Laughing Stocks Rally to Historic Peaks

November 10, 2007 is a watershed in Malaysia's political landscape when it saw a "V"ictorious Peoples's Rally of at least 40,000 people gathering under the BERSIH ("clean" in Bahasa Malaysia) banner to demand for fair, free and clean elections. The assembly of peaceful and concerned Malaysians putting aside race, colour or creed or gender successfully braved police warnings and the inclement weather to march to the vicinity of Istana Negara grounds around the appointed time of 3.00pm to about 4.15pm (when the assembly was officially dismissed after the Memorandum had been handed over officially to an Palace official) to support a delegation of leaders headed by PAS, PKR, DAP and BERSIH leaders to hand over a Memorandum for Electoral Reforms to his Royal Highess, the Yang diPertuan Agong.

If there were no Internet, especially the emergent Fifth Estate (Blogosphere), and foreign agencies to cover the historic event, the Malaysian populace would have been hoodwinked by the mainstream media (MSM) in the English language and Government-controlled national news agency BERNAMA and RTM1 and RTM2.

The figures of the people who gathered to show their solidarity cited by these media, including The Star and NST, ran into single digit THOUSAND people only, and therefore is a non-event. I sighted some reports attributed to the Star stating 3,000 or 4,000 participants (Readers, please help me out here as I was too busy surfing tocheck as many news accounts as possible and did not properly C&P the figures...I humbly stand to be corrected.)
(PLease note I am not including the newspapers in the Chinese and Tamil and BM languages here.)


The People's Paper's editors must be blind that day, and its reporters and photographers must have been blindfolded, because they could not notice large groups of Malaysians crowding around Kuala Lumpur, half of them prominent in Yellow T-shirts displaying BERSIH's objectives, as part of the November 10 Rally. NOT A SINGLE PICTURE anywhere is sighted in the daily. Instead they dutifully trained their eyes and ears on what should have been a page 13 story but played upon page N4,
headlined:

Thousands at open house

Kuala Lumpur: Despite the heavy downpour, more than 10,000 city folk turned up at the Hari Raya open house hosted by Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Zulhasnan Rafique at his Taman Tasik Titiwangsa residence.

(Desi stops at first para -- the rest is laughing stock staff, soon to be listed.)

They also reported on page N8 three Rally-related items, but not a single picture of the POLICE or FEDERAL RESERVE UNIT firing tear-gas and water cannons on the participants gathered by the thousands. As hinted by the headline of the news report at the top of page:

Cops break up march
Teargas and water cannons used on illegal assembly, 245 held

Desi asks a question here of these Fourth Estate buggers -- Didn't they teach you in the newsroom the value of ACTION SHOTS?

Instead there was a large "passive" photo in the middle of same page, captioned Traffic bottleneck: Vehicles trickling through a police roadblock at a section of the print Expressway in Petaling Jaya yesterday (Sunday Star, 11 November, 2007).

And finally who else to be BIG MOUTH mouthing the predictable rubbish befitting a Malaysian DPM -- but he would have been laughed off the stage other than the PWTC and RTM's -- at the bottom of page, headlined:

Najib on why police did not permit gathering

___________________________________

My regular reader "V" then pointed Desi to another equally arresting Minister who raised laughter to a new(s) peak, and Malaysians must thank KL-headquarteed AL-JAZEERA for bringing us prime news entertainment, via:

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1_GQ-K7P_w&eurl=http://www.jeffooi.com/2007/11/nov_10_and_zam_turned_yellow.php"

And BERNAMA followed up with a RATIONALISATION for its overseeing Boss, ZAM, who with Putrajaya's 4th Floor boys, must have impressed their 15th century Fourth Estate mindset to the Star and NST GEICs the "ideal perceptions" to own to play their role to reach new peaks in journalism. Of course their Datuk title helps. And ZAM is an eminent role model as he was once GEIC of Utusan Malaysia, the leading BM and famous UMNO BIG Mouthpiece in Malaysia.

"
11/11: Zam refutes Al Jazeera's claim police used force on protesters

(Bernama) -- Information Minister Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin has refuted satellite television station Al Jazeera's claim that police had used force on hundreds of protesters here today.

He told the station that police had tried to disperse the protesters by using water cannons as the gathering was illegal.

"When they refused to disperse, the police allowed them to march to Istana Negara to hand over a memorandum demanding for a clean and fair election.

"The police managed to handle the situation as best they could," he said over the phone in a live interview by Al Jazeera here. He was responding to the illegal assembly organised by the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections or "Bersih" comprising 26 non-governmental organisations and which also involved opposition parties, to hand over the memorandum containing their demands, to Istana Negara.

Asked why Malaysia did not allow such gatherings, Zainuddin said they were unnecessary because general elections had been held without fail in this country and according to the scheduled dates.

The minister also hit out at Al Jazeera for having the wrong perception when posing questions. Al Jazeera reporters had their own perceptions about Malaysia before coming here, he said, adding that "Malaysia is not Myanmar or Pakistan; it is a democratic country".

Zainuddin said many television viewers in Malaysia were laughing at the antics of the Al Jazeera reporter who seemed to be trying to portray the situation as ugly.

"The reporter was seen shouting, so much so the situation seemed unreal to the viewers."He also criticised Al Jazeera for only interviewing journalists known to be pro-opposition but not getting the government's views."

I heard my kopitiam blogger friends and readers saying maybe soon Bursaa Malaysiaa would be listing a new category of shares under "laughing stocks". Minister Zam Zam ala Kazam aka Minister of Propaganda-ganda Wand Anda will flag off par value stocks of RM1 at a special price of RM0.01 to all journalists of his mindset and perception. Malaysian journalists working for Al Jazeera and all foreign wires are not allowed to apply for the new share issues. They don't understand the rationale forlisting laughing stocks.

When the stock market resumes trading on Mondae, it’s anticipated NSTPP and The STarr Pubications would be transferred to the "Laughing Stocks" category as most appropriate to keep the Minister of Propaganda-ganda Wand Anda company:( BERNAMA and RTM are expected to be listed very soon after they confer Tan Sriship on the CEs, and the stocks will rise to great peaks to generate funds for the BN to finance their leaders ERECTIONS.