There was once an Australian federal government - I forget which or even when, it was so long ago - whose cabinet was so secretive about in its conduct of the nation's affairs, and so overconfident of getting away with whatever it liked in this situation, that it took to contemptuously calling its own backbenchers - and by extension the opposition, the press and the populace - "The Mushroom Club".

This was a reference to the fact that everyone in the nation but themselves were, like mushroom-growers' commercial crops, "kept in the dark and fed shit".

Happily, however, this nasty little inside joke and the overweening arrogance and lack of accountability it signified didn't go unpunished for long. A sharp-eared journalist heard about it, broke the story in the media, and the resultant storm of parliamentary and popular outrage eventually helped sweep the offending administration from office.

If only it was so relatively easy for all the untold millions of Mushroom Club members around the world to emerge into the light and enjoy a less disgusting political diet. But what hope is there for our fellow human fungi in China, Burma, Haiti, the Maldives, Nigeria, North Korea, Sudan, Zimbabwe and the dozens of other countries whose rulers use everything from murder and torture to networks of informers to keep them in the dark and living on lies?

The UN talks and talks but achieves, it seems to me, distressingly little. And the US and other 'Free World' nations selfishly if naturally take care of their own interests first, often supplying everything from the weapons to the woefully-paid work that repressive governments depend on to keep their people powerless and poverty-stricken.

Of course the Internet has been endlessly touted as the long yearned-for instrument of personal empowerment for people denied protections like a free press and a system of justice. But as we've seen in China, the very providers of the net, like Microsoft, Yahoo! and others, employing the excuse that they need to be acceptable corporate citizens of whatever country they operate in, conspire with the 'authorities' to censor, control and monitor it to death.

Unlike the rulers of the People's Republic, however, the Malaysian authorities have so far hesitated to regulate the Internet due to their need - or at least desire - to attract investors to the so-called Multimedia Super Corridor.

So far at any rate, Malaysian citizens who have become dissatisfied with their membership in the Mushroom Club due to strict suppression of the press and air media, have been able to blog with all their might.

Or they could until a few days ago, when the New Straits Times (NST) and several of its executives slapped defamation suits on two of Malaysia's best-known bloggers, Jeff Ooi of Screenshots and Ahirudin 'Rocky' Atan of Rocky's Bru.

Back-handed compliment

A great many local bloggers have gone ballistic about this, viewing it as a sinister ploy to victimise Jeff and Rocky and intimidate the entire Malaysian bloggosphere, in precisely the same manner that the Singapore government routinely penalises and punishes its critics and opposition. But I'm not sure I entirely share their concerns.

For a start, there may be no political agenda behind this action at all. The NST and its executives named in the suit may honestly feel they've been unjustly defamed. And if this is the case, they're perfectly entitled to seek legal redress.

On the other hand, if the NST is, as many suspect, actually extending its accustomed role as one of the official organs of the Malaysian Mushroom Club to that of a bludgeon with which the government can beat bothersome bloggers, it risks bringing itself into even greater disrepute than it has already, and even destroying its very viability as a pseudo-newspaper.

But in either event, I see the bringing of these defamation suits against bloggers as a kind of back-handed compliment; as a symbol of the Net's coming to be recognised as not just some harmless 'alternative' medium any more, but right up there in the mainstream. A mainstream medium that not only has growing power and influence, but by its very nature transcends national borders and is therefore very difficult for any government to effectively control.

If the agenda is in fact political, I also see it as a significant step forward that Jeff and Rocky are being attacked, not with the ISA or some other summary statute against which it would be impossible to defend themselves, but with civil suits that must be heard in court, and which they very well might win. Especially if they're able to retain the services of really excellent counsel, the cost of which the whole blogging community seems to be more than willing to help them pay.

Best of all, the eventual hearings of the defamation cases must expose all the arguments for and against the allegations in question, giving the respondents the opportunity to not only air them again, but also to demonstrate, if possible, that they were both true and in the public interest. A process that could prove a telling blow in favour of journalistic independence and integrity.

A victory by Jeff and Rocky would also give tremendous heart and hope to all the rest of us in Malaysia and elsewhere who are labouring mightily to lift ourselves and our fellow citizens out of political darkness into the light of true press freedom and transparent, participatory democracy.

So this is no time for you bloggers out there to lose heart or slacken your efforts. Quite the opposite.

The best way to support Jeff and Rocky and the cause right now, and to help lift us all out of the miserable Club that Malaysians have been members of for far too long, is to keep your numbers and your messages mushrooming.