Last Monday, I received a survey in my inbox. It came from a university student who's conducting a research on bloggers, demographics, psychological well being, motives - the works.
I wouldn't be interested to participate in the survey if it wasn't for the recent brouhaha created by our dear Tourism Minister who 'accidentally' insulted the entire population of Malaysia's women bloggers & incurring the wrath of bloggers in general .
To the uninitiated, the minister was reported to have made these statements to Sin Chew Jit Poh:
Dumb dumb statement No.1:
"All bloggers are liars, they cheat people using all kinds of methods. From my understanding, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women.”
Dumb dumb statement No.2:
“All bloggers are not in favour of national unity. Our country has been successful because we are very tolerant with each other, if not, there will be civil war, the Malays will kill the Chinese, the Chinese will take revenge and kill the Malays, and the Indian will kill everyone"
This statement was made in response to an Indonesian TV presenter, Nila Tanzil who complained of bureaucratic red tapes while shooting for her travel show in Malaysia. Nothing in her entry smells of malicious content to me, and even her friend's post about their experience while filming was not offensive in nature. They were disappointed, but as a Malaysian who loves her country no matter how sucky it is sometimes, I can relate.
Who knows why he lashed out to women bloggers in general & accused the unemployed women bloggers of disrupting unity, thus offending some of the most respected, heavyweight women bloggers such as Susan Loone, Elizabeth Wong, 5xmom, Kak Teh and *gasp* Marina Mahathir?? (I'm sooooo gonna blogroll them) If you need to hear more nasty things bloggers have to say about the uproar, you can go here and here for more whatelse, links lah :P
In his head he could have composed this gem, or something along the line:
"Blogger-blogger ni semuanya penipu. Suka memperbodohkan orang menggunakan bermacam2 helah. Pada pemahaman saya, daripada 10,000 orang blogger yang tak ada kerja ni, 8000 daripadanya adalah perempuan."
"Mereka ni semuanya tidak memikirkan tentang keamanan negara. Negara kita telah mencapai tahap kemajuan sebegini kerana rakyat semua saling bertolak-ansur. Jika tidak, akan berlaku perang saudara (refer to 13th May tragedy) orang Melayu bunuh orang Cina, orang Cina balas dendam & bunuh orang Melayu, dan orang India akan saling berbunuhan"
Try to translate that (first to Mandarin and then English!) and you might get what he actually said in that statement! Anyone could get the wrong idea!
So he could be misquoted after all!!! Hey, give him a break. That's standard Malaysian's minister's form of "crisis management", after all.
Hah, why do I write about this after all the bullets have been fired, the dust has settled, the culprit stoned, slammed, crucified?
I'm here not to haul more criticism (or profanities for that matter) over the unintelligent ways the minister handled the matter. The damage has been done. Poor but very gracious Nila has been suspended from the show and she is grieving for the loss of a friend. The minister gets away scot-free and he would continue officiating events. Concerned bloggers (there are some of course who don't give a hoot), won't leave the memory of this dispute behind. A united bloggers has been formed, but they will move on & blog about something else.
And what about me? How am I affected? For start, I am now quite interested in the above-mentioned survey. So what if the English is less than perfect? Or the questions are poorly constructed (I know coz my professors made us re-write our questionnaires 30 times until they were satisfied) ? Or how nice it is if the student explains her hypothesis to add some credibility to her research?
If people take the research seriously then maybe the findings in the survey can contest the one of the said minister's sources :)
I do have a point, you know, but you'll have to wait until the next post :)
To be continued....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
LinkWithin
8 comments:
CONGRATULATIONS! u finally finished the post :) *pat pat anne-gelina's back*
a few days after u alerted me to this post i started to think that this could all be a publicity ploy. maybe Ku Nan tu cuma nak attract attention kot for some political gain?
anyway thanks to extreme curiosity over the snafu and much frantic googling, i did however uncover a gem. marina m's blog hee hee. i've blogrolled it btw. can't wait for your "surprise" ;)
tq pinky i took me FOREVER eh? thnks for the links too! it it wasnt for u, i might have scrapped the whole idea of blogging abt this! i cant believe im talking politics here!
Publicity stunt eh? it could mean anything, whoever it is who has ulterior motives
Anne-gelina?? *shivers!* Hehe!
I think both our countries suffer from politicians who don't speak well. Whether it's in English, Malay or any other language, although there are one or two who do (and who refuse to go away quietly). I shan't name names! ;)
my dear, he wasn't msquoted. read this:
http://sloone.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/tengku-adnan-sin-chew-reporter-said-he-did-not-lie/
his statement caused one reporter her job - nila tanzil got suspended,probably will be fired from her company. i dont think we should take adnan lightly.
other than that, am happy to drop by your blog. keep blogging your good stuff :-)
oh by the way, here's hundreds of links about ku nan - compiled by me:
http://sloone.wordpress.com/voices-from-bloggers-united/
Wow, there'll be a part 2 for this issue.
8,000 out of 10,000? Where did he get that numbers btw? I am employed, but I am a female blogger, does that makes me a 50% liar and not in favour of my nation's unity?
woahhh anne! heavy duty post here, interesting sekali...
somehow when u translate that into malay, it seems like a typical coffeeshop talk, something you'd hear pakcik-pakcik would say to his audience! lol.
our media is a bit different from mesia's lah... things like this get 'edited' first to make our Minsters look and sound good... ;)
Moby, apsal shiver? turn down the aircond lah!
Yup, u're rite. it boggles me how someone who holds an important position can come up with a nonsensical statement. I mean, dorang ni takder political advisor ke hape?
dear susan, I read all ur posts regarding the issue and i agree with u 100%. And no, i dun think he was misquoted at all! It's just my way of saying how politicians conveniently resort to such tactics. A lot of upsetting things are happening in this country that it pains me sometimes to even acknowledge it, much less BLOG abt it because i'm a mummy blogger after all. Thnks for dropping by & do come again! (macam greet customer pulak :)
dyanna, i suspect he doesnt even know how blogs work anyway. And it's a huge mistake to make generalisations. Didn't they learn anything?
hana, my pants so kembang oredy. I'm trying to break free from my bimbo head-in-cloud character & try to have an opinion once in a while :) Blame pinky on this :)
Eh, that happens all the time leh in mainstream media. I am after all, a communications major.
Post a Comment