05/08/2025

TUESDAY | AUG 5, 2025

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Kindness is the new superpower A LRIGHT, listen up, my dearies – Makcik is about to serve you a hot pot of truth, simmered with sass, Bullying used to need a playground. Now all it needs is WiFi and bad manners. Instagram captions throwing jabs, group chats full of silent judgement and TikToks that try too hard. Honestly, overwhelmed.” Meanwhile, she is forwarding your typo to the entire department and tagging it as #JustSaying. up before 9am without caffeine rage? Again, empathy.

Makcik’s final sermon (before my teh tarik gets cold) To all the students, workers, bosses, teachers, uncles, aunties, baristas and rogue WhatsApp admins – choose empathy. Not because it is soft but because it is strong. Because it is the only thing that makes life less of a battleground and more of a community. And to all the bullies, past and present – may your nasi lemak always come with soggy cucumbers and sambal that doesn’t pedas. May your WiFi lag at 98% download. May your Tupperware always go missing and your slippers mysteriously switch feet outside the surau . You don’t scare us anymore. We see through your nonsense. And we are coming for you with the full might of emotionally intelligent, gloriously kind humans who refuse to let cruelty be normal. So go forth anak-anak and aunties of the world. Sprinkle empathy like MSG. Be loud with your kindness. Be gloriously, unashamedly compassionate because in a world full of bullies, being soft is the new superpower. Sekian , Makcik logging out with a side-eye that could curdle susu pekat , a glare that’s HR-proof and a hot flash that puts any corporate gaslighting to shame. AzuraAbas is the associate editor of theSun. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

Empathy means seeing your colleague as a human, not just a cog in your KPI machine. It means asking “How are you?” and actually bracing for an honest answer, not praying they say “fine” so you can go back to pretending to work on your spreadsheet. Bullies don’t need power; they need therapy You know what is wild? Most bullies are just emotionally constipated people with too much time and too little soul-searching. They don’t need a promotion; they need a hug, a mirror and maybe five years of therapy with someone who charges by the hour and does not tolerate nonsense. You want to end bullying? Stop treating it like a personality quirk: “Oh, that is just how he is.” No, Aunty Margaret, how he is… is a problem. Start calling it what it is: emotional violence. Not drama. Not boys-being boys. Not “she’s too sensitive”. If anything, being sensitive is a strength. You know what is easy? Insulting someone. You know what is hard? Actually feeling their pain and choosing not to add to it. Empathy is bada**, okay? It is gangster in the best way. It is walking into a room and making people feel safe, not scared. It is the opposite of power-tripping; it is power-sharing. And best of all? It never goes out of style.

Or that Boss Bully who thinks empathy is a luxury item, like truffle oil. Instead, they operate on fear, deadlines and the ancient leadership mantra: “I suffered, so you must too.” Bravo, Encik Dino. That is not leadership, that is just generational trauma with a swivel chair. And please- lah , spare us the recycled HR drama: “We take bullying seriously.” Oh, really? Then why is the bully still sitting pretty with a new title, flexing in meetings like they own the company while the actual victim gets downgraded to a desk next to the toilet – complete with leaking pipe, broken fan and that one lizard that refuses to die? Don’t insult our intelligence. This is not a drama on TV3; this is real life where victims eat lunch alone in the surau corridor and the bully gets invited to makan-makan with upper management like they are some sort of national treasure. Stop gaslighting people with your policies and posters. No one feels safe, everyone is traumatised and the pantry microwave still does not work. You want real change? Start by moving the bully, not the person crying into their sambal ikan bilis sandwich during lunch break. You want a productive, thriving team? One word: empathy. You want loyalty, motivation, people showing

