MGG Pillai Commentary View

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The spin now is more important than what is

We live in an age of public relations. What the spin meisters say is more important than what is. This is true for Malaysia as it is for the United States. What happened is not important, what the spin meister says is. The United States went to war in Iraq on a lie. But the world is told by the United States the lies do not matter, what was important is that Saddam is gone. In the runup to destroying Iraq, the United States let out that if Iraq continued to be ruled by Saddam it was a disaster for the United States. But is the United States more in more danger after Iraq had been destroyed? American proxies are now in power in Baghdad, those who govern cannot leave the former Saddam administrative centre, the so-called Green Zone, without being armed to the teeth, they do not travel to the countryside, except rarely but only if they watch their step.

But Iraq is a better place, the spin meisters say, after the US invasion reduced that country to a wasteland. Go into almost any office for information, and the first person of contact is the public relations man. He usually does not know what happens, but he is tutored in the art of deceiving people, while giving the impression he is telling the truth. The US and UK government, for example, is now in trouble because they lied to the people they represent, feeding them with public relations chatter on what is happening, and telling lies when the spin for going to war is broken down one by one. Today, the world is told to accept that despite what was said before, Iraq is a better place than under Saddam Hussein, now on trial for his life but one in which even the spin meisters cannot spin it to a victory for the quisling Iraqi government.

What has happened to Iraq happens every day in the rest of the country. We live in an age of spin. The governments today are more efficient in spin than in explaining their policies and aims, often being elected for it. Their enemy it seems are those who voted them in. The leaders have more in common with leaders of other countries than who voted them in. The voter in Kelantan or Kedah has less in common with their wakil rakyat than he has with his counterparts in the United States, United Kingdon, India, Pakistan, Indonesia or wherever. After the war on terror, this is closer than one realises. It allows the governments to use terror against its people to remain in power and more in common with other leaders. Laws are used, often incorrectly for which they were originally passed, to hobble opponents, or those with a different point of view. It does not matter whether one is a communist, Islamicist, or who thinks for himself, he is what the government tells he is, with usually with the spin thrown in.

In the United States, the mass media now opposes the Bush administration. But this is new. It supported the Bush White House in the war in Iraq, echoing the official line why Iraq under Saddam was a threat. The media changed only when the reporters ' realised' they had been fed a line. Today, the media begins to ask questions, largely because they are forced to. The Thai prime minister, Mr Thaksin Shinawatra, fresh in power after a large victory, thought he could handle his people with spin, keeping the King and the people informed. When he sold his principle business to Singapore, the people rebelled. Now, he has been removed from the Privy Council advising the King. The official reason is a spin: that the present uncertainties can prevent the prime minister from advising the King. But his strength is not in Bangkok. While he can theoretically remain in power, his spin had made sure he would not.

In Malaysia, spin has overshadowed facts. The government can never be wrong, and anybody who disagrees should be in the doghouse. So argues the spin. It does not matter if black is black, if the government with the aid of spin meisters say it is not, then white it is. The mainstream media acts as public relations officers of the prime minister. People read it for the propaganda it spews out, not news. But there is a new medium to find out what happens in this country: the internet. It is believed more than the mainstream newspapers and official publications. And it allows the ordinary man-in-the-street to report what he could not do in the past. Because of the immediacy, these reports get the people's attention first, and is believed more than the official media. When writers of these reports are questioned for writing it, than answer the questions raised, usually reported in detail by the official media and the mainstream press, the internet reports are more believed as a result.

Why this should be is not difficult to fathom. Its practioners often do not believe in time what they report, as we have found in the United States and, to la certain extent, in Britain. There comes a time when spin does not force people to believe what is said. It is made worse by newspapers being a division of corporate enterprises. In Malaysia, corporate enterprises own mainstream newspapers and some radio and television stations; the government owns the rest. It is the government that lays down what they -- mainstream and official media -- can report. So there is a sameness in their report. The only creativity allowed is in the peripheral news: court reporting, sports news, anything that does not touch on the personal power of the Prime Minister.

Since the government insists that an event did not happen if it does not give the news, either through Bernama, the official news agency, or its public relations outlets, the official and mainstream publications, radio and television are forced to write 'fearlessly', if only to retain their readers and viewers. Nature abhors a vacuum. Other news comes in to fill it in real life. And that takes pride of place even in the official and mainstream media. This is so as they fight new wars on the successful past. Everything is spin that we do not often know what we read or hear. True, the alternate media can also be full of spin, but that often does not match the spin of the rulers who also embraced the Internet though bureaucratically. But this is only temporary. Once the dust settles down, the situation could change. Until then. the spin and what did not happen will form part of the armoury of those in power. They are in trouble when that spin collapses and there is nothing to take its place.

[This appeared in my column in Harakah, the official publication of PAS, on 23 March 2006]

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