It’s not about the flag, okay?

Ng Eng Kiat, September 14, 2007

English, Eng Kiat, Columns |

By Ng Eng Kiat

Reading the week’s reports about the Batu Buruk incident last Saturday, one can be forgiven if she/he now thinks it fine for an Opposition supporter to be critically injured by a live bullet.

There are enough people who are more informed than I am to write on why the Batu Buruk “rioters” were, or were not, Opposition supporters. So, I’ll leave that fight to them and take on our country’s supposed Fourth Estate, which instead of playing the state’s hand, should be playing the noble role of keeping the state accountable for its actions.

As you will see, the state-linked mainstream press in Malaysia are either very stupid or very smart. They are definitely not in between.

While the desecration of the Jalur Gemilang was framed to be unjustifiable at all levels, major newspapers in Malaysia quickly offered major space to the Police force in justifying the shooting spree.

Women and children, said a Police official, were being protected when one shot was fired towards the air to disperse the raging crowd of rioters. It has now been further clarified that FOUR shots were fired.

And with such aplomb did the Deputy Prime Minister grab the opportunity to associate his government’s Opposition with a word so close to the post-May 13 minds of Malaysians - chaos.

Chaos, he explained, is what the country is plunging towards unless the law is respected.

Such comments would seem harmless or even logical but only if divorced from the context they were being produced in.

Highlighted and skewed in a manner which tells one pretty much nothing else apart from the two issues above, the image of destructive rebellions was further produced in the news with pictures of the Jalur Gemilang being defaced.

Alongside such pictures, of course, were disclaimers in the form of utterances defending the concept of equality and consistency in law.

“Groups, organisations and members of the public, regardless of their political leanings, must respect the law or there will be chaos,” said the DPM.

In the study of discourse, that would be known as positive self presentation as the DPM is not neutral, has interest in a particular political party, and isn’t a fence-sitter in national politics. His call for respect of the law, taken in context, was no more than an attempt to exert his positional authority to retain a moral high ground in defining the incident.

One daily headline read “Ceramah clash in Terengganu” with the accompanying story ending with: ” The ceramah was supported by PAS, PKR and DAP.”

Implicit to the mainstream audience, the vagueness behind such reporting contributes to the construction that BN supporters respect the law whereas PAS, PKR and DAP rioters bring chaos to the nation, hence the need of Police force in protecting public property, women, and children.

But then, the (absolute) power of the media in effecting beliefs has been contested since the 60s. Audiences, it was found, were not passive and certainly almost never swallowed media text as the whole truth.

Yet, as it is said, the press may not be successful in telling people what to think but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.

I asked a junior of mine at school what he thought about Batu Buruk, his reply nonetheless amazed me.

“Oh, you mean the flag burning incident?”

“Dude, it wasn’t just about the flag…” I stopped short of telling him it was about free and fair elections, nor about the two Malaysians who were shot at by a plain-clothes policeman working as a “spy” within the “enemy”. Those messages didn’t find a way through the “responsible” press Malaysia is so famous for.

“I didn’t follow the case closely,” he said, “just glanced through the reports.”

Malaysiakini, when will you be free?

The day the press is truly free is the day we see change. Governments matter less (to me).

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