It’s Raining Again

May 3rd, 2007

do you guys have any idea how powerful that newspaper lying innocently on your coffee table is?

all my life, i grew up thinking that The Newspaper is the ultimate source of information. with it i become smarter, with it i learn better English, with it i know what’s going on in my country and what’s going on in the world. with it i become knowledgeable, with it my mind is opened, and with it i become liberated from the katak di bawah tempurung syndrome of the young and the naive.

you know how when someone admits they haven’t heard of a specific current affair or event, the retort they get from most people is usually, “you dont read newspaper wan ah”? such is the gigantic role that our newspapers play in mass information dissemination. the newspapers have become the first thing we turn to for updates and news. and with that, we expect them to give us the truth, the facts, the real stories, the lowdown on what’s going on.

but do we really get all that?

on usual days, i note with mild disgust the type of news that is deemed worthy of our front pages and page threes. and by that, i mean zoo staff carrying a crocodile in for mating, ministers of different races in batik shirts all smiley and muhibbah as they ‘lou sang’ together and random wonder kids who can do form 5 add math problems. i dont know, someone please tell me - is this the kind of stuff that should rightly take precedence in our mass media, a mass media that has a responsibility to educate and inform a country of 24 million?

April 17 2007’s front page touted our Customs Department success in uncovering a scam involving APs and luxury vehicles. ooooooh, a case worth 1.5 million!!! hoohah our Customs Dept so smart. but of course this is front-page worthy wat, any excuse to kiss govt ass. you realize how our newspapers just love to do that? nevermind that the Virginia Tech shooting took place the day before, nevermind that is a world-shaking event that should have principal attention, nevermind that THAT is what should have been on our front page in the interest of informing our public. but nooooo, let’s bury the report on the VTech shooting all the way in the back!!! let’s instead highlight how our Customs Dept is soooo good at busting scams, so that we may bolster public confidence in our government!!! because you know, government-glorifying is more important than a well-informed malaysian society!!! *rolls eyes*

on the same note, am i the only one tired of reading drugring bust after drugring bust? whenever our police force do anything remotely right, all the fanfare and trumpets and confetti are brought out. it’s always magnified in the newspapers whenever the police solve cases quickly, and it is all written to sound so completely FANTASTIC that they succeeded in doing their job. but hello??? is that not what the cops are supposed to do?! their JOB? it is a given that they should solve their cases with minimal time, and when that happens, yes there should be a pat on the back and all but they should NOT be revered for doing one time what they should be doing all the time. ultimately, SOLVING CASES IS THEIR JOB. it is not a fucking PERK.

and the fucking newspapers would do well to stop trying to doctor the negative public image of the cops, because we CANNOT live in a concocted utopia. it is so true that our cops are lazy good-for-nothings who have so much more to achieve before they start indulging themselves in stupid big-time bicentennial celebrations, but our newspapers try to persuade us to believe otherwise. why the heck do they keep seeing this need to tell us that our police force is very the good when it is actually very the not?? hmm let’s see! maybe to inject false confidence into the public about the way things are being run? maybe to make us think that there is nothing to complain about in our current administration? GEE I WONDER.

i for one personally think that our newspapers need to take some responsibility here. you know how all these mainstream media ppl are always on bloggers cases about responsibility… yeah well how about THEIR CIVIC DUTY??? dont they realize that if they decided to swing the other way (ie stop kissing ass) and run exposes on the shortcomings and deficiencies of certain parties (police, ministries), it would really pressure the aforementioned parties to get off their asses and start improving themselves? but because our newspapers DONT do that, and instead allow themselves to be gagged and silenced and censored by ‘atas’ people… that is why Malaysia is the way it is today; stuck in this unchanging cycle of forever repeating mistakes and never getting better. simply because our newspapers are irresponsible cowards.

i mean, tiu, might as well just wrap up and call it a day lah, if you are a newspaper but cannot report this, cannot report that. people over the centuries fight so hard for freedom of speech, and here are malaysian newspapers negating all that effort just by their very non-principled existence. it makes my blood boil just thinking about it.

hey but all of that is just on usual days. what REALLY pissed me off over the past few weeks and spurred me to sit at my computer ranting like an angry woman, is the despicable journalism that went on in regards to the recent Machap and Ijok by-elections.

