Arrogance of power
Chong Yen LongPublished: Feb 28, 2001 4:54 AM | Updated: Jan 29, 2008 10:21 AM
Deputy prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is also Minister for Home Affairs, said on Wednesday that his ministry's decision to reduce the publication frequency of PAS's organ Harakah from eight to two a month under the new publishing permit was "not politically motivated".
Even Umno, if it decides to come out with its own publication, will abide by this new condition, he said, adding that as Harakah is a party newsletter, "there is no reason for it to be published more regularly".
The expectation that Malaysians, particularly the readers of Harakah , which reportedly chalked up a circulation of 360,000 in the lead-up to the November 29 general elections, would believe that the decison had nothing to do with politics is pretty far-fetched.
Abdullah is himself a vice-president of Umno, and an aspirant to become the deputy Umno president in the upcoming party election in May, while PAS, with 27 MPs, is now the main opposition party in parliament, and controls two state governments, and by virtue of this fact alone, would bestow upon it an inherent right to have a regular channel of comunication, especially a print media like the Harakah, to reach out to its members and electorate.
Umno and PAS are the leading players at opposite ends of the political divide, so it follows that any decision by one party that impacts on the rival, is indeed, "political".
The KDN - Kementerian Dalam Negeri or Home Ministry - is responsible for issuing the annual KDN publication permit, as required under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984. The latest condition to limit Harakah's publication to twice a month is clearly to check a political opponent's growing influence, and is indeed "very political" in nature.
The subsidiary argument that Umno would be bound by the same condition holds little water because we all know government component parties have ready and easy access to mainstream newspapers which is why party organs like Merdeka and Guardian have long died a natural death. Taking it to the extreme of extrapolation, if Umno does not come out with its defunct newsletter at all, does it mean Harakah would have to be buried?
I won't go into the motivations or "agenda" behind such decisions, but why is it necessary for politicians, especially full-time ones, to often declare their actions as non-politically motivated?
Suffering a fate worse than Harakah is Detik, a bi-weekly magazine reporting on local political and social issues which has been suspended for three months now, missing six issues since December.
Its last circulation figure was 40,000. Now five journalists and other supporting staff are trying to cope with a "partial salary", according to Detik chief editor, Ahmad Lutfi Othman. He got fed-up of waiting and early this week launched an online version, very limited of course, with Detik Daily.
Lutfi has called on the government to restore Detik's and Harakah's publication permits immediately with no new restrictive conditions. He viewed the latest KDN restrictions on Harakah as an oppressive move to check freedom of the press and showed the arrogant use of power by a government which had not learnt from its declining popularity among the Malays.
If Pak Lah, as the DPM is more affectionately known, heeds the majority of Malaysians' aspirations to bravely initiate the death of oppressive laws like the Printing Presses and Publications Act and ISA, he will go down in our country's history as truly, the new millennial leader.
Meanwhile, there is a deafening silence from bodies entrusted with promoting the interests and welfare of journalists like the National Union of Journalists and National Press Club on these significant developments in the media.
Malaysiakini's attempts to get reactions from NUJ (by me and my colleagues) yielded no results; we tried contacting the officials, no less the president and general secretary, but they were not available or did not respond to our messages requesting comments.
I hope Malaysians, especially those in this noble profession called journalism, do not suffer from a short memory or a selective one.
"Operation Lallang" took place just 13 years ago, with three newspapers, namely dailies The Star and Sin Chew Jit Poh, and bi-weekly Watan, closed down for almost half a year.
Never, ever, adopt the blinkered attitude that if it happened to others today, "it's none of my business, it won't happen to me". Learn from history and never, ever, be an apologist for legislation that has no place in a parliamentary democratic system we openly profess to practise.
I take this opportunity to recall a view held by a former journalist-turned-politician - the (in)famous Dollah Ahmad, who was taken in under the ISA when he was then a deputy minister. Following his "rehab" (yes, in politics, as in drug addition, the government gives offenders a second chance through "turning over" programmes), Dollah still defends the need to maintain the ISA. He rationalises that when it was used to detain him, it was an abuse of power (implying the then Home Minister) to "kill off" political opponents.
I do hope that if there is another "Ops Lallang" (no, I don't wish it to happen), Dollah Ahmad can taste the hospitality of Kamunting again. To me there should be no compromise with legislation such as the ISA - it should be abolished. So do not complain if it is used against you if you expressly supported the ISA in the belief that the government would not misuse it!
Talking about rhetoric, a popular source reappeared earlier this week after some noticeable absence, The Sun reported on Works Minister S. Samy Vellu's view that the Pularek project, costing RM198 million of taxpayers' money, and displaying some 13,000 faults, was "neither a disaster nor scandal".
Pularak - the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) Recruit Training Centre at Kota Tinggi, Johor - was completed several years late with roofs leaking, cracks on the walls and floors, and general shoddy workmanship.
