The six-month-old language switch controversy seems to have taken a new twist with political parties and influential non-governmental organisations publicly challenging the credibility and integrity of the official media, including pro-Umno newspapers and the state-owned radio and television stations.

On Nov 17, veteran parliamentary opposition leader and DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang fired a salvo at the state-owned Radio Television Malaysia (RTM) for screening what he described "a most biased, unfair and distorted propaganda attack camouflaged as news".

Among others, Lim said the news clip featured "the attack of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Dong Jiao Zong over the Suqiu issue as extremists and like communists" and it also "paints Dong Jiao Zong and DAP as chauvinists which posed threats to the national well-being".

Dong Jiao Zong is the collective name for two influential Chinese education movements, Dong Zong and Jiao Zong. The movements have strongly opposed the language switch.

Lim, who is a lawyer, Internal Security Act detainee and an elected member of parliament for 30 years from 1969 to 1999, was an English-language journalist before he became a politician.

The next day, Lim was echoed by both the chairpersons of Dong Zong and Jiao Zong, namely businessman Quek Suan Hiang and teacher Ong Kow Ee.

Gross distortion

Quek was quoted by Nanyang Siang Pau on Nov 19 as saying that the news clip was "a gross distortion of reality" and "concoction" that was "devoid of any journalistic conscience and ethics".

The businessman reportedly accused RTM of "misleading our Malay compatriots".

Quek was also quoted as calling on government leaders in MCA and Gerakan "to investigate the reason why such news clips appeared".

Expressing an equally strong sentiment, the chairperson of Jiao Zong also reportedly called on the Home Ministry to investigate RTM as well as Malay dailies Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian .

Earlier, top MCA leaders also unprecedentedly and publicly attacked the two dailies for allegedly "misquoting", "distorting" and "concocting" information.

They claimed that this painted leaders in the Chinese-based component parties of the ruling Barisan Nasional and non-governmental organisations as "chauvinists" and "extremists" over the language-switch controversy.

For example, on Nov 16, MCA vice-president and Housing and Local Governments Minister Ong Ka Ting was quoted by all major Chinese-language newspapers as describing Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian as " irresponsible" and "detrimental to harmony and unity in a multiethnic society".

Ong also accused the two newspapers of "misleading the Malay community".

On Nov 17, MCA central committee member and Deputy Home Minister Chor Chee Heung was quoted by Sin Chew Daily as denying a report in Utusan Malaysia which claimed that he said the government would use the ISA to detain leaders of Dong Jiao Zong.

Problematic relations

Like it or not, the state-owned RTM and two pro-Umno newspapers have also been having problematic relations with the Malay/Muslim and international communities, especially after the sacking and detention of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in 1998.

Their credibility and integrity have also been widely questioned and challenged.

For example, a 'news' report in the front page of Utusan Malaysia dated Oct 4, 1998 claimed that a group of pro-Anwar female Malay/Muslim protestors were "prostitutes hired by" some non-governmental organisations.

Later, the then police chief of Kuala Lumpur Kamaruddin Ali publicly denied the report.

Another example is the 'Malott Incident' which involves a front-page report in Utusan Malaysia published on March 30, 2001.

In this report, the daily claimed that a retired United States ambassador to Malaysia, John R Malott was present at a "secret" meeting held by Keadilan in a hotel in Petaling Jaya a day earlier.

However, Malott was, at the material time, in California. According to the former envoy, who wrote a letter demanding an apology from the daily, he had not been to Malaysia since January 2000.

He added: "According to a message that I have received, ( Utusan reporter) Miss (Mahraini) Kamaruddin says she was ordered to write that false report by her boss and to include my name".

Malott also specifically demanded Utusan Malaysia to publish an apology and a statement to acknowledge that the report "was not accurate".

He further demanded that the daily removes the false article from the archives on its website.

Utusan Malaysia obliged and published a statement of apology, but similar demands from PAS and DAP leaders who were also misreported to be "present" in the meeting were ignored.

The so-called "secret" meeting was also proven not to be a great secret after all.

It was a normal close-door briefing session called by Anwar's wife and Keadilan president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to report his health condition to the international diplomatic community in Kuala Lumpur.

Article 3(1)(d) of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations permits diplomats to ascertain "by all lawful means conditions and developments in the receiving state, and to report thereon to the government of the sending state".

Propaganda tool

On its part, RTM has always been accused by leaders, members and supporters of the opposition parties to be a propaganda tool of the Umno-dominated government.

For example, several months ago, images of PAS' top leaders were 'skilfully' linked to footage of an alleged summary execution in Afghanistan carried out by the Taliban regime, and other alleged incidents of terrorism.

The objective was to insinuate without directly alleging that the Muslim-based PAS was 'associated' with terrorism.

One of its many controversial programmes which purported to explain the causes of underdevelopment in the PAS-controlled Ketantan, attributed the sole cause of poverty to the opposition party.

Titled ' Gerhana Kelantan ' (Eclipse in Kelantan), the so-called 'documentary' aroused public outcry in the Malay/Muslim community and was even debated in Parliament.

Another one of the great instances of propaganda took place just before the 1990 general election.

RTM, Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian repeatedly showed a photograph of the then opposition leader Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah wearing a Kadazan headgear bearing the image of a crucifix.

Razaleigh, who has since returned to the ruling front, was decried for "selling out Muslims to Christians".

Political threats

Seen from these backdrops, five observations readily come to mind:

First, the targets of the propagandistic attacks are not confined to the Chinese alone, but also Malays/Muslims or Westerners who are perceived to be political threats to the regime's (not national) security.

Second, given the long-standing and on-going challenges to the credibility and integrity of the pro-Umno official media in the Malay/Muslim community, whether the current attack on 'Chinese chauvinists' and 'extremists' would 'effectively' have an impact on the minds of Malays/Muslims, many of whom have already been branded as 'fanatics', 'militants' and 'radicals', is open to question;

Third, given the historical backdrops, it could asked if it is the official media which is 'manipulating' political leaders to feel 'self-important', or some political leaders secretly 'exploiting' the official media to 'soften', 'neutralise' and 'turn over' their political threats, whether in the forms of persons, institutions and organisations, or social forces.

Fourth, although it is now popular for opposition leaders and members to attribute the 'dirty works' almost entirely to Zainuddin Maidin, the former editor-in-chief of Utusan Malaysia and parliamentary secretary to the Information Ministry, the propaganda techniques and imageries actually pre-date his political appointment.

The imageries are deeply rooted in the collective psychology, threat perception and security culture of Umno's ethno-nationalist ideologues and strategists. (see Chin Kin Wah, Reflections on the Shaping of Strategic Cultures in Southeast Asia , in da Chunha, Derek, ed., Southeast Asian Perspectives on Security, Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000; pp. 1-19, especially p.15)

Fifth, the origins of the imageries of dissenting and vocal Chinese as "chauvinists" (or "communists"), Malays/Muslims as "mad mullahs" or "emotionally unstable fanatics", or Indians as "trouble-makers" can be traced back to the heydays of British colonialism in Peninsula Malaya and Singapore in the early 20th century when the nascent police Special Branch (SB) began profiling and classifying challengers to the imperialist interests and values, according to what they saw as their 'immutable' racial traits and religious behaviours.