as we all know, it was BN vs DAP in Machap, and BN vs PKR in Ijok. and as we all know, in the weeks leading up to both elections, our main newspapers ran only like a few million articles on the total awesomeness of the BN candidates, and concurrently also ran many cleverly-guised attacks on the Opposition parties.

and as we also know, BN then won both elections.

when i was a kid, we never talked politics at home or in school. so the only source of information i had on local politics was The Star, which is the newspaper that my grandmother buys and places on the dining table every morning for our reading pleasure. The Star, which is majority-owned by MCA (and by extension controlled by BN), would obviously sing constant praises about BN and at the same time smear the images of the Opposition parties to the safest extent. but being a kid, i didnt realize they were doing that. i simply ate up all that propaganda because i thought the newspapers reported everything and the truth. so i grew up with the image of BN being the best future for our country, and that the Opposition were all lying, cheating, mudslinging politicans who used underhanded tactics to secure votes. i grew up thinking, when i’m old enough to vote, i’m going to vote for BN.

and that is what the Malaysian mass media is for, ladies and gentlemen : to act as propaganda tools for our current government, in order to sway 24 million Malaysians into voting for BN in every election. why do they that? because their asses are all owned by the government aka BN.

what, did you really think that newspapers were here to help inform and educate you? think again. that’s totally secondary.

what they are really here to do is to indoctrinate malaysians into believing that BN are the ‘good guys’ while the opposition parties are the ‘bad guys’. to those of us who read newspapers on a daily basis, all we read about is pro-government and anti-opposition propaganda (some subtle and some not-so-subtle), that inevitably we begin to believe that voting for the government is the way to go. the latest lies and dirty tactics of the Opposition are all we talk about at the coffeeshops because it’s the only interesting gossip on the elections that the newspapers specifically chose to publish. but CONVENIENTLY, we aren’t informed about any of BN’s lying and cheating and dirty tactics, even though it is the truth that they engage in such deceptions. instead, we are spoonfed glowing report after glowing report on how BN promises to do blahblahblah, the public is confident in BN blahblablah, publicity for campaigning BN candidates blahblahblah, and other biased blahblahblah that makes me sick to my stomach.

so with all this praise and glory for BN on one hand, and tarnished images for the Opposition on the other hand, tell me; who would you vote for in the upcoming election?

the newspapers skew and distort and manipulate our views and perceptions when it comes to voting, and the sad part is we dont even know it. well i’m here to fucking tell you. every day when we read newspapers, we believe that what we are reading is the truth, and that we are empowered by this ‘truth’, but the fact of the matter is, we are no more than manipulated pawns in the grand scheme of things.

they take our minds and they mould it. it’s up to you to take your mind and individuality back, and learn to make correct and informed decisions by not allowing the mass media to tell you what to think. learn to filter for yourself what is the truth and what is not, and learn to seek out that truth if your government-owned newspapers conveniently forget to provide this.

sigh. malaysia, malaysia, malaysia.

i have one more thing to say. i am sick and tired of people complaining left right center about how the government stupid lah, the government sucks lah, the government waste our tax money lah … but then at the end of the day, they VOTE FOR THE SAME STUPID SUCKY GOVERNMENT THAT THEY LOVE TO COMPLAIN SO MUCH ABOUT. hello?????? am i the only one who sees something wrong with this picture??

malaysians, malaysians, malaysians. our leaders are only as good as the people who put them in government.

Entry Filed under: Rants

Viewing 40 Comments

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    Shades of 1984.

    Politics, the government, the mass media; always let-downs, hardly lifts.

