progressive, inclusive anti-imperialist formations, while defanging the true dimensions of the Palestinian struggle as an overarching resistance to the U.S. imperialist war machine. Meanwhile, under the invisible hand of the free market, almost every single institution in Malaysia continues to maintain material ties with corporate giants and military entities supporting apartheid and genocide.

Decolonisation is not a metaphor. It cannot be substituted by the rhetoric of bourgeois politicians or the cynical co-optation of revolutionary Palestinian symbols by the elites, private corporations, racial and religious supremacists, and liberal non-profit industry. Decolonisation demands something much greater than us – a concrete commitment to a radical politic – which ultimately strives for the abolition of all forms of exploitation, colonisation, and oppression in the quest for genuine socialism and democracy.

The struggle against the United States, Western corporations, and RIMPAC naval exercises is therefore no longer just about Gaza: it is a struggle for our collective humanity against an empire which only brings death and destruction to its global neo-colonies.

It is a struggle against a capitalist system which plunders the Earth for the profit of a few multinational oligarchies; undermining our economic sovereignty while exploiting our wealth, labour, and resources to fund genocides and wars abroad.

It is a struggle against the complicity of every single neo-colonial institution in Malaysia; from the police to the armed forces to the government, who exchange weapons with zionist arms manufacturers and train alongside American and Israeli military forces while paying lip service to the Palestinian cause.

As Gaza becomes the graveyard of its occupiers, and the global divide between the colonised and coloniser becomes ever more clear, Malaysia is presented with a choice: either stand with the oppressed and be a part of the revolutionary Global South, or betray the fight for liberation to be a subservient client of the Euro-Atlantic order.

For me, in the past 2 years of genocide, it has never been clearer that our true heart and place belongs to the Global South.

It belongs with the Palestinian resistance in Jabalia and Beit Hanoun fighting against global superpowers with only recycled rockets and Soviet-era munitions.

It belongs with the people of Yemen who are showing the true meaning of solidarity despite being sanctioned and besieged by the entire world.

It belongs with every single soul in the Global South who has watched the televised genocide happening live in front of their eyes, and who see in the genocide of Gaza part of what the colonisers did to their own ancestors.

It belongs with all revolutionaries, past and present, from Malaya to Haiti; Algeria to Vietnam, who have fought, struggled and died for a better planet.

62 years after the formation of Malaysia, our post-colonial ruling class has accepted a compromised position within the global imperialist order in return for the scraps and bits of empire.

We divorced ourselves from the global proletarian revolution in return for their false promises of economic prosperity.

We accepted comfort, privilege, and collaboration over the revolutionary values of struggle and sacrifice.

This Hari Kebangsaan and Hari Malaysia [Independence/National day and (formation of) Malaysia day], enough is enough: our solidarity is no longer for sale.

Malaysia’s place is in the Global South.

Malaysia’s place is in the Resistance.