I refer to the letter The Chief (In)Justice. Well written, Fahri Azzat! In the mainstream newspapers however, the Lingam tape expose only appears on page six or eight without the name of the 'prominent lawyer' and judge being mentioned.
The top news instead in the Star (and probably every other paper) is of the death and recovery of the body of the girl Nurin Jazlin Jazimin. As usual, scandal and tragedy gets front-page attention. Why? Because Malaysians are still interested in horror, major crime and human interest stories.
But I'd like to draw the attention to my fellow citizens of the 'problems' with the Nurin news coverage :
(i) murders and kidnappings happen regularly. Don't be fooled into thinking that there aren't other victims, just because you haven't heard of them. With all due respect to Nurin's family, the mainstream media would rather concentrate on children. Imagine if our newspapers were to highlight sodomy of 'fresh' inmates by the older convicts at the Sungai Buloh prison. Would anyone really care?
(ii) by portraying the killer as a sadist and the cruellest possible beast, our politicians know that the 'rakyat' will channel all our anger and hate onto the perpetrator. With our energy spent, hopefully we'll forget the transgressions of our equally evil (in different ways, of course) ministers, top businessmen, policemen, Rela personnel, judges, etc.
(iii) once Nurul's killer is caught, he'll be convicted and punished to the full extent of the law. We'll all go home happy. But does not mean the world would be a safer place then? No! At the risk of sounding like an expert, I dare say that the increase in pathology and crime in Malaysia (as well as the rest of the world) is because life doesn't make much sense anymore.
And I say life makes no sense because rather than concentrating on the important things in life like family and the environment, our powerful politicians would rather do what politicians do all the time. For example:
- argue and whine like small kids against their detractors, whether in Parliament or outside;
'He who sows the wind, reaps the whirlwind'.
