IMAGINE how a RM1.30 special issue stamp by Pos Malaysia bearing the wordings “Palestin Merdeka” (literally independent Palestine) can spark so many exchanges – at times heated – among Malaysians on the cyberspace.
“OTT (0ver-the-top)? Is there any other country doing this? 🤔😵💫” was the short and sweet question posed by Siti Kasim – the social activist who is also a human rights lawyer who needs no further introduction – on her Facebook page.
A war of words ensued when netizen Su Wee teasingly responded by remarking that such stamp would be the “world’s first” with Eric Fernandez wondering if its issuance would bring any benefit to the nation?
While Raj Pandian called it “joke of the millennium” Tan Gary cheekily contended that citizens of other country “are more important than ours”.
But soon, there was some – hopefully ‘friendly fires’ – between Su Wee and netizen Farhan Shah who argued that “stamps have many themes based on current issues”. But Farhan Shah’s justification failed to convince Su Wee who in his years of collecting stamps only came across special stamp issues on Malaysia or local themes.
Moving on netizen Eragon Tuah described Palestine as “a trend rider” but one never see them “raise the flag of another country who’s also suffering the same fate”.
“At the end, Aman Palestine (the prominent Malaysian NGO dedicated to providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians) plundered RM70 mil of public funds with the MACC (Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission) having frozen 41 of its bank accounts. 🤡”
It was then that a presumably Muslim netizen Siti Maryam Abdullah chided the entire special issue stamp exercise as “excessively Palestinian” (terpalimg Palestin) whereby fellow Muslim netizens hurled insult at ‘her’ until some netizens suggested that “there could be a non-Muslim behind her account”.
Well, a netizen suggested that Malaysia re-named herself as “Palesmasial” since the country is so passionate about caring for the plight of Palestinians.
Anyway, some netizens reckoned that Malaysia has gone too far “by flying the flags of other countries”.
At the end of the day, this netizen sums up the prevailing sentiment which Siti Kasim was trying to raise mostly aptly. – March 25, 2024
