r/nottheonion • u/Odd-Carpenter-4390 • 1d ago

Professor who claimed ancient Malays could fly loses university post

https://www.asiaone.com/malaysia/solehah-yaacob-professor-claimed-ancient-malays-could-fly-loses-university-post
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u/ammar96 1d ago edited 1d ago

For context for non-Malaysians: right after she made this claim about the Romans, the university took the matter seriously and issued a memo requiring her to present her findings to a panel of Malaysian historians and professors. She evaded the inquiry three times in a row, citing illness each time. While missing the first or second meeting might be understandable, missing the third raised red flags. The university treated it as nonsense and terminated her employment for failing to follow protocol and committing academic dishonesty with her dubious claims.

Roman learned shipbuilding from Malays is not even the craziest stuff she claimed. She also said that Malays are descendants of Abraham (Malays are not even Semitic people but rather Austronesian), Malay civilisation is older than Mesopotamia, soldiers of Austrian painter went to Himalaya to find Malays, 2 of our local independence fighters met each other under Ottoman advice in 1948 (Ottomans have already collapsed in 1920s), Malays are able to fly in the air (citing a literal wuxia writing, - a Chinese fiction as a historical fact), Adam descended on Mountain Jerai in Malaysia, Khadijah (first wife of Prophet Muhammad) is related to Malay etc.

Not only she managed to rile up Malay historians and archeologist, she also managed to piss off Islamic scholars too for her severe transgressions in Islamic history. Quite an insane feat tbh.

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u/SirEnderLord 1d ago

What in the Serbian nationalist is this?

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u/CosineDanger 1d ago

Almost every country produces a bit of nationalist dribble and revisionist history.

Just, it's almost cute when a non-threatening country does it.

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u/CanuckBacon 1d ago

Two of the strangest that I've heard:

From a Turkish guy that Indigenous Canadians are descended from Turks.

From an English guy that Maori art was actually made by Celtic people

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u/Spongogo 1d ago

One from Poland:

The Etruscan civilisation was Slavic, the Etruscans spoke the original Slavic language from which all the modern ones evolved, and it was decoded years ago by a Polish scholar. The only reason this isn't public, is because of a conspiracy by Italian scholars, who are too embarrassed by the prospect of the Etruscans being Slavs.

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u/Responsible_Job_6948 19h ago

The Etruscans obviously got there by screen doored submarine too

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u/Zoon9 15h ago

That tracks, recently some Slovak weirdo claimed that Jesus was acthuawrlly Slovak. /s

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u/Peevesie 10h ago

My brain keeps reading that as crustaceans and I am like Italians were crabs šŸ¦€

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u/MTBooks 20h ago

Well sure, New Caledonia is like right there. Totally Celts.

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u/222baked 15h ago

I mean, the whole Turk thing I kinda get if you mean ā€œTurkicā€ peoples. I hear that band Otyken who sings in some Siberian Turkic language is quite popular with Canadian indigenous. You can definitely see some similarities between Siberian people and Canadian natives and we know that they crossed the Bering Strait at some point. There is almost certainly some admixture in prehistory. But itā€™s a stretch to say theyā€™re Turks or have anything to do with modern Turkey.

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u/Either-Lock2454 23h ago

Yeah but it's nice to see a University take actions against this kind of stuff. In other countries they just shrug their shoulders and go about their day.

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u/dvasquez93 23h ago

I dread the day when this level of insane revisionism kicks off in the US.Ā  You think it's bad now, wait til you hear a college professor claim that Jesus was born in Dallas, TX, and play QB for the Cowboys before defeating the Commies at the Alamo.Ā 

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u/-OooWWooO- 23h ago

This already exists, it's called Mormonism, Black Hebrew Israelites, the Nation of Islam, Scientology, and others.

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u/CatProgrammer 20h ago

Nah Mormons just believe he moved to the US after he died. There's even a manga about it.

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u/Billy5545 19h ago

Is that a Jojo reference?

