The fallout from an Al Jazeera report on alleged ill treatment of migrant workers in Malaysia during the MCO is still a hot topic. 
 
Following the revocation of the work pass of a Bangladeshi man who had been interviewed by AJ, several quarters were contacted by The Sun. Two of these (including, incredibly, an NGO called Migrant Care) said migrants shouldn’t be saying bad things about the country in which they are earning a living and so it was perfectly fine for action to be taken against the foreigner. 
 
But the article also quotes Society for the Promotion of Human Rights sec-gen Ivy Josiah, who says the action taken against the foreigner gives the wrong impression that migrant workers have no rights, seeing as how he was only talking about the purported suffering of his community.
 
Let’s recap. The report talked about raids against migrant workers during the MCO. It has come under fire from various quarters, including the government, and even prompted a police investigation. AJ, however, is standing by its documentary/report. 
 
In actuality, the raids had, long before the AJ documentary, come under heavy criticism from the likes of the Malaysian Human Rights Commission and NGOs like the North-South Initiative and Lawyers for Liberty. They said migrants were not acceptable casualties and that the move was counter-productive in the fight against Covid-19 as it would only cause the foreigners to fear coming forward to get themselves tested. 
 
Of course, there have been many quarters who have come out in support of AJ, or against the gomen for the crackdown in the midst of the pandemic. But there have also been many others who have criticised the AJ documentary.
 
Dustin Pfundheller, the YouTuber who runs the Other Side of Truth channel, recently uploaded a video entitled “Top 15 Mistakes in Locked up in Malaysia’s Lockdown video by Al Jazeera”, is an example of those critical of the AJ documentary.

We’ve found it to be terrible, to put it mildly, so much so that we feel the need to point out the mistakes in a video about supposed mistakes. Oh, and we’re not gonna link the video either, as we don’t want to drive traffic to nonsense.
 
So here we go, in order of the mistakes the video points out in the AJ report:

15) Saying it’s illegal to take footage of security apparatus. But the footage was of an area under EMCO and not military or police base, which are sensitive areas. Even local media companies took images and videos of places in lockdown and security personnel stationed there.

14) Saying AJ complained about not being allowed into high risk areas.  AJ never complained. It was merely a matter-of-fact statement that they weren’t allowed in the area.

13) Saying that you have to ALWAYS allow comments on video and taking them to task for not allowing comments. Where does it say you have to always allow comments? And, need we remind our dear Dustin about what happened with Malaysiakini precisely for comments on their site? 

12) Saying that AJ shouldn’t complain about the government not responding to their queries as it had better things to do than to respond because they were fighting Covid-19. Firstly, the documentary came out well into the RMCO, so the worst was already over and the government would have had the time to respond. Secondly, that shouldn’t even be an excuse as the media’s job is to report and hold those in power to account for any wrongdoing. AJ was not on a “high horse” but merely going through proper journalistic processes and offering the government the right to reply. Did our intrepid vlogger do the same for AJ? Here’s what the BBC has to say about Right to Reply. 

11) Forgetting how racism works. This one’s a beauty. He says 7% of Malaysians are Indian. And, get this, they apparently look exactly like migrant workers, legal or illegal. So, if the Malaysian government was racist, they would target anybody that looks Indian, Bangladeshi or Pakistani. We don’t know how many minutes he’s spent in Malaysia, but Malaysian Indians come in various colours and hues. To say they look exactly like migrant workers is, well, racist (and wrong!). 

10) Saying Malaysia treats migrant workers better than almost anywhere else. We gotta ask… by what measure? Is he implying there isn’t inherent, whether institutional or societal, racism towards migrant workers in this country? Perhaps he should take a look at our special report on xenophobia in the era of the pandemic. 

