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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026

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Malaysia's also very don't ask, don't tell on a lot of matters like this. You're nominally supposed to only have one passport legally, but a lot of the upper classes will quietly do their best to get another one during University overseas and keep it in a backpocket. The only reason this is particularly going off is that the current PM is relatively secular, forward-thinking and competent but getting challenged internally for the Islamist Malay base and the eye of Sauron is briefly focusing on this as it puts the reigning party in an awkward position of either 'do the practical thing' which alienates devout Malays or 'do the Halal thing' which alienates the non-Malay supporting base.

I do think it's 'easier' for a country like Malaysia to go hardline on the Israel issue when they're relatively affluent for a Muslim country and yet also aren't close enough to Israel to have any sort of meaningful default relationship like the Sunni countries. Singapore pitching in with Israel also intensifies the matter.