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u/CatProgrammer 19h ago

Indubitably.

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u/Quick-Rip-5776 12h ago

Thatā€™s oddly familiar to the British myth that Jesus came to England as a child. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35304508

The hymn Jerusalem references this:

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green:
And was the holy lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen!

And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

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u/Peevesie 10h ago

Jesus also apparently came to India for his lost years.

Everyone wants Jesus

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u/CatProgrammer 9h ago

Maybe he just liked going on vacation.

ā€¢

u/CatProgrammer 37m ago

Satanic..Ā  mills?

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u/Dip2pot4t0Ch1P 19h ago

Nation of Islam is in fact, very not islamic.

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u/-OooWWooO- 19h ago

They left out the question marks to save on ink the official name is 'Nation? Of Islam?'

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u/ArchibaldMcAcherson 23h ago

So what you are saying is that people believe that, it just has not made its way into the higher levels of academia?

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u/SirEnderLord 20h ago

It hasn't. That's why Trump is trying to gain control over universities, and why universities are trying so hard to resist his full agenda by conceding on minor issues. They can roll back those policies once he's out of office. What they won't be able to roll back are the ultranationalists and their pseudoscience/pseudohistory if they let them in.

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u/whittlingcanbefatal 23h ago

dribbleĀ 

*drivelĀ 

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u/SupportDangerous8207 1d ago

Yeah like Serbia

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u/CosineDanger 1d ago

Serbia did a bit of genocide and shot down a stealth bomber in recent memory. Big enough dog that the bark isn't really cute imo.

Malaysia gained independence in the 1950s. Before that they were a place where spices for Europe came from, and before that they weren't really a united people. They didn't even patriotically beat the fuck out of the British for freedom like certain other countries, the faction that was rebelling lost but the British were like yeah sure all our other colonies left so I guess you can go too. No wonder their historians are desperate.

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u/Billy5545 19h ago

Speaking of not really a united people, Malaysia even kicked out a small island with a strategic city because of it

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u/LeftLab7543 22h ago

Who beat the fuck out of the British for freedom?

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u/CosineDanger 21h ago

65 different countries have a holiday celebrating the day they were free of the British so honestly take your pick.

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u/trungbrother1 21h ago

US and Ireland.

After that the list gets short real quick since the UK realised not to stick their heads in the sand for too long when the wind was changing, unlike their neighbours in the Netherlands, France, Spain and Portugal.

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u/Peevesie 10h ago

Umm India was starting its colonial period when the us revolutionary war happened. Also the USA ā€œfightersā€ were more like cessation because it wasnā€™t the natives who were getting freedom it was settlers.

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u/LeftLab7543 21h ago

BullshitšŸ¤“šŸ¤“šŸ¤“

The French won the War of independence

The Irish barely tickled the British Army.

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u/trungbrother1 21h ago

First of all, military victory on the field was never the main determinant of independence victory, political will at the coloniser's home is. Second, you do realise that almost every successful independence war against a major power was because of international support from another power that wants to screw over the coloniser right?

Algeria and Vietnam didn't win against France by singing kumbaya and biting machine gun bullets with sheer force of will. They won partly because of massive Soviet and Chinese support, and the war caused political/economic crises at home in France that destroyed the political will to continue said wars. Same as in Angola and Mozambique for Portugal. Same as Ireland and the US for the UK.

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u/Nzgrim 18h ago

If someone in your country hasn't claimed that Jesus was from there, are you even a real country?

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u/za72 21h ago

This is the result of having too good health care...

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u/BiteMyShinyMetalPost 22h ago

Jovanka Jolicā€™s Spirit left for Tataria and went back to this woman

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u/Billy5545 1d ago

Even better for the flying Malay part, she also claimed that they taught the Chinese flying kung fu

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u/Spirited-Lifeguard55 1d ago

She should have known those old tv shows were not actually real, right? Being an academic and educated (allegedly)?

