Harassingly Yours, Blogger Mahathir

Fascinating article in the New York Times written by Seth Mydans, one of the region’s most versed correspondents: Malay Blogger Fights a System He Perfected. Meaning: Malaysia’s former autocratic leader Mahathir Mohamad feels he fell victim to the press controls he perfected. And fights back. As blogger Che Det at www.chedet.com.

Not a Thai topic, but still a Thai topic, as not only bloggers in Malaysia, China, Singapore and other neighboring countries are challenging their governments’ monopolies on information. Thailand’s announcement to erect a half a billion baht firewall to protect from online contractors is very much related to the blogosphere.

Now take Dr. M who was complaining about Malaysia’s missing press freedom: “Where is the press freedom?” he asked two years ago according to the NYT, apparently surprised at being ignored by Malaysia’s widely self-censored media. “Broadcast what I have to say! What I say is not even accurately published in the press!”

Sounds like a familiar complaint “where a system of self-censorship in an atmosphere of government pressure and intimidation has produced a constricted press,” Mydans writes. Again, a very Thai topic. Just switch govt with anti-govt. Who would refute a rather grave bias of Thailand’s self-righteous mainstream media outlets.

The power of blogs, the blogosphere and the internet in general play a growing political role. “Malaysia’s bloggers helped influence elections,” Mydans explains, “contributing to the biggest upset that the governing party had suffered since independence in 1957.” Thailand’s not yet that wired and still way off Malaysia’s education levels.

Political blogging in Thailand is still in its infancy. Communication is still much more traditional, much less IT-based, and therefore easier to control due to systematic uneducation. But when even Mahathir starts blogging over in Malaysia and about every politician in the West has a blog or at least a presence on Facebook or such … The power of the internet will be coming to Thailand.

Mahathir meanwhile, outspoken and acerbic as ever, lives the blogger’s dream. Each topic he writes receives hundreds of comments. His short, crisp takes attracted over ten million visitors in the first few months after the blog’s launch this May. Harassing the government and critics has become something of a life-task for Mahathir.

Traitor? The man who calls himself Che Det almost sounded like Che (Guevara) when he recently wrote in his blog that the arrest of Malaysia’s bold blogger-champion Raja Petra Kamarudin showed “a degree of oppressive arrogance worthy of a totalitarian state,” writes the NYT.

Can you believe it. “Now, a convert of free speech,” Mydans says, “Mr. Mahathir is using his blog to champion the country’s most prominent blogger.”

Challenging the system he once controlled as a sign that he has come to his senses, indirectly confessing that he had been wrong? Oh no, not Dr. M. He not only uses his blog to right passed wrongs.

What a hypocrite? He even congratulated America’s President-elect Obama – he, who always cared about Malaysia’s non-Malays …

Mahathir enjoys to have a lot of fans (again), portraying himself as an inconvenient critic, an alternative, voice of the majority and justice even.

Jailing people like RPK is futile, he told Mydans in his vast office at the top of Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers, one of the world’s tallest buildings. There is no way, thinks Mahathir, the government can arrest all the bloggers, even if it wants to.

At least, he said, “I hope so. Otherwise I’ll be in, too.”

BD: The blogosphere and internet as agents of change. Thailand, immune??




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November 6, 2008 | Filed Under News & Media, Politics, Society 

Comments

One Response to “Harassingly Yours, Blogger Mahathir”

  1. ThaiCrisis on November 7th, 2008 4.04 am

    Just a little correction: It’s not “half a million.” But “half a billion.”

    (BD: Outsch! Merci TC.)

    As for this story … well … i can’t comment.

    Because Mahathir gives me an urgent and violent need to vomit.

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