More Malaysian bloggers OMGWTFBBQ

Er...okay... DR MAHATIR HAS A BLOG. There's no way to not have a jaw-dropping reaction to that.

Although I think it's mostly that now the old man's persona non grata with the current administration (note to future heads of state in pseudo-democracies: make sure your proteges don't menderhaka against you next time, if there is a next time), he just wants to have a soapbox somewhere. Everybody on the bandwagon!

Barisan on the bandwagon

Holy cow. Barisan politicians are really jumping on the blogging bandwagon now. Hm, I wonder if it's got anything to do with BN's stunning loss of four states (plus failure to recapture Kelantan) and its two-thirds Parliamentary majority to the Opposition in a strongly Internet-driven upset, after years of insulting Malaysian bloggers as stupid and seditious? (Lim Kit Siang's had his own blog for quite a long time. Teresa Kok, the DAP MP for Seputeh who's been blogging since 2006, is quite funny because the title of her blog is "Sassy MP".)

For instance, the ex-Health Minister Dr Chua Soi Lek has turned to blogging. He has more free time these days after resigning from his Cabinet and MCA posts, since he was caught on video demonstrating safe sex. Alas, he uncreatively picked "drchua" as his sub-domain name on Blogger, and then found that there were already 8 "drchuas" on there. So he's drchua9.

Mohammad Ali Rustam, the Chief Minister of Melaka, wanted to get into the Malaysia Book of Record as the first CM to have a blog. Then he found out that his skin was too thin to take criticism, especially over a post implying that state governments allowing Chinese to farm their dirty pigs was a special concession that we should be endlessly grateful for, and deleted all comments and disabled future ones. However, not only did Malaysiakini archive the comments on the controversial post, TWO mirror blogs with comments enabled popped up rapidly. (Melaka sucks, by the way. If you believe all the stuff they tell you in school about how it's the nexus of history, you will be heartbroken as I was by how horribly run-down all the beautiful old buildings are.)

Muhammad Muhammad Taib (no, that's not a typo) the ex-CM of Selangor who was given a senator post as a consolation, is also jumping in. Ironic, considering he once lodged a police report against Raja Petra Kamarudin for insulting the King in a post on Malaysia Today. At least he was smart enough to buy his own domain name and hasn't started deleting comments - yet.

What I think is really interesting about all this, is that blogs and alternative news sites like Malaysiakini and Malaysia Today (I prefer "Today" over "'Kini" since it's free, although they don't quite cover the same ground) have had a really active part in turning the tide in this past election. Unlike in the USA where bloggers are merely observers and commentators, Malaysia is a small country and communication through the Internet only reinforces the "everybody knows everybody" atmosphere. By allowing people to see how many others were frustrated with Barisan Nasional, blogs, alternative news sites, and yes, Facebook allowed individuals to overcome the apathy of "Barisan is going to win anyway" and gave them the impetus to go out and vote. Barisan just didn't see this coming.

I'm no political pundit and I can't stand people who go on about it all the time, but I'm a citizen of a democratic nation with eyes and ears and emotions, and I unabashedly find recent developments incredibly cool.

So why's HE still...?

Reading news from home is like having a face full of pimples. You can't help wanting to pick at it:

NEP is no more ... it's the NDP lah!

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Progressive Party president Datuk Yong Teck Lee is puzzled why there is so much fuss over the New Economic Policy when it has already been superseded by the National Development Policy.

He questioned why politicians on both sides of the political divide, in Penang particularly, were still harping in the issue of the NEP that had expired in the 1990s and replaced with the NDP.
...
“The successor to the NEP was the NDP,” he said, adding that overtime Vision 2020, 10-year Outline Perspective Plan (OPP), five-year Malaysia Plans and other policies overshadowed the NDP.

“We are now busy with other new concepts like development corridors, Agenda Baru (New Agenda) and Islam Hadhari (Civilisational Islam). It is no wonder that some politicians both from ruling and opposition have lost focus on which policy to talk about,” he added.

He said the DAP-led Penang government “so-called cancellation of the NEP” was completely redundant because it no longer existed and it was disappointing that Penang Umno was still harping on the NEP like it was a valid document.

