Category Archives: Politics

Politics

Why newspapers aren’t neutral (and shouldn’t pretend to be)

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A long time ago, while I was working as a stringer for The New Straits Times during my summer holidays, I got into a heated discussion with a couple of my colleagues on whether or not the press should be objective and neutral. My position was, and continues to be, that newspapers always have a position and it should be explicit. Their position was that journalists should be objective and unbiased, reporting only facts and refraining from passing judgment.

This article published in The Economist makes a good case for why news outlets even in a free market are biased. It explains that what people really want aren’t objective, neutral newspapers, even if that is what they say that they want, but instead ones that reflect their own dispositions. According to the study cited by the article, analysis of the media in the U.S. indicates that even different ownership has next to no effect on the overall bias on the press. What does matter is what the targeted market wants.

As the article notes, ultimately the truth lies somewhere in between all these different points of view, and anyone seriously interested in the news should get it from a variety of sources. But allowing those different points of view to be represented is far better than trying to stick to some muddy standard of objectivity that fails to sufficiently inform the reader for fear of passing judgment, whether good or bad.

Politics

Vernacular Schools in Malaysia

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This post grew out of comments that I made in a post on Jed Yoong’s blog which linked to another blogger’s post calling for all vernacular Tamil schools in Malaysia to be closed down. I think it’s worth taking the effort to explain that in this context, “vernacular schools” refers solely to primary schools that use Chinese and Tamil as the medium of instruction, while still receiving government funding, as opposed to those that teach using the national language, Bahasa Malaysia the so-called “Sekolah Rendah Jenis Kebangsaan”.

There are a couple of obfuscating factors at work here that needs to be explained. One, the original call to close down Tamil schools cited the generally poor quality of these schools as a primary reason. As Jed Yoong quoted from the original writer of the post, Balan:

One of the contributing factors leading Indian youth to gangsterism and other criminal activities is their inability to excel in education, particularly when they enter secondary school.

The new environment and being not conversant in Bahasa Malaysia which is the medium of teaching in secondary school have resulted in students dropping out after their PMR and SPM.

The reason this happens is the poor quality of Tamil schools in the country. Most of the Tamil schools in the country are poorly managed, lack facilities and are helmed by substandard headmasters and teachers.

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Politics

Why the USA is a great democracy.

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I get frustrated whenever I hear people criticize the USA for being a flawed democracy or not being a real democracy. It’s true that elections in the U.S. cost a whole lot of money and that lobbyists representing special interest groups wield a disproportionate amount of influence, but for all that, the U.S. truly represents a democracy like no other and this editorial published in The Economist nicely sums up why.

The whole article is worth reading, but I’d like to point out this passage in particular:

But the best thing that can be said for the system is that it is so democratic. In most countries party leaders are chosen by political insiders. In America rank-and-file party members (and some independents) get to choose—and this year they upset all political calculations by rejecting the inevitable Mrs Clinton on the left and choosing the maverick Mr McCain on the right.

Every democracy is flawed, I don’t need to quote Winston Churchill again, but America’s version, with its open primary allowing the grass roots to push up the candidate of its choice, is probably the best of the lot and surely deserves recognition for that.

Films & Television, Politics

Culture. Who owns it?

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I’ve seen meaning to make this post since I got around to finally watching Kung Fu Panda a couple of weeks ago but didn’t find the time. It’s an awesome film as its poster claims, but more importantly, it’s an awesome kung fu film, easily the best one of the year, and it was made entirely in the U.S. This makes it a great example of a point that I’ve been wanting to make. One of my pet peeves is that whenever some Chinese patriot tries to make a case for Chinese nationalism, the issue of Chinese culture and its 5,000 history invariably crops up. This is annoying for two reasons.

One, it seems to imply that Chinese culture and history is somehow better, or more special, than that of any other solely by reason of its longevity. As this old article explains, that’s a poor argument. Chinese culture is indeed worthy of attention and study, but then nearly every corner of the Earth is just as steeped in history. Chinese apologists try to make the argument that Chinese identity is unique in that it alone of all other cultural identities in the world can trace an unbroken lineage up to 5,000 years back, but as the article also explains, that relies on a rather slippery definition of what China, and what being Chinese, means.

