Believe & Hear In What You Want To Believe & Hear

We are at in the state of confusion, no doubt. Malaysians are not sure who and what to believe anymore.

A friend of mine, a commoner/layman like me, last week showed me some print outs. It was a print out of several blog postings from one ‘Pendekar Tanah Air’ the blog had allegedly insulted Indians. I believe the blog is closed for now due to objections.

My friend, who is a Hindraf and Pakatan Rakyat supporter, went on an offensive and suggested that the blog owner must be a Malay and claimed that Malays are becoming more and more racist, hence the emergence of such blogs. My immediate response was, ‘agreed’ that there are some racist, hate blogs, but so are presence of many other blogs insulting Malays and Chinese, directly and indirectly, as well.

Bloggers would agree that we have seen some anonymous blogs which are far worse than this which propagates hatred and racism like never before. The point here is my friend is not a regular internet surfer and relies on vernacular newspapers, The Star, his group of friends for information and at times malaysiakini’s Tamil version,

As we know, internet (with or without broadband) penetration is still low; hence Malaysians still rely on traditional media for information. People still do buy newspapers, but they would believe in every other content except for local politics, thanks to the successful anti-MSM campaigns by the opposition.

At times, it cannot be denied that the opposition is right and stories are slanted in favor BN. However, the opposition owned newspapers or bulletins, which are widely available and available free online, are also at times, equally guilty of spreading lies and their stories are, without doubt, written in favor of Opposition parties and their interest. Good example would be the countdown to Sept 16 complete with latest table of Parliament seats in favor of Pakatan Rakyat and various accusations against Najib.

Such simple print out brandished by my friend (who belongs to 80% Malaysians who do not browse regularly) has led to some kind of hatred; imagine those who do not read at all.

I tried to explain that such blogs are ever present in the blogsphere but unfortunately, people do not understand blogs and how they work. This is where politicians and their supporters take advantage to influence gullible Malaysians. Even if some blogs does not directly insult others, we have seen nasty, insulting racist comments on postings by regular and popular bloggers.

I also told him that there are every possibility that the blog was created by an Indian (you know who) to create hatred towards the main suspect here, the Malays. But who is listening!! Gullible Malaysians appears to want to believe and hear what they want to believe and hear as they are naturally negative and prejudiced.

More Lies and Confusion

With the recent events in Perak, Kedah and Selangor, Malaysians are more confused, although they arrogantly do not want to admit that they are.

A Psychologist used to tell me that you will see the true colours of a person or organization when observing how they behave when in crisis. We saw some of it from BN component parties’ right after the general elections and throughout 2008.

What we saw in Perak, Kedah and Selangor would have disappointed hard core Pakatan Rakyat supporters, especially how their leaders behaved. I was particularly not impressed with the accusations that came aftermath the Perak takeover, especially that when
They rejoiced (Harapan Baru) right after Bota assemblymen crossed over. When the table was turned and BN took over Perak, various accusations flew from opposition camp in Perak, Kedah, Selangor, KL, Kelantan and Penang . But not a single iota of evidence was presented except for the usual statuary declarations, which only has a value for wrapping of Nasi Lemak bungkus nowdays.

One PKR member made a police report claiming that RM 5 Million was offered to ADUNs right after the general elections. Some of my friends (opposition supporters) immediately slammed BN as we were watching the news. I did question the motive of the police report now since the incident allegedly happened right after the general elections, almost a year ago. No one was bothered with my line of questioning the sincerity of the complainant. People appear to be selective in what they want to hear and would not want to have an inquiring mind.

PKR on the other hand blamed BN immediately for the release of Elizabeth Wong’s pictures, again without any evidence. Sivarasa, who was with Eli in the press conference, declared dramatically that the incident was politically motivated and offered the timing as an evidence, since it coincided with the opening of parliament session. We need not ask how is it politically motivated! As a prominent lawyer, the least we expect is some tiny bits of evidence. We know now that the main suspect is Eli’s lover, who happened to be a PKR member and Malay. Before anything, another accusation was thrown that the guy was planted by BN? The story goes on and gullible Malaysians continue to believe what they want to believe…

The same applies with Adun V.Arumugam’s resignation. There were accusations that BN continued to pressure him to cross over, although his cross over would not have changed the state government in Kedah. We still remember how MB Nizar reacted when Two PKR Excos were charged in court for corruption, he says it’s a trap and now they are deriding the same Excos when they chose to leave Pakatan Rakyat. Now, Pakatan supporters say that the two Aduns are really corrupt!

For hard core PKR supporters and fellow gullible Malaysians, BN is to blame for everything that goes wrong for them. The rule is, create an impact by accusing BN immediately through press and media, or ask for resignation of the accused and need not show any evidence. The press will put up the story prominently in the beginning and later the stories will only continue in small columns in the back pages and eventually disappears. With this, they manage to create an immediate impact on gullible Malaysians, there is no need to follow through with evidence etc. As everyone says, in politics, perception is more important than truth. That’s the rule of the game.

When Opposition party members are accused of something, like the situation with Perak ex-PKR MPs and Selangor MB, open the Pakatan Rakyat law books and declare that ‘innocent until proven guilty’ with disclaimer “this is not applicable to BN’. For BN the rule is ‘guilty when you are perceived to be guilty by demi-god Pakatan Rakyat leaders’

For the record, I am all for fresh polls, and I am sure that Pakatan Rakyat will win with two third majority. But after seeing Pakatan Rakyat’s reaction to various controversies affecting them, their individual parties and members, I am quite sure that many would have made their mind not to vote Pakatan anymore.

Their reaction, action, contradictory statements and leaders’ childish attitude does not give any confidence to their supporters, especially those who are not their hardcore supporters. For once, Raja Petra and ‘Singh is King’ Karpal is right, they badly need good leaders who can think rationally and act like a future government leaders supported by the majority, and not like some street fighters in suits who were suddenly elevated to govern. Frankly, we do not see any in BN as well.

Back to my original story, my friend was unfortunately was not convinced with my explanation and appears to have made up his mind. I now, may now have to look for some nasty, insulting articles on Malays or Chinese to show him and prove my point. It may not be worth the effort after all since Malaysians appear want to believe and hear in what they want to believe & hear.