Malaysian Candidates Required to Have Blogs 41
Pioneer Woman writes "Abdul Rahman Dahlan, secretary general of the United Malays National Organization party's youth wing, said all those vying for national youth posts must have blogs to introduce themselves and their programs ahead of party elections in December. The decision appeared aimed at countering heavy losses that the ruling National Front coalition suffered in last month's general elections. In a country where mainstream media is tightly controlled by the government they underestimated the power of online campaigning. In the past, party politicians have said bloggers spread lies and rumors but now even youth deputy Khairy Jamaluddin — who once compared bloggers to monkeys living by the law of the jungle — has a blog."
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only a blog ? (Score:3, Funny)
Youth Deputy Troy McClure (Score:4, Funny)
(Yes, we've finally made a monkey,)
Yes, you've finally made a monkey
Out of meeeee!
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Bloggers are leaders. (Score:4, Insightful)
"All candidates must have blogs," Abdul Rahman told The Associated Press. "If not, they are not qualified to be leaders."
"He said help will be available for party members who do not know how to create a blog."
I was almost able to read that with a straight face.
This is like saying that everyone that wants a driver's license must have a cell phone. If not, they are not qualified to drive a vehicle.
I understand that the party believes the internet to be a key factor in their elections, but what does one have to do with the other?
George Bush doesn't have a bl . . . oh wait.
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Re:Bloggers are leaders. (Score:4, Informative)
The world doesn't bow to "you." You need to research and dig into the issues yourself and if one medium isn't providing the information you need, use multiple sources.
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In Malaysia they don't have many alternatives.
All the TV stations are controlled by BN (the majority party). Likewise every English and Malay-language newspaper with any significant circulation. The party selects the editors, and fires them if they report any interesting news. The party's acquiescence is required in order to get a printing licence (yes, you really do need a licence to operate a printing press
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The people affected by this aren't running to lead Malaysia (and eventually be assaulted by Derek Zoolander). It's roughly equivalent to the Young Republicans or College Democrats adopting such a policy.
Re:Bloggers are leaders. (Score:4, Informative)
"Malaysia's mainstream media is tightly controlled by the government. Opposition leaders complain they did not get equal access to air time, in advance of the elections this month, while the ruling coalition of Prime Minster Abdullah Badawi spent millions of dollars on campaign ads."
His party still lost their majority, and they believe it's because they didn't utilize the internet. I don't think it has anything to do with openness - it has to do with those in power wanting to stay in power.
I just don't see why having a blog suddenly qualifies you as a leader - to make such a logical leap IMHO calls into question his own leadership abilities.
Re:Bloggers are leaders. (Score:5, Informative)
Why is the 2/3 so significant, considering in most matured democracy getting 60% itself is considered a landslide? There are a few reasons:
- The ruling party is very dominant and had always held on to power since independence by large margins,
- The ruling party affliated companies owns most mainstream media and controls it tightly, so even with rampant corruption and abuse of power, all these are surpressed and the opposition made to look like weak and ineffectual,
- The last time the 2/3 majority was lost in 1969 - racial riots ensued, lots of people were killed, emergency rule was declared, and the government made a deal with an opposition splinter to join the coalition when parliament reconvened a few years later thus regaining the 2/3. So the government use this event (called the May 13 1969 riots) to scare and warn the populace: that to deny the ruling party 2/3 majority is to invite racial bloodshed again,
- With 2/3 majority the government have made more than 160 amendments to the constitution as they liked and wish. A recent one was to extend the Election Commissioner's tenure even when he was supposed to step down (some allerge that this is so that he can be trusted to skew the results in the government's favour).
- Internal politics within the ruling party is very intense with multiple 'camps', strong vested interest due to concentration of money and power, and ineffectual whips. Each camp is waiting to pounce to secure the crown of Prime Ministership.
Despite all these, the ruling party still managed to lose the 2/3 majority even with tight control of mainstream media (who denounce the opposition mercilessly before the elections). The explanation most pundits agree is that for once, the younger people have internet access to alternative media exposes of all the many scandals that came to light in the past few years.
This is a typical knee-jerk and panic reaction by the government that is bewildered and shaken that its tight grip on people's ears and eyes are loosening (it even got a Kafkesque Ministry of Information), and instead of cleaning up its act, feel like they must master the PR game that is now shifting to the internet.
To which I say... good luck to them!
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I think it's you who is making the logical leap.
