Press freedom, or more corrupt repression?
Somehow, recent opinion pieces in the state-controlled media in Malaysia, propelled by the police ambush of malaysiakini last month, appear to have the self-appointed right and a quickly acquired wisdom to expound more canard.
On the one hand the Malaysian police's recent political dirty work is deemed necessary and legitimate. on the other hand it is deserved on the "nuisance" malaysiakini because it dares to directly confront, even assail, what one New Straits Times columnist, John Teo, bestows as maintaining "sensitivity to local standards and norms" (Wavelength: 'Sword of Damocles hangs over press for good reason').
But just whose standards and whose norms, exactly?
Teo, who must peddle the official line, says the recent uproar by malaysiakini readers and supporters over the police raid and the confiscation of its computer hardware, is the price the media has to pay if it flouts the rules of "responsibility" via some judicious "self-censorship". Of course he would say that. Besides, why lose NST readers to malaysiakini?
Teo claims that in the predictable and reflexive "public debate" over press censorship - I haven't seen any of this 'public debate' anywhere in Malaysia's mainstream press, including the NST - lies a "common misconception that human beings are born free and therefore anything we say or do must be completely unencumbered. The reality is that we are all governed by laws and even unwritten conventions." Spoken like a true apologist for the hardline. So Beijing-like.
Teo's claims are entirely self-serving on at least two fronts. One is his predictable assertion that pieces published by malaysiakini - which, interestingly, his predisposition does not permit him to once name, presumably for fear of giving malaysiakini free publicity (note his concern with the news website's daily hits) - represent only "repulsive mud-slinging by clearly anti-government malcontents". He ignores how his own, and every other Parliament, conducts itself. And parliaments are supposed to be civil forums (I could have said 'civilised' but I fear the term has been so abused it has lost its essence and meaning).
Second, so much so that this "free-wheeling 'debate'" would potentially defame "persons and reputations and the law on sedition." So Teo warrants protection of the mighty and the privileged? That's the constitution of Malaysia Inc, and it's here that good governance is bastardised by the mighty and the privileged. So they hide behind such repressive laws as the Internal Security Act and the Sedition Act (and the politicised courts), using these to bludgeon critics while allowing their own class to perpetuate itself.
While Teo has nicely ensconced himself as interpreter of state propaganda and shamelessly legitimises the state's attempts at dumbing down Malaysians, the police again has allowed the law of the jungle to prevail over professionalism and ethics, by letting itself become the political tools of state repression and the political clients of Umno Youth, who now seek to operate as the country's newest Thought Police.
Somehow, recent opinion pieces in the state-controlled media in Malaysia, propelled by the police ambush of malaysiakini last month, appear to have the self-appointed right and a quickly acquired wisdom to expound more canard.
On the one hand the Malaysian police's recent political dirty work is deemed necessary and legitimate. on the other hand it is deserved on the "nuisance" malaysiakini because it dares to directly confront, even assail, what one New Straits Times columnist, John Teo, bestows as maintaining "sensitivity to local standards and norms" (Wavelength: 'Sword of Damocles hangs over press for good reason').
But just whose standards and whose norms, exactly?
Teo, who must peddle the official line, says the recent uproar by malaysiakini readers and supporters over the police raid and the confiscation of its computer hardware, is the price the media has to pay if it flouts the rules of "responsibility" via some judicious "self-censorship". Of course he would say that. Besides, why lose NST readers to malaysiakini?
Teo claims that in the predictable and reflexive "public debate" over press censorship - I haven't seen any of this 'public debate' anywhere in Malaysia's mainstream press, including the NST - lies a "common misconception that human beings are born free and therefore anything we say or do must be completely unencumbered. The reality is that we are all governed by laws and even unwritten conventions." Spoken like a true apologist for the hardline. So Beijing-like.
Teo's claims are entirely self-serving on at least two fronts. One is his predictable assertion that pieces published by malaysiakini - which, interestingly, his predisposition does not permit him to once name, presumably for fear of giving malaysiakini free publicity (note his concern with the news website's daily hits) - represent only "repulsive mud-slinging by clearly anti-government malcontents". He ignores how his own, and every other Parliament, conducts itself. And parliaments are supposed to be civil forums (I could have said 'civilised' but I fear the term has been so abused it has lost its essence and meaning).