Well, maybe they're still harping on it because from what we've seen over the last decade, "NDP" is an abbreviation for "more of the same old crap". Even many Malays, who are supposed to benefit from it, weren't happy this time around.

Besides, we have leadership from the top!

Pak Lah: Most policies are federal policies

PETALING JAYA: Almost all of Malaysia's policies, including the New Economic Policy (NEP), are federal policies, said the Prime Minister.

AAB must have been sleeping when the NEP was abolished.

From Bumiputera Malaysia.
From Kickdefella ("kick the fellow"), more great movie parody posters here. I think my favourite is the "Dah Benci Kot".

Five states!

Kelantan, Penang, Perak, Selangor, and Kedah! *happy kitty dance*

I'm sorry to say this about a newspaper where one of my favourite aunties is a journalist but...The Star needs to stop licking the boots of losers. I was once told that The Star editors would hang up pro-MCA banners in the offices during election but thought it was an urban legend until I saw their awful, AWFUL coverage of this year's... Hehe.

Transmission of information

This is a perfect example of how influential the USA is, that even a roadside hawker in Kelantan (the only state in Malaysia that is was controlled by an Opposition party before yesterday's election) knows who one of the presidential candidates is. Probably the owners of most small mom-'n'-pop restaurants here don't even know there's a country called Malaysia let alone that we're having elections in the same year as them:

“Yang kito nak kat Malaysia ni pemimpin yang bermutu, buke pemimpin yang penipu! Kok Amerika tu ado Barack Obama, yang Negro tu. Hei, baik pun Negro dio tu, dio tu orgre bermutu, bukan mace Bush yang buat cerito gilo di Irak. Nah, pemimpin begitu loh yang kito nak di Malaysia ni”

(Rice stall owner, in front of Muhammadi mosque, Kota Bharu)

It's from an article titled "Vox Pop ala' Kelate" on Malaysia Today. Kelantanese speak a unique dialect of Malay...it's quite different to listen to. One of my favourite musicians, Zainal Abidin, uses it in some of his songs.

Anyway, translated:

What we want in Malaysia is quality leaders, not leaders who are liars! In American they have Barack Obama, that Negro guy. Hey, even if he's a Negro he's still good, not like Bush who's doing crazy stuff in Iraq. There, it's leaders like that we want here in Malaysia.

(NB black people are still an unusual sight in Malaysia, outside of the urban areas where there are a fair number of African college students.)

Only one choice?

Saw this full-page ad in Friday's theSun (obviously, I'm reading the electronic version, but the website has PDFs of the newspaper pages).

I've got news for you, Barisan politicians: the only countries where the people have "only one choice" are TOTALITARIAN FASCIST states.

Barisan Rakyat

I really like the Barisan Rakyat poster. I think it's well-balanced in terms of colour and lines...composition is overall nice and I like the font, but it's a bit the weird that the second "RAKYAT" is glued to the top of the picture.

I'm planning to print it out big and attach it to my backpack so people will see it as I walk around...there are quite a few Malaysian students in town (especially undergrads on Public Service Department scholarships haha), so SOMEbody will know. Click for big size:

This solution

Welp...Parliament dissolved today...the circus has begun.

Oh, and is anyone surprised that AAB is a few hours short of being a TOTAL bare-faced liar?

Wednesday February 13, 2008 Parliament won’t be dissolved today, says PM

BANGI: Parliament will not be dissolved today.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi put an end to such speculation, telling reporters here yesterday: “Esok tak ada (No, it won’t be tomorrow)”.

He also denied that today’s Cabinet meeting would be the last with his present team of ministers before Parliament is dissolved to pave the way for the next general election.

Wednesday February 13, 2008
MYT 1:10:44 PM Parliament dissolved, elections on

PUTRAJAYA: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has announced that Parliament has been dissolved, paving the way for the 12th general election.

At a hastily convened press conference at his office Wednesday afternoon, he said he had met the Yang Di Pertuan Agong in the morning and received His Majesty's consent to dissolve Parliament.

"I've informed Parliament and the Election Commission," Abdullah said. The state assemblies have also been advised to dissolve.

Also, I'm excited that Jeff Ooi is running. Go Malaysian bloggers!