He said: "If not, they are not qualified to be leaders."
!A -> !B, does not mean A -> B
He considers having a blog merely a NECESSARY, but not necessarily SUFFICIENT requirement to be a leader.
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Why, I can just see people modding me up +5, Informative right now!
Re:WHY IS THIS IN POLITICS??!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
The Politics section was originally designed to drive page hits by taking advantage of the hot topic of the day, that being the 2004 elections. It has since morphed into a holding ground for basically any vaguely political story, and serves as a way to get controversial (and therefore high page view generating) stories on Slashdot that aren't necessarily directly tech related. The FAQ itself is so rarely updated that you could hardly expect it to contain up to date information on what individual sections of the site are currently used for, or even provide a good list of what sections currently exist.
In short, take a deep breath, relax, and learn to let these things slide.
Blog doesn't mean what it used to (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean these days a company can take what they used to call their press release archive and call it a blog. Heck, by the current definition of the term,
So all this Malaysian thing has nothing to do with blogging (in the original sense of the word) gaining any mindshare. All that is is really saying is that Malaysian politicians are required to put their position papers and general propaganda online. Unfortunately, no serious politician, Malaysian or otherwise, is really going to put their unedited musings online.
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Unfortunately, no serious politician, Malaysian or otherwise, is really going to put their unedited musings online.
http://carlbildt.wordpress.com/ [wordpress.com]
It's in Swedish, but in short it's the Swedish foreign minister's blog and it's written from a personal perspective on current foreign issues, international meetings, government meetings, etc.
Of course it's not unedited (one might even doubt Bildt is the actual writer), but it's musing, highly democratic and extremely controversial.
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The current definition? The first definition I heard for blog was "um, you know, like Slashdot."
A semi-regularly updated online journal was always called a "diary" since the earliest days of the web. It's the commenting ability that defined a blog, although as you say the definition seems to keep changing, much to my annoyance. What these candidates are supposed to have sound more like just an official webpage to me.
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Jeff Ooi [jeffooi.com], Penang MP, has blogged regularly for many years and continues to do so. His political career started on his blog.
And Lord, if he has an editor, they ought to be fired. I more or less like Jeff, but he posts some really incoherent, raving, and ill-informed rants sometimes. He runs the comments section like BN exercises the ISA - with swift and sometimes pre-emptive attacks on detrac
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Ahhh, Lim Kit Siang... For the Malaysian politician whose opinion I respect, the front page of his site always struck me as an unfortunate 'own goal'. An image declares 'Lim Kit Siang - for Malaysia', and the reader is invited to read his blog in one of two languages: English or Chinese. No mention of the official language of Malaysia.
As for Teresa Kok [teresakok.com], titling her site 'Sassy MP' seems a little out of touch to me - wouldn't 'Hawt MP' be more contemporary?
all professionally written, no doubt (Score:2)
Don't think for a minute that any of the candidates will actually ever sign-on and write content themselves - unless of course it's in the context of an on-line chat "ooooh, how trendy!". Even then they will have a full complement of spin-doctors examining every keystroke for nuance, mis-comprehension and sub-text.
The basic problem all over the world is that
Turncoats (Score:1, Insightful)
Use cron (Score:1)
0800: Woke up and brush teeth
0830: Eat breakfast
1200: Eat lunch
1800: Eat dinner
2200: Sleep
This way, they actually do have a blog entry!!!
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This is Malaysia we are talking about.
0930 Go to work
1000 Wake up
1030 Step out for nasi lemak before the stall shuts
1200 Lunch
1330 Ask for the bill
1430 Go out for teh tarik
1630 Stop working
1830 Boss leaves the office
1831 Stop surfing the web and chatting on IM and actually leave the office yourself
2000 Arrive home after sitting in the jam on Old Klang Road for one hour
2130 Dinner
2300 Supper
0245 Make a lot of noise to bother raju1kabir in the apartment below you
0300 Go to sleep
We in the US should follow their example this year (Score:1)
Blogging - British socialist style!!! (Score:1, Interesting)
This is actually a big step (Score:2, Interesting)
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A blogger was elected into Parliament (Score:1)
Re: A blogger was elected into Parliament (Score:2)
* comments on these "blogs" (if allowed at all) will be carefully moderated and perhaps simply fabricated
* they'll also be able to modify and remove old posts if they want to dodge promises they made (though they will have to learn a lesson about the unforgetting nature of the internet).