Now is the moment at AsiaPundit when we enjoy our feeling of schadenfreude. After a long career that included maintaining control by silencing independent media and internet critics, Malaysia’s former prime minister is complaining that the country’s mainstream press is ignoring him and that he has to independently publish on the internet to get attention.:
With his comments increasingly ‘censored’ in the pro-government mainstream media, former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad has now resorted to air his hard-hitting arguments in cyberspace, says Malaysiakini.
Yesterday, Malaysiakini carried a story that summarises, in English, Dr Mahathir’s open letter that was gagged by the mainstream media though some of them maintained that they practised a ‘deliberate policy of openness’ under the Abdullah administration.
In his seven-page letter published in a pro-Umno website called Kelab Maya Umno, Mahathir reiterated that the government had failed to defend the nation’s sovereignty.Quote:
“I must publicise the facts in this manner because not many of my statements are being published by the mass media, although they send representatives to attend my press conferences,” he lamented.
Malaysia’s press is largely state-controlled and the current administration doesn’t care to hear from Dr M. But Dr M may want to consider the following: just because the press doesn’t print your comments doesn’t mean you are being censored, it may just mean that you are irrelevant.
Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, malaysia, southeast asia
April 26th, 2006 at 3:51 am
Freedom of press or lack of it in ASEAN countries with partial democracy is often described as part of “east culture” to preserve certain values. just like Indonesia during Suharto’s regime. the fact of the matter is it is to preserve the rulers’ credibilty and image.
Now, we’re in Indonesia fortunate enough to have that freedom of press and/or blogs, even though some President SBY’s ministers still try to persuade people in some private meeting, like the one in New Delhi recently, not to believe any news written in the Indonesia media.
May 1st, 2006 at 8:16 am
Actually, the rulers are just learning from the former European colonizers. While the Europeans were sending their children to schools where they were instilled with values such as freedom and democracy, our forefathers were schooled by the European colonizers to be lawful obedient subjects. As a result, this trait is now passed on. Our current rulers learn those same tactics as those European colonizers, and our schools which are heavily influenced by their ideology to push us down to be loyal subjects continue their job on our current generation.
Ironically, the Europeans now tell us that we need freedom yet, when they had the power to give us freedom they did not. They did exactly what they are accusing our leaders of doing now.
Perhaps this is their way of saying - you wanted independence, now you got it, and let’s see, you are still not good enough. In a way, they want us to regret that we kicked them out of the country by “showing” us that we have merely replaced them with a new class of “rulers” yet we are still not free either way.
Dr. Mahathir has made many good points and criticsm of the current administration.