16/12/2025

TUESDAY | DEC 16, 2025

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Together, Malaysians are unstoppable

A H, Malaysia. My beloved tanah air , the only place on Earth where strangers will fight over car park spaces at 10am and then unite like Avengers during flood season at 4pm. The land of “I don’t know you but here – eat something”, and simultaneously the land of “Why is that fella like that? Must be Type M, Type C, Type what what- lah ”. As a Malaysian who married a Chinese man (yes, yes, insert your predictable auntie gasp here), I can safely say our national personality is warm, wacky and eyebrow-raising, enough to catch the Sultan of Selangor’s attention. Glorious bits: Malaysians rally like nobody’s business Say what you want about us but when disaster hits, Malaysians activate faster than Marvel superheroes with no licensing budget. Flood? Instant flotilla of abang abang with sampan , makciks with Tupperware and teenagers who suddenly transform into logistics managers. Lost child? Within eight minutes the entire nation – from Penang aunties to Sabahan fishermen – knows, shares, spreads, prays and coordinates like a tactical unit. Someone’s house burns down? The next morning, the family has 42 rice cookers, 18 blenders and nearly enough Milo to open a canteen. Our rakyat spirit is real, tangible and beautifully chaotic. We may complain non-stop – “ Aiyoh , why so jam? Why so hot? Why the chicken price macam gold bar?”– but when push comes to shove, we move as one. The secret? We genuinely care. Beneath the sarcasm, roti canai crumbs and political fatigue, we are still soft and gooey like kuih talam – sweet, sticky and impossible to resist. But after that, our inner darkness seeps out, like belacan left in a swanky office fridge. Let’s be honest: We have moments when we behave like the comments section of a local news page – feral, unfiltered and powered by kopi O with too little milk and too much emotion. This newspaper, theSun , has highlighted how some nakal M A R B I N

on the SIM card is not the one using it. Criminals obtain these SIM cards in several ways, including purchasing or renting identities from students, cash-strapped individuals or migrant workers for small payments, using stolen or leaked personal data to register SIM cards without the victim’s knowledge or acquiring bulk registered SIM cards from dealers who bypass verification requirements. The result is that when the SIM card is used in a scam, the person whose name appears in the registration database becomes the first suspect. Innocent people find themselves investigated, blacklisted or labelled as accomplices. This phenomenon is unite us; it pokes the bear. It rocks the kapal and turns our multicultural, multiflavour rojak into rojak that someone left out in the sun until it ferments. I say this with love and a sprinkle of chili padi flakes: If you must label people by letters, at least give them fun ones. Type A: Always hungry. Type B: Born to complain. Type K: Kiasu but only during sale season. See? Everyone is happy. Even the Palace cannot tahan sometimes when you have annoyed Malaysians so much even the Sultan makes a statement you know we’ve crossed into “behave yourselves, children” territory. Recently, the Sultan of Selangor expressed concerns – things like racial uneasiness being stirred unnecessarily, plus unhappiness about local councils acting like cleanliness is optional, not mandatory. Let’s unpack this with a Makcik ’s lens: 0 On cleanliness: Truly, some councils behave like cleanliness is a personality trait you pick up only if you are bored. Rubbish mountains, clogged drains, pavements with more holes than a B40 budget. His Royal Highness looked at this and said, “Enough please”. When the Sultan starts sounding like a chiding parent during spring cleaning, you know the situation is dire. R A A B A S individuals have turned this into a game: instead of saying “some people”, they start slapping labels on each other – Type “M”, Type “C”, Type “B” or whatever type takes their fancy. My dear, are we nationalities or Pokémon cards? These labels are supposedly clever little codes but please- lah , the whole country knows exactly who you are hinting at. It’s like saying “I’m not naming names but the person whose name rhymes with Chan”. We are Malaysians – we can decode hints faster than we can finish a plate of char kuey teow . This habit doesn’t K E D M A K C I

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When disaster hits, Malaysians activate faster than Marvel superheroes with no licensing budget. – SUNPIC

