SEEING IT MY WAY

5:02pm Thu Feb 27th, 2003

Musa Bakri  Din Merican

The police raid on malaysiakini triggered an avalanche of protests, something Malaysia can ill afford as it struggles to attract foreign investments and project an image of a progressive and tolerant Islamic state.

With the furor now settling, it is appropriate to ask, "What has the raid wrought?"

Malaysiakini is still in operation; Prime Minister Mahathir is curiously silent after reviewing the supposedly seditious letters; and the establishment New Straits Times (NST), no doubt cued by Mahathir's silence, is finally out with op-ed pieces mildly critical of Umno Youth.

The most despicable spectre is that now Umno Youth members are blaming the police! Equally contemptible is the strange silence of its leaders. They have not seen fit either to support their earlier decision to lodge the police report or to dissociate themselves from it. They left that to the "petty attention-seekers" (to use NST's phraseology) within their midst. Is this the calibre of leaders championing "Ketuanan Melayu?"

Umno Youth members fancy themselves as the next generation of leaders. Their performance during this entire ugly saga reveals our worst fears of them. The future of Malaysia generally and Malay Malaysians specifically will be decided less by these rabble rousers brandishing their krises dripping with the symbolic blood of their imagined enemies, rather by the sober and rational minded, and the power of their ideas.

Alas we look askance at the paucity of such leaders among the present mix. The malaysiakini raid merely exposed this sorry state of affairs. We note this less in anger, more in sorrow.

Mahathir's silence could hardly be viewed as a ringing endorsement of his deputy, the man responsible for the raid. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's pubescent recklessness in trying to prove his political manhood during his master's absence boomeranged badly, thereby embarrassing the nation and making fools of the government, police, and Umno Youth.

As these are essentially Malay entities, their collective ineptness merely feeds o­n the ugly stereotype of the "dumb Malay." The entire Malay race is now once again being blamed because of the stupidity of a few. This more than anything else is the rancid and lingering consequence of the malaysiakini raid.

Assault on frail press freedom

The raid put malaysiakini out of commission, but only temporarily. It was back in operation a few hours later, this time brazenly highlighting in the lead banner the letter that so offended Umno Youth's sensibility. A digital thumbing of the nose gesture if you will, which must surely be the sweetest revenge. Not to mention the accompanying voluminous publicity and outpouring of support the publication is getting nationally and internationally.

The government has been at pains recently to prove to the world that it is leaving the IT sector free and open. The police, in pandering to Umno Youth, have effectively undermined that important commitment. We might as well kiss our ambitious but struggling MSC project goodbye.

More significantly, this raid is yet another assault on the frail freedom of the press in our country. In the end it is our citizens who will suffer from not being well informed, and with it the state of our participatory democracy. Our leaders too would be deprived of the valuable genuine feedback from the governed.

The government may yet prosecute malaysiakini editors. More immediately they are now threatened with eviction for supposedly engaging in "illegal" activities, never mind that charges have yet to be brought. Their landlord happens to be the exclusive distributor for a government-owned computer manufacturer! He is no doubt trying to suck up to the powerful.

Malaysiakini will survive this latest intimidation. Besides, in this age of IT, a physical office is more for convenience, as a cyber or virtual office would be just as effective, and definitely much cheaper. And as has been amply demonstrated, seizing computers is equally ineffective as one can readily have mirror servers abroad.

In short, the crude and thuggish intimidations of the past are ineffectual today. To do "battle" in this age of globalisation, we need to be more sophisticated and enlightened in the ways we challenge ideas that are at variance to those we long cherish.

Where are the 'enlightened leaders'?

Shortly after the raid we submitted a stinging op-ed piece to NST rebuking Umno Youth for their infantile behaviour. We also sent copies to all its editorial board members and outside opinion shapers, as we knew our piece would never be published. Nonetheless we wanted them to know our feelings. We received a most unusual response: a personal phone call from NST telling us that the issue was now "closed" and therefore it would not be publishing our piece.

Imagine our surprise to see a few weeks later an essay in NST by one Shamsul Akmar mildly critical of Umno Youth. The piece was essentially a paraphrased and sanitised version of our earlier rejected submission! It is to be noted that his article appeared o­nly after Prime Minister Mahathir chose not to comment after reviewing the malaysiakini letters. That speaks volumes of his contempt for Umno Youth's action and the subsequent inept police work.

Frankly, Shamsul's initial and follow-up essays were backhanded attempts at salvaging and defending Umno Youth's tattered reputation. He went to great lengths praising Umno Youth's supposedly "enlightened leaders" like Hishammuddin Hussein, Munir Aziz and Khairy Jamaluddin while conveniently forgetting that the police report was made and presumably endorsed by its executive committee of which they are members. Where are these "enlightened leaders" now that their action has stirred up such a mess?

Erstwhile fellow columnist MGG Pillai likened the malaysiakini affair as Abdullah's Memali, the tragic incident that was instrumental is bringing down Musa Hitam, then Mahathir's deputy. Whether a similar fate awaits Abdullah is conjectural, but this much is certain: He has irreparably damaged the reputation of Malaysia and the Malays.

M BAKRI MUSA ([email protected]) has just released his latest book, An education system worthy of Malaysia; DIN MERICAN ([email protected]) is senior research fellow, Phnom Penh-based Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace. This commentary reflects their personal views.