And we come right down to it. Raja Petra Kamaruddin is out. Everyone’s in an uproar over the imminent crackdown on seditious bloggers. The newspapers are reporting dire threats issuing forth from the seat of government. I have a friend who once said bloggers are a joke to journalists. It’s just ironic how the government fears bloggers more than they do journalists in Malaysia, isn’t it? That’s a discussion for another day, I suppose.
While I read blogs over the past few days post slogans and posts pledging solidarity with RPK and Malaysia-Today, I’m left to reflect on how far blogs in Malaysia have come. So-called “socio-political” (a strange, strange term) bloggers still make up a small, small percentage of the total number of blogs, and if it weren’t for newspaper reports and PPS, the usual strain of bloggers online wouldn’t have known much about Nat’s detention, I reckon. I suppose that saddens me somewhat, now that’s it’s come to the crunch.
I don’t really read much off of Malaysia-Today; I think it’s a hive of gossip and speculation. Carefully worded innuendos speak more of the concealed rather than the revealed. Hinting at things just heightens the sense that there is no transparency in Malaysian politics, even amongst people purporting to oppose the current administration. It’s just frustrating when what I really want to see is not more speculation but more evidence. Perhaps this frustration is only natural given the stranglehold the government has on truth.
I think about Nat’s detention and the report lodged against RPK and I imagine a flood of incursions by people less inclined to respect the truth and more inclined to maintain their grip on power. If anything, our past 50 years as an independent nation have confirmed that truth has little purchase over the voting public. If people really were interested in the truth, they would want politicians, mentri besars and such brought under scrutiny. They wouldn’t sell their votes for sewing machines, or a few hundred dollars. The value of truth, especially in politics, is self-evident I’d like to think. Is that naive?
Maybe.