Fascist Book of Tricks

"It is an old strategy in the fascist book of tricks: to dehumanize the other, to relegate and reduce their individuality into racial labels and to render their hopes, fears and vulnerabilities invisible; in other words, to oppress. What is worse, passages from the holy Quran are evoked in the process for justification."

Ouch… Unless you have a supremely thick hide, to be called a fascist must surely hurt somewhere.

The only fascist I know in my ever so limited knowledge is Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), him who was a leader of one of the three Axis Alliance of World War II.

For an in-depth read on what exactly is fascism, look it up in Wikipedia here. One thing’s for sure, it is not pretty to be called one.

Anyway, the above is a direct copy pasting of a statement by the Islamic Renaissance Front titled: “Lessons from the demonization of DAP”.

This is in the back of two front pages by DAP’s perennial fourth estate foe, Utusan Malaysia, of so-called religious, urm, statement that it is haram (not kosher?) to vote for DAP and any other political parties who are “sekongkol”ing with them as they (DAP, that is) is a kafir harbi kind of party.

As I don’t read Utusan, I neither know head nor tale of the detail story, but even the headline is somewhat silly vis a vis the soon-but-not-that soon to be held 13^th General Election. 

Say, just say for brevity's sake that you do take the issue seriously.

Okay; noted then. No crossing the boxes of DAP candidates, even if they are Malays or Muslims.

No crossing boxes of “sekongkol”ing political parties either; so scratch PSM, PKR and PAS candidates.

Which leaves fellow non partisan Malaysian Muslims with pretty much only the independents IF they wish to NOT vote for the candidates of UMNO and “sekongkol”ing MCA-MIC and the likes.

 

You know, there is such a thing as Syubhah (looks like haram but not quite, so better to keep at arm’s length).

Then again, independents these days are either BN or PR friendly, so you’re stuck there to.

I give up: do you even get to exercise this once every five year basic right then?

Seriously, Utusan Malaysia has played the racial card and now is playing the religious card against DAP with nary a slap on the wrist.

To what ends are the editors looking at with such incendiary headlines?

Let’s face it: as it is, many have made up their made their mind whose butt they want kicked come vote counting time, and stoking such racial and religious lines just jack up the adrenaline levels of only hard core followers.

I seriously doubt it will sway the so called fence sitters with minds of their own.

Simply Toxic

When I quit the NST in March 2008, there was already some considerable clash of ideals within me.

Just as the nation was hit with the so-called 2008 Electoral Tsunami, so too was our motley group of media practitioners (chewah!) in Ipoh similarly affected.

I guess I just got fed up with having to toe the political line in having to cover the functions and events of the-then sore losers of Perak Barisan.

On hindsight, I am sure glad I am out of the journalistic loop vis-à-vis the current scenario of heavily politicized and overly partisan “news” coverage.

So much so that integrity is being given a quick and painful kick in the butt. Just like this alleged replacing of the word “Scientology” with “Islam” of a supposed speech by Australian Senator Nick Xenophon as per the following excerpt:

“What we are seeing is a worldwide pattern of abuse and criminality. On the body of evidence, this is not happening by accident; it is happening by design. Islam is not a religious organisation. It is a criminal organisation that hides behind its so-called religious beliefs.”

Were the words uttered by a Malaysian, surely there’ll be groups calling for his or her head by now.

It is a silly act, though, as such copy pasting could be - and in fact was - easily discovered.

But then again, I remembered having to tweak an article on the political sentiments of the Kinta Valley Chinese community as to favor the Barisan Nasional pre-2008 General Elections.

My colleagues from the other Press had a good laugh at my expense when the byline-less observations - written under protest - saw light.

I read also today of journalists donning black in protest of violence against media personnel especially during Saturday’s monumental Bersih 3.0 rally which turned quite ugly.

The Chinese papers reportedly came out with Black front pages in solidarity to this cause.

Over at the other main stream newspapers, though, things seemed pretty much status quo.

Saw BH front paging “news” of some horse-ying involving opposition MPs Anwar and Kit Siang and I couldn’t care less what Utusan, Kosmo and Metro had on theirs.

Fair to say that these papers pretty much crossed the Rubicon of impartiality for a while now.

What’s scary is that they continue to be the main source of “news” for a good majority in the community.

Toxic nation building. In walloping dollops.

Intra Vires

Jagdeep: Can you explain the word "ultra vires" as contained in the first paragraph of Karpal's statement?

Nizam: To insult.

Jagdeep: Your misunderstanding of the word has caused chaos in the country. The word actually means "beyond the powers".

The excerpt above from NST piece on Karpal Singh’s ongoing sedition trial highlight one of the many pitfalls which reporters have to face up to on a daily basis in the discharging of their duties.

Most of the time, we (sorry, they, since I am no longer in the profession) are expected to be up to date on everything there is under the sun.

The oft-quoted remark is usually: “You should know. You’re a reporter.”

Right.

A walking, breathing Google, perhaps?

On many occasion, some reporters do know more on specific subject matters because they have worked donkey years on the same, but this would not often be the case for those working in the Bureaus (branches).

They would normally be required to cover everything from the crime beat and court to metro (drain, garbage and local happenings) news.

The more senior ones get to do national politics and features, and those which are worthy front or page lead materials.

On weekdays, stories usually get through one round of editing; usually by the one manning the fort for the day.

Major rewrites are quite unusual at this stage unless it is a really, really horribly written copy.

The story is then sent to news editors who would then proceed to edit: cut, cut and paste, cut, paste and rewrite, cut, paste, rewrite and editorialise, or, worse, spike.

The last phrase sees the story in the trash bin, by the way.

It’s the very same dreaded phrase that makes covering press conferences by politicians not aligned to Barisan Nasional, a real pain.

A pain as you normally end up self censoring, knowing that some shit would not stick in the mainstream, and tailor the story so as to have a fair chance of appearing.

Normally a good practice would be to get the “other side” of the story.

Throw all these in and what you get are pressed reporter who needs to get the story out to meet deadlines.

You do any research needed (old clippings, google, news archive) but your hope is usually for a relatively clean (minimal editing) copy.

Spins?

I’ve been personally asked to rewrite articles to provide certain slants but, ahem, spinning, if any, is usually done elsewhere in the media hierarchy.

Sometimes I stand my ground when I’m asked to do so, but most of the time I just do it as long as it is still representative of what the story is all about.

Yep, the great joys to be among the meek.

The alternative is to ask for a no byline; the kind of protest meek reporters would do.

Reporters usually have a good measure of pride in their copy, clean or otherwise.

We (opps again, they) usually stand by it and all the reason why every words typed should be owned.

And owned up to.