Neptium

About the multiracial, working class hartal I mentioned before that took place prior to the supposed communist emergency in what was then Malaya.

Set in a feudalistic fictional world, the song espouses a liberal (to use the term a bit anachronistically) feminist form of class collaborationism.

Although both expresses ill-feelings toward the heteronormative patriarchy that they live in, the film tries to make a false equivalence between both of their lives just because of their gender. Erika exhibits false consciousness believing that a princess has the same experiences as her, an indentured servant whose forced to work due to her parent’s debts.

This is clearly shown in the first few lines of the song, where Erika had to manually toil away in hard day’s work to even feed herself and yet brushes it off as being ‘used to it’, while Anneliese (the princess) just ‘has to ring a bell’ to have an omelette delivered to her bed. Erika, being kept ignorant by the ruling class, exclaims that they have the same lives.

To use Frier’s analysis, it can be seen that Anneliese, although still part of the aristocracy, is denied humanity (agency) not only through her gender but also due to her class as shown by the song’s chorus ‘We carry through to do what we need to do’. Showcasing how everyone is oppressed to some extent in class society.

The word must be something non-political that is in everyday use or in common speech.

For example, in my mother language there's the word muak, which describes the feeling you get after eating the same dish repeatedly, leading to you being sick of it and not wanting to eat that dish anymore.

Tired (ie. tired of eating the same x dish/food) may be the closest word/phrase in the English language that captures the meaning, but not exactly.

Westerners crying that China helped subsidized their shitty liberal democracies since the 2000s and subsequently probably saved them from an even worse crisis than they are facing now. From Pew Research Center.

Quoted from South China Morning Post (paywalled):

Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said populations in Singapore and Malaysia were more “primed towards pliancy to authority” and tended to place more emphasis on economic performance.

I really do hate this rhetoric that somehow Malaysia/Singapore values authoritarianism (whatever that means). Liberal politics will never understand how even if the 2 countries are functionally 1 party states and may not be the most socially liberal places in the world, the parties carried and boosted economic performance, making both nations the top 3 in GDP per capita in southeast asia.

Personally, they would never get how economic performance has allowed my family to literally escape from poverty and peasant level subsistance farming to clean, modern houses and high-school/university education. Of course they wouldn't understand. Muh liberal values and hooman rights.

The West would rather see us fighting for scraps and being unstable and war torn like the Middle East. Fuck them.

Copied below.

The BRICS countries have backed a Chinese suggestion that the bloc should be expanded, but have not named the candidate countries.

A joint statement by the foreign ministers of the bloc – whose other members are Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa – following an online meeting on Thursday supported its first expansion in a decade, but said they needed to clarify relevant guiding principles, standards and procedures.

Although no candidate countries have been named, earlier this year Argentine President Alberto Fernández said he wanted his country to join, and analysts have said Indonesia is another likely candidate.

Brazil, Russia, India and China initially formed the bloc in 2009, with South Africa joining in 2010.

The meeting of five foreign ministers, including Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, was the first since his country invaded Ukraine in February. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi repeated Beijing’s position calling for peace talks and criticised Western countries for providing arms to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia.

“Delivering arms cannot bring peace to Ukraine, and pressure by sanctions cannot solve the European security dilemma,” Wang said, according to a readout from the Chinese foreign ministry.

He said China opposes the weaponisation of international economic and financial cooperation and coercing other countries to choose sides. He also called for an effort to reduce the spillover effect of the war, which has hit international trade and food supplies “especially in supporting vulnerable developing countries to tide over the difficulties”.

The minister also urged the other BRICS countries to be “independent” and “fair” over Ukraine.

Three BRICS members – China, India and South Africa – earlier abstained from voting on a United Nations resolution to condemn Russia for its aggression against Ukraine.

The joint statement, with a brief address on the Ukraine issues, said the foreign ministers “supported Russia negotiating with Ukraine” and “discussed concerns over the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and beyond”.

Without naming the United States, Wang called on the bloc to resist the creation of “parallel systems” to divide the world. He also said BRICS nations should oppose all kinds of unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction”.

