The overwhelming outpouring of public support for Malaysiakini and with equal measure of condemnation over the actions and words of the seemingly shielded ‘red-shirts’ is a clear affirmation that we are reaching a troublesome, perhaps even a dangerous, defining phase in our country’s media history.

All journalists, the organisations representing the centuries old profession and investors behind media businesses need to align and converge to launch an affirmative stand if this country is determined to insure itself against a highly possible ‘China media control’ model that is not aligned to democracy.

The democratic worldview, and one upon which Malaysia’s constitution and parliamentary democracy is anchored, cannot become subservient to the antics and fancies, and become the tools as well of any regime that thinks and acts unilaterally for its people.

Now that the Malaysian prime minister has single-handedly and without consultation with the citizens of the country signed some RM144 billion deals with a communist nation, it should raise avenues for debate, examination and unbiased review.

Now that at the conclusion of this deal a small nation’s critical assets are being allegedly largely owned and are to be managed, let alone dictated, by a historically communism-rooted government, we need independent voices to act as pivotal checks and balances in the best interest of sovereign Malaysia.

Now that the digital media future of Malaysia sits in the lap of one communist China ‘new media king’, the independence of Malaysian media desperately needs to be critically safeguarded.

Our nation’s most sacred future is enshrined in our constitutional monarchy which is also the cherubrim of democracy as practised by the free world.

It is time for all media - local and foreign, to galvanise their noble duty to inform as they have a categorical imperative duty to ensure that the citizens’ right to truth is not compromised, coerced, manipulated and worst, exploited.

In this hour of potential perils, Malaysiakini cannot be left to fight the intensifying battle alone. There is a mutuality between media operators and owners, journalists and their guilds, civil society and the the entire world leaders of democratic societies.

This battle is not just about Malaysiakini seeking funds from one ‘Soros’ as it is drummed out to be. It is an agenda in motion that threatens the very constitutional monarchy of a nation and people and rulers who have since as well as before 1957, stood for each other through thick and thin, including the raids by colonial regimes, the heights of communist expansions and a Japanese occupation.

Now the onus is on the prime minister of Malaysia to convince the world of free and clean media that it is not the case. Until then, the thoughts expressed in this letter hold.