MGG Pillai Commentary View

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The rules for the ruler and the ruled have changed

THIS IS THE INFORMATION war. Lance Price, who has published a book of his role in lying to journalists in Great Britain under Tony Blair, said he routinely lied to journalists and the press on Tony Blair and his government. Those of the journalists who knew them as lies were immediately dubbed "conspiracy theorists", as I was for my piece yesterday (04 October 2005). It is conspiracy theory in 1965 to say that Ho Chi Minh and the Vietcong would win. But not ten years later. But journalists take the line of least resistance, and write what they are told. John Kenneth Galbraith summed it well years ago: "The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking." We are not allowed to question what we are told. The United States do not want us to think too deeply on Iraq. It was Gen. Tommy Franks who told us that the United States do not 'do body counts'. But it is the United States which does so, to tell the world it is winning the war in Iraq and the war on Islamic terror. But it forgets one very important facet of life among the insurgents: they do not like their country to be invaded, they will do anything to drive out the invader at much cost, they will get foreigners to support it as the United States will only after armtwisting. It tells us, daily, of how it is winning the war, and it cannot tell that without telling us of how many insurgents they have killed, how many Iraqis they have misplaced, how many cities they have displaced. They spin the story around, and we lap it unquestioningly, that the United States is winning the war in Iraq. And the only way it can tell the world that 'good' news is by telling us how many Iraqis, insurgents and locals, they have displaced or killed.

Similarly in Bali. The emphasis is on how badly off the Balinese are, and the tourists, mostly Australians, who are put to such terrible inconvenience, by being bombed out of their revelry. No one stops to think why they are bombed. The news is about Balinese who lose their tourist dollars, and the news wring us our tears, and makes us not to think. But the Bali bombing is not accepted as an Indonesian attack. It is to get Indonesia on the anti-Islamic terror bandwagon. There is widespread news on Malaysians taking part, and we are told soon enough that they have escaped. We are shown on television the sabotuers leaving the scene in grainy pictures, and we concentrate our attention on news about the saboteurs, and the impact on the locals and the tourists, who have had an idyllic existence destroyed by the bombers. It did not work as those in authority intended. As is well known, cameras can lie. Early this morning (05 October 2005), the Bali bombing is still news on CNN and BBC. The Western reporters are sceptical of Al Qaeda or its fraternal cousins responsible. So CNN is forced to bring on Rohan Gunaratne, a questionable security expert, to show the Al Qaeda or Jemah Islamiyah is responsible. No one has yet told us why it took place, or given a credible explanation why the bombing should be in Bali, other than it is Hindu and a popular Holiday resort of lumpen Australians. But to have Al Qaeda or Jemah Islamiyah conduct two or its four alleged bombings in Indonesia in Bali suggests that the organisation operates to make the Western powers look good. But as I wrote on 04 October 2005, they used bombs normally available to governments. What the Bali bombings showed is that they have an arsenal as powerful as the Western powers. That may not be correct, but it leaves us wondering if the Western powers are a match to them.

The spin is that it is a hopeless organisation. It does the Bali bombing so that the United States is off the hook, in the information war, in Iraq. The information war the Western powers led by the United States is waging shows Al Qaeda and its fraternal cousins at par or better. Most of these who receive this information do think, and they are not educated in Western-oriented or Western means of education. What happened in Pakistan, where President Musharaff is with the United States and its war on terror, but not the ordinary man-in-the-street, could happen in Indonesia, where President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his government are being directed to support the West, but the people do not. The more the West tries to get President Yudhoyono on its side, the more Indonesia would turn against the West: a sort of President Musharraf redux. The Muslims around the world are on the opposing side, not just the Arab Muslims, against the United States. It does its information war on the basis that its war on Islamic terror is correct. But its message is to those who support, or made to, and lost to the ordinary Muslim. It is no use telling us of another car bomb in Iraq when Al Jazeera broadcast news giving a different perspective to its viewers. Al Jazeera was planed for the Arab world by Western-trained individuals, and praised by the Western nations for a television station to explain world issues to the Arab street. Not any more. They use Arab sources, and only Western sources if they are relevant. The Western countries believe they are right in what they do, and expect all television stations to carry their message. But Al Jazeera does not, preferring to carry the message of those who are victims of Western aggression. Aggression it is in Iraq. The United States say it is to rid the country of its leader, but the outside world sees it as invasion. The country is worse off now than under Saddam Hussein, and worse, a civil war is in the offing. Iraq under Saddam Hussein could run the country efficiently but it cannot under United States hegemony. I have been to Iraq under Saddam, and I remember walking to my hotel after midnight. It would be foolhardy to do that now. I can be killed by car bombers, thieves, pickpockets, Iraqi or American troops, or by unexplained air strikes.

In Malaysia, a similiar sort of control as in Iraq is in place. You are expected to believe the Prime Minister, Pak Lah, or his government, and forget the discordant voices. Pak Lah supports the United States in Iraq, and the people of Malaysia are expected to do so too. Discordant voices, except in UMNO, the ruling party, is not published in the mainstream newspapers. But the government has taken the Islamic route for which it cannot back off. It has turned Thai Malays into Thai Muslims, and calls its majority community as Muslims not Malays, though if you are both you are given a privileged place. The West has Malaysia in its pocket, but the people are not with it. And the government, with or without Western blessings, would not want to find out. This happens when a country is dubbed pro-West by Westerners because the government is pro-West. But there is a discordant political voice in the country, the Islamicists. The National Front, which governs the country and 12 of the 13 states, follows the national trend, believing as gospel what UMNO thinks. The Islamicists control one of Malaysia's 13 states, but it is disorganised now. UMNO has dubbed itself an Islamic party, but it cannot be one. It can push Islam as a political agenda but it will have to convince Islamicists that it will be an Islamic ruler as well. UMNO is caught in a transition, as PAS is, and Pak Lah is not confident of himself to lead UMNO as a president should. He is an accidental Prime Minister at a time when the UMNO warlords are showing their mettle. He could not remove from the cabinet those he should. In fact, he has not had a cabinet reshuffle since he took office, although it is time he did. He is afraid that those he drops would join his oppents. He is watched like a hawk, especially among the rank and file. And his oppenents, PAS and his predecessor as prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, and as deputy prime minister, Dato' Anwar Ibrahim. He will find he has no friends if he assumes that his word is law. And the rules made so that he has no opposition in policies will not last. His opposition in UMNO is severe, and those that are against him are former leaders of the party. He must find a way by which he gets ground support. He might think there is, but those who support him now support him as UMNO leader and Malaysian Prime Minister. He will be put out to dry by the ordinary UMNO member who supports him now, if he should ever be challenged.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com