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Yet another rant, by some dumb kid who probably doesn't even know what he's saying anyways, but hey, that's just like his opinion or whatever, right?"
Ah, the new year.. The time for resolutions, promises, new hopes, change and kangkung. Yes, barely a month into it, and we're at it again. Gone and stirred things up, in a typically Malaysian fashion (whoo-hoo!). Again. No, I don't mean stir fried kangkung belacan. Ya'll know the infamous kangkung speech. I mean, in what other country, with so much room for growth and improvement, would the media be wasting their time time debating issues regarding household vegetables, Arabic holy words and whether or not the opposition leader is allowed in Japan. Well, hold on a second. I'm no expert, but with the ringgit experiencing the
biggest annual drop since a 35 per cent decline in 1997, a rising disparity between the poor and the rich, a decline in education standards, rising crime rates and a huge problem with brain drain all going on at the same time, its seems absurd that the nation's attention be focused on matters as trivial as spinach.
The media, undoubtedly holds a pivotal role. But with a lot of the mainstream media being tied to the government, the middle class in urban areas are turning to the internet as an alternate source of news, claiming it to be more reliable, be it from news sites nor social media alike. Many of these online sources however seem skew towards the favor of the opposition, and as a result, both sides seem to be playing a game where Malaysians are being constantly diarrheated by all manners of shite like political scandals, government failures and opposition screw ups, leaving us feeling confused and, well, pretty dissatisfied. Religion and race are repeatedly being politicized and used as walls to divide and conquer.
Attention is being driven away from what should or shouldn't be done, and is focused instead on what seems to capture the public's emotions best because essentially, its the emotions that rile people up and get them distracted. And since internet media are more accessible in urban areas, a political gap is created between the modern, opposition leaning urbanites and the conservative government leaning kampungites. What we really need is media that don't muck around. Freedom, transparency and courage is all it needs to be excellent in journalism, and till we have that, the rakyat just have to learn to shift through shite news to get the real picture.
Why get so worked up about the media? Because the media controls what the public is aware of. Shine light on an issue and immediately we have a national phenomenon (even a boderline idiotic stories like angry citizens filing police reports against politicians). And we as consumers, actually kinda have the right to demand proper news. We just have to not buy their shitty news, really. (Metro *cough cough*)
We deserve the truth, and we should be given the unbiased, undistorted truth, because only with truth and knowledge and education, can a social revolution occur.And its pretty obvious too, that change IS gonna come, its just a matter of when. And when that change comes, when the rakyat realises that they indeed hold the power, will the real issues be addressed.
But then again, you don't have to be reading this. We all kinda know whats going on. But hey, being Malaysians, it makes more sense to just laugh and go along with things, just like we always do, instead of actually doing something.
"LOL, HE SAID KANGKUNG!"
