Humans have five senses through which they receive information about the physical world around them. Some of the information is unpleasant.
The nose detects impurities in the air we breathe. Air borne pollutants are offensive. The ear detects sounds which are harsh and loud. This is noise pollution. The eye detects sights both garish and ugly. This is visual pollution. The tongue detects impurities in the food and water we ingest. Pollutants are both unwelcome and dangerous to one's health.
We have learnt to value clean air and water. Aromas offensive to the nose we treat as by-products of open sewers, and thus unavoidable. Passive tobacco smoke can be objected to, especially in places designated as non-smoking areas.
But the pollutants which offend the eye are not yet a subject of public debate. This leaves an opening for the advertising agencies, whose ambition is to cover every surface with their revenue-producing signboards.
A new company has emerged in Malaysia, with a tempting offer to the authorities of four major cities to build street lamps, bus stop shelters, and generally any structure the city may desire, in exchange for the right to place their advertising before the public eye in perpetuity. They seek a licence to create visual pollution.
Damages not factored in
Advertising provides the petrol to propel the presses and keep the TV cameras scanning. Advertising supports radio stations and is ever more important to the Internet. As the hand that holds the money, it carries influential weight in all areas of the media world. The problem is that advertisers have no ethics, they are businessmen who have no morality.
Advertising in the newspapers is tolerable. On TV it is less so, but for the moment the public does not sufficiently support TV so that it is possible to make it pollutant free. We have come to tolerate it to a degree, but there are limits beyond which we must find other things to do during the commercials. The advertisers take great pains to keep us in our seats by an ever-changing bag of graphic and audio tricks.
Advertisers want to catch our eye. They want their message on the front and back page, which get the first attention. They place their billboards before the most pleasing scenery. They block the most enticing landscapes. The fact that the view is spoiled for everyone is not their concern. They are advertisers. Their primary role is to influence your spending habits, and what they may damage in doing so is not a factor in their planning.
The soft drink companies place their colorful machines at every mosque. The soda cans are stamped with the official halal logo even though they contain the drug caffeine. This strikes a Muslim as an untoward invasion into sacred ground. Who approved the soda machines? How did a drug-containing drink get approval for the halal stamp?
The sale of flavoured sugar water and cigarettes is highly dependent on advertising. Thus the companies who wish to market these commodities will advertise whenever and wherever possible. They support sports programmes so extensively that the youth and sports ministry joins them in their advertising programme.
We find the emblem of the youth and sports ministry on all their billboards purporting to advertise sports events, when the true intent is to form a psychological link between the healthy sports activity and their product.
Between health and wealth
The fact that their product is a major contributor to lung and circulatory diseases does not matter to them. They are interested only in sales, not obituaries or medical costs. Why is the youth and sports minister so closely associated with these merchants of misery? Certainly it is not because he is unaware of their unsavoury reputation.
The revenue from advertising cigarettes is a significant source of support for the public TV stations. But can we afford it? The information minister will not join the health minister, the Malaysian Medical Association and the Penang Consumers Association in calling for a total ban on the sale of tobacco products. His priorities are clearly wrong. There is no amount of advertising revenue which can compensate for the deleterious effects of tobacco on public health.
The placement of outdoor advertisement is a form of environmental pollution, and as such should be condemned. What is in place should be removed. What is proposed should be defeated.
The youth and sports minister should make a public explanation of his association with the tobacco advertisements, and justify his resistance to banning the sale of tobacco. The information minister must explain why it is more important to have tobacco advertising than good health.
HARUN RASHID is a scientist avidly interested in the application of Islamic principles in international affairs. The promotion of goodwill through civilisational dialogue motivates his writing. His Worldview column is a personal analysis of Malaysian affairs from a global perspective. [#1][Worldview archives][/#]