When a roof collapsed, there were "no bodies" around since the trainess had not moved in yet. I guess kindergarten kids would buy the minister's argument that, since there was no "dead" body at the scene, there was no disaster.
His ministry oversees the Public Works Department which had supervisory authority over the project's implementation, and is the final arbitrator over what constitutes a "disaster". Its decision is final and Malaysians are expected to submit to a ministerial prognosis without question.
As for it being a non-scandal, what's RM198 million nowadays since the BMF case set a new benchmark more than a decade ago? Ministers would like us to be tolerant, forgiving citizens who pay our taxes obediently and smile if millions, or tens of millions, or hundreds of million go down the drain.
Hence, the Works Minister, with a dismissive wave of his magical wand of authority, makes a pronouncement and expects the Pularek issue to disappear from the public mind. Such is the arrogance of power. Only billion-ringgit cases qualify for scandalship nowadays, it appears.
Kudos is due to an RMN editor, who wrote a stinging editorial on the Pularek "tragedy". The Sun reported on Wednesday that Kapt Mat Taib Yassin, who wrote his piece in Berita Samudera's December issue, had been put out to sea. A director of Naval Plan and Strategy, he was transferred early this year from his navy headquarters post to command a warship.
Just digressing a little, I won't hesitate to recommend this brave sea-captain to steer the group chief editor-less New Straits Times, since A. Kadir Jasin has recently taken "leave of absence" (one reason floated around was the daily's fast sinking circulation) to greater heights. I sincerely believe that such a man who dared to "rock the boat" at RMN by exposing the "non-scandal" as a "tragedy", is eminently qualified to put NST into shipshape.
On the same day, a report in the NST sports pages focused on yet another "disaster" but on a smaller scale. The leaks at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil last week during the World Table-Tennis Championships caused a huge embarasssment indeed.
It brings back a hazy recall of a ceiling crashing down at the media centre during the 1998 Commonwealth Games, but that's the trouble, they expect us to have short memories.
In the latest fiasco, the Merdeka Stadium Corporation, which manages the National Sports Complex, said criticism hurled at it was unfair. Its manager Abu Bakar Kasim rationalised that the job of maintaining and repairing the various venues remained "under the jurisdiction of the contractors", in this case, UEM.
Can we take seriously their assurance that a similar incident would not be allowed to recur? Have these spokespersons not heard of the motto:"The buck stops here"? Or are they sighted only with the colour of Big Bucks?
May I then end today's ruminations by reminding fellow Malaysians to ponder over Lord Acton's often quoted dictum: "All power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely".
Even Umno, if it decides to come out with its own publication, will abide by this new condition, he said, adding that as Harakah is a party newsletter, "there is no reason for it to be published more regularly".
The expectation that Malaysians, particularly the readers of Harakah , which reportedly chalked up a circulation of 360,000 in the lead-up to the November 29 general elections, would believe that the decison had nothing to do with politics is pretty far-fetched.
Abdullah is himself a vice-president of Umno, and an aspirant to become the deputy Umno president in the upcoming party election in May, while PAS, with 27 MPs, is now the main opposition party in parliament, and controls two state governments, and by virtue of this fact alone, would bestow upon it an inherent right to have a regular channel of comunication, especially a print media like the Harakah, to reach out to its members and electorate.
Umno and PAS are the leading players at opposite ends of the political divide, so it follows that any decision by one party that impacts on the rival, is indeed, "political".
The KDN - Kementerian Dalam Negeri or Home Ministry - is responsible for issuing the annual KDN publication permit, as required under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984. The latest condition to limit Harakah's publication to twice a month is clearly to check a political opponent's growing influence, and is indeed "very political" in nature.
The subsidiary argument that Umno would be bound by the same condition holds little water because we all know government component parties have ready and easy access to mainstream newspapers which is why party organs like Merdeka and Guardian have long died a natural death. Taking it to the extreme of extrapolation, if Umno does not come out with its defunct newsletter at all, does it mean Harakah would have to be buried?
I won't go into the motivations or "agenda" behind such decisions, but why is it necessary for politicians, especially full-time ones, to often declare their actions as non-politically motivated?
Suffering a fate worse than Harakah is Detik, a bi-weekly magazine reporting on local political and social issues which has been suspended for three months now, missing six issues since December.
Its last circulation figure was 40,000. Now five journalists and other supporting staff are trying to cope with a "partial salary", according to Detik chief editor, Ahmad Lutfi Othman. He got fed-up of waiting and early this week launched an online version, very limited of course, with Detik Daily.
Lutfi has called on the government to restore Detik's and Harakah's publication permits immediately with no new restrictive conditions. He viewed the latest KDN restrictions on Harakah as an oppressive move to check freedom of the press and showed the arrogant use of power by a government which had not learnt from its declining popularity among the Malays.
