New media
Why Singapore starts to loosen up..
Malaysia's UMNO leaders shun the Internet, block the 'troublesome', while in Singapore the opposite for a simple reason: It can't be banned. By Seah Chiang Nee
Sep 2, 2008

With both their parties in power since independence, the leaders of Singapore and Malaysia have shared a common jaundiced view towards the use of the Internet for politics -- until recently.

Now they appear to be moving towards the opposite directions.

While Malaysia's UMNO-led government remains hostile to the new technology and, in fact, has banned the country's most popular weblog, Malaysia Today, Singapore's Prime Minister is loosening web controlst, probably with a view of entering the arena.

The contrast apparently stems from different assessments of how effective the fast, wide-reaching multi-media as a political weapon.

Mr. Lee Hsien Loong and his cabinet colleagues obviously see it as a powerful - and indestructible - weapon now being used by the People's Action Party's (PAP) political foes.

So their attitude is: "If you can't suppress it, join it."

In Malaysia, this realisation has either not set in, or if it has, it hasn't the confidence to loosen up for fear it will get bitten. In fact, the opposition inroad during the Mar 8 general election was due largely to the new media.

I have been told that UMNO regards the shocking result as a quirk, a one-time event that would reverse itself over time, so there is no need for any changes.

Deputy Prime Minister Najib bin Razak has reportedly said that in its history, UMNO has done badly only on one previous occasion. "And in the following election it bounced back strongly," he said, indicating this could be the case once more.

Like the People's Action Party, which relies on the controlled newspapers (especially The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao) to disseminate its political messages to Singaporeans, UMNO, too, depends on The New Straits Times, Berita Harian and Utusan Melayu to do its politicasl work.

Compared to the Republic, Kuala Lumpur has a larger, far more active, web community (in all languages), including a popular online newspaper and hundreds of active political weblogs.

But the leaders of UMNO, from Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi and DPM Naji as well as their senior colleagues have never resorted to its use to reach out to Malaysians. None of them is, as far as I know, tech-savvy or operates his or her own site.

This reveals a surprising lack of awareness of the Net's usefulness or the ulsessness of a strong-arm tactic to suppress it. Even former Prime Minister, the ageing Dr. Mahathir Mohamad operates his own blog to keep in touch with his supporters.

(Last year a journalist friend asked him how - at 82 - he was able to learn how to operate it, he replied it was his grand-children who helped him. "I just dictate to them," he said. His favourites were the Google and Yahoo search engines).

On the other hand, the leader of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat, Mr. Anwar Ibrahim, carries the latest laptops, ipods and web cameras, and relies friendly on the new tech to reach out to Malaysia's 27 million people.

He has succeeded in the communication game despite being boycotted by the mainstream media for a long time.

Mr. Anwar has his own blog. So does his political partner, Mr. Lim Kit Siang of the Democratic Action Party (DAP). Both sites were widely visited.

In addition, they use e-mail to get their messages out in all languages to the length and breath of the nation.

There was a story one day of an aide scurrying to his room to read to him some negative reports in the Malay language newspapers, Mr. Anwar immediately held up his hand and said, "Stop, stop. I don't care what they say.

"No one reads them except government supporters. Just concentrate of getting our messages out in our own way."

His success has apparently not been lost to Mr. Lee Hsien Loong in Singapore.

Instead of fllowing the UMNO way - it banned Malaysia Today and had the police to occasionally arrest the editor - the Singapore government has relaxed some Internet restrictions and announced more to come.
By Seah Chiang Nee