Muhammad Kamarullah, Surwandono

Abstract:

The 2025 Sumatra disaster triggered a massive humanitarian response, including from Malaysia, that delivered various forms of humanitarian aid. This paper examines how Malaysia’s humanitarian organizations construct digital cosmopolitanism in providing aid to Aceh and how values and social relations underlying cross-border humanitarian solidarity are identified. Guided by the cosmopolitanism theory, particularly contextual cosmopolitanism and bottom-up cosmopolitanism, this research analyses how universal humanitarian values are negotiated through religious identity, cultural proximity, and digital participation. Adopting a qualitative descriptive approach, a digital
media analysis of Instagram posts from humanitarian organisations based in Malaysia, namely Cinta Salam Malaysia (CSM) and Global Peace Mission (GPM) Malaysia was conducted. The results show that Malaysia’s humanitarian aid to Aceh was driven by humanitarian principles, historical proximity, cultural ties, and Islamic solidarity that have long been established in the Malay Muslim region.

Keywords: Malaysian digital cosmopolitanism, humanitarian aid, non-state actors, 2025 Sumatra disaster