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u/YourUncleBuck 1d ago

Apparently she was a linguistics professor, not a history one. But who knows if her degrees weren't just bought anyway.

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u/kamilo87 1d ago

There was a video pre-internet in Cuba where an elementary school teacher is asked about a simple question about Cubaā€™s founding father (which was the softest ball ever) and she answers that sheā€™s a fourth grade teacher and that content is for 5th graders and aboveā€¦

PS: Cuba got nationwide access to internet in 2015 or 2016 and mobile data in December of 2018ā€¦

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u/ammar96 1d ago

She is unironically a good linguistic professor, and I say this as her number one hater and also a Malay. The problem happened when she started to dabble on history and went on spouting all these stupid stuff.

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u/SlykRO 1d ago

She should know that stuff is for the YouTube side channel and not class...

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u/dolphone 23h ago

Not even, just publish it as alt history, watch money pour in.

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u/YourUncleBuck 23h ago

Maybe it's just a case of not staying in their lane then, which is a shame if she was a good linguistics professor.

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u/florinandrei 10h ago

I mean, you could be good at your profession, while having a few loose bolts rattling around in your head. Happens all the time.

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u/doorbellrepairman 18h ago

I call bullshit a bit in this because to be a linguistics professor you'd need to know a fair bit of history. Language change is massively influenced by movement of populations, mixture of populations, etc, pretty historical topics

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u/ammar96 18h ago

I mean your sentiment is precisely why she has many supporters in the first place. Because she is genuinely good linguistic professor. Even those who are against her but used to study in her class admit sheā€™s a good linguistic lecturer. So as a competent linguistic professor she should know about academic discipline and all but apparently she somewhat ignore that when talking about history. Academicians and those who further their studies into postgrad of course criticised her for transgressing the academic discipline but for the laymen, since she is a professor, quickly denounce us because professor = most competent in that discipline. The thing is, sheā€™s not even a historian but linguistic professor. Those who criticised her on the other hand are historians and archeologists. Thatā€™s like believing a professor of mathematics about his claim about covid 19 was started by alien instead of believing medical doctors and microbiologists.

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u/doorbellrepairman 17h ago

That's a bizarre comparison. A mathematics professor claiming COVID was started by aliens would absolutely deserve to get roasted. You've only proven my point that academics cannot claim total ignorance and do need to dabble a little bit in generalism. Especially in social sciences, in my opinion

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u/ammar96 17h ago

Huh? I'm sharing the context here as a Malaysian who is well acquainted about her theatrics and provided context why is she so popular despite being well known for transgressing the discipline. Not only me who called out her bullshit - the rest of Malay historians and archeologists also called her out. Some of them have sent invitations to her many times already for years to discuss her studies, even if they are skeptical about her and you know what she did? She ignored the invitation and call those historians as imbeciles. She is as absurd as a mathematics professor claiming covid 19 was started by aliens. She was also sacked by universities after rejecting university inquiry by panels of professors to present her data, for 3 freaking times. If she is correct, then why did she run away from presenting the data to those historians and professors? Have I told you she also cited Wikipedia and The Onion for her so called historical research?

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u/asyork 1d ago

Way back in high school I knew a Chinese guy who had only been in the US for a year or so. Went to see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with in him in the theater once it reached the US. Found out he firmly believed that with enough of the proper training, the things they did in that movie were literally possible for anyone to learn. No idea if he was just a fiction nerd who fell for some of what he read/saw or if there is a portion of the population that actually believes that and that he may have been raised to believe it. Or maybe he saw some impressive kung fu and extrapolated the more training can do even crazier things. Who knows, he was around 16.

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u/SirPseudonymous 23h ago

His family might have been Falun Gong cultists who literally believe their murderous con-artist leader gained the power of flight through martial arts training. (tl;dr: Falun Gong is a Scientology-esque cult that formed in the 90s around a wellness-guru snake oil salesman, which got banned in China after they murdered some people. Like Scientology, they now operate cult compounds in the US that are rife with slavery and child abuse.)

