MALAYSIAN BLOGGERS ARE BOGGED DOWN WITH SMALL ISSUES, BECAUSE THESE ARE ALL THAT THEY CAN WRITE ON.
…THEY CAN NEVER TAKE ON THE BIGGER ONES OF THE WORLD. WHILE BLOGGING IN MANDARIN AND TAMIL IS ALMOST NON-EXISTENT.
By Mansor Puteh
THIS NEW YEAR IS NOT GOING TO BE A NEW YEAR IN THE RIGHT SENSE OF THE WORD, BUT JUST AN EXTENSION OF THE OLD YEAR.
I M POSTING THIS ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE NEW YEAR IN THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR OR OF THE COMMON ERA.
AND I CAN BET MOST OF THE THINGS BLOGGERS IN MALAYSIA WILL BE CONCERNED ABOUT ARE GOING TO BE THE SAME ISSUES THAT HAD BOGGED THEM LAST YEAR AND THE REST OF THE PREVIOUS YEARS SINCE THEY STARTED TO BLOG.
WHILE I TRY TO LOOK AT ALL OF THEM AND THEIR PECULIAR ANTICS AND WRITE ON ALMOST DIFFERENT THINGS THAN WHAT THEY COULD COME UP WITH, THE BIGGER ISSUES INSTEAD OF THE PETTY ONES.
MAYBE SOME OF THE BLOGGERS FROM AMONGST THE AMATUER POLITICIANS AND COMMUNITY LEADERS OUGHT TO TAKE MORE INTERESTS IN DRAINS WHICH ARE CLOGGED AND HIGHWAYS WHICH ARE ALWAYS JAM-PACKED DUE TO POOR ROAD DESIGN THAT INVITE REPