"The ruling power is always faced with the question, ‘In such and
such circumstances, what would you do?', whereas the opposition is not
obliged to take responsibility or make any real decisions." - George Orwell
COMMENT By
now most readers would realise that Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin
is my bête noire that I'm inexplicably fond of revisiting. The fact that
he can string a sentence in English and maintain a conversation even
though it's laced with the usual Umno venom puts him higher on the
evolutionary scale than the usual racist pond scum that ooze about in
Putrajaya. I guess if he passes off as intelligent in the current political scene then we as a nation are really in trouble. Check that.
It's
election season so the dumb just keeps on coming. His latest strategic
move against the opposition by way of his BN cybertroopers Youth Team -
why is it every move Umno makes has a patina of Nazi chic in it? - is to claim that the alternative news portals are in fact biased against BN. Well duh? Of course they are biased. Okay, let's add a little nuance to my statement. Online
news portals definitely give air time to ‘opposition' personalities and
why not since it's an untapped market considering the mainstream media
gives nearly nothing or spins outrageously as contended by former
National Union of Journalists president Hata Wahari, or more recently as
shown by Utusan Malaysia, which can't seems to tell the difference between spinning and outright lying.
They don't bother censoring the gaffes that government types make. They
sniff out controversial views or stories for the sake of publicity and
most times if the mainstream media is viewed as propaganda organs,
there's a faint trace of yellow in the way how online journalism is
practiced. Online political pundits, most of them anyway, are
partisan to the extreme, in favour of the opposition. Some of them make a
side income of writing for the mainstream press but let's face facts;
they really cut loose in the media which allows them the freedom to
express themselves in all their partisan glory. Here in Malaysiakini, the political pundits section most times, it's one big echo chamber.
I have written about this sad state of affairs in my 'Press Gangs' piece but let's not kid ourselves; this is the way how Umno-BN set up the discourse. While Utusan
is allowed to wreak havoc in the name of Umno supremacy and the rest of
the mainstream press in the shackles of political interests, the
alternative press has connections and is funded by a range of political
and foreign interests that would surprise their subscriber base, it is
the usual BN hypocrisy to play the victim in the saga of their eroding
influence. The reason why the BN hate is concentrated online is because there is no place to air contrarian views in the mainstream press.
Show us the evidence
Khairy claims that his troopers are being censored. Two things. Firstly, now you know how it feels.
Secondly, as far as Malaysiakini
is concerned, I find it difficult to believe that any online news
organisations would censor BN cyber trollers for the simple reason that
they attract more views. People love a good debate. I know for a fact that Malaysiakini have
banned certain posters for various policy reasons but none solely
because they were pro-BN. But I may be wrong. I make no claims as to how
Malaysiakini works, only that they have never asked me to
engage in self-censorship or attempted to restrict my criticisms against
any political party. Khairy, why don't you give us a concrete example
of where one of your boys or girls was discriminated against?
Khairy moans about the fact that the online world should be concerned
about racial sensitivity and seditious remarks, but he has no problem
when Umno propaganda organs spew the most virulent strains of racist
rhetoric which would sound familiar in the Jim Crow South. Khairy just doesn't get it and I think he is in the same boat with a
large section of the electorate. It is a good thing that Pakatan Rakyat
is a three-headed beast but not for the reasons most Pakatan supporters
believe. It has got nothing to do with diversity but everything to do
with a clash of ideas. I suspect I have not been clear about this in my
various Malaysiakini pieces.
For far too long,
Malaysian racialist impulses have been buried beneath the iron grip of
the Umno-BN imposed ‘muhibbah' spirit. With Pakatan, the clash of racial
and religious preoccupations is unfettered by any fear to submit to an
authoritarian central power base. It's there for all to see. BN may
attempt to gain some political mileage out of this but the nebulous
spirit of ‘change' or disgust of BN has too strong a grip. Take this M Manoharan (left) tweet fiasco.
Buried under his rather stupid not to mention racist tweets were some
rather provocative musings on the nature of how sports in this country
is managed. What it brought out was (predictably) the worse in Pakatan
supporters and nauseating displays of so-called patriotism by both BN
and Pakatan.
(For the record as far as Chong Wei's achievement
goes, I have always been partial to this May West quote "The score never
interested me, only the game", and Chong Wei did play a damn good game
in my opinion.) The fact that most people have ignored other
stupid and honestly more damaging rhetoric emanating from Pakatan, or
seem to be at ease with the way how Pakatan has handled the Islamic
issue for instance, should tell Khairy that his strategy is not really
working and that Umno's belief that the bonds binding the opposition
aren't as tenuous as they believe. Racial sensitivity obviously isn't a
deal breaker as this regime would have us believe.
What Khairy
is missing is that the opposition is merely playing a defensive game
with the occasional well-timed haymaker corruption ‘allegations' which
knock the wind out of Umno sails. Every time Umno goes on the offensive, like when Utusan screams
that it is "haram" to support the DAP, all the opposition has to do is
wait for the eventual fallout from Umno's own strategic blunders. It
must be very confusing to the rank-and-file Umnoputras when Pakatan
holds a press conference mocking the religious credentials of the prime
minister when it comes to the question of hudud, seeing as how former
prime ministers have demurred from the hudud option.
Incapable of change
It really doesn't matter if Khairy thinks that there's an impression
out there that youths support the opposition. The reality is that a
large section of the voting public does support the opposition and that
their minds are made up. And since Umno seems incapable of
changing, the opposition and its supporters have never really been
challenged to offer an alternative to Umno beyond offering a
corruption-free utopia while tiptoeing around the Islamic issue. How
exactly we are going to get this corruption-free Utopia since the body
of Pakatan is filled with the guts of Umno has never really been
explored.
Pakatan supporters take it on faith all the while
ignoring the profound implications of a welfare state (when we have
something like Article 153 in our constitution) that the Erdogans of PAS
keep bandying about when they are not quibbling about the desire for an
Islamic state by the hardliners. The unanswered questions are numerous. Former CID director and newly-minted PAS member Fauzi Shaari (right) accurately describes
one part of the problem of the subservience of the police force but
ignores the deeper racial implications of the indoctrination that starts
very early on and the racially-charged nexus between Chinese-dominated
big business and Malay-dominated governmental corruption that seeps into
the corridors of police power.
How Pakatan is going to handle
something like this all the while introducing an element of meritocracy
into a system predicated by racial preoccupations has never really been
fully explored. A smart opponent would use this but as it is, Umno-BN is
corruptly mired in their own power plays and failed policies. As I have said before, I think the power-sharing racial formula is an
odious concept but so far Pakatan has been doing a damn good job in
giving the impression that it would redefine the concept when they get
into a position of federal power. BN on the other hand, the alliance
that should be doing the redefining if it wants to legitimately stay in
power, is just wallowing in its own racialist filth.
The day
will come when by attrition or maybe just plain luck, BN is replaced and
what we would be left with is a ruling power without a credible
opposition. Only this time, unlike the stupid thinking of the
past of a voter base that willingly smoked the BN crack pipe and mocked
the opposition, it would be true because a vanquished BN has offered no
evidence that it would make a credible opposition. This is your problem,
Khairy, and not that the alternative media is censoring you or saying
hurtful things about the regime you represent.
Of course, all
this is beyond Khairy or even the ordinary disaffected voter. The march
to defend or take over Putrajaya is all that matters. The inconvenient
truth is that big dreams often amount to nothing more than pipe dreams
if effort isn't put into realising them. And I guess that's my Merdeka
slogan. Malaysiakini
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