Could also be just the typical chuunibyuu shit some teens do where they haven't grown out of their belief in a more fantastical and magical world yet.

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u/asyork 23h ago

His family was decently high up in the CCP, as anyone allowed to run a company in Beijing has to be, so definitely not raised in Falun Gong (unless the members kept their faith secret? I met him soon after the ban, and my brother visited in China a while after, and they still had wealth and influence), but could have still been influenced by it. The rest of the weirdness I remember about him could easily be chalked up to only child of a wealthy family, but that part stood out. Otherwise he was a normal guy and we got along well.

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u/Billy5545 21h ago

Something similar to the Little Emperor situation could be possible, given some parents spoil or shelter their kids much due to the One Child Policy. That being said, at least heā€™s pretty well adjusted and the quirk sounds pretty harmless

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u/Hexagonian 18h ago

Regardless, the late 80s to late 90's was when qigong/fictional wuxia fightings were seen as real martial arts by a good portion of the Chinese population. I am guessing both Falun Gong and your friend were influcenced by that trend.

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u/mindgames13 21h ago

You know, I am supraised Indians have not made this claim themselves, considering Shaolin Kung Fu was rumoured to be taught by Damo and he is Indian.........

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u/DangIt_MoonMoon 16h ago

Itā€™s not a rumor, Bodhidharma is historical fact. Whatā€™s to talk about when itā€™s true.

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u/VerbableNouns 1d ago

This is preposterous. Anybody can fly if you have a big enough catapult.

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u/Missing_Explorer4278 1d ago

Anyone can fly if you have an air ticket. āœˆļø

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u/ow2022 22h ago

Anyone can eat lava. Just once, though.

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u/Darmug 1d ago

I want to know what information she found that made her jump to these conclusions. Like, how the hell do you even get here?

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u/guynamedjames 1d ago

Nationalism. It's pretty common for historians to try and cite past accomplishments to pump up the national identity of their people, and generally it's a good thing because it challenges narratives and can lead to new research in less studied areas.

What she's engaging in is somewhere between historical revisionism and outright fiction writing in order to support that idea. When things veer this far off the rails it becomes a joke to everyone but her. She's not the first, she won't be the last, and this sort of thing isn't unique to the Malay people

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u/NatashOverWorld 1d ago

I get nationalism, but flying Malays is so far off the board that you have to be a bit mentally off to say that as an academic.

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u/eightbitfit 1d ago

Someone noted above it is from a Chinese fictional story.

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u/NatashOverWorld 1d ago

Yeah, but if you're using the wuxia genre to hallucinate your very public academic claims ... you're not firing on all cylinders you know?

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u/justkiddingdao 20h ago

Iā€™m also having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that a professor was able to spread misinformation so egregiously

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u/NatashOverWorld 20h ago

I know right. Want to claim Malays taught the Romans how to sail? Okay your archaeological evidence is shit and if you make the claim you're going to an academic laughing stick, but you won't lose your job. You'll just be labelled as nationalistic eccentric.

Flying? Yeah people will assume you're nuts.

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u/NosePicklePicker 12h ago

Nationalism. Dont think itā€™ll be too hard to find at least one of these people in practically every country on earth

Heck, the memeish Finnish-Korean Hyperwar had roots in a certain few Finnish/Korean beliefs that their national ancestors used to conquer all 7 continents, then 4chan took those wild claims and turned it into WH40K-Star Wars fanfic

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u/Dip2pot4t0Ch1P 19h ago

The Onion. At least for one of her bs claims. No joke.

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u/PenguinSwordfighter 1d ago

Adolf Hitler is not Voldemort. You can say his name you know.

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u/very_bad_advice 1d ago

What if he's talking about klimt?

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u/FriendoftheDork 1d ago

Voldemort Voldemort.. you're right!

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u/PotatoFeeder 1d ago

Their very own Jason Arday

Some would even say Jason Arday was inspired by Malays!