The 25-point joint statement issued after the meeting included pledges to work together on issues such as global governance, climate change, anti-terrorism, arms control, human rights, and AI technology. China and Russia also expressed support for the three other members playing a greater role in the United Nations.

Argentina was among the nine developing countries and emerging economies taking part in a separate meeting with the BRICS countries on Thursday night.

Argentina’s ambassador to China, Sabino Vaca Narvaja, said the invitation to take part “was extremely important,” and constituted a step toward “formal entry” into the bloc. The other eight participants were Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Senegal, the United Arab Emirates and Thailand.

Jiang Shixue, director of the Centre for Latin American Studies at Shanghai University, said the expansion of BRICS is seen as an “irreversible trend” by many observers.

“Facing an increasing attack by the developed countries led by the United States, developing countries and emerging economies should expand our strength to play a bigger role in global governance,” Jiang said.

Jiang said China has been making efforts in this direction since the “BRICS Plus” formulation was first mooted in 2017 with the objective of widening the bloc’s “circle of friends”. Xu Hongcai, from the China Association of Policy Science, said the bloc should invite Group of 20 countries with international influence and large economies, such as Indonesia and Argentina.

“The G20 is composed of major developed and developing countries, BRICS lacks representation in ignoring other developing nations. It will be a good idea to first select G20 member nations to join the bloc,” Xu said.

Copy pasted below. Amazing that news such as this is pay-walled.

For more than 20 years, successive US presidents have given Saudi Arabia a pass on the question of whether the kingdom's government had anything to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As the story goes, plenty of individual Saudis were involved — including 15 of the 19 hijackers and Osama bin Laden — but there was no evidence to indicate that the Saudi government itself was behind the attacks. That's more or less what the 9/11 Commission concluded, and the Saudi government continues to cite the commission's report in official statements as proof that "Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with this terrible crime."

In its report, the commission took particular pains not to implicate Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national who met two of the 9/11 hijackers in Los Angeles shortly after they arrived in the US. Bayoumi then helped them move to San Diego, where he signed as the guarantor on an apartment they rented.

Bayoumi has long maintained that he met the hijackers by coincidence, a claim the commission did little to contradict. Instead, it painted a mostly innocuous portrait of Bayoumi's background, concluding that he was in the US "as a business student" and that he worked for the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority. "I don't believe he was a 'Saudi government agent' working to help terrorists," wrote Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 Commission's executive director, in response to questions from a journalist in 2007.

But over the past several months, a raft of new documents released by the American and British governments suggest that the 9/11 Commission got it wrong. An FBI memo declassified in March, in response to an executive order by President Joe Biden, reported that Bayoumi was receiving a monthly stipend from Saudi intelligence. In other words, he was not a student but a spy. According to the FBI memo, dated June 14, 2017, Bayoumi was tasked with gathering information "on persons of interest in the Saudi community" and passing the intelligence to Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud, the Saudi ambassador at the time.

"Allegations of Albayoumi's involvement with Saudi intelligence were not confirmed at the time of the 9/11 Commission Report," writes the memo's author, an FBI special agent at the bureau's Washington field office, whose name is redacted. "The above information confirms those allegations."

A second declassified FBI memo shows that a confidential source told the FBI there was a "50/50 chance" that Bayoumi had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and "assisted two of the hijackers while residing in San Diego."

The FBI declined to comment. But the revelations appear to undercut the Saudi government's claims that it had no ties to the 9/11 attacks. While US intelligence agencies have repeatedly concluded that the Saudi government as a whole had no advance knowledge of the 2001 plot, they have flagged specific Saudi agencies and members of the royal family as having ties to Al Qaeda. Last year, newly declassified FBI files complicated another crucial piece of Bayoumi's narrative, suggesting that his initial meeting with the two hijackers had been arranged by contacts at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles.

Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, told Insider he's skeptical that Bayoumi knew about the plot, or that he was working for Saudi intelligence. Many high-ranking Saudis, Zelikow pointed out, were despised by bin Laden and opposed to his efforts. "The information that Bayoumi might have been a paid informant ... if it is true, actually tends to cut the other way," Zelikow said — suggesting that Bayoumi would have been working against the hijackers.

