'May You Live in Interesting Times'
By YL Chong
This is my
maiden article for Harakah, and I will try to make it as
interesting as possible, in more than one sense of the word
"interesting". Those who know me as a journalist for some 30-plus
years and later, as a blogger the past decade, will detect that journalistic
writing is more objective and serious -- with governing rules pertaining to
sources and ethics -- as an important objective is to inform and educate in
news reporting, and in commentary, add on an onjective "to persuade".
Meanwhile, blogging is less rigid and free-style and allows room for
experimentation, but still ethics prevails, so some exuberant bloggers take to entertaining themselves with
no regard to third parties' interests, and find themselves recipients of
defamation suits!
I will always
hold my readers in both the old and new media -- referred to popularly as the
Fourth and Fifth Estates respectively -- in high esteem, and it's always in the
spirit prompted by Voltaire's credo, "I may disagree with what you say,
but I will defend, to the death, your right to say it," or rendered
another way, "Let's be agreable in our disagreement."
I hope very few
of my readers had occasion to part company with their conversationalists and
the departing party in a raised tone bade you: "May you live in
interesting times!" I hope you had not then felt "flattered"! Instead
of getting into trouble by calling your enemy "UMNO celaka!" as did
happen with one Penang Wakil Rakyat addressing hispolitical enemy, he could
have complimented them with this "interesting times" greeting
instead. And the episode of the UMNO youths storming the august house of the
Penang State Assembly would have been avoided.
I think many
honourable members who make up the state assemblies and the national Parliament
are lacking in language command and humour, hence you have many who made crass
and often sexist remarks more befitting the inmates of Zoo Negara now made more
civilised by two imported Chinese pandas. The pandas pander to human curiousity,
while sexual innuendoes often emitting from an East Malaysian Menmber of
Parlaiment pander to the low taste of the speaker and his nincompoopfellow MPs
who often thump the table as a show of ape-like support. But I apologise to the
monkey species if I demean them using this metaphor, but I learnt that
description at primary schoold when the teacher would reprimand naughty pupils:
" Don't behave like monkeys!"
If I may recall
--I hope correctly! -- that once the honourable Mr Opposition Dr Tan Chee Koon
had in a session asked of the fellow members, "Who among you have not
committed a similar sin? Then you please stand and cast the first stone!"
No one else stood up -- only two persons were standing at that moment in time
-- then Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, in replying to a question by Dr Tan
himself.
Malaysia's
First PM was proud of being the "happiest" leader alive
The politics
during the first PM's era was tranquil and not quite arresting as the present
times -- no constant harping by politicians and the media of corruption or
homosexuality, transvestite or sodomite. The down-to-earth Tunku was a little
"colourful" leader beloved by the people, who hardly thought in terms
of race or colour or religion then. When accusations were hurled at his
"wayward" hobbies of playing cards with the Chinese towkays and
owning prize-winning horses from Australia, I believe his answer to the critics
was that those pursuits were his personal and privte ones, and it's between him
and his God, an answer which I salute!
So modern
Malaysians now live in more "interesting times". I sometimes wonder
had it been a curse levelled on beautiful Malaysia as a whole by foreign
parties that we have become victim to the unannounced curse of ''May you live
in interesting times''? Our leaders often choose to bury their heads in the
sand like the proverbial ostrich, so they return from overseas trips narrating
the "high praises" heaped on Malaysia by the generous host-nations.
Well, quoting
Alice in Wonderland, it can get "curiouser and curiouser" when there
are enough enemies out there wishing that Malaysians continue to live in
interesting times.
How could the
murder of a Mongolian beauty on Malaysian soil take place, and now there has
been no offender serving time for this heinous crime? Malaysia broke records by
allowing two accused persons to be hooded and faces covered up throughout the
trial -- why the privilege? Do you blame the man in the street for thinking
that the Government has covered up many aspects of this crime, and the two
accused now set free were just scapegoats for show only? Since no criminal has been brought to account
for Altantuya's death, could the Mongolian people have been saying daily
prayers that Malaysians be visited by "interesting times"? Maybe there is a connection between their
greetings and the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 vanishing into thin air?
For the record,
immigration records of the entry of Altantuya's two relatives/friends into
Malaysia also disappeared into thin air. So when the MAS flight to Beijing
about three months ago just "vanished into thin air", do you blame
Malaysians for being "sceptical" and generally disbelieving of the
accounts given by the nation's high officals, right up to the acting Transport
Minister and his boss, the Prime Minister? Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar
Ibrahim did not surprise when he stated that Singapore was wrong in was
praising Malaysian for a job well done. Anwar said that Singapore -- a nation
always promoting "meritocracy" -- was endorsing
"mediocrity" for the Malaysian government's less than
creditable and competent handling of the high-profile MH370 incident.
Of course,
several international media poured scorn on the Malaysian leaders' abiliity and
competence to manage the international efforts to unravel the tragic mystery.
Instead of showing humility, the few government leaders concerned have berated
news agencies like the CNN for their uncomplimentary covearge, alleging
"biased" reporting and commentary. But one of CNN respected business
commentators, Richard Quest, did say many good things about the Malaysian
handling of the MH 370 issue, which lends credit to the foreign news network
that their staff were allowed to hold "dissenting" views. Did we or
do we see any such contrasting perspectives in reporting and commenting in our
local mainstream media on the MH 370 and other national issues? Yes, someone
whispered: "Suara Keadilan and the Harakah." My thinking allowed: "They
are not yet mainstream. Nyet!"
"There are
no permanent friends or foes in politics. Only permanent interests."
NOTE: YL CHONG has
been a Journalist -- in print, online and diplomatic media -- for some 30
years, and is now working on a novel which he hopes may attract enough
attention like Flight MH 370 so he can retire in comfort as he rides into the
Malaysian sunset. He also runs a blog at desiderata2000.blogspot.com.
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