Minister Of Information, Communications & Culture

Some of you may sneer at me, but one thing I've always been proud of being Malaysian is our gentle, polite demeanour.

But this is our Arts, Culture and Heritage minister in all his glory.



What have we become?

P.S. Rais Yatim is the Information, Communications, and Culture Minister, and not Arts, Culture and Heritage as the portfolio previously used to be. Thanks to Romerz for correcting me.

The irony of it strikes me though - Rais Yatim rarely gives any valuable information, can't communicate decently and seems devoid of culture.

Open Threat To Bloggers

So someone wants us bloggers to be monitored.

I'm in the mood to dissect statements, so here goes:

Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim Friday called for the creation of an internal council or mechanism to monitor bloggers.

He said that in terms of law, the Sedition Act was sufficient but he was worried about enforcement which was not up to the mark and having such a council would help in enforcement.

He said that the arms of the law might not be long enough to reach bloggers outside the country but if the blogger was in the country, something could be done and it was all a question of will.

Now this, ladies and gentlemen, is a thinly veiled threat. It is telling bloggers, "Either you shut up, or we shut you up." Hence the ominous reference to the Sedition Act.

It obviously doesn't matter who posts what. All they need is the random blogger to throw in jail and make an example of.

He told reporters this when asked to comment on a blog posting calling on the people to display their unhappiness with what is going on in the government by flying the national flag upside down.

He said that rather than resorting to such an act, it would be better for them to express their dissatisfaction through the proper channels like writing articles and to speak out on whom they disliked, what was wrong and what was inappropriate.

"Rather than bashing the flag, it's better for them to take it out on the person concerned or the leaders that they don't like," he added.

The minister is a man of words. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to read any of them.

Otherwise, he'd know that we do write plenty. We certainly express our views in no uncertain terms.

We agree with some of our fellow bloggers. And disagree with others. After all:


For the most part we are mature, and some of us have actually developed thinking skills, a concept that is largely alien to the majority of Malaysians.

After all, the government has invested a lot of time and effort to ensure that our education system does not allow us to question authority or the veracity of the statements (masked as 'facts') made by them.

But somewhere along the lines, we started thinking.

Like Aisehman says, If the Government feels it is “losing it”, it is only because the public finds the Government’s explanations and arguments less convincing than the other explanations and arguments out there.

And most bloggers make more sense than the government.

Sure. The government can arrest a few bloggers and put them away. They have tried to with Raja Petra Kamarudin and Abdul Rashid Abu Bakar.

But they cannot arrest this movement of change that this nation so desperately wants.