the comparison between #MUDA and youth led political movements in other countries is self serving, shallow, and entirely absurd. 1/12

Future Forward is/was driven by a democratic, anti monarchy, anti traditional movement.
Hong Kong is driven by the material disparity and dispossession of the immensely poor in one of the world’s richest cities. 2/12

These parties and movements have firm ideological grounding and coherent policy platformsSelf governance for Hong Kong. Abolish or restrict the Thai monarchy. these are grassroots, bottom up movements with clear and firm policy aims and goals. 3/12

MUDA? MUDA is driven by the protege of Malaysia’s ex dictator, and the heir to his legacy. by a good looking neoliberal who champions empty technocracy and principles of nice sounding populism, and a stunning arrogance which assumes that the youth are, a prori, correct. 4/12

who parrot “technocracy” as if the word itself were a panacea to incompetence and corruption, and not it’s very root and stem. 5/12

saadiq has repeatedly shown himself to have no ideological backbone or grounding. he’s been happy to throw marginalised groups of malaysians under the bus for his own aggrandisement and status. 6/12

happy to wine and dine kleptocrats in service of a veneer of non-partisanship, while cynically standing for nothing, and falling for everything. 7/12

it’s a pity Saadiq didn’t take up the Oxford offer - he would have fit in perfectly as another vacuous PPE graduate who can say everything but clearly knows nothing - in the vein of David Cameron, Christopher Hitchens, Tony Pua, and Khairy. 8/12

the worst part is that the failure and collapse of MUDA will disarm and discredit youth revolutionary politics in Malaysia for the next twenty years, and waste the golden opportunity of the present moment. 9/12

it will cede the political momentum in this country to reactionaries and conservatives who will entrench their social positions at the expense of minorities and the vulnerable. 10/12

i want them to prove me wrong. i want them to be a revolutionary, progressive force for positive change. i want them to smash apart old and obsolete systems of corruption and cruelty, and to usher in a new age of Malaysia for Malaysians, and Malaysians for Malaysia. 11/12

I want to read this thread in five years, and be embarrassed by my cynical doomsaying.
but i doubt it. 12/12