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Comment by throwaway4good | Hacker News Reader

Former Malysia PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad wrote the following on Twitter on the Ukraine war:

https://twitter.com/chedetofficial/status/162898188067786342...

In particular the follow up (European's love of war) is hilarious and not an uncommon view in that part of the world.

Whatever I feel about Malaysia aside, it is not hard to take this position if you are watching events from the third world aka the global south aka the non aligned bloc or whatever you want to call it. The fact that most of us were colonised by Europeans at some point of time or other doesn’t help either.

Malaysia and other SE Asian countries were "colonized" by Chinese diaspora, whom control most of the wealth in their countries. Hard work is most definitely one component of their success. How about their insularity and doing business mostly amongst themselves? Try breaking into those social and business circles as a non Chinese.

Alas, we don't hear that narrative because it's only bad when Europeans do it.

Now try the same argument on Jewish merchants in 30s Europe and see how that sounds.

Nice deflection. Perhaps you'd like to address which points you feel are incorrect?

> Now try the same argument on Jewish merchants in 30s Europe and see how that sounds.

OP was clearly and unambiguously pointing out the problem with colonialism.

If you think that colonialism is bad exclusively because of racism then you aren't really thinking things through.

I mean,listen to yourself: do you think that the complains pinned on "Jewish merchants in 30s europe" was not being able to do trade with them?

I'm not exactly sure how OP expressed any problem with "colonialism", when China never colonized Malaysia and Chinese diaspora in SE Asia happened long before China started to show its own imperialistic ambition. It sounds more like good old-fashioned xenophobia to me, similar to the internment of Japanese Americans during WW2.

> I'm not exactly sure how OP expressed any problem with "colonialism" (...)

To be exactly sure you only need to read OP's post.

> (...) when China never colonized (...)

Read OP's post.

And Malaysia is Muslim because???

I guess it spread peacefully … the British on the other hand …

Spread rubber, tea, and contracts wherever we went. I’d guess the Malaysians and Singaporeans are happy for the global leg-up caused by having English integrated into their education systems. And for the roads. And the sanitation. And the public health. And the aqueduct.

And the opium trade. Lots of great jobs there.

I hear it’s very morish.

Islam in SEA spread due to proselytization and trade and its importance in SEA economies, and not by foreign conquest and forced conversion.

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