marinated in empathy and seasoned with just enough cili padi to make your soul itch. We are talking about bullying – in schools, offices, family WhatsApp groups, even in the JPN queue where someone cuts in like their nenek sponsored the tiles. Let’s be clear: bullying is not “normal” and it is not “part of growing up”. It is not some “rite of passage” where you come out stronger, wiser and with a six-pack of character. Please- lah . If bullying really built character, half of us would be walking around with Nobel Prizes and emotional abs. The school jungle: Where empathy goes to die In school, you would think children are learning algebra, sejarah and how to dodge flying erasers. But nowadays, some are also majoring in advanced psychological torture. You have 12-year-olds plotting emotional takedowns better than telenovela villains. Poor Alia just wants to eat her sandwich in peace but noooo – here comes some pint-sized dictator asking her: “Eh, why you so fat-ah? Later the chair patah !” Excuse me Diana, if her sitting breaks the chair, your IQ breaks the floor. M A R I N A B Y A In his influential television series Free to Choose , Friedman – recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences – used the seemingly mundane pencil to demonstrate the extraordinary complexity and global interdependence that underpin free markets. He explained that the wood used in a pencil might come from a tree harvested in the state of Washington, which requires a saw made of steel – steel that itself is derived from iron ore. The graphite might originate in South America while the eraser likely contains rubber from Malaya. Remarkably, Friedman noted, rubber trees are not even native to that region; they were imported from South America with the help of British colonial interests. Through this example, Friedman emphasised the intricate coordination required to produce even the simplest product – coordination made possible by the global market system, where countless individuals in different parts of the world contribute to production without ever knowing one another. This, he argued, is the genius of free markets: their ability to foster peaceful and productive cooperation among strangers, ultimately benefiting consumers and societies through efficiency and innovation. Friedman’s metaphor extends beyond economics to convey

Makcik thinks some of them need less screen time and more soul time. Where are the adults, you ask? Oh, just casually saying, “Kids will be kids”. No, Cikgu Rosmah, kids will be monsters if we don’t teach K C I K

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them otherwise. You want empathy in schools? Start by banning those tired phrases like “man up” or “stop crying like a girl”. And while you are at it, remove every motivational poster that says “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” because, darling, some people are barely surviving, not levelling up in a video game. You want a real value-add curriculum? Teach kids how to say sorry properly, how to stand up for someone without needing applause and how to ask “Are you okay?” without making it sound like gossip foreplay. Corporate life: Where bullies wear blazers and toss you under the bus – with a smile Meet Corporate Karen, queen of condescension. She doesn’t yell – no. She uses that sweet, syrupy fake concern: “Just worried about your workload. You seem…

COMMENT by Assoc Prof Dr Puan Yatim

Friedman’s pencil and lessons in international trade AS the United States continues to impose tariffs on a broad spectrum of imported goods, Milton Friedman’s timeless lesson about the lead pencil is more relevant than ever. fundamental principles such as comparative advantage – first articulated by David Ricardo in the 19th century, which holds that countries gain by specialising in what they produce most efficiently and trading for the rest.

No single nation possesses all the resources, labour or infrastructure to produce complex goods independently. The pencil, or any modern product, like a smartphone, reflects this reality. Today’s smartphones are produced through intricate global supply chains that span multiple continents: semiconductors from Taiwan or Malaysia, lithium batteries and rare earth elements from China, display panels from South Korea, software and chip design from the US and final assembly in Vietnam, India or China. These supply chains are highly sensitive to trade policies. When tariffs are imposed, especially on intermediate goods, they increase costs, complicate planning and introduce uncertainty across production stages. Supporters of tariffs often argue they protect domestic industries, reduce reliance on strategic competitors and promote national reindustrialisation. However, mounting empirical evidence shows that tariffs function as a tax on consumers and downstream industries, distorting prices and undermining the comparative advantages that drive global economic efficiency. In recent years, rising

Trade, anchored in fairness and multilateral rules, remains one of the most effective tools for fostering prosperity, peace and resilience. – AMIRUL SYAFIQ/THESUN

innovation and threaten employment. Ultimately, international trade must evolve to be more inclusive and sustainable but its foundational principle remains unchanged: mutual exchange is not a zero-sum game but a powerful engine for shared growth. As Friedman’s pencil teaches us, the invisible hand of cooperation is what truly lifts all boats when the tide rises. AssocProf Dr Puan Yatim is from the School of Business at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

– lies not in isolation but in cooperation. Trade, anchored in fairness and multilateral rules, remains one of the most effective tools for fostering prosperity, peace and resilience. For small, open economies like Malaysia, which depend heavily on exports of electronics, palm oil, rubber gloves and machinery, the notion of decoupling from global supply chains is not only economically unfeasible but strategically unsound. Attempting to replicate entire supply chains domestically would erode competitiveness, stifle

protectionism, by sweeping US tariffs under the banner of “economic liberation”, has triggered retaliatory measures, strained trade relationships and threatened the cooperative spirit upon which global commerce is built. This inward turn undermines not only economic efficiency but also geopolitical stability. In an era defined by VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity), Friedman’s pencil reminds us that the solution to global challenges – climate change, resource scarcity and technological disruption exemplified