A month of fools
BARE KNUCKLESPublished: Feb 24, 2001 2:37 AM | Updated: Jan 29, 2008 10:21 AM
April 1 is widely accepted as being "All Fools Day". However, looking at developments thus far this month, perhaps we should consider the whole month of April as "the month of fools".
In many ways indeed, April has been a queer month, with event after event being highlighted in the media that left one shaking one's head in disbelief. It started off pretty early in the month, on April 2 to be precise, with The Star columnist, Wong Chun Wai, giving (more of) his brand of wisdom and insight into the Malaysian media in his Sunday column.
In an uneven, often contradictory, piece headlined "Media rules must change in Info age", he makes wild, uncorroborated assertions such as, "The biggest demand from readers isn't political news but business news".
In response, one may of course ask, "Which readers?" and "How big and representative was this sample of readers studied, if at all?" But, of course, this is mainstream Malaysian journalism, where everything "boleh" and no evidence is needed.
He also boasts: "Breaking news is now flashed on cellular phones while palm-PC users can download online editions to read. None of these tools require a permit from the authorities. In fact no censorship is possible."
"No censorship is possible"? That must have been news to the malaysiakini journalists who were recently informed that they need a printing permit from the Home Ministry before they can get a press card to enable them to attend and report government press briefings.
Indeed, denying access to information, as in the government's response to malaysiakini, is also more popularly - and accurately - called "prior censorship".
So, please let's not kid us about the liberating nature of the new technology.
But, to be fair (this is, after all, Malaysia), the columnist does seem to bend over backwards to be "objective". So, he talks about the need for press freedom in a democracy ("though it may not necessarily promote economic development, as reflected in the Indian and Filipino experiences"), NGOs ("run by a handful of people"), and the government ("may have the best intentions in safeguarding stability and development").
Perhaps, this is what one local, "po-mo" (postmodern) optimist has termed "resistance within the mainstream", where the columnist is seriously, desperately, trying to break his chains and deliver us hidden messages of liberation - messages we would see if only we read between the lines and employ a "politics of reading". Hogwash.
This columnist, together with many, many other mainstream media personnel, know where they are coming from... and are happy with their lot. So, maybe we should all stop making liberal excuses for them and stop being so gullible.
Speaking of gullibility, let's fast forward to April 17 and to the news of a purported "Child God" medium who had sexually abused some women. The accompanying photograph is one of the (adult) medium dressed in what looks like a woman's undergarment and with three (count them) pacifiers in his mouth and a baby's half full milk bottle by his side.
And Malaysian women apparently were hoodwinked by this man-child-god? How more gullible can Malaysians get in this age of liberated media, one wonders?
Indeed, in a follow-up story on Friday, April 21, the same paper reports a comment made by the president of the Malaysian Mental Health Council that Malaysians prefer bomohs to psychiatrists. It's a cultural thing apparently. Aha, so that explains why a bomoh (even one with a mouthful of pacifiers) is more credible than a psychiatrist to Malaysians.
And this cultural phenomenon (i.e. gullibility) evidently extends even further to encompass legal and political matters (at least in this crazy month of April).
As a consequence, we read a report on April 12 that a group of six mainstream journalists had met with the Deputy Prime Minister to remind him of a petition handed to him a year ago calling for a repeal of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA).
This time around, apparently, the six determined, unsung heroes brought a further 300 plus signatures from other mainstream journalists to impress upon Abdullah Ahmad Badawi their serious intentions.
After all, not only had Abdullah virtually ignored their earlier petition of a year ago but, in the interim, he had also utilised the PPPA to virtually annihilate Detik, Al-Wasilah and, to a large extent, Harakah. (And it needs reminding that when all this was happening, none of these mainstream journalists stood up to protest.)
And the minister's response this time around? That as a possible alternative to the PPPA, he is "open to the idea of the press regulating itself" through a Press Council. Such generosity, such benevolence... one year on.
One can really sense the boundaries being widened, I'm sure, with the earth shaking as a result of this ongoing "struggle" in the mainstream media led by progressives. And, without meaning to sound gullible, given another lifetime, one can be sure that concrete changes would have taken place.
In the meantime, however, looking now at the ill-fated April 15 demonstration and the pre-demo and post-demo comments, yet again one discerns this pattern of "the gullible Malaysian". Let's face it, the moment the prime minister stated that the demo was going to turn violentwith Molotov cocktails and the like being used by the demonstrators, the agenda was already set.
It was certainly an agenda that the mainstream media - both print and broadcast - took on board without question. More than that, such an allegation also gave the police the excuse to clamp down hard way before the date of the demonstration. In effect, it allowed the security forces to turn KL into the perfect police state.
And after all that, all of the violence that the mainstream media could highlight was that one protester was arrested for having a toy gun. I'm glad my four-year-old son wasn't at Sogo last Saturday with his made-in-China, plastic six-shooter.
Yet this promise of violence - not made by the potential demonstrators, mind you, but by the prime minister no less - lingered on in the minds of some Malaysians, including readers of malaysiakini, way after the day of the non-event.
Why? Partly due to the bombardment by the mainstream media, highlighting the potential of violence. But also due to this cultural phenomenon, the gullibility of these people, taken in by the words of Mahathir as being that of the nation's prime minister and not as that of the leader of a political party out to discredit the opposition.
Of course, it didn't help that the wise men and women of the newly-formed Human Rights Commission suddenly decided to take the week off and exercise their right to remain silent while all this was going on.
