Opinion: Is Raja Petra a political prostitute or a bona fide writer?

Opinion: Is Raja Petra a political prostitute or a bona fide writer?

8 Mar 2024 • 8:30 AM MYT



TheRealNehruism
Writer. Seeker. Teacher

Image credit: Focus Malaysia


Some people are saying that Raja Petra coming up with videos like “Kalau tak mahu Anwar nak siapa?” is a sign that he has shifted his allegiance from being PN-centric to being PH-centric, but I doubt it.


I also have said in a few of my articles that Anwar is lucky that despite his disappointing and subpar performance as a PM, there is no one in the country who can challenge his reign, because as lousy as Anwar is, his competitors are worse.


I might have said it in my own way, but the view that I was expressing is basically the same as Raja Petra’s “Kalau bukan Anwar, siapa lagi ” view.


I am of course going out on a limb to say that I think Raja Petra most likely said “kalau tak mahu Anwar, nak siapa?” not as an endorsement of Anwar’s rule, but simply because he believes it to be true.


Now I have never met or talked to Raja Petra, although my articles do appear in his platform.


I am just claiming to know that Raja Petra is neither endorsing Anwar or Muhyiddin, under the “it takes a thief to know a thief” rule, which by extension is also saying that it will take a writer to know a writer. Being a writer myself, I don’t think Raja Petra is endorsing either PH or PN, simply because I recognise what he is doing, and I recognise what he is doing because that is what I am doing myself.


A writer is by definition, someone who writes whatever it is that we think is true, in a manner that we feel will get us a readership and possibly a paycheck.



Now many of you out there think that we write what we write because we are being paid to write it by someone, but the truth is, the only people that pay us are probably just you, dear readers.


I personally only get paid by Newswav – which pays me according to the number of people who read what I write. Raja Petra probably gets paid much more, because he owns a famous website and because he also does videos on platforms like YouTube.


While we tend to write on the subjects that the readers are interested in, because that is the subject that they are more likely to read, we don’t just write what the readers want to hear, because the readers are not what we are focusing on when we are trying to write.


When we write, our focus is on what is going on in our own heart and mind. Our heart and mind are shaped by our own experience, observations and reasoning ability. When we write, what we are doing is merely recording what our experience, observation and reasoning ability are telling us, by using our powers of expression, which, if you are a bona fide writer, is something that you have honed by mastering the craft of writing for years and decades.



There are of course some people who write to put Muhyiddin in power or attempt to get Anwar toppled, but these are not writers, and you would be wrong to categorize Raja Petra as belonging in the same category as them.


I truly don't believe that Raja Petra writes to put Muhyiddin in power or to topple Anwar or vice versa. I think all that he is doing is observing what is happening in reality until he comes upon an interesting idea, at which point he will start composing the idea in as attractive a manner as possible, before presenting it to you, dear readers and listeners, in the hope that you will give us your attention.


Some people are saying that Raja Petra is a paid mercenary and a propagandist for hire, which I confess, is something that I also have believed in the past to be true, but the more I myself am becoming a writer and the more I ask myself why is it that I am writing all the things that I am writing, the less I am becoming convinced that Raja Petra is a pen for hire.



If he was a pen for hire, he would probably be working for the mainstream media, where all he would have needed to do was toe-to-line, and he would have been a top executive who earns a fat paycheck by now.


The fact that Raja Petra is in exile in England while working as an independent writer is actually proof that whatever he is expressing is just a reflection of his heart and mind.


Let me reinstate this. A bona fide writer is just someone who intends to express what is already indigenous to their heart and mind. We are not trying to tell you what you want to hear or make you think the way we want you to think. We are just intending to express what we have in our own hearts and mind, that is all.


Whether you like what we express is not something that we can control. Just because we criticised Anwar last month but praised him this month, it doesn’t mean we have changed paymaster. It just means that what is in our hearts and minds depends on what we observe and experience in reality, which is subject to change, because reality is subject to change.



Of course, like every other person who tries to stay on the side of what is right and good, a writer also has to struggle to balance our principles with our self-interest. When Raja Petra has to choose between his self-interest and principles, which for a person with his position, circumstances and level of prominence, is something that I am sure has happened and will continue to happen, I don’t know whether he has always kept his principles above his self-interest.


As the saying goes, to err is human after all.


One thing I will say though is that even if Raja Petra has erred in putting his self-interest above his principles, I certainly do not believe that it is an event that happens frequently because his writings and expressions do not sound like it belongs to a base person who regularly and unabashedly puts his self-interest above his principles without any sense of shame or compunction.


I am quite certain of this because I know for a fact that it would have been impossible for him to express himself in the way that he does if that were to be the case. Something inside him would have died, and you could have smelled the rot in his writing and his expressions because of it.


As a writer, I am aware that I will probably cut Raja Petra more slack than the regular Malaysian, on account of him being a trailblazer for the line of business that people like me are engaged in, which is that of an independent writer.


As to the question of whether he should be pardoned and allowed to return to Malaysia, I am not going to pitch in my two cents worth, because my decision will likely be biased. If that question is ever seriously raised, I will leave it to my fellow citizens to make the decision.


If there is one thing I will say about Raja Petra however, it is that someday we are going to look at him and regret the way we have treated him in the same way that we currently regret treating P. Ramlee and Sudirman.


As much as P. Ramlee was a great artist and Sudirman was a great performer, I daresay that at his prime, Raja Petra is one the best writers if not the best writer that the country has produced.


In any case, even if we never acknowledge him as one of our best writers or pardon him and allow him to return to the country, one thing I hope that we will not do is to call him a political whore, as some of us are apt to do.

I really hope we will stop, not chiefly for Raja Petra’s sake, but for the sake of all the writers and journalists who work for the mainstream media.


If Raja Petra is a political whore, for at most, pawning his voice for the price of some silver or gold, every now and then, what do you call the writers and journalists who work in the mainstream media, who clocks into work, day in and day out, just to write whatever it is that their bosses want them to write, all for the sake of a paycheck.



No one in the mainstream media writes what they truly think and feel, by the way. They only write about the feelings and thinking that their bosses approve of, which in other words, means they are basically just writing what their bosses want them to say.


In Raja Petra’s expressions, at least you can find the voice of a living soul, that seeks to find some kind of truth that will provide meaning to their lives, even if they can't help but stray and fumble along the way.


Can you say the same thing about things you read in mainstream media?




Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, The Star, Malaysia-Today, MalaysiaNow, MalaysiaKini and Focus Malaysia.