A welcome relief from the scoldings and sarcasm

Breath Of Fresh Air

Not yet 100 days in office, yet it is evident that Pak Lah is trying to stamp his own mark as premier. In Penang, immediately after his ascendancy, he first called upon the people to work with him, not for him. Next he ordered the civil service to cut unnecessary red tape in order to curb corruption; apparently, things run smoother once palms are greased. His message was that providing quality services to the rakyat is the priority. The relaxed style of his Hari Raya address was also refreshing. Even more so that his wife Endon sat alongside him and was invited to �say a few words� at the end. His concern with the number of deaths on the road during the festive rush came across as sincere. And there was indeed a follow-up, still on-going.

Apparently, he�s also been leading prayers in the mosques that he sometimes drops into on Fridays. What�s more, It was a nice touch � unlike the usual impersonal Open Houses - to send greetings to some 1,500 church leaders on the occasion of Christmas. Many read the greetings, which were warmly applauded, during church services. What a breath of fresh air into Malaysian politics. What a welcome relief from the scoldings and sarcasm we were always subjected to when �his predecessor� addressed the rakyat.

Indeed, in contrast to �his predecessor�, he doesn�t appear to hog the mass media reports either. Perhaps because of Sadaam�s arrest, perhaps because of the fatal road accidents, the Bam earthquake and the threat of a new outbreak of SARS, Pak Lah at times only appears in the inside pages � on page 14 on 29 Dec 2003, on page 2 on 30 Dec 2003 together with Endon in a report on the batik fashion design competition.

The MCA, too, is partly responsible for this fresh breeze. Except when it�s a UTAR fund raiser, there have hardly been any reports of Ling, who was beginning to sound like �the predecessor�. There�s also been a welcome end to that Team A versus Team B �much ado about nothing�. Exploring a future merger with Gerakan (of course, that is not going to happen!) is a clever political stroke, at any rate a more interesting news item than the goings-on of �the predecessor� and his sycophants.

More interesting also because of people like Kayeas, who welcomed the merger and in the same breath invited the non-Chinese to join his PPP. Not so long ago, he had similarly suggested that Pandithan�s IPF, whose entry into the BN ruling coalition had been stymied by you-know-who, should dissolve itself and its members join the PPP instead. This attempt to recruit members of other parties must be his strategy to get the 8 parliamentary and 18 state seats that he has asked for in the coming election.

Unfortunately for him, neither merger has yet occurred. Kayeas had inadvertently contributed to the festive merry-making a bit earlier too, when he first read a wrong bill in parliament, and upon being corrected, then read a bill which had earlier been passed! Incidentally, whatever has become of his proposed Bandar University near Tronoh? Not really fresh breeze, but this is comic relief to the scoldings and sarcasm, and most certainly the sycophancy surrounding �the predecessor�. We are convinced that Kayeas got appointed as senator and then deputy minister not simply because of the strength of his PPP. Rather, it must be because there�s a need to absorb into the BN those fed up with the battling MIC and IPF. Or was it perhaps due to his being one of �the predecessor�s� favourites?

Remember Ibrahim (Katak) Ali? Poor Ibrahim was recently removed as Pasir Mas UMNO division chief. His supporters, however, have protested his removal and turned up in force at the airport to welcome him back to Kota Baru on 25 Dec. The banners read �Hidup Ibrahim!� Ibrahim claims that he does not understand why he was removed. For if the criteria is that he has not performed well, then the same would apply to Kelantan UMNO chief Mustapha Mohamed as well, who also lost in the last election. He has a point.

But guess who�s protesting Ibrahim�s removal as well? Harakah devoted several pages and pictures to his removal, which it has termed �harsh�. There have even been suggestions that Ibrahim might do another lompat, this time to PAS, which he has denied. We ask you to spare a thought for Ibrahim too this festive season. Not particularly fresh or breezy, he has nonetheless brought much colour and comic relief to our politics, especially during those days of scoldings, sarcasm and sycophancy.

Changing Of The Guards At The NSTP

Indeed, enjoy this fresh breeze. It might be short lived. For it appears that we might be approaching that time when the mainstream media have to stop pretending to be independent of their political masters. It is the time when new political appointees occupy the coveted positions at the top of the media organisations to synchronise with the change of political leadership in the country.

And so it is with the case of the New Straits Times Press group. Freshly vacated by the once irrepressible and flamboyant Abdullah Ahmad (of the Kok Lanas fame), the post of the group�s Editor-in-Chief was handed over to former journalist and now active businessman Kalimullah Masheerul Hassan. Kalimullah, who was made chairperson of the national news agency Bernama prior to this and is said to be close to new Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, was also appointed as the group�s executive director effective 1 January 2004.

