COMMENT Is the government morphing into a control freak in its plans to revamp social media?

 

What is its real motive in revamping the laws on social media? It has already stymied free speech in Parliament and the public arena, and now its tentacles are reaching out into cyberspace.

 

It has broken all previous records in the number of people charged with sedition when the public knows all those people are not guilty of the charges but are fair dinkum loyal citizens and trying to make their country a more democratic and just place.

 

It cites misuse as a reason. By who, where, when and why? Can the government look at itself in the mirror and say with all clear conscience its hands are clean?

 

We know the government itself has an army of cybertroopers trawling the Internet and targeting critics of the government. But they have failed in their propaganda attacks because Malaysians are not blind, nor stupid.

 

They are intelligent, well-informed and see through the duplicity of laws to control dissent and erode basic freedoms. And they resent being treated like children in an enlarging political nanny state.

 

The government has to be careful not to make enemies of friends because it is flexing its muscles into the wrong places and in the wrong manner. Ill-conceived ideas and censorship are bad for the country already reeling from an overworked and partisan police force that has no time to worry about trivial pursuits. 

 

Those who abuse social media are not as much a problem as those who abuse the government media to spread lies and propaganda. The misuse of such media is the real need of the hour. 

 

It is hypocritical to target social media when the real menace is not in cyberspace but in Putrajaya’s backroom and the editorial rooms of its politically-controlled media, aided by foreign media mercenaries. 

 

Those who use social media have their own way of filtering rubbish. For example when I read comments in Malaysiakini I can easily detect the cybertroopers out to cause mischief, though some are rather like chameleons but still you detect the venomous spin.

 

Yes, some comments are puerile, perhaps even offensive, but that bloke in Parliament (Kinabatangan MP Bung Moktar Radin, left ) who asked for a revamp isn’t exactly Mother Teresa-like in his unparliamentary language and misuse of the August House. Extreme language and ideas are automatically ignored because readers are more discerning than the government gives them credit for.

 

Because something is published does not mean it is believed or acted upon and that is the fault of the Federal Territories Islamic Affairs Department (Jawi) that continues its hounding of Borders bookshop manager Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz.

 

You can get every banned book in Malaysia in the Internet, so what’s the fuss?

 

Cybertroopers target

 

Some years ago when I wrote a letter to Malaysiakini that saw the boys in blue pay the Malaysiakini office a visit, pages appeared in the Internet defaming me with all sorts of lies. Overnight I became a cybertrooper’s target.

 

With exotic names, patently obvious, they dug into me, tried to get under my skin with their sharp keyboards and filled their pages with lies, but it was water off a duck’s back because I have a crocodile skin against spinmeisters, whoever their paymaster.

 

God bless them for keeping me humble. How much more leaders elected to serve people who act like lords of the manor and born to rule when the truth is they are public servants pledged to serve the country and Agong and need to keep their feet on the ground.

 

“Truth never hurt a good cause,” as Mahatma Gandhi said and I like to repeat, and Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free,” so whatever revamp means it must never encroach on the freedom for the truth to be published without fear or favour and especially without any government or political interference.

 

Social media is the last resort for those whose voices have been silenced by repressive states. They offer freedom a voice and a chance to be vindicated. And those who try to stifle that voice will fail.

 

Even mighty China concedes it cannot win the war against dissidents by boxing in the Internet which is a technological monster that cannot be caged.

 

The government should try good governance instead of bad laws or inordinate policing. 

 

I don’t know what the amendments will be like but Malaysians ought to be vigilant and not allow the last avenue of freedom to be usurped by those who have double standards in enforcement. 

 

Bad laws make a mockery of the rule of law. Any law that unfairly controls the freedom of anyone or subjects that freedom to the discretion of an authority is a bad law. That is why printing and publishing licences and the Sedition Act are bad laws.

 

And that is why misrule of law happens ever so often when the court has ruled Malaysiakini should be given a licence to print but the authorities refuse to budge. Whither the rule of law?

 

Misrule of law

 

It results in the misrule of law when Parliament, instead of being a sanctuary for members to articulate the plight of the unjustly treated as when recently MP Nurul Izzah Anwar echoed her father’s criticisms of the judges who unjustly jailed him, becomes a desecrated house of destroyed freedom.

 

Unwittingly Anwar Ibrahim’s enemies are forcing many into his corner because no self-respecting citizen ought to be turned into a slave by his or her government in a democracy and treated so disrespectfully.

 

Malaysians ought to read Gene Sharp’s book ‘ From Dictatorship to Democracy ’ available free in the Internet and educate themselves on how to save their country from dictatorial doom.

 

It is not a crime to dissent but it is criminal to misuse the powers of state to unfairly prosecute the innocent, as we have witnessed in another incident, cartoonist Zunar’s persecution .