Second, so much so that this "free-wheeling 'debate'" would potentially defame "persons and reputations and the law on sedition." So Teo warrants protection of the mighty and the privileged? That's the constitution of Malaysia Inc, and it's here that good governance is bastardised by the mighty and the privileged. So they hide behind such repressive laws as the Internal Security Act and the Sedition Act (and the politicised courts), using these to bludgeon critics while allowing their own class to perpetuate itself.
While Teo has nicely ensconced himself as interpreter of state propaganda and shamelessly legitimises the state's attempts at dumbing down Malaysians, the police again has allowed the law of the jungle to prevail over professionalism and ethics, by letting itself become the political tools of state repression and the political clients of Umno Youth, who now seek to operate as the country's newest Thought Police.
Dangerous development
Incredibly, an educated Teo can't seem to fathom that the police raid signifies a dangerous development in Malaysian politics. For all the humbug by the Mahathir regime for pursuing a knowledge economy and making a knowledge society for the 21st century and other grandiose baloney, the police raid on malaysiakini clearly and significantly marks the regime's preference for more authoritarianism. The deafening silence from the executive over the police raid makes this point all the more glaring.
What's also frightening is the rise of radical right-wing ideology of a political party that clearly harbours a dangerous race-based ultra-conservative political (and a quasi economic) nationalism, and which is more often prone to acting seditiously, with blithe ignorance, without circumspect and without reproach by their puppet masters.
All this further confirms democracy in Malaysia is truly dead, that Umno and its coalition members in government are genuinely struggling to win back political support among their own people - those who NST's Teo thinks are "probably apathetic" - much less the others. It confirms the state will resort to any unjust means to crush legitimate dissent against party and state if their legitimation crisis isn't to worsen. Too late: a double-edged sword hangs here.
In his own manifestly deliberate and resplendent ignorance, Teo knows nobody, even he, who lives in the political climate of Malaysia, believes they were "born free" to do or say anything unfettered. Everybody knows Malaysia is governed not by rule of law but by rule by law - no different to Iraq or Zimbabwe or China or North Korea or Singapore.
And at times Malaysia is so much like Suharto's Indonesia. Funny thing, though, in post-Suharto Indonesia, the press there is far freer than it has been in Malaysia since 1969. And that's not going to change any time soon, as long as an illiberal regime attempts to reproduce itself and its class alliance. Look at how Malaysia Inc is being reconstituted - as new wine in old bottle. Clever, but not clever enough.
All the signs point to growing risks against democratic change and justice for all Malaysians. Truth is, these socio-political and judicial realms apply to protectors of regime and the state. But it also makes an illiberal regime more amoral. Yet such Stalinist form suits the Umno right-wingers and their lackeys from the other Barisan Nasional component parties.
Abdullah's chance
The police raid has more to do with Umno, through the jostling of ambitious key players in the right-wing youth movement, in seeking regime maintenance, than the struggle for genuine press freedom. They want to hold on to the long-established partnership between state power and corporate power within the embedded structures of dirigisme and authoritarianism. After all, the spoils of an authoritarian state lie in the material benefits to those who will protect the system and the state.
There is no clearer sign of this continuity in post-Mahathir Malaysia since it's been repeated enough times that an Abdullah government will pursue Dr Mahathir Mohamad's policies. Incredibly, the hardening of this position comes amid the recent loud noises that when Mahathir quits, his entire cabinet should go with him, thus leaving successor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi with a clean slate. But that's more a Mahathir sideshow. It signals elections are nearer than one thinks.
Still, here's Abdullah's chance to build a new, more vibrant, and a more democratic post-Mahathir Malaysia. Question is, should Malaysians hold their breath?
Postscript: A letter to the editor of the New Straits Times was sent in response to Teo's article. Predictably it was not published.
MANJIT BHATIA is managing director of AsiaRisk - a social, political and economic risk analysis consultancy, in Australia.