It is also therefore unsurprising to find that, for example, one of the directors on the Board of the Utusan Melayu Group is Dato� Mohd Johari Baharum, who according to the group�s website was the Political Secretary 1 to the former prime minister. It is not yet clear whether he now reports to Pak Lah.

It is indeed a sad commentary of the country�s journalistic practices when certain characters are replaced by others who�d be expected to �play ball� with the new political leadership and also to perform a gatekeeper role. Appointment exercises such as Kalimullah�s can only cause further harm to the credibility of the media organisations concerned. It doesn�t take a rocket scientist (and we are sure that there are quite a few in this land where there is an effort to send our first astronaut) to know that what is sorely needed in the media industry is a number of media organisations with impeccable credentials that come along with editorial and political independence. Remember the takeover of the Nanyang Siang Pau by MCA�s investment company Huaren? Remember how its entire editorial board was also changed? Tell us then how much degree of editorial independence the mainstream media have.

But then editorial and political independence can only come about when there is a more liberal political culture in our society. This means, among other things, that certain laws that have an impact upon the development of the media will have to be repealed, such as the omnipotent Printing Presses and Publications Act and Official Secrets Act. Really, press freedom cannot depend on the discretion and �good heart� of a Home Minister, for example.

Otherwise, a regime change will almost always necessitate the replacement of the Kadir Jasins and Abdullah Ahmads of the world of Malaysian media. Not that they shouldn�t be replaced, but the replacement ought to be closely tied to notions of journalistic credibility and editorial independence, not political expediency.

Death Of Animals In Captivity

Perhaps the saddest thing about our festive seasons is the increasing number of fatal accidents which occur each year. Many are innocent victims of the festive rush but some unnecessarily tempt fate. As though reading about these deaths were not depressing enough, now we are told that innocent animals in captivity are dying by the hundreds in our National Zoo. One can imagine the suffering of these creatures, owing to utter neglect, before their demise. The Zoo�s annual report for 2001/2002 confirmed the death of 540 poor animals. Surely, this should qualify for the Guinness Book of Records!

Datuk Ismail Hutson, Zoo Negara acting director, was outraged by this news report in our dailies and claimed �internal sabotage�. It takes the cake for this classic piece of logic: He wondered why the death of 833 animals in 1999/2000 was not highlighted by the press. We wonder about that too.

But it only highlights the need to be even more concerned about how all these 1373 animals died. Perhaps the media were more concerned about the goings-on in the political zoo - including in the kangaroo courts - rather than in the national zoo. But then, we shoouldn�t be surprised. If it had been Malaysians who had died in custody under suspicious circumstances, our subservient press would have been just as reluctant to report the news in keeping with its usual practice of self-censorship.

A Cut Above The Rest

It is often claimed that this Bolehland called Malaysia is looked upon by the entire world as a good role model for other multicultural and multiethnic countries. We�ve got remedies that others couldn�t even recognise even if they trip on them. And so they could only quip, �ah, why didn�t we think of that before?�

The Malaysian government�s latest contribution to the promotion of ethnic harmony, to be sure, is more than (fore) skin deep. Cut to the chase, the religious affairs unit in the Prime Minister�s Department believes that circumcision, which is a rite of passage for young Muslim boys, can contribute to better ethnic relations if it involves thousands of other boys from other religious traditions. In short, circumcision is said to have the potential to bring Malaysians, particularly the younger generation, of all ethnic and religious backgrounds together.

The long and short of it all is that Malaysian boys should find a common ground and, if need be, make a kind of sacrifice if they are serious about promoting mutual understanding beyond their navel.

Having said that, this initiative may however be interpreted as the unkindest cut to young Malaysian girls. Worse still, they may feel that they�ve been given a short shrift. What we really mean here is that popularising circumcision in this fashion automatically rules the girls out. After all, don�t the girls also have a stake in this beloved country of ours?

So we�d suggest that whoever initiated this �circumcision idea� should go back to the drawing board and think of something big enough that would include and involve not only the boys but also the girls who are part and parcel of the Malaysian cosmos. (We�re of course not implying female circumcision here.)

More On The War Against Terror

Hot on the heels of the capture of Saddam Hussein, security guards at New York�s Kennedy airport today arrested an individual, later identified as a public school teacher, trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney-General John Ashcroft said he believed the man is a member of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

�Al-gebra is a fearsome cult,� Ashcroft said. �They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like �x� and �y� and refer to themselves as �unknowns�, but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.

�As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, there are three sides to every triangle,� Ashcroft declared.

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, �If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes.

�I am gratified that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. Murky statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence,� the President said, adding: �Under the circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our point, and draw the line.�

President Bush warned, �These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex.�

Attorney-General Ashcroft said, �As our Great Leader would say, read my ellipse. Here is one principle he is uncertainty of: though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered as the hypotenuse tightens around their necks.�

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