    Unagi, on the other hand, never disappoints. Let us all migrate to Japan.
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    We don't call ourselves Malaysian for no reason at all one leh :P
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    hmm.. got a few points i would say that is not very fair... but im sleepy and tired and didnt really read it properly so not going to rebutt haha :P

    sadly though, as 'bad' as our current government is, the opposition is not ready to rule the country if it ever did win really. i actually really cannot fathom anyone in the opposition that could possibly run it.

    for now , its sole purpose is to serve as a check and balance. As u can see, only major city areas vote for the opposition where most of the 'educated' and well exposed ppl are. They know whats really going down despite all the hoo ha we hear.

    its the same in like the US even. major city or liberal 'educated' areas are usually democrat backed and the more um.. 'hick' areas or christian conservative areas are pro republicans

    as i think i mentioned before.. proper democracy would only work when a country has developed to the point where at least 75% of its population was properly intelligent and educated.

    however we all know that the world basically is NOT made up of very intelligent ppl and a majority of them dont know squat. thus we get a lot of idiotic happenings in the world. the smart people go to industry and just not bother and make money off the stupid people lol. Illustrated by crack dealers, crack dealers dont do crack themselves.. they make money off the crack heads.

    oh and about VT, UK also didnt get much news about it. I found out about it only thru a friend of mine who trolls internet news.
    Although it is 'world shaking' , it is a domestic problem of the americas and usually do not take precedent in the front page local news because what happens there has no relevance back here. Because the UK has no issues about gun control.. because gun ownership outside of special purposes is illegal. Hence, the only country in the world that i know where gun shooting goes on in public schools is america. Heck, there was a riot in Paris by some workers but as it has no concern to the UK at all, it got a small column in the news.

    I think it should get the message right about now of its gun control and ownership issues.
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    ah, this beats your transexual posting. :)

    In response to the post above, I'm not going to pretend I am well aware of the state of our current opposition parties ability to take over the nation because i have spent less that 90 days back home for the last 5 years.

    But then who can? Because frankly, they have never been the governing party no? Ever since merdeka, it has always been BN all the way.

    I'm not saying they should - they have to earn the rights. But as citizens, we should start throwing out the mindset that DAP is a racist chinese-only party, PAS is an ultra Islamist party and Keadilan is ran by a sodomizer.

    In reference to the larger context of the entry above, i think we owe it to ourselves to look around and ask whether all of these seem right? And if not, then maybe it's ok to brief sigh and settle for what we have right now because the alternative is not reassuring enough? [/sarcasm]
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    again..Su Ann for MPship :)
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    woman. lol. you macam, alot of anger vent up inside these days lah.
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    You know, reading the paper here, it was kind of sickening reading about the VTech shooting everyday. I mean, just reading about that any chance I had to read the paper or watching it on the news, it was just unnerving to be reminded of that event every waking second of you life.

    When 9/11 happened, sure, all of us in new york wanted to know what the bloody fuck happened, but we also wanted every fucking news camera and reporter to get out of our faces.

    Although we all want to know what happened at VTech, I think the way the media handled it was wrong. But then again, I guess that's the reason I don't work for a paper (anymore).
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    in our country, there is a god damn fanfair for every single dam opening, bridge opening, road opening, electricity plant opening, etc. Propagandas... propagandas... (noo.. don't take me away.. I was just kidding! :P)
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    You hit the hammer on the nail there. I used to "adore" the Government up till about I'm 18 when I started to have access to other information streams.

    Now when I'm in Germany, looking in from the outside, the signs are much more obvious. Malaysia has a loooong way to go.

    Also I have something to say, please, do not give in to the "if you don't love the government, you don't love your country" schtick, no matter what they say. "Love your country blindly, but choose a good government to run it."

    Don't forget to vote when you turn 21!

    P.S: Coincidently, I did a political satire piece recently. http://kelvin-lew.com
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    You see..that is why us Malaysians here in Wichita are planning to form our own party when we go back to Mas!!!!

    A party full of engineers and we have a half chinese half malay guy here so we can win the Malay's heart!
    Parti Jurutera Malaysia, fuhh..damn innovative
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    good god. i dont EVEN bother reading anything in the nation section beyond the headlines, cos i know the news content is going to piss me off anyway.

    now that i am eligible to vote, i've already decided i will vote for the opposition, even if it's just to make a stand and shock the ppl who are resting on their lazy ass laurels, getting all fat and comfy at the top.
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    Seriously lor, I WOULD NOT vote for BN. Something I've sworn since my dad told me bout May 13th incident.
    Maybe you should try reading NST instead of The Star. Their VTech article features 2 pages. =)
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    su ann su ann, you know what's really interesting? those people who keeps complaining about how the government sucks are those who DONT EVEN BOTHER TO VOTE! and by failing to vote, sure lah our dearest BN win year after year!

    i love this entry.completely enlightening, for a person who wants to vote but is not of age.

    oh and you know what pisses me off?? the tale of the two puppies who can sniff pirated dvds -.-"
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    Argh, this isn't exactly the best time for me to write now, internet's crap slow (until this page's themes are all blank and I only see basic fonts and boxes) and I'm feeling rather sick of all this crap that's coming out of the newspapers.

