Mainstream media in Malaysia is a joke
I spent about 2 hours on the Internet yesterday scouring around for news about the Bersih rally that went on in Malaysia, most of what I found were from twitter. Stories of the rally started pouring out and everyone was elated and believed that we have reached somewhere in the negotiations for a cleaner election in the future. I was all smiles when I went to bed last night.
But the good news didn’t hold for long. As I read the newspaper the next morning, I was more than appalled by the different version of events that were being played out on the front pages of our local newspapers. I switched on our local news channels and they too spouted lies and deceptions. Frustrated is probably a correct word.
There are a few conspiracy theories going around and I am rounding up the facts leading up to this Bersih event 2011.
Chain of events
1 ) The entire downtown Kuala Lumpur was on lockdown from the wee hours of Saturday all the way up till Sunday morning
2 ) The government at first promised to allow the calm protest to be held at Stadium Merdeka
3 ) Then the same government reneged on their promise stating Bersih was illegal
4 ) 91 members of the Bersih committee were banned from entering the Kuala Lumpur central district
5 ) The Yang di Pertuan Agung (our King) came out and tried to ease the tension between the two groups (namely the government and Bersih) and all seemed well until the government again reneged on their promise
6 ) According to newspaper reporters around 10,000 people turned up for the event (government says there were 5,000 and the Bersih organizers are claiming 50,000).
7 ) Tear gas and water canons were fired on rally-goers even though the FRU or PDRM were unprovoked
8 ) All businesses were forced to close shop when the protest turned into stampedes of people running for cover
9 ) FRU unit shot tear gas into Tung Shin hospital at Pudu severely jeopardizing the safety of the people inside
10) People were beaten into submission by the police and taken into lockup
11) A total of 1,667 people were taken into the police station for questioning
12) Opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, was hurt in the event
The government has now come out and said that this is all a ruse by the opposition to gain a firmer standing before the next election. And to a certain degree I do agree with what Najib said. It is true. But what is truer is that if the government had not reacted the way they did by clamping down on this rally, it would have passed without event. If anything did go wrong during the rally, and tensions flared, it was the coalition to be blamed. However, by clamping down on this peaceful rally, they had come to a contention point with the Rakyat (people), and they might just find that it is enough to tip the scales out of their favor.
The protest “will have long-term consequences for Najib because there will be a blowback – a lot of people thought we were past authoritarian methods,” said James Chin, a political science professor at the Malaysian campus of Australia’s Monash University, speaking before the demonstrations kicked off. If the authorities had allowed the protest to go ahead without interference, it likely would have passed without major incident, he said. “It is a stupid thing they overreacted” and tried to block it, he said.
-extracted from Wall Street Journal-
The difference in between the reports from overseas journalists and local media is seriously appalling. There are no reports on how the people succeeded in making the government succumb to their rues. But instead we see pictures of where the public are doing all the things wrong. But the Malaysian government should know something, the one thing you cannot hide from these days are smartphones. They ARE called smartphones for a reason. There have been dozens of youtube videos uploaded and thousands of pictures on Facebook depicting the sequence of events surrounding the 2 hours of confrontation between the people of Malaysia and it’s long time oppressor – the government.
Most moving picture
All these videos and pictures tell a different side of the story. No longer are the mass public going to believe whatever you say on television or on newspapers? We will trust our fellow countrymen – with our own eyes we will tell the truth from the lies. And, mark my words, that is when you fall backwards into your web of lies and get consumed by them – WHOLE.
