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Articles, Opinions & Views: Fake news for a fake democracy - By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy

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No Atheists
In A Foxhole

Rudyard Kipling

" ā€œWhen you're left wounded on
Afganistan's plains and

the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll to your rifle

and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldierā€
General Douglas MacArthur

" ā€œWe are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.ā€

ā€œIt is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.ā€
ā€œOld soldiers never die; they just fade away.
ā€œThe soldier, above all other people, prays for peace,
for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.ā€
ā€œMay God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .ā€
ā€œThe object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

ā€œNobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
ā€œIt is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.
Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."

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Fake news for a fake democracy - By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Saturday, February 03, 2018
Malaysiakini : ā€œTotalitarian propaganda perfects the techniques of mass propaganda, but it neither invents them nor originates their themes. These were prepared for them by 50 years of imperialism and disintegration of the nation-state, when the mob entered the scene of European politics. Like the earlier mob leaders, the spokesmen for totalitarian movements possessed an unerring instinct for anything that ordinary party propaganda or public opinion did not care or dare to touch. Everything hidden, everything passed over in silence, became of major significance, regardless of its own intrinsic importance. The mob really believed that truth was whatever respectable society had hypocritically passed over, or covered up with corruption.ā€ ā€• Hannah Arendt, ā€˜The Origins of Totalitarianismā€™
COMMENT | DAPā€™s Lim Kit Siangā€™s offer to the Umno regime to form a bipartisan committee to tackle ā€œfake newsā€ is the cherry on top of the horse manure cake that is politics in this country. This is exactly what Malaysia needs right now - two highly partisan entities determining what news is fake or otherwise.
Any rational person would realise that this is just another way for the propagandists of Putrajaya to control the narrative and the opposition to play the blame game and make ridiculous suggestions of bipartisanship when the reality is that nobody in the current system has any genuine intention of working on specific issues for the betterment of the rakyat.
Umno contention with this committee is to legitimise the crackdown on press freedom in the hopes that they can finally cripple not the alternative press ā€“ them too ā€“ but social media, which is the main medium that the opposition uses to get its narratives out. Politicians lie, spin and fabricate to get votes but more importantly, to control the narrative.

Remember when people thought the Umno grand poobah would be arrested if he went to the United States and the elaborate ā€œnewsā€ articles that were fabricated and disseminated online or how Kit Siang was in Kuala Lumpur during the May 13 riots and was part of the cabal who instigated it. This is what we are dealing with here in Malaysia.
It is, of course, no surprise that Singapore also intends to form a committee to combat fake news. As reported in The Diplomat in the beginning of the year ā€“ ā€œOn Wednesday, Singaporeā€™s parliament agreed to set up a new select committee to study what the government has characterized as ā€˜deliberate online falsehoodsā€™. The move is just one of several steps that the Southeast Asian state has taken in its response to the growing challenge of fake news, in spite of various concerns raised by some opponents.ā€
Singapore, like some of its other neighbours such as Malaysia and Indonesia, has become increasingly aware of the growing magnitude of the challenge of fake news (See: ā€˜Winning Asiaā€™s war on fake newsā€™). ā€œAs part of this, the countryā€™s top officials have been publicly and privately emphasising the dire consequences of fake news to the country specifically ā€“ including generating unnecessary public alarm, diverting limited resources, and harming the reputations of individuals and institutions ā€“ as well as considering new measures that can be taken.ā€

Laws to combat fake news, as lawyer Eric Paulsen (photo) rightly points, is detrimental to freedom of speech but more importantly, points out that nobody has a monopoly on the truth. We live in a time when fact-based assessments are clouded in a patina of partisanship, hence any attempts by politicians to control the news should be rejected by rational Malaysians.
Another weapon for oppressors
Paulsen referenced a Malaysiakini case which is worth considering because it demonstrates how the Umno regime defines fake news. You can read my defence of Malaysiakini here ā€“ ā€œIt was not (editor-in-chief) Steven Gan or Malaysiakini that claimed that the attorney-general (AG) was not fit for his job and should resign; they were reporting on what a critic of the AG said during a press conference. Furthermore, and this is also important, is it really ā€˜obscene, offensive or falseā€™ for a citizen of this country to call into question the credibility, fitness for office or the resignation of a public official?ā€

Franceā€™s Emmanuel Macron (photo) whose campaign was target by Russian provocateurs, is naturally inclined to believe that laws are needed to combat fake news but what he has done and indeed many other ā€œWesternā€ governments who have been plagued by Russian operations, is to give tyrannical regimes the opportunity to propagate laws which further stifle freedom of speech and expression. Here are two interesting aspects of what Macronā€™s intends his legislation to achieve as reported by NPR -
1. ā€œAmong other things, Macron said the law should require websites to disclose their source of funding and have a cap on the amount of money they receive from sponsored content.ā€
2. ā€œDuring an election, the government would be authorised to block a website to suppress fake news, he said. He insisted that press freedom could be preserved under such a law.ā€
The above, of course, is already happening in Malaysia. Websites have been closed down and donors who fund news sites deemed detrimental to the Umno hegemon have been targeted by the state security apparatus. Malaysiakini has been on the receiving end of harassment because they propagate ā€œfake newsā€ and numerous attempts have been made to threaten social media users who spread ā€œfake newsā€ on chat groups and the like.

The phenomenon of fake news as propaganda of foreign powers threatening domestic elections has morphed into news that is detrimental to tyrannic hegemons or political personalities. Mainstream news organisations in the West are target by either left-wing or right-wing ideologues when it suits their purposes In the Malaysian context as with many other kleptocratic or theocratic regimes, fake news is anything other than the official narratives of the establishment. While there have always been lies, spin and propaganda by both sides, this idea that fake news is a danger to this country is nothing but outrage porn for the political elites.
While the establishment through it mainstream propaganda organs demonises the opposition, the opposition has to fight with one hand tied behind their backs because the legal and political realities favour the Umno establishment. Meanwhile, the fake news about the Umno hegemon that floats around the social media are sometimes debunked or is taken as gospel truth by a highly partisan electorate. What I want from the opposition are guarantees in writing that restrictions on freedom of speech and expression enacted by the Umno hegemon and by political operatives who not too long ago were part of the hegemon, would be lifted.
This is the only way to combat fake news.
posted by Major D Swami (Retired) @ 11:17 AM  
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