Dotmyhome’s Weblog

When you’re an infant and learn how to walk, you trip, you stumble, you waddle unsteadily.

When you have trained your legs and your torso to exercise that peculiar, deliberate un-balancing act we call walking, you eventually get quite good at it. To the point where you can jog, or even run.

For every step we take, we unbalance ourselves, then catch ourselves with the other foot, then unbalance ourselves again and so on. It is an exercise in timing, balance, strength, and muscle memory practice that people, after awhile, forget doing.

Similarly with media freedom.

The cons simply say that too much freedom to discuss anything will give rise to hatred, unneccesary ill will and can even foment violence and a host of other reasons.

The (I wanted to use “detractors and protractors” but that makes them seem like set-squares) pros on the other hand argue that press freedoms or “the fourth estate” are an integral part of a fully functioning democracy to provide checks and balances and, also, a host of other reasons.

Which is true?

As a person muddling through life, I believe (and maybe this is very “Buddhist” of me) that everything seems to be more intertwined than ever. An individual’s life can mirror a country’s. Or vice versa, as it were.

As an individual, we need to be accepting of critique our entire lives. Or we will never improve or become all that we can be. No, this is not an US Army ad. As a child, we’re guided positively by our parents. As young adults, we’re guided by people of influence; teachers, our superiors at work. As people who achieve positions of higher responsibility, then perhaps in the case of politicians, the “rakyat.” Or in the case of those who have a more spiritual bent, God/The Universe.

And even then, you will have some good advice and some bad advice. Not from God. But from more earthly manifestations. Poor God already has so much laid at his doorstep with all the God Willing/Insyaalah’s that he get’s due to car accidents to motorcycle pile ups when in actual fact the person was just plain careless or unthinking.

Similarly, with the bigger picture, everything communities do is subject to critique. Some of it good. Some of it bad. It’s up to us to sort out the “chaff from the wheat.” And then decide what to do with it.

There are people in this world who live in fear of criticism. These are the individuals who lash out at every perceived slight. Who change friends like their underwear because on one day you’re in and the next you’re out because of the slightest disagreement. In individuals, this is considered most childish. Why is it then ok when our government does this? Why does the government live in that suspicion and fear? Because that’s what it is. The funny thing about fear is that when you live in fear about something, it usually happens. Weird, right? But it’s true. It’s like a self fulfilling prophecy.

Try it next time and see.

Everyone, the “kerajaan,” public bodies, communities, mat rempit, everyone, can benefit from an open press. Things, like the first televised parliament, will be chaotic to begin with, like the time we learned to walk as kids, but will eventually settle down to an equilibrium of pros and cons. Our people will start debating the issues intelligently and understanding what it is that they themselves need rather than be told what they need like a child. At which point, you will have a more informed populace who will then take responsibility for their own actions rather than rely on the “nanny state.” And a First World Government.

Had a glimpse of Parliament on TV yesterday.

For those who have not seen British, Australian, or even Taiwanese Parliaments in action, it would have been shocking.

Even for Parliamentarians who have grown up over the last generation, unused as they are to the rough and tumble of parliamentary politics, it would have been an experience which would not have been a happy one.

I feel that most of us would expect our country’s highest legislative body to have decorum in spades and also very polite people discoursing and debating in very civil terms about the future of the country.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Parliament IS a fish market. Especially first world parliaments.

The British Parliament, if viewed from the so called Strangers Gallery is nothing more than an avenue for show. There are boos, hisses, catcalls, name calling of the most incisive nature, and all in all, it is a free for all.

Our Information Minister Dato’ Shabery Cheek has basically said that they will do away with the televising of this spectacle as our parliamentarians particularly the opposition don’t know how to behave themselves. What a laugh. Perhaps we should do away with the post of information minister and have a department of information wholly subject to parliament which will then pass on news about the information of government.

First World Parliaments get broadcasted all the time. There’s even a channel in the US that broadcasts ONLY House debates. It’s called CSPAN.

Ever seen the Taiwanese Parliament in action? And I MEAN action…

And Taiwan is a  first world developed nation.

Basically, our government, through it’s information minister mouthpiece has shown again, it’s total lack of understanding of what a democracy is. The politics of fear, of face, of anxiety rule again. What utter silliness.

Yes, there is a lot of nonsense that goes on. Yes, sometimes Bills get delayed due to Filibustering. Yes, sometimes the stuff that get’s debated is procedural. Yes, much of what is said in Parliament is nonsense. But that is the process of a First World Parliament. This happens in developed Parliaments WORLDWIDE. The British are masters of the surgical insult.

It will be messy. Democracy is messy. And the mess should be welcomed, embraced even. Because out of that mess gems and diamonds will be polished and will emerge.

Long live broadcasting of Parliament proceedings.