Malaysia really have nothing to shout about with regards to freedom of speech, freedom after speech not to mention freedom of press. The Internet have serve as new frontier for freedom of speech especially in countries where freedom of press is non-existence or almost non-existance, and Malaysia qualified in that category.
In the last few days, the Special Branch have requested (or instructed) the admin of MMU’s student online forum to delete religious or sensitive topics.
I am sad that those topics were removed because “the typical Malaysian still does not have the required maturity nor sensiblity to ensure a peaceful, logical and reasonable discussion on sensitive topics, like religion.” It is a paradoxical situation.
everling of nexus boards
You can read the thread of discussion regarding the freedom of speech crisis which besets MMU students.
I am sad to say, we are all (yes including me) guilty for what is going on today. Once our rights are gone, it is almost impossible to regain it.
Addendum : New info just in, the issue blown up after some users of the board (note that it is an open forum, not restricted to MMU students themself) went over board and posted very offending messages. I think this is important to be higlighted to give context to the situation.
This is troubling, and potentially explosive. To have Special Branch come down from their heights to issue threats and warnings, however, is something serious. Naturally, because universities are hotbeds of all sorts of dangerous revolutionaries (uh huh), the first to be affected would be the student’s right to dissent.
Was it responsible dissent? I don’t know – most seem to agree it was irresponsible dissent. As long as a threat is attached to an opinion, we can never be sure – that’s the point isn’t it? If we aren’t allowed to discuss certain topics, we will never know how right – or wrong – the content of our discussions are. All of this becomes mere submission to the will of ‘higher ups’ who feel they know better.
And better, how? One would wonder if these ‘higher ups’ allow discussions on these topics amongst themselves. How else would they presume to know – or understand – when something is right or wrong; you can’t pass judgement, after all, without understanding the reasons for doing so. As long as they remain silent, disallow discussion and issue threats, it appears only the ‘higher ups’ will ever understand anything.
I love mushrooms, but I hate being a mushroom: being kept in the dark and fed bullsh*t. Imagine how those students feel – and in an institution of higher learning no less. The place we train our youngsters to think for themselves, the place where we mould future leaders; governments, including ours, just view these institutions as little production factories churning out graduates of a certain type and cast to fulfill roles and not lead meaningful lives, unfortunately.
Yes, BB is watching us. Check out mine’s-
http://howsy.blogspot.com/2005/12/i-had-royal-visitor-to-my-blogguess.html
I think I’ll start blogging about cats, dogs and toliets (especially disabled ones) from now on…
And hey, alas…welcome back to the socio-politico blogsphere!
Freedom of speech in Malaysia is freedom to speak along the ideology and racial thinking of UMNO and it’s Youth Leaders. The rest, all are construed as sensitive and racial.
I have checked Sedition Act 1948. Very “interesting” stuff. Basically majority of dissident bloggers can be categorise as seditious and/or seditious tendency according to that piece of (crap) legislation. I’ll post the Act here when I have format it properly. Quite a short Act.
Throwing an idea into the deep blue see — we need MER2. Moral, Ethical & Responsible Response.