So, given all these plainly daft developments, one can only urge "roll on April... and please roll in May".
In many ways indeed, April has been a queer month, with event after event being highlighted in the media that left one shaking one's head in disbelief. It started off pretty early in the month, on April 2 to be precise, with The Star columnist, Wong Chun Wai, giving (more of) his brand of wisdom and insight into the Malaysian media in his Sunday column.
In an uneven, often contradictory, piece headlined "Media rules must change in Info age", he makes wild, uncorroborated assertions such as, "The biggest demand from readers isn't political news but business news".
In response, one may of course ask, "Which readers?" and "How big and representative was this sample of readers studied, if at all?" But, of course, this is mainstream Malaysian journalism, where everything "boleh" and no evidence is needed.
He also boasts: "Breaking news is now flashed on cellular phones while palm-PC users can download online editions to read. None of these tools require a permit from the authorities. In fact no censorship is possible."
"No censorship is possible"? That must have been news to the malaysiakini journalists who were recently informed that they need a printing permit from the Home Ministry before they can get a press card to enable them to attend and report government press briefings.
Indeed, denying access to information, as in the government's response to malaysiakini, is also more popularly - and accurately - called "prior censorship".
So, please let's not kid us about the liberating nature of the new technology.
But, to be fair (this is, after all, Malaysia), the columnist does seem to bend over backwards to be "objective". So, he talks about the need for press freedom in a democracy ("though it may not necessarily promote economic development, as reflected in the Indian and Filipino experiences"), NGOs ("run by a handful of people"), and the government ("may have the best intentions in safeguarding stability and development").
Perhaps, this is what one local, "po-mo" (postmodern) optimist has termed "resistance within the mainstream", where the columnist is seriously, desperately, trying to break his chains and deliver us hidden messages of liberation - messages we would see if only we read between the lines and employ a "politics of reading". Hogwash.
This columnist, together with many, many other mainstream media personnel, know where they are coming from... and are happy with their lot. So, maybe we should all stop making liberal excuses for them and stop being so gullible.
Speaking of gullibility, let's fast forward to April 17 and to the news of a purported "Child God" medium who had sexually abused some women. The accompanying photograph is one of the (adult) medium dressed in what looks like a woman's undergarment and with three (count them) pacifiers in his mouth and a baby's half full milk bottle by his side.
And Malaysian women apparently were hoodwinked by this man-child-god? How more gullible can Malaysians get in this age of liberated media, one wonders?
Indeed, in a follow-up story on Friday, April 21, the same paper reports a comment made by the president of the Malaysian Mental Health Council that Malaysians prefer bomohs to psychiatrists. It's a cultural thing apparently. Aha, so that explains why a bomoh (even one with a mouthful of pacifiers) is more credible than a psychiatrist to Malaysians.
And this cultural phenomenon (i.e. gullibility) evidently extends even further to encompass legal and political matters (at least in this crazy month of April).
As a consequence, we read a report on April 12 that a group of six mainstream journalists had met with the Deputy Prime Minister to remind him of a petition handed to him a year ago calling for a repeal of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA).
This time around, apparently, the six determined, unsung heroes brought a further 300 plus signatures from other mainstream journalists to impress upon Abdullah Ahmad Badawi their serious intentions.
After all, not only had Abdullah virtually ignored their earlier petition of a year ago but, in the interim, he had also utilised the PPPA to virtually annihilate Detik, Al-Wasilah and, to a large extent, Harakah. (And it needs reminding that when all this was happening, none of these mainstream journalists stood up to protest.)
And the minister's response this time around? That as a possible alternative to the PPPA, he is "open to the idea of the press regulating itself" through a Press Council. Such generosity, such benevolence... one year on.
One can really sense the boundaries being widened, I'm sure, with the earth shaking as a result of this ongoing "struggle" in the mainstream media led by progressives. And, without meaning to sound gullible, given another lifetime, one can be sure that concrete changes would have taken place.
In the meantime, however, looking now at the ill-fated April 15 demonstration and the pre-demo and post-demo comments, yet again one discerns this pattern of "the gullible Malaysian". Let's face it, the moment the prime minister stated that the demo was going to turn violentwith Molotov cocktails and the like being used by the demonstrators, the agenda was already set.
It was certainly an agenda that the mainstream media - both print and broadcast - took on board without question. More than that, such an allegation also gave the police the excuse to clamp down hard way before the date of the demonstration. In effect, it allowed the security forces to turn KL into the perfect police state.
And after all that, all of the violence that the mainstream media could highlight was that one protester was arrested for having a toy gun. I'm glad my four-year-old son wasn't at Sogo last Saturday with his made-in-China, plastic six-shooter.
Yet this promise of violence - not made by the potential demonstrators, mind you, but by the prime minister no less - lingered on in the minds of some Malaysians, including readers of malaysiakini, way after the day of the non-event.
Why? Partly due to the bombardment by the mainstream media, highlighting the potential of violence. But also due to this cultural phenomenon, the gullibility of these people, taken in by the words of Mahathir as being that of the nation's prime minister and not as that of the leader of a political party out to discredit the opposition.
Of course, it didn't help that the wise men and women of the newly-formed Human Rights Commission suddenly decided to take the week off and exercise their right to remain silent while all this was going on.
So, given all these plainly daft developments, one can only urge "roll on April... and please roll in May".
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