Although the Western media may not be the paragon of truth , the whole truth and nothing but the truth, they are the most watched tv channels in the world. When the Chinese in China want to get the real picture abt the recent protests against the extended Covid lockdowns in several China cities, they turned to their relatives and family friends in HK and abroad to tell them what international media like CNN and BBC are saying.
When top businessmen travel, they will stay in hotels that have tv carrying Western channels like CNN, BBC. In Russia, the Putin govt has closed down several independent tv stations and newspapers. As they don't trust their own media, the Russian people ask their contacts abroad to send them news abt their country’s economy and the Ukraine war.
With mobile phones, Iran protestors are sending out videos of the police brutality to show what's really happening bcos the state media is always bluffing the people. The BBC, al Jazeera and CNN air the news from Iran for us to see from our bedrooms. Iran maintains tight controls over its media. University students in Teheran don't believe the official news from state tv. They trust more the foreign news from CNN , BBC, and alJazeera.
It's also from western TV that we Malaysians hear all about the economic threats facing the world economy. When the MPs from the govt side spoke in Parliament yesterday to support the motion of confidence for Anwar, they quoted western media reports when comparing how Malaysia is doing in attracting foreign investment compared to other ASEAN
countries.
Nobody is interested in quoting from the local news or from third-world countries bcos they are always in self-denial as they are afraid to offend their home govts. In Malaysia, when the business weekend newspaper The Edge reported on the 1MDB scandal after the news broke out in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal around 2011, the editor had to run away to Spore as the police were looking for him. In Malaysia, whenever there is bad world press coverage abt our leaders, the Islamists will quickly blame it on the CIA and the Jews. We are never wrong bcos we are Islamic. And there are x PTD officers who also believe in such conspiracy theories. We are never wrong! It's the Westerners who create all the problems in Muslim countries!
When Spore became independent in 1959, Lee Kuan Yew told Sporeans the time for blaming the colonial powers for everything that goes wrong in the country was over. He said as an independent country, Sporeans must take responsibility for their own destiny. He said, stop blaming the West.
The Muslim world shd take LKY’s advice and learn to live with the realities of the modern world and our historical ties with the West on trade, the economy, education, cultural, and entertainment.
Let us learn to grow up, especially us ex PTDs.
Sheriff
Comments