‘The pen is mightier than the sword,’ may sound like an old idea but not in the cyber world. Malaysiakini is proof. Its news and views are more positive as a catalyst for change than pointless saber-rattling. The offending weapon has since disappeared but the online grows from strength to strength.
Many Malaysians will celebrate Malaysiakini‘s 10th Anniversary, if not at its forthcoming dinner, at least in spirit wherever they may be. They believe in press freedom and consider the online daily its champion.
Today countless people all over the world are still prisoners of conscience, and do not have the freedom that those who live in free societies take for granted.
Into such a place Malaysiakini was born 10 years ago.
The lamp of media freedom along with many other freedoms had been snuffed out after the 1987 Operasi Lalang where more than 100 law-abiding citizens including opposition politicians were jailed without trial.
Their only crime was they proved a potential threat to the position of the one in power then. He had to be the supreme Shogun. After all, it seemed congruous with his vision of Looking East.
The politician, now a vocal armchair critic, denied any censorship under his government. But he had no qualms calling his successor’s administration a police state and complained that his views were being censored. Even the late Tunku Abdul Rahman’s grand-daughter has lamented the death of ‘Tunku’s Malaysia’.
The plethora of blogs and political party publications do provide the news that mainstream newspapers don’t but they are no substitute for a proper newspaper such as Malaysiakini. There is a difference between telling a story and telling the whole story which an independent newspaper can do objectively, particularly in investigative journalism.
So when Malaysiakini broke upon the scene, it was like a torrent of rain on a parched ground. The ‘news that matter’ was often the truth the other newspapers dared not tell the people or purposely withheld. It was exciting to read the newspaper again. But spare a thought for those who bring it to us.
Today in contrast the government-controlled media still stay relatively tame and compliant, even collusive, and it is common to hear them being called ‘cowards, liars and whores’, and other nasty names by irate bloggers and those who comment on blogs.
Truth hijacked
Still if you are peculiarly defiant, you may be like Raja Petra Kamarudin, a.k.a. RPK, who blogs in Malaysia Today, a website that carries incriminating reports and articles on the government and the police. Like Malaysiakini, his defiance tests the authorities. But it is odd that whistleblowers can be the ones punished not those dobbed in.
His scintillating exposes make Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein formerly of the Washington Post, who popularised investigative journalism, and made the 1970′s Watergate Scandal a household word, seem like pussycats. But they had a president fall on his sword. For his troubles, RPK is a fugitive.
After all, it is one thing to allege your leader is dishonest and another to implicate him for murder.
While RPK was charged with sedition, some say Malaysiakini survives because the government is bound by its multi-media laws against censorship. Maybe so.
But when does the government govern strictly by the rule book or harbour altruistic notions of upholding every bit of the constitution or try not to censor the negative news? If it did Malaysia would have been a different country today and a newspaper like Malaysiakini would have been rendered redundant.
They either go for broke and purge all the pseudo-reformers within component parties and win government or stay in the backwaters of a muddied mission in opposition. The people deserve better.
If all depeneds on Anwar Ibrahim, it is putting all their eggs in one basket. The future of the nation must depend not on any individual but the sum of its collective talents. It is foolhardy to allow any individual albeit their importance to cast his shadow over the length and breadth of a nation and we should have learned our lesson.
Helen Ang writes convincingly of the ‘anomie’, this state of moral dereliction, that plagues the country, and we know whose legacy it is. The country is not entirely free of it and it amazes me why the media still thinks negative views that poison the country are worth publishing. I guess bad news sells newspapers and it is a hard habit for commercial newspapers to break.
The future of freedom is for those who are ready to fight for it – now. We just need more passion. “Give me liberty or give me death,” cried Patrick Henry in rallying the American people against the British colonialists during the American Revolution.
The idea gives rise to martyrs; the true ones killed by others for their ideas and convictions, not those who die at their own hands and in believing the lie also kill innocent bystanders.
