80 Journalists Killed!

No, not in Malaysia-lah! So just be thankful

That happened since 1993 in a country called Russia. So just be thankful again you lived not in Russia.

As NegaraKu approaches its 50th birthday of Independence, we indeed have many blessings to be thankful for.
We are a lucky country -- rubber, oil palm, cocoa and other food crops grow pretty well in a troical land that is also spared many of Mother nature's fury in the form of earthquake, mighty flood, and tsunami (Penang and Langkawi notwithstanding that post-Christmas Boxing Day what year, ah?).

It does not mean Malaysians are unpatriotic if they also see the warts and all -- Third World mentality amidst First World infrastructure; grouses of public delivery systems despite inflated civil services force (creating quite a bone-of-contention/controversy brewing hot between DAP politician Tony Pua and Khairy Jamaludin, Deputy UMNO chief); laments of declining education-cum-English standards (once the envy of Commonwealth countries!); and of course, boorish and zoo-ish behaviour in our august House called Parliament and State Assemblies where sometimes Homo sapiens even rival the Animal Kingdom in base and banal demostrations not suitable even for juvenile viewing, but am I digressing?

So what is Desi's pont in all these?

Just that relating to my field of primary interest in which I had earned bread-and-butter for more than two decades -- journalism. This news item relates:

From the NST, May 30, 2007, page 30

80 journalists
killed since '93

MOSCOW: More than 80
journalists have been mur-
dered in Russia since 1993,
the world's largest journal-
lists' organisation said on
Monday. Of 289 journal-
ists killed in Russia over
the last 14 years, "more than
80 of the deaths resulted
from the work the journal-
ists wre doing directly,"
said John Crowfoot, re-
searcher at the internation-
al Federation of Journalists.

DESI: And why is Desi reproducing the report
with such columning text and word-breaks, I hear
some Ipoh curio-at asking.
Hey, just to prove one point -- that Blogging is time-consuming.
Even if one wished to C&P, it can't be done all the time. Such news
"snippets" are not available on the online edition, see? And that's a
rhetorical question! If you still don't know what "rhetorical" means,
getta oouch of hear!

Bck to Weddnesdae's rambling (usually a day of woe, according to wise-olde
nursery rime -- yeah, that's another spelling for "rhyme" , if you wanna know --
and while the report is woeful to Russians, it's lifting for Malaysians that we are
spared such a woeful state of affairs.
BUt my next point is that while we can be tahnkful Malaysian journalists generally
are safe in terms of coming nout of the courtroom, police station or minister's press rooms alive and well, there is still the question "Are we (jounalists) truly free to write as we are
supposed to write? Truthfully, without fear or favour?"

I leave thee to ponder over the state of the Fourth Estate (the Press) in Malaysia.
As well as the emerging Fifth Estate, which is in its early infancy stage, so it's too soon to tell where we are actually, but some signs have appeared, so remain concenred but stay vigilant. Am I sounding like a MinisterOfPropaganda-gandaMindaAnda?:(

Let's not benchmark ourselves against those ranked below us, in whatever field of human activity. So in media freedom, let's not compare with those countries trailing us -- such as Singapore (who we envy in many other fields, especially in Education and Economics), or Uganda or Zimbabwe. The Quest for Excellence means we look up to those above, or ahead of us -- be it looking East or West, North or South, or South-South. Just let's not pride ourselves as Jaguh Kampong while others are conquering outer space and we hop onto to a space-craft as paying tourists and claiming "Yes, we have arrived as astronauts!"
Desi is kidding, but you, my dear EsteemedReaders, don't kid thyself.