contrasting view

Gone are the days when official words of government-owned media are the only ones that reach the public at large and other voices are only cries in the wilderness. It is very interesting to see that the government is still pursuing strategy to curb or silence these alternative voices rather than accepting the fact that the world has changed a great deal and people are free to express their opinions elsewhere and get their views heard. It is then up to the public to judge credibility of their thoughts. If their outlooks meet universally accepted norms and values, they are then readily accepted.

Hoodwinking people may be the government’s custom and practice given their over half a decade rule over Malaysia. In this information era and internet media they cannot pull wools over peoples’ eyes anymore.

Najib made a statement in the Indonesia that was a clear contempt of the court in a bid to legitimise his government’s unconstitutional and brutal act of gaining control of the Perak state from opposition. It was also a way by which he was sending a signal to the court of appeal to deliver judgement on their favour. This gives us a sense of Deja-vu. We have heard it before, haven’t we? Rewind a few years back and you will see a similar approach by the then Mahathir’s administration.

Najib is clearly out of touch. Even Mahathir failed miserably as seen at the end of his administration that eventually saw him relinquishing his post as it was utterly impossible to fight the tide against injustices propagated by his regime. The fact that now he is back in control of the country having gone through process of reinventing himself and repackaging his approach to make it palatable is another topic worth analysing but that will be done later perhaps. Walking through the same path of Mahathir will only get Najib into trouble, which is good indeed. Time has changed. What was effective then is no longer practical now. Now we have alternative views being aired for the whole world to see and read almost instantaneously.

How about Anifah Aman’s, the new defender and chief worshipper of Najib, statement accusing Anwar of bribing him with a DPM post in a bid to buy his support openly at a joint press conference with Rodham Hillary Clinton? The respond by Anwar through his lawyer threatened him with sedition suit almost instantly (in legal time frame mode of course) is a demonstration of speed of information travels in this internet age. Whether or not the court drags its feet or not is immaterial. In fact if it drags its judicial feet, the better it will be in this game of perceptions.

What the BN administration should do is to clear their acts and serve the people but when they are lost as to the reason for their existence, it spells trouble clear and obvious. No doubt about it at all. Their very existence is to serve the public and since they forget that and use their positions to amass wealth, they incur public’s wrath. The worst part is that they are still perplexed as to why the whole nation wants to give them the boots! This stupid behaviour we pray will continue and the public will be further enraged hopefully and will send them packing earlier than anticipated.

We are now living in a cyber age and everyone is free to air their views. If they make sense, it will get peoples’ sympathy and support. If they contradict universally acceptable views, they will just be voices in the wilderness or just mere shouts in cyberspace that do not even get an echo.