Crusude against bloggers
Aug 1st, 2007 by Tian
Malaysian Government has declared war on bloggers! Following the police report by Mat Taib on 24 July, Nazri announced the call for war.
“It is time to act. We have been very patient,” He said.
The war drum was promptly followed by Najib, Khairy, Hishamuddin, Zam, Muhyiddin, Radzi, Lim Keng Yek, Foo Ah Kiaw and a whole army of parrots.
I am surprised Shahrir Samad who is normally a rather level headed guy too joined the expedition. He too supported Mat Taib’s police report.
He claimed that the objective is to safeguard the Royal institution and Islam, and hoped it would be a lesson to everyone on the need to respect the law.
Shahrir who often presented himself as a defender of free speech and once an open critic of the ex-PM on the internet, now is siding with the crackdown. Shahrir is safe for now since he only owns a web, but he is not a blogger.
The anti-blogger cohort speak as if bloggers should be eliminated totally as they are all liars, rumour mongers, subversive and so on. Malaysian bloggers seem to enjoy the same level treatment as Al Qaida, JI or CPM.
Perhaps part of the general election mobilization, the BN has hastily mastered the troop for a new crusade against bloggers.
The anti-blogger crusaders consist of ministers, their lackeys, bureaucrats, as well as mercenary soldiers known as cyber-troopers.
Though the anti-blogger crusade is backed with resources and state power, their weapons and mindset are too primitive for modern warfare.
Mat Taib who is the Umno Information Chief doesn’t even understand what is a comment or an article, what is a web or what is a blog.
Another example: the officers who arrested Nat from the cyber-crime unit of police headquarters thought that computer monitor can store information.
When a crusade is called, there is only good vs evil, white vs black, enlightened vs ignorant, and so on.
The nature of this war against bloggers is no unlike to the ancient crusaders. Despite invoking the name of defending the Religion and the Empire, in reality the crusaders were the forces of ignorance and superstition.
However, the historical Crusade finally brought down the Dark Age in Europe.