In an interview with Insider, Thomas Kean, the former New Jersey governor who chaired the 9/11 Commission, acknowledged that Bayoumi "was definitely involved" with the Saudi government. But he remains uncertain about what form that involvement took. "There's no question he was involved with Saudi..." Kean said, and did not complete that sentence before continuing. "It's difficult in Saudi Arabia to decide who's who — whether it's the royal family or Saudi intelligence." Kean also reiterated that the commission found no evidence to suggest that Bayoumi had advance knowledge of the attacks.

But a second raft of documents — released by the British government last week in response to a civil lawsuit against the Saudi government by the families of 9/11 victims — points to the possibility that Bayoumi knew about the attacks before they took place. Among Bayoumi's papers was a diagram depicting a plane descending toward a target on the horizon. Beside the diagram is a formula used to calculate the distance to the target. A diagram showing a plane descending, beside a mathematical formula. Among Bayoumi's belongings, British investigators discovered a drawing of a plane descending toward a target — and an equation that an FBI source said was used to calculate "the height of an aircraft necessary to see a target." UK Metropolitan Police via Kreindler LLP

The diagram was seized by British police in late 2001, but its existence wasn't noted until 2007 — three years after the 9/11 commission issued its final report. It's hard to imagine an innocuous explanation for anyone possessing such a diagram shortly before the 9/11 attacks. "Sure looks suspicious — and sinister," said Philip Shenon, author of "The Commission," a history of the 9/11 report, which recounted dissent from some of the commission's staff regarding the extent of Saudi involvement. "Fair to wonder whether it suggests he knew in detail about the 9/11 plot."

Mark Rossini, a former FBI agent who worked as a liaison to the CIA's bin Laden unit, didn't believe the Bayoumi had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, which, he said, was limited to a small circle within Al Qaeda. But after reviewing the diagram, he changed his mind. "There's no question that guy was a Saudi agent," Rossini told Insider. "He lied. It's unequivocal."

Zelikow, for his part, remains skeptical. He suggested that the drawing and calculations might be related to Bayoumi's work with the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority. "It is possible that someone working in civil aviation might have worked on such equations, for various reasons," he said.

Bayoumi, who has returned to Saudi Arabia, has given multiple interviews to law enforcement over the years, but the deposition he gave in the civil lawsuit brought by the families of 9/11 victims remains under seal. It's unclear whether he has been asked about the diagram but, it's hard to see how the core question of Saudi involvement in 9/11 can be resolved without a full and credible account of his actions.

The evidence declassified by the British government also includes videos showing Bayoumi filming himself and his circle during his time in San Diego. One shows him embracing Anwar al-Awlaki, a local imam at the time who had ties to Al Qaeda. Like Bayoumi, Awlaki was close to the hijackers. In 2011, he was killed by a US drone strike in Yemen. A second video shows Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the two San Diego hijackers, in the kitchen of the apartment that Bayoumi helped him rent. Still frame from a video showing Khalid al-Mihdhar at a party. This video still shows Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the 9/11 hijackers, in the kitchen of an apartment rented for him by Bayoumi. UK Metropolitan Police via Kreindler LLP

The release of these new documents comes at an inconvenient time for the Biden administration. The US wants cheap oil, continued rights for military bases, and a revived nuclear deal with Iran. Saudi Arabia wants to end all discussion of the state-sponsored murder of Jamal Khashoggi and a free hand to pursue its brutal proxy war in Yemen. The last thing either country wants is a renewed debate over the Saudi role in 9/11. "The sad truth is that because of geopolitical issues, especially petroleum, we'll never go after the Saudis or hold them accountable," said Rossini, the former FBI agent.

For decades, the US has allowed its codependent relationship with the Saudi royal family to circumscribe what was supposed to be an exhaustive 9/11 investigation. The more the loose ends become public, the harder it will be to avoid taking a closer, more complete look at who supported the hijackers, and why. The reason we have new information about Bayoumi's ties to the Saudis, it's worth noting, is because Biden decided to declassify more documents related to 9/11 — a much-needed step toward greater transparency.

"All of a sudden, all of this information is available," said Karen Greenberg, who directs the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School. "Maybe we're finally coming to a sense as a country that we can look these facts in the face and tell the story of what happened."