COMMENT | The government is planning to reactivate Jasa (Special Affairs Department), the propaganda unit that was dissolved when Pakatan Harapan took power.

Jasa in Malay it just means “service”. An innocuous word that avoids the more often used word to describe its function – “propaganda”.

“Propaganda” a volatile word burdened with emotions, suggesting manipulation of thought and fudging the facts or telling outright lies… for the good of all, of course, always.

A musty word from the Cold War of the 50s and 60s, when Western nations and the Soviet Union shouted attractions and abuse at each other over the Iron Curtain, radio broadcasts on one side displaying the wealth of life in capitalist countries and reporting the bad news in the Soviet Union, the Russians heralding rising production figures from farm and factory, sending the first dog and man into space, and sending dissidents, who challenged the official picture of a happy society, to labour in Siberia.

Let’s make the terms current – the staff of Jasa are not propagandists but political influencers.

They will be media super-heroes, countering the bad news and inflating the good...