 

Such abuse of power and the misuse of government media to spin as we have seen a certain government-linked medium fined for defamation several times is the real danger and problem.

 

If a government cannot be mature and thick-skinned enough to cope with criticisms it has no place in politics where criticism is the norm in the industry. Thin-skinned leaders are bad for government. But those who cope with criticisms, constructive or not, make better leaders.  

 

If the government thinks the case of blogger Alvin Tan is reason for revamping the laws, how will it do it? What new laws are needed to deal with the Alvin Tans that existing laws can’t?

 

Does the government not think that the natural laws of moral decency enough for people to reject his silly and puerile acts of indecent bravado. What’s spectacular about something that billions of people do every day but in the modesty and privacy of their bedrooms?

 

In its over-reaction the government merely fuelled this young man’s infamous celebrity. It proves the jackboot approach does not work on some people and not everyone is obsequious to authority.

 

And despite all the government chest-thumping, it looks like Tan may have the last laugh. It is a joke if Tan the rare exception is the reason for a revamp. How many Malaysians publish their sex videos so flagrantly? How many in fact do have sex videos? Will they next revamp the laws on the sale of video cameras and cite Alvin Tan?

 

Why make new laws for the exceptions? How many Malaysians do abuse or misuse social media to justify a revamp? What is the percentage of misuse?

 

The government cannot justify censoring a new media in this new age of changing and advancing technology and will be wasting time and money in further draconian moves to curb social media.

 

The only revamp needed is to stop extremist terror groups from using social media to recruit Malaysians into their mad and evil activities.

 

The best defence

 

Even then it is police work that will be the best defence. No one should use the excuse to control social media unless the offenders are flagrantly engaged in illegal and terrorist activities.

 

Dissent is the crucial pillar of democracy and while social media has its range of crackpots to serious political dissidents a mature approach to governance will not necessitate unwarranted censorship.

 

Revamp must not be another word for repress and Malaysians must now be fed up of the surge in inordinate censorship of freedoms in the country.

 

PM Najib Abdul Razak can’t be serious about all that talk of the “world’s best democracy”, “PM for all” and lecturing public servants on integrity when he appears to be out of sync with the moral compass he purports to set for the nation.

 

His walking in the opposite direction of his talk is of serious concern. He told people to “tighten their belts” and went off to splurge on a new jet of ‘luxury and comfort’.

 

No one should begrudge a leader enjoying the life of the rich and famous but only after rural Malaysians have the basics of roads, electricity and water still missing in various communities and no new tax like the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to finance government over-spending and reckless investing, for example 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). 

 

The abuse of any public facility is normal. Hoons abuse the roads by speeding so do we revamp the roads and place humps every few metres on the North-South Expressway like they do in some suburbs in Ipoh to prevent misuse?

 

What I find distasteful is the dishonesty of a government in disguising its real reasons for its action and appealing to flimsy excuses to justify its questionable deeds or misdeeds.

 

To allude to Facebook clamping down on abusers as reason for the revamp of Malaysia's laws regulating social media is utterly absurd. Facebook does not ban users for criticising their governments. They go after those who are spamming, commit commercial fraud, etc.

 

Crocodile skins for ministers

 

If the government wants credibility as a democracy it must supply its ministers and members with crocodile skins. Then they will not feel offended and deem every single negative comment anyone makes against them as ‘seditious’.

 

Who is the government protecting in revamping social media laws, anyway? The people or the politicians embroiled in alleged corrupt acts? If it is the people, should it not publish its proposed amendments for all to evaluate and offer feedback?

 

A mature society must come to grips with the reality that we live in an imperfect world and that control and prohibition may not always work or be the best course of action.

 

Prostitution and pornography are here to stay because sinful human nature will find a way of expression, receiving or giving illicit pleasure and scoundrels will know how to make a quick buck out of human desires.

 

But help human nature and out goes the demand. Criticisms against hudud are because they do not help weak, fallible even needy, humans but subjects them to the full brunt of a brutal punishment of a past more barbarous time in history.

 

The tentacles of religious and political control and censorship are reaching out to strangle the people and it is anathema to a nation seeking to be the ‘world’s best democracy’ unless democracy in Malaysia means something else.

 

The people need good governance not law reforms that only make matters worse and stifle the people’s freedom and turn the country into a ‘Big Brother is watching you’ sort of place.

 

I apologise if I am critical of a revamp if it turns out against my worst fears, but what I see happening to the country gives me reason to be cautiously negative and suspicious of gratuitous revamp.

 

When has a repeal or revamp of laws in Malaysia in recent times been cause for celebration?

 

 

STEVE OH is the author of the novel ‘Tiger King of the Golden Jungle’ and composer of the musical of the same title. He believes in good governance and morally upright leaders.