yowkee essential

The Changing of the Guard -- A Survey of Malaysia

It's no more a news and pretty outdated. I would just like to post it here for my own memory.

At first, The Economists published a series of articles analyzing what's happening in Malaysia. The series, titled "The Changing of the Guard – A Survey of Malaysia", contained 9 articles, written by Christopher Lockwood. It is published at Apr 5th issue of Economist. Then weeks later, it brought attention to Barisan Nasional leaders, particularly Acting Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Defence Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. They started to hit out The Economist, stating what the survey said isn't true and it humiliate Dr Mahathir. Other Barisan Nasional leaders voiced out to support them, the issue has been getting more and more attention and running all over the medias recently.

I wasn't sensitive to such "political" issue. I knew this from blogs (Screenshots and Transitions) since blog reading has been my center of information gathering. If your only information source is local media, take these advice:

1. Read at least MalaysiaKini
   
2. Read these excellent Malaysian's blogs: Screenshots, Transitions, alphaque. It would be more out there and once more people is brought to blog, you get more chance to hear different voices.
   
3. Do your study. Get a chance to read The Economist's article in this case, do your judgement, don't simply follow leaders.

I can't comment the matter because I don't read the articles yet. What I got on Economist online was The changing of the guard, which is the first article in the series. The rest in the series are The greening of Malaysia, A tale from Terengganu, Anwar Ibrahim's long shadow, The slaugher of sacred cows, The big clean-up, Keeping up with the neighbours, An effusive welcome, A qualified success, which are premium content of Economist required subscription or payment. From what I have read at first article: The changing of the guard, which talk generally about the
post-Mahathir scenario. Based on what he perceived, the quality of the infrastructure, the money spent on big projects (KLCC, KLIA, MSC), not in fact impressed. Though, he did mentioned: "Malaysia, in short, has achieved remarkable successes, but there is reason to worry that they are not yet solidly bedded down, and they certainly owe more than they should to tough government action.".

Yeah, there is criticism. But it isn't as bad as humiliation. Is it really that big deal in the rest of the series? Our BN leaders has been used to state we shouldn't bother western media. Should they bother now? Or should all media being banned once there is critism on us? Look, people come, doing research/analysis, publish what they have learned and their opinion. That's what media do. Sometimes there is political rationale behind the story, sometimes don't -- it's just an article. However, I can't really comment until I do read the whole series. Meanwhile, I have chosen to keep an eye on it by reading these:

Screenshots

• Economist April 5 edition:
  What took Pak Lah and Najib 3 weeks to respond?
  
• Pak Lah now wants apology from Economist.By the way, Dr M will be back soon.
  
• Economist issue: Najib up-staging Pak Lah
  
• A race to show who could be more loyal to Dr Mahathir?
  
• Economist: Chun Wai does't read it either
  
• Economist: No apology to Malaysia; latest issue delayed.

Transitions:

• Chapter by chapter commented by Oon Yeoh
  
• Another comment on the issue:

  "From the magazine's acknowledgements of those who helped them with the story, it is clear that they spoke to a very large number of known opponents of Dr. Mahathir and the government," Pak Lah says. "These critics, who include opposition party leaders and pro-opposition media people, never have anything good to say about us anyway. Only a few of the people acknowledged by the writer are either neutral or pro-government."

  My thought: Could you deny these are also people who got influence in certain area? They do represent large or small part of Malaysian.
  
• Government leaders continue to whack the Economist
  
• Revisited on The Economist's articles
  
• Comment on Wong Chun Wai's column (The Star)

A search on The Star with "Economist": news of Economist issue.

Check out how local media handle this issue. I didn't see any view point from Economist in local media except anger of BN leaders making all the headline. The only exception, MalaysiaKini did bring the issue back to The Economist and have the author's words on it. That said a lot of providing multi-angles view of issue.

April 30, 2003 05:45 PM | Malaysia
[ Trackback URL for this entry: http://www.yowkee.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/41 ]