Pray for peace. I think we've all seen in the last few months how apparently stable countries (e.g. Kenya, Pakistan) can dissolve into chaos when the fairness of elections is severely compromised and politicians on both sides - Gov't and Opposition - think more of their own power than of the people they're supposed to represent. (Look at Bhutto; her administration and family were notoriously corrupt while she was in power but then she gets shot and all of a sudden she's a martyr for democracy.) I really doubt anything so extreme will happen in Malaysia, but pray for us.

---

Barack Obama was in Madison today. I support him but as to the prospect of my spending hours in a stadium crammed with noisy undergraduate students (ref: undergrad cooties), he can go fly a kite =P

Also, David Morgan-Mar (the Irregular Webcomic guy, who's Australian) explains why the rest of the world gets upset about American presidential elections: they have so much power over us but we have no say. I've been trying and trying to explain this to my white Republican boyfriend. At least he supports McCain =)

Decision Time!

So I did say I hate politics, especially US politics, but I do love filling out questionnaires.

This website (MyElectionDecision.org) was developed by some people from the Psych department of my alma mater. It shows you sets of eight unattributed quotations on 5 issues: Energy, Iraq, Immigration, Healthcare, and Economic Issues.

Apparently if I was American and paying attention, I'd vote for John Edwards *phew* Hillary Clinton came out second on my list; I thought I was going to die if the survey told me I should vote for that harridan. Bill Richardson was my #3 and I have no idea who he is (followed by Barack Obama).

I'm def pro-immigration. I still don't want to settle in the USA for the long term, but am very much of the opinion that other people should be able to if they want. And if you don't have foreign labour, who's going to mop your floors, pick your oranges, and win all your Nobel Prizes for you? *runs away*

Malaysian politics wiki?

My cousin Jerng sent me a long and somewhat rambling log of a conversation between a Malaysian and someone from the UK. I don't go in much for esoteric activism strategies, but the part that caught my interest was the idea of starting a wiki for Malaysian law and politics, like the Opening Politics UK website. I like the idea...what do you guys think?

I'm not much of a political person, but I do like to stay informed. I developed an allergy against too much blah blah blah between going to a liberal arts college and dating [last year] a guy who now writes for TPMCafe.

Freedom to blog

This isn't exactly putting myself in the line of fire since nobody but friends read my blog, but I'm going to make my opinion very clear: NAZRI AZIZ SUCKS (and this isn't immediately relevant to these events, but so does Hishamuddin Hussein, by the way). There. I didn't say anything about the King, or about a particular religion, or a particular race. I'm pretty sure I'm entitled to state my opinion of individuals though. =D

If you don't know much about Malaysian politics, try reading the first article anyway...Raja Petra is super funny (he really is a Raja, he's a minor aristocrat).

• 23/07: See you in hell Muhamad son of Muhamad
• 24/07: Umno files report against webmaster
• 25/07: Action against 'flaming' blogs: Belittle the king or Islam and you face the music (bah, the stupid New Straits Times can't even get its terminology right - flaming is when you reply insultingly in an online conversation, not when you're insulting someone who's not "there".)
• Webmaster Raja Petra questioned for 8hrs

Masuk angin keluar asap

I'm sort of glad Dr. Mahatir retired a few years back. He's got to be the only third world dictator ever to do so voluntarily. I'm getting increasingly convinced he's pretty nyanyok now though. Check this out.

The former prime minister said bloggers should not tell lies and untruths, and because there were no laws governing them, their freedom to write anything could negatively affect the development of the country.

“Although bloggers are not subject to the same laws governing the mainstream media, they should write the truth all the same.

And a few paragraphs later:

Dr Mahathir also apologised to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for accusing him of owning a house in Perth, Australia.

He said he got carried away when he mentioned it at a talk in Kulai, Johor, on March 29 recently and added it was based on a rumour.

Seriously lah...Malaysian public officials and politicians clearly don't know anything about the internet or they wouldn't have come up with such a hare-brained idea as registering "bloggers". There's clearly a difference between people with huge reputations who do it on a semi-professional basis like Jeff Ooi and idiots like me* who do it just to waste time, but it's along a spectrum. There is no discrete cut-off that would distinguish the "bloggers" the government wants to take down.

*Or Michael Ooi, for that matter (Just kidding. Read his blog, it's damn funny, and he's one of the more popular non-political Malaysian bloggers.)