    Everytime I open the TheStarOnline, it's the same old sick news on politics.

    Everything is politically motivated, racial politics, water politics, media politics, everything!

    Pretty much explains why I turn to more centralised and unbiased magazines like The Economist and everything else that's not mainstream media. UK's media circle is pretty much controlled by a single person, more or less. At least it gives a more intellectual view on stuff, more depth and perspective.

    Moot point, I prefer criticised views on the government, at least it stirs me up that they are doing something. Also shows why I occasionally cook up some issues in my personal blog, well, just doing what I can do to raise awareness at least.

    I don't even bother arguing with ultra-dumb-people-who-have no-idea-what-they-are-talking-about when-they-say-BN-rocks, it's just so wrong!

    Argh, I feel you deeply. At least mainstream media in UK allows constructive criticism in the press, rather than over here where everything is played down as sedition and nonsense. Oh for heaven's sake, the damned politicians are not god, dammit! Still, I love M'sia, and missing it lots! =)
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    arrr.. lots of mistakes, grammatical and syntactical, in that last post. My apologies!!
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    i learn more about malaysia each time i read your posts about our country..i haven't picked up the newspaper in ages (picking it up from my mailbox and dropping it onto the table doesn't count)

    'but hello??? is that not what the cops are supposed to do?! their JOB?' i LOLed here :p
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    I happen to be looking for another blog, through su ann's blog, when i saw another su ann on her link. This is interesting...interesting..haha
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    HAHAHAHA MUACKS!
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    Interesting post - as usual of course =) But I have to agree with some of Songjun's post - are the opposition really ready to knuckle down and show the rakyat that they are worthy of their vote? Prepared to take on the mantle of giving us a just goverment (does that exist anywhere in this world??)
    Also, I do think in our tanahair, that there are some who actually love BN so vote for them, some who don't love BN and vote for the Opposition, some who think, why bother, BN is going to win anyway and Opposition is below par hence I worry what will happen if I vote for them so since I have no real choice, will not vote for anyone.
    As for Newspapers, in this country, if you value your editorial ass, you will kowtow to what the government wants you to write because then it will be a repeat of that Sarawakian newspaper right, that ran the Prophet Muhammad cartoons and then got suspended. So people are too scared to write what they want to because they know what the government will do to them. Sad, but true.
    Now I am not condoning them writing crap of course, because like you say, and very rightly so, police are paid to do their job as are the Customs Dept. BUT the truth of the matter remains - basically if you want to keep your ass, you have to kiss that higher ass. What to do, right? So disgustinglah this culture that the government has carefully cultivated over the years but that is unfortunate reality.
    Malaysia doesn't have the rep of being the one country that practices Open Discrimination for nothin' ya know.
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    I forgot to add one comment - what you said about blaming bloggers for everything! Yeah, that is really sicklah. I mean, does the govt think people cannot think for themselves? They must do, and they must believe that their sad indoctrination has created millions of stupid Malaysians who will just blindly believe without question. Everytime something happens, just blame the bloggers. Don't actually try and even find the root of the problem.
    Aiyah!!! Come on opposition, step up the game and put your efforts into trying to win that vote of confidence.
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    lets just say the Comic section gives so much more of what's going on. far much more realistic, and er, sarcastic in a sense. Its not only Singaporeans who live up to the term 'kiasu'. In fact, we do too. Everybody's so afraid of being the odd one. They wouldn't be able to cheer and celebrate with all the other kiasu friends of thiers when BN unsurprisingly wins again. The kopitiam uncles and aunties who hold meetings every morning, they look at you differently. So even if they didn't vote for BN, they have to force a lie and insist they did. Something like that. Its more of a 'muka' thing.

    Or maybe, they just have no idea what the motives of the other oppositions are. All they know is BN BN BN. and because its so overrated.

    everybody wants a piece of the last LV pouch on the rack.