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Personal Life, Politics

Solomon Islands Riots Photos

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I finally got around to uploading the photos that I have of the riots in the Solomon Islands in 2006, as previously promised. I didn’t have a camera handy during the 2000 riots, which was a real shame, since groups of guys toting huge guns all over Honiara would have made for more spectacular sights, and even in 2006, I wasn’t about to take any silly risks, so these are really just photos of the aftermath. You can get much better photos of the whole thing from the BBC. I also won’t really go into the specific details of the political situation since that’s been covered by much better writers than myself.

The riots in 2006 happened after general elections that eventually put Snyder Rini into the Prime Minister’s seat. Mr. Rini had a rather unsavoury reputation, particular after his earlier stint as Finance Minister, so the word on the street was that as Prime Minister, he would be susceptible to bribes from the Chinese businessmen active locally. Or more susceptible that the norm in the Solomon Islands. Anyway, a crowd had been gathering near Parliament House to hear who would be the new Prime Minister, and when they heard that it would be Snyder Rini, they turned nasty and after being turned away by the Australian-led and supported police, descended onto the nearby Chinatown.

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Games, Politics

Obama Ads in Game?

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In-game advertising are nothing new now. In fact, my very first experience with MMO games was with Anarchy Online’s Free Play program in 2004. It was one of the first experiments of this type and offered free accounts in exchange for being shown advertisement posters and billboards in the game. However, this is the first time that I’ve heard of a political campaign buying advertisements in a game, in this case, the console racing game Burnout Paradise.

As the site notes, it’s not sure whether this is legitimate yet and may simply be a case of good photoshopping skills. But if it is true, it speaks volumes of Senator Obama’s savvyness. He’s also bought a half-hour of network primetime to speak directly to U.S. audiences on the 29th October. What’s surprising is that I think a lot of Americans are going to tune in to listen to him. When is Malaysia going to get a politician this cool?

Politics

Nationalism is bad, okay?

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This post in an expansion on comments that I made in response to a post by Jed Yoong on her blog. I’ve so far refrained from commenting on the political situation here in Malaysia because I don’t have anything original or new to add to the already deafening cacophony out there and I don’t like to point out the obvious. In many cases, however, when a particular strand of public opinion becomes very shrill and one-sided, I feel a compulsion to throw some cold water on it. Chalk it up to my contrarian nature or maybe it’s just because I despise arguments that leave no room for doubt of any kind.

What’s gotten me riled up is the widely held sentiment that the racist politics of Barisan Nasional ought to be replaced with a multiracial Malaysian Malaysia. Yes, the BN are racists. Big deal, but we’ve known that forever. And again, yes, a multiracial Malaysian Malaysia is a great thing, sure, but playing it up too much edges things too uncomfortably close to nationalism for me and recent anti-immigrant sentiment in Malaysia is already too negative for my tastes. As I noted previously, if racism is bad because it shouldn’t matter what your genetics are, then nationalism ought to be bad as well because it shouldn’t matter where your mother happened to physically be when she went into labour. Am I the only person who finds it ironic that so many Malaysians blame current immigrants from places like Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines for their troubles when so many are descended from past immigrants themselves?

Similarly, I’ve read multiple commentators saying to the effect that sports are a great way to unite Malaysians across the racial divide. Does that mean that whichever country is currently playing against our national champion is the enemy? Does that make anyone who supports a non-Malaysian in any sports match against a Malaysian a traitor? Why does it always have to be one group against another group?

I’m also troubled by the assertions of Chinese and Indian Malaysians that they deserve equal rights as Malaysians because of the past contributions of their ancestors in developing the country (with the Chinese being especially fond of pointing out that they were the one who fought off the Japanese). The problem with this is that it assumes that such rights have to be earned as opposed to naturally accruing to anyone who wants to live permanently in the country and implies that new immigrants shouldn’t have those same rights because their ancestors didn’t make similar sacrifices. If it is not morally correct to blame the current generation of Germans, for example, for the actions or even antipathy of their grandfathers during the Holocaust, is it correct to credit a people for the beneficial actions of their ancestors?

The idealogy diametrically opposed to nationalism is of course cosmopolitanism, and the Wikipedia page on it is a worthwhile read.