We judge a tree by its fruit and a government by how it serves the people. That is why we have the term public servants. All who are on the government payroll are there to do a job, not lord it over the people, and they are accountable for their performance. A good media constantly reminds them of that.
As for me I will continue to renew my Malaysiakini subscription because its future is the future of democracy. No democracy is a democracy unless the people have a free media so they can have access to the truth because without the truth how can anyone make an informed judgement?
That is why I believe in Malaysiakini.
The public has a right to know if RPK is lying or telling the truth because so much is at stake. Until then, I know who I should believe. The trouble with bad precedents is they leave a bad track record. The biased police investigations or lack of them do not help the government. How can crucial witnesses simply vanish without a trace? Still trial by media is not proper, thus the need for a full and proper inquiry.
Censorship has all but nearly ruined the country’s democracy, hijacked the truth, and eroded much of the government’s credibility. The government treads on an uphill muddy road to regain its support but is more likely to slide down the slippery slope until it restores public confidence in the judiciary, police and other arms of government that are under intense public scrutiny and criticism.
So it may still win the elections today but what about tomorrow?
Acting ultra vires its constitutional powers is the common complaint of the critics. For example, in banning the use of the word ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims, the authorities disregarded the country’s constitution (Article 11) that specifically protects the freedom of religion.
For hundreds of years, Malaysian Christians and others have used the term, among others, to denote the one supreme God. So why the ban now? Why the ban at all? It makes the country an oddity even among other Muslim nations which are baffled by the move.
It is weird that politicians can fanny the notion of 1Malaysia but create many gods, even spelt with a capital G. “There is only one God, but you can’t call him by his name, the name we use, because you are not one of us, and we own the sole naming rights,” the persecutors insist. What utter fandangle!
By confiscating the 15,000 Indonesian bibles – the Alkitab, the authorities have back-peddled on an earlier consensus in the 80s to allow it to be used in the country by Christians.
But this proclivity of the authorities to act arbitrarily and often unfairly is what angers many Malaysians. It is not only Christians but Muslims also who have to endure religious persecution, and none more regularly than Sisters in Islam, an innocuous human rights advocacy group.
‘Keep the bastards honest’
It is a newspaper like Malaysiakini that can stand in the gap and be the nation’s watchdog and tell us what someone somewhere does not want us to know. It is not only those in government that needs watching but also delinquent opposition politicians and other wrongdoers in high places. Only a non-partisan newspaper can give us the news honestly.
“Keep the bastards honest,” may sound crude in a modesty-conscious country like Malaysia but this Australian Democrat Party political slogan makes a poignant point about those who abuse their powers and act dishonestly. And they can be found in any political party or organisation.
History tells us though that those who uphold the truth will eventually win.
It is something the Pakatan Rakyat coalition must learn and apply quickly because the people’s patience is wearing thin. Voters are wont to stick with the devil they know than ones that masquerade as angels. If the opposition fails to win it is because they chose to lose. They acted to lose. They deserved to lose.
Steve Oh is author of a recently released novel, ‘Tiger King of the Golden Jungle’. Originally published in Malaysiakini on 19 November 2009.
December 8th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Dealing with Malaysia’s political and economic problems as a country is like trying to train an unruly, lazy, cantankerous and often arrogant child.
How do you train him up and clean him up to his true potential?
Yes, telling him the truth is good. And online media like Malaysiakini and malaysianinsider is doing a fairly good job in exposing his misdeeds. But you also have to motivate him and encourage him to see his potential for moral excellence and accountability.
Politicians, bloggers and concerned citizens are thus challenged to turn the man-in-the-street into intelleigent voters so that the BN will wake up and start cleaning the system from inside, voluntarily before they are booted out by the ballot box.
This is why I propose an innovation-ideas campaign that will come from the grassroots of the middle-class to initiate the changes that the country needs.
The Keynsians policies of Tun M and his proteges are a failure: technology and innovation is not a building or location. It is a way of life and new way of thinking to solve daily economic and business problems.
Go to http://asianeconomies.blogspot.com/