0 On racial poking: When royalty has to remind us to stop acting like tribal villagers from a bad soap opera, maybe we should, you know, listen. Malaysia is a country where we share food, culture, jokes and in-laws. If we can survive a traffic jam on the North–South Expressway without turning on each other, surely we can manage a bit of basic harmony. Why we do this to ourselves? Malaysia is a huge extended family. The moment someone says something stupid, we don’t hush them; we crown them the main act, throw them under a spotlight and play their personal soap-opera soundtrack. Then we forward the chaos, screenshot the drama and drizzle our own sambal belacan commentary all over it. But just like family: 0 We argue and reconcile faster than 24-hour mamak waiters. 0 We gossip but also defend each other against outsiders.

penalties for bulk-registration dealers, regulation of data trading networks, improved digital literacy education and collaborative policing solutions that target syndicates. Until enforcement is restructured to prioritise the dismantling of organised digital crime networks, SIM card scams will continue to flourish, not because the public is careless, but because the system continues to place the burden of risk on those with the least power to defend themselves. DrHaezreena Begum Abdul Hamid is a criminologist and senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com missing pets, gotong-royong or just passing someone a tissue in the LRT. 4. Remember what makes us Malaysian – the food, the chaos, the kindness and the jokes that sometimes go too far but still end with, “ Aiyah , jangan marah-lah .” In the end, we are a messy, beautiful rojak . Malaysia will never be neat, calm or predictable – that is why we love her. We are loud, we are loving and we are occasionally unhinged but most importantly, we are us – a nation held together by sambal , sarcasm and sheer stubborn affection. And if we can just clean up the drains, stop calling each other using secret code words from a spy movie and remember that unity is not a slogan but a daily practice – my goodness, sayang , we’d be unstoppable. AzuraAbas is the associate editor of theSun. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

of technology but also due to social and economic vulnerability. People rent out their identity documents because they need the money. Others become victims because they do not understand how digital systems link SIM ownership to legal responsibility. Meanwhile, syndicates exploit anonymity and distance, knowing that police responses are often reactive and individualised. If Malaysia is serious about addressing SIM card scams, the solution must shift from blaming “careless users” to dismantling the criminal infrastructure that profits from identity exploitation. This means stronger oversight of telecommunication agents, strict 0 We love loudly, fight loudly and eat loudly. Our problem isn’t hatred; it’s boredom mixed with emotional inflation. Some people cannot resist drama. If Malaysia had a national zodiac sign, it would be “Chaotic Caring”. Makcik’s solution: 0 Clean your mess, mind your mouth and love your neighbour. Let me speak as your honorary, over-caffeinated Makcik married to her Chinese abang : 1. Stop with the coded racial nonsense. If you want to talk about attitude, behaviour or bad manners, just say so. No need to turn Malaysia into a letter-based Hunger Games. 2. Local councils, step up. When the Sultan complains, that is like your mother-in-law saying the curry is bland. Fix it now, not next month. 3. Lead with generosity, not suspicion. We are at our best when we show up for each other – floods, funerals, food drives,

COMMENT by Dr Haezreena Begum Abdul Hamid

Tougher enforcement needed to combat SIM card scams MALAYSIA is experiencing a noticeable rise in SIM card scams, yet most discussions remain superficial, often reduced to public warnings, such as “do not give your number to strangers”. known in criminology as secondary victimisation, where the system inadvertently harms the individuals it should be protecting.

Under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, every SIM card must be registered using a valid identity but this regulatory framework pushes accountability onto individuals instead of addressing the larger networks that profit from identity misuse and telecommunications loopholes. Enforcement tends to target the lowest-level participant rather than the syndicates, data brokers, registration agents and online platforms that enable the crime to occur. This scam thrives not only because

In reality, this issue reflects a deeper criminological and legal problem linked to identity exploitation, economic vulnerability and weak regulatory control. A SIM card scam occurs when criminals use mobile phone SIM cards that are registered under another person’s identity to carry out fraud, phishing, impersonation or online financial crimes. The key method is identity masking: the person legally registered