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DEWAN DISPATCHES: All’s fair in love, free speech and the free Press, even if you loath them

by: Azmi Anshar
DEWAN RAKYAT Nov 4, 2008

In the context of developing countries, free speech is a cumbersome, evolutionary work in progress, easy in some aspect, hard on others. Many countries are still eons away from embracing the full flight of free speech in the manner that brethrens in the West had doggedly practised since the time of François-Marie Arouet aka Voltaire (1694-1778). At the baby steps of the Enlightenment, Voltaire vowed that he may hate what his critics say but he was prepared to die defending their right to say it, or something like that.

While Voltaire may have unwittingly set the template for free speech for free speech’s sake, did he take into account the fragile human psyche, the ones who can’t differentiate between free speech and hurtful speech? To them, the concept works out like this: speech that hurts their sensibilities, their religion and their culture is not free speech. In that sense, most Malaysians come under this aegis. Half the time they refuse to admit this.

Ask most Malaysians if they are for free press/speech and the answer, instantaneously, is a resounding yes. Test that assumption and their disposition towards this very Western idea collapses just as instantaneously. How’s that? Simple.

Ask Malaysians if they agree that criticising people, politicians especially, is all right, and the answer is a succinct yes. Then ask if criticising their friends is all right and the answer is a grudging yes. Ask then if criticising their parents, spouses or siblings is all right and the answer is a quick yes or maybe no.

Then ask them if criticising their race and culture is all right and it would be an emphatic NO. Then ask them if criticising their religion and their beliefs is all right and the answer is an extremely emphatic NO, violent even. By this simple test, we can infer that Malaysians predilection to free speech, real free speech that is, still foetal in aspiration.

The disposition to NO as an answer is widespread and covers all spectrums of societies, race and culture. Hardly anyone is above it, more so the people with power and authority to penalise. And the ones who do possess the intellect to embrace absolute free speech and won’t go bonkers at the same time, well, they are way beyond comprehension in this nation.

Malaysians are mostly not ready for and not to incline to free speech although many would claim that they are. As a sort of defence, Malaysians have history on their side to explain why they are not ready. The West, since the advent of Voltaire’s seminal thinking and ideas, have walked the arduous journey towards free speech for as long as two centuries while at 51 years, we can still cling to our insecurities just as toddlers cling to their parents for support and protection.

In the West, free speech means free to say, write, report, gather, associate, attack, smear, undermine, snide, sneer, hiss – whether it is religion or politics, or the coding of computer software. Neo-Nazis can chant and march as routinely as the protest against Government’s invasion of privacy and the right to keep assault weapons. In Malaysia, nothing of this sort is allowed and won’t be for as long as our insecurities are allowed to blanket our conscience and consciousness.

And if there are attempts to invoke free speech in the name of improving humanity’s understanding, there will be perpetrators who would gleefully crush the flow of ideas. The disruption of the Bar Council’s forum on issues regarding Islamic conversion and the abrupt cancellation of Shirin Ebadi’s lecture in our finest high education body comes to mind. There will be the minority few who are eager to explore this side of their humanity but there will be just as many who can’t take it and won’t accept it.

Here’s the paradox lingering in the free speech context of Malaysia. Everyone with a publishing permit or publishing gall, left, right or centre in their political persuasions, will stoutly claim that theirs is a neutral, non-partisan outfit but the fact remains that bias, real or imagined, is deeply ingrained in their owners’ whims. In the Malaysian press context, this seems quite acceptable because we are merely following the route set by our Western brethrens who are now cattle nose-rung by the likes of Rupert Murdoch and their litany of corporate owners. The Press is free to report as long as they don’t embarrass the owners. The Malaysian Press may be just as embracing, even those with a lilt to the Opposition.

If we are to measure the embodiment of a free Press in the national socio-political mien, it’s not pleasing, given that Deputy Home Affairs Minister Senator Datuk Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh actually sounded off in the House today that the Government is encouraging the Malaysian media to “practise self-censorship.”

“We will only use our power under the Printing Presses and Publications Act as a last resort,” he intoned while giving the not-too-assuring assurance that the government's role was “more on advising and not punishing” the media. "However, the media must use its power and influence responsibly.”

It should be put to the Malaysian media, especially the newspapers: how do you balance using your power and influence responsibly against practising self-censorship? How does that interplay works? We’ve been weaned on the idea that it’s not a good idea to indulge in critiques inquiring on the complexities of religion and race, and at one time, royalty. The three sacred Rs.

And yet, readers clamour steadfastly for a free Press to report on all these complexities, which requires a modicum of free speech, which in turn is severely limited, given other readers loathing of speechifying that hurts their fragile socio-political and religious sensibilities. The Press is ensconced in that timeless dilemma of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. There’s no pleasing anyone in this looping vicious cycle.

Replying to Alexander Nanta Linggi (BN-Kapit) at the Dewan Rakyat, Wan Ahmad Farid entertained the idea of whether the Government had acted sufficiently to curb dissemination of baseless allegations through the media. Here was how The Deputy Minister articulated the situation: Based on ministry statistics, Wan Ahmad Farid revealed that only four publications were officially warned by the ministry out of the outfits possessing 2,017 publishing permits.

So, watch out, media fiends. Wan Ahmad Farid claimed that the Home Ministry was always cooperating with other ministries and agencies in monitoring the media. That’s rich. Would that monitoring detail also include village headmen, kindergarten teachers and local authority road sweepers?

Away from the intricacies of being press watchdogs, Wan Ahmad Farid, in answering a supplementary riposte from M. Kulasegaran (DAP-Ipoh Barat), accused Suara Keadilan, the weekly rag sponsored by Parti Keadilan Rakyat, of abusing their free press credentials, citing the article it published on the health of Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan whom it claimed had become paralysed after a heart bypass.

The Home Ministry was aghast that when they issued a show-cause letter to Suara Keadilan, the rag retracted the IGP piece but stopped short of issuing an apology. The IGP was later shown on TV giving a media conference in an upright position and no inkling of a paralysis.

If the Deputy Minister’s contention is true, then Suara Keadilan should be reprimanded but that action should come from its peers and mostly from its readers (members?), not from the Home Ministry’s long, big stick. If we are to give Suara Keadilan free press status, they should be able to at least publish a correct depiction of the IGP’s health while given the freedom to lambast as many politicians their pages can carry.

Here’s a novelty: Suara Keadilan, in the interest of justice and fair play, should also be critical of their esteemed leader Anwar Ibrahim too, just as much as the rag demands that mainstream newspapers be critical of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet members. If they can’t, then all’s fair in love, free speech and the free Press.

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