Find Malaysia Today here at http://mt.harapanmalaysia.com to keep on hearing Raja Petra’s voice of the news in Malaysia.

In the west successful democracies thrive on 5 pillars:

1. low poverty level
    
2. high education level
    
3. each voice can speak in their own newspaper
    
4. transparency
    
5. politicians, police and lawyers are 3 complete independent bodies

Of course the above 5 pillars are the ideal situation and we all know that ideals are not the same as reality…

Now when it comes to Malaysia, the newspapers are highly under pressure not to upset whoever needs to grant them their yearly license in order to keep in business. This is now and already was in place during the Mahathir reign.

Quite surprisingly, it’s Dr. Mahathir today who is today condemning the government for retracing its long-held promise not to censor the Internet, in this case Raja Petra’s ‘controversial’ blog. Surprisingly when it comes to freedom of press, not surprisingly as Dr. Mahathir was the architect of freedom of speech on the Internet.

One does wonder: why on the Internet and why not in the newspaper? Or is there a link between the Internet have’s and have not’s and their level of education and income in the democratic ideals we stated above?

So what’s so funny about all this?

As if a blogger who is raising his voice so loud and controversial as Raja Petra won’t have a backup to put online in less than 24 hours fully operational as if nothing happened.

I mean: if police breaks into his house and is ordered to confiscate Raja Petra’s scanner, then it is clear that whoever is ordering these IT repercussions is not fully aware of the velocity of countering an IT and especially an Internet attack.

Raja Petra does say things on his blog that are controversial, but for these sayings he already has some law-suits pending, so was it really needed to again let the police confiscate his computer and for somebody ordering ISP’s to block his website?

What’s not at all funny is that when you let people not voice their thoughts, one day there will be a voice screaming thoughts so loud like what is happening on Raja Petra’s blog.

It’s going to take much more effort to silence the extremely loud voice of Malaysia Today…

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Technorati Tags: dr mahathir, Internet, malaysia today, raja petra

But unlike the other swearings that got the news, Anwar Ibrahim will be sworn in tomorrow as a new member of Parliament - God willing that is.

Yesterday Anwar Ibrahim won the Permatang Pauh by-election with a 2/3 majority of the votes:

Anwar Ibrahim now faces 3 challenges:

1. staying alive
    
2. staying out of jail and
    
3. living up to his promise: taking over the government by forming a majority coalition at September 16th.

Whatever happens, we hope Malaysia will benefit.

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Technorati Tags: Anwar, Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia, Malaysia Newspaper, member of parliament, new member, parliament, swearing

Today there are by-elections in Permatang Pauh to vote Anwar Ibrahim back into Parliament or not. It’s almost 1 pm, all is calm and it started to rain.

All is going reasonably smooth, although there is chanting of "liwat" (sodomy charges against Anwar Ibrahim) against "Altantuya!" (an unsolved murder crime involving ‘a very high ranking BN politician’).

Liwat and Altantuya are a far cry of what you would expect politics is about:

making a country a better place for its citizens to live in.

Another far cry is the personalization involved: it shouldn’t be about Anwar but again about:

making a country a better place for its citizens to live in.

And for the masks… I am always afraid when people don’t show their own face. Why?

Because it’s easy for people to forget they are looking at a mask and not at the person behind the mask.

There is no guarantee that the person behind the mask is from the same party as the person on the mask…

As long as there is no violence, all is done in good faith. But when there are masks instigating violence, then you need to remember that the picture on the mask is not the person behind the mask!

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Technorati Tags: Anwar, Anwar Ibrahim, anwar ibrahim liwat saiful, elections, holiday in malaysia, Malaysia, Malaysia Newspaper, parliament, Permatang Pauh