If Pak Lah, as the DPM is more affectionately known, heeds the majority of Malaysians' aspirations to bravely initiate the death of oppressive laws like the Printing Presses and Publications Act and ISA, he will go down in our country's history as truly, the new millennial leader.
Meanwhile, there is a deafening silence from bodies entrusted with promoting the interests and welfare of journalists like the National Union of Journalists and National Press Club on these significant developments in the media.
Malaysiakini's attempts to get reactions from NUJ (by me and my colleagues) yielded no results; we tried contacting the officials, no less the president and general secretary, but they were not available or did not respond to our messages requesting comments.
I hope Malaysians, especially those in this noble profession called journalism, do not suffer from a short memory or a selective one.
"Operation Lallang" took place just 13 years ago, with three newspapers, namely dailies The Star and Sin Chew Jit Poh, and bi-weekly Watan, closed down for almost half a year.
Never, ever, adopt the blinkered attitude that if it happened to others today, "it's none of my business, it won't happen to me". Learn from history and never, ever, be an apologist for legislation that has no place in a parliamentary democratic system we openly profess to practise.
I take this opportunity to recall a view held by a former journalist-turned-politician - the (in)famous Dollah Ahmad, who was taken in under the ISA when he was then a deputy minister. Following his "rehab" (yes, in politics, as in drug addition, the government gives offenders a second chance through "turning over" programmes), Dollah still defends the need to maintain the ISA. He rationalises that when it was used to detain him, it was an abuse of power (implying the then Home Minister) to "kill off" political opponents.
I do hope that if there is another "Ops Lallang" (no, I don't wish it to happen), Dollah Ahmad can taste the hospitality of Kamunting again. To me there should be no compromise with legislation such as the ISA - it should be abolished. So do not complain if it is used against you if you expressly supported the ISA in the belief that the government would not misuse it!
Talking about rhetoric, a popular source reappeared earlier this week after some noticeable absence, The Sun reported on Works Minister S. Samy Vellu's view that the Pularek project, costing RM198 million of taxpayers' money, and displaying some 13,000 faults, was "neither a disaster nor scandal".
Pularak - the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) Recruit Training Centre at Kota Tinggi, Johor - was completed several years late with roofs leaking, cracks on the walls and floors, and general shoddy workmanship.
When a roof collapsed, there were "no bodies" around since the trainess had not moved in yet. I guess kindergarten kids would buy the minister's argument that, since there was no "dead" body at the scene, there was no disaster.
His ministry oversees the Public Works Department which had supervisory authority over the project's implementation, and is the final arbitrator over what constitutes a "disaster". Its decision is final and Malaysians are expected to submit to a ministerial prognosis without question.
As for it being a non-scandal, what's RM198 million nowadays since the BMF case set a new benchmark more than a decade ago? Ministers would like us to be tolerant, forgiving citizens who pay our taxes obediently and smile if millions, or tens of millions, or hundreds of million go down the drain.
Hence, the Works Minister, with a dismissive wave of his magical wand of authority, makes a pronouncement and expects the Pularek issue to disappear from the public mind. Such is the arrogance of power. Only billion-ringgit cases qualify for scandalship nowadays, it appears.
Kudos is due to an RMN editor, who wrote a stinging editorial on the Pularek "tragedy". The Sun reported on Wednesday that Kapt Mat Taib Yassin, who wrote his piece in Berita Samudera's December issue, had been put out to sea. A director of Naval Plan and Strategy, he was transferred early this year from his navy headquarters post to command a warship.
Just digressing a little, I won't hesitate to recommend this brave sea-captain to steer the group chief editor-less New Straits Times, since A. Kadir Jasin has recently taken "leave of absence" (one reason floated around was the daily's fast sinking circulation) to greater heights. I sincerely believe that such a man who dared to "rock the boat" at RMN by exposing the "non-scandal" as a "tragedy", is eminently qualified to put NST into shipshape.
On the same day, a report in the NST sports pages focused on yet another "disaster" but on a smaller scale. The leaks at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil last week during the World Table-Tennis Championships caused a huge embarasssment indeed.
It brings back a hazy recall of a ceiling crashing down at the media centre during the 1998 Commonwealth Games, but that's the trouble, they expect us to have short memories.
In the latest fiasco, the Merdeka Stadium Corporation, which manages the National Sports Complex, said criticism hurled at it was unfair. Its manager Abu Bakar Kasim rationalised that the job of maintaining and repairing the various venues remained "under the jurisdiction of the contractors", in this case, UEM.
Can we take seriously their assurance that a similar incident would not be allowed to recur? Have these spokespersons not heard of the motto:"The buck stops here"? Or are they sighted only with the colour of Big Bucks?
May I then end today's ruminations by reminding fellow Malaysians to ponder over Lord Acton's often quoted dictum: "All power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely".
View Comments0