I spent a lot of time in Malaysia in the '00 decade. A new PM came in (after decades!) and talked of "Islam Hadari" (modern Islam), a lead balloon that after a few months was never mentioned again -- can you imagine The Pope declaring a thing could bring about, say, Catholic priests being allowed to marry? If nothing else, it seemed to give a boost to the fundamentalist political party. In the press, if you read the details of articles you may come across the existence of private armies with a nationalist/religious bent, but such never makes the headlines. Soldiers are salaried employees. They seemed to be stationed in the Malaysian states along the east coast near to the Thai border. One thing Malaysia has that LOS does not is an (officially) multi-tiered legal system. As a cab driver who worked the Sadao border told me: the good thing about the Thai LE is they just want the money and then they go away. Malay cops will kick your ass, they love doing choke-holds, just for the fun of it.