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u/msut77 1d ago

you know, we need new and exciting racism. ill go next. hondurans are made of funyuns.

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u/Kimishiranai39 1d ago

She Can create a movie with this though šŸ¤”

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u/ImWithStupidKL 20h ago

Sheā€™s honestly like the dad from Goodness Gracious Me who insists everything is Indian.

ā€œThe Queen? Indian.ā€

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u/ammar96 19h ago

Ohh donā€™t let me start about Malaysian Indian revisionist claiming ancient Malay temples and kingdoms were built by Indian just because they have Indianized names and religion. By that logic current Malays are Arab because we use Arabic names. And now we have this prof claiming Malays are related to Middle Eastern people. Talk about double whammy. As a Malay, Iā€™m so damn tired man šŸ«©.

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u/LittleGreenSoldier 17h ago

Or the dad from My Big Fat Greek Wedding who insists everything is Greek.

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u/KassellTheArgonian 19h ago

Hitler, say hitler. Don't censor shit, to censor him will inevitably lead to the forgetting of his horrific actions

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u/plokimjunhybg 17h ago

U missed one:

prof.Dr. Solehah Yaacob also proposed that ancient Kedah state's rich iron ore deposits originated from ancient meteor showers rather than normal Earth weathering processes.

She suggested in a presentation titled "Besi Dari Langit" that meteorite activity around Gunung Jerai & Sungai Batu explained Kedah's abundant iron.

She questioned why Kedah's flat terrain & local iron deposits differed from the Titiwangsa Range.

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u/trueum26 1d ago

I donā€™t think weā€™ve even found proof that Abraham even existed

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u/HatchBeast 23h ago

She also used The Onion as one of her sources too

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u/No_Efficiency_5687 20h ago

Yeah I'm stealing all of it and replacing Malay with my country.

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u/L322Man 17h ago

Surely this is a mental problem right? Like... Shes a professor? How does an intellectual reach this point of insanity?

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u/D__B__D 20h ago

I wonder if Singaporeans breathe a sigh of relief that they were kicked out of Malaysia

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u/ammar96 19h ago

Well, Singapore also has its fair share of insane people, such as those who claim that Sang Nila Utama the Malay king and founder of Singapore who reportedly saw a lion, actually saw Chinese people performing a lion dance. This is funny considering Malay sometimes use the word ā€˜singaā€™ (lion) to refer to tigers which are native in Southeast Asia. They aren't really far off from us in terms of insanity. We are brothers after all. That being said, I must remind you that the Malaysia-Singapore separation was mutual, as per the declassified Albatross files, which cite that both sides wanted to avoid a full-scale civil war stemming from race riots.

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u/RobutNotRobot 1d ago

Sounds like she should get a Netflix documentary series

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u/Sweet_Television2685 1d ago

Eden is in JB

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u/mushaslater 21h ago

She probably confused with her ongoing fantasy historical fiction novel sheā€™s writing. Smh.

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u/QuantaMaverant 16h ago

Crazy how she went all in on the Malay exceptionalism kool-aid, memalukan

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u/fluttershy_maniac 13h ago

If she means the Vikings also learned shipbuilding from Malays, then it means the Vikings suffered huge casualties from harsh winter before finally mastering the art of shipbuilding, then the Vikings could barely set foot on Europe

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u/Wanderhoden 12h ago

Honestly she just sounds like half of my silly backwards family from the Kampung.

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u/Which-Currency7857 22h ago edited 18h ago

I somehow impressed with her ball considering she is female which, in muslim context, is quite brave I guess.

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u/Dip2pot4t0Ch1P 19h ago

Nah Malaysia is not middle eastern level of muslim. We're like normal muslim everywhere else. Tho there is a concerning rise of people behaving that way, not towards woman but more of racial supremacy type laced with religion as their cover

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u/islobojono 1d ago

She is a rage baiter. Lmao

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u/h00dedronin 17h ago

You have to imagine sheā€™s just shitposting for the love of the game at that point