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Thursday, July 06, 2006

S’pore Straits Times playing a dangerous game

My letter today to Malaysiakini titled S’pore Straits Times playing a dangerous game:

The differences between Malaysia's current and previous prime ministers have resulted in scandalous revelations, accusations, macho challenges and even a number of vogue terms such as 'elegant silence' and 'elegant disappearance', bringing a unique Malaysian lexical meaning to 'elegant' when 'convenient' would have been the traditional choice.

But what has startled many Malaysians has been the unexpected (or perhaps, to be expected) participation in the public quarrel of the two Malaysian leaders by a foreign newspaper, the Singapore Straits Times. The Singapore Straits Times is closely linked to the island state's government so one may reasonably assume to an extent that its views would reflect or be similar to that of the government.

The Singapore government has never been shy about speaking out to the world about its position, but those occasions would usually be related to issues about its own policies, administration, governance, conduct and commercial interests.

If the Singapore Straits Times' abrupt intrusion into a mainly Umno internal political stoush between Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi reflects the thinking or the silent approval of the Singaporean government, then this would represent a first where the Singapore government has felt it necessary to vicariously join an internal squabble of a Malaysian political party. And it is a 'first' that has strayed, nay, deliberately stepped into dangerous territory.

Malaysians would be rightfully alarmed if such a supposition bears true. Following from that, we may ask why would a foreign country, which hitherto had observed proper and diligent distancing from Malaysian internal politics, at least publicly, has now seen fit to stomp right into the fray.

Its involvement has been obviously on the side of Abdullah, for it has attacked Mahathir's 22 years of stewardship of Malaysia. While some of its challenges to Mahathir have been questions many Malaysians like me would also like to ask, I was stunned by a couple of its 'silly bugger' confrontational queries.

I see some of the Singapore Straits Times' questions as grubby at best, and sinister at worst. As a package, they seemed to be posed for as much sensationalism as possible, to divert the Malaysian public's attention from Mahathir's questions to Abdullah. Mahathir's most telling question has been the 'sand and airspace' issue leading to the abandonment of the 'scenic' bridge project.

Those Singaporean questions, if caught onto by Malaysians’ insatiable hunger for the politically scandalous, may serve to restore the somewhat rather worn out 'elegance' of Abdullah's 'silence' – worn out perhaps by the political 'sand' storms and his increasingly untenable position of refusing to account to Mahathir's pointed piercing and painful queries.

Unfortunately Malaysiakini trimmed off from my submitted letter a couple of paragraphs demonstrating the ‘silly-bugger’ questions, but I had touched on those in AAB's Unexpected (or Expected) Defender?.

2 comments:

  1. Hi KTEMOC,

    Straits Times published said 22 questions totally in context taken from Malaysia Today. I don't think that what you wrote is entirely fair. Wonder what is your biff?

    Like Superman, Malaysia is wearing her dirty undies for the whole world to see. It us very shameful and unbecoming for a former PM to behave as Tun M. What with the latest revelations concerning the Malaysian Airlines deal? Concocted by Tun M. and Daim, Malaysians now know how these idiots pilfered their country's wealth.

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  2. No, you've got it the other way around.

    Sing ST was the originator of those 22 questions. Malaysiakini reported that in http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/53382

    Malaysia-Today is just a blog sympathetic to Anwar Ibrahim and the PKR party. It just extract news from various newspapers.

    What's my biff? Nothing more than I want to know why has a Sing newspaper (that has very close links with its govt) poked its nose in an UMNO affair? Why has it taken the side of AAB, especially when there are strong rumours in Malaysia of an intimate connection between a certain member of UMNO with the Sing govt?

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