9) Illegal migrant workers could have just put in some effort to show they obeyed the law and got a work permit. This is a broad generalisation and overly simplistic explanation to a very complex and nuanced problem. Yes, there are illegal workers. But there are also undocumented migrants who are victims of people smuggling, those whose documents are held by their employers and refugees who aren’t recognised by our government. It’s not as simple as walking up to the Immigration Department and getting a work permit.

8) Saying illegal immigrants take jobs away from Malaysians. The vlogger points to a specific part of the AJ vid which says that one employer got 500 applications from Malaysians to fill up 60 places which had earlier been filled by migrant workers. Sorry mate, but you’re just using one specific example to bolster your overall argument. This report states that Malaysians who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic are the ones competing with foreigners. And, while it’s true that some employers take advantage of cheap foreign labour so they can turn a higher profit, the majority of foreign workers are here because Malaysians don’t want to do the so-called 3D jobs due to the social stigma attached to them. 

7) Saying illegal migrant workers put the whole country at risk of Covid-19. He’s saying it’s important to track and trace migrant workers who are Covid-19 positive. Nobody is arguing against that. But there’s a big difference between “track and trace” and “incarcerate and deport”. The threat of that drove illegals underground, thereby defeating the purpose of the whole exercise.

6) Saying AJ acts as if sitting in the sun and getting questioned is horrible. Errr… yes, it is. Children and the elderly were allegedly handcuffed in the sun for hours. People could have died, gotten sunstroke, etc. And this guy trivialises it. That’s a complete lack of empathy and awareness, and he actually says “you are blessed” about the people who had to sit in the sun. Is it just cos they’re foreigners? Would he be alright if it was his child stuck in the blazing sun?

5) Saying AJ forgets that everybody is going through a really hard time now. Malaysians have lost their jobs and the focus that only illegals are struggling is unfair. This is a stupid argument because it’s not an either/or debate. Just cos Malaysians are struggling, doesn’t mean this one report cannot focus on migrant issues. The video conflates two completely different things and adds 2 and 2 to get 5.

4) Saying the report is misleading and not honest. Again, he brings up the handcuffing of the migrant workers, including children and says he doesn’t think this is true. He asks for proof, saying even if it were true, it isn’t a big deal and compares it to a trip to the dentist, which is “way worse”. WTF? Does he even know the kind of mental and physical trauma that can cause a child? His lack of empathy is SHOCKING. And what exactly does he base his allegation on the supposed inaccuracy of the report on?

3) Mixing up legal and illegal migrant workers. He harps on how AJ apparently mixes up legal and illegal migrants in their documentary, but doesn’t really explain how in Malaysia, the backlash against foreigners didn’t distinguish between the legal and illegal. Again, he should read our report on xenophobia. Or just scroll through comments on the various media websites and FB pages. He’ll see people attacking all migrant workers, legal or illegal.

2) Saying a military style lockdown is the ONLY thing that works. Really, it’s not. New Zealand did fine without that. Malaysia’s method worked for us, but it’s not the ONLY solution to the problem.

1) Claiming AJ never said good things about Malaysia. Firstly, he uses it as a plug to his other videos (cos you gotta drive traffic, right?). But in his accusation of bias against AJ, he’s doing the exact same thing by making Malaysia out to be a utopia where everything is perfect. We’re coming out of this okay, but we were NOT perfect.
 
Is the AJ report perfect? Nope. It has quite a few issues. But criticism must be fair and in context. And in this case, it isn’t. And it’s not just some random nut either; the video has been viewed over 362,000 times since it was uploaded just a day ago.

But why is Pfundheller doing all of this? We have three theories: 
1) He may actually believe what he’s saying and is Malaysia’s number 1 fan 
2) Like all YouTubers, he monetizes his videos and may have seen that his first few videos on Malaysia did well, and therefore wanted to ride this cash cow a little bit further 
3) Somebody is paying him to present Malaysia in a good light.

Whatever it is, the fact that he’s taken an extremely complex and nuanced issue and boiled it down to a listicle says a lot about his depth of understanding of this country, this region and all the things that make it what it is.