I wanna start legitimately contributing to the commie space here and since I'm getting this random surge of dopamine after lying in bed depressed (mental depression + tummy ache :((( ) I'm gonna post this as a reminder to myself to start doing that even after the surge passes. First I think what I wanna really share is how Malaysian Socialists handle the topic of Religion, since I'm thinking it'd be insightful to my Western moots and the writings have been useful for me personally when doing outreach or organizing. But even before that bcz I might need to edit these into actual readable posts and not just copy-paste whole pdfs or books, ill just share some lingo that ill probs be using here and there: ⬇️
Translation: Bahasa Melayu/Malay + English
In Malaysia, the official lingua franca is Malay ( 'Bahasa Melayu' in Malay ), the business lingua franca is English and the layman lingua franca is Manglish! Which, while being just a combination of the words 'Malay' and 'English', is actually a creole mixing Malay, Tamil, Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka, Hainanese, Mandarin (as well as contributions from other Chinese dialects) and English! I'll probably have a more in-depth posts on this cuz I'm a huge linguistics nerd (amateur only though, not academician) and I could write whole (non peer-reviewed) essays about the Manglish creole. For now, just know I wanted to share this as a preface in case it's ever brought up, because a lot of published Malaysian Leftist writings are in fact in Manglish, and not perfect Malay or English.
Parti Sosialis Malaysia :-
Translation: Socialist Party of Malaysia
This is currently the largest Left-Leaning political party and organization in Malaysia. They're officially Marxist-Leninist.
Translation: Comrade ; lit. Cousin/Familial Relative Member
Sometimes you will just see 'Comrade' or 'Komrad' used. The latter just being a transliteration. Officially the major Socialist parties here always refers to fellow Communists and Socialists with Sdr. Insert Name on documents, published writings and verbally when giving talks, and sometimes even when referring to non-Malaysian Communists such as Sdr. Raul Castro, but in practice Comrade/Komrad is used just as often when speaking and even party members may use these in their writings if it's not anything super official. When translating to English, the official position by said parties are still to retain the Saudara/Sdr. convention but other organizations (like the one I'm a part of) will prefer the usage of 'Comrade'. I will personally retain the usage of Saudara/Sdr. even after translating out of pride in the Socialist identity formed within the Malay Archipelagos, I hope readers don't mind :)
Translation: Proletariat ; lit. Commoners/the Masses
( alt. Kaum Buruh/Golongan Pekerja/Rakyat Jelata )
For the most part when referring to the working class, I will just either use 'Working Class', 'Proletarian', 'labourers' or any other more specific terms if needs be. But I'd thought I'd throw this out as a fun fact due to its historical significance. It originates from 'Marhaenism' which was Soekarno's "Marxism with Indonesian Characteristics" ideology, adopted by early colonial-era Malayan Communist Parties as it also applied pretty well with British Malaya's material conditions at the time. I'll probably also share some Marxist-Marhaenist works some other time. 'Marhaen' as a word has come back into popular modern usage, but coopted and butchered by NeoLiberal Malaysians and Malay Supremacists, so while Socialists still use the term in slogans and speeches, it doesn't carry the ideological weight it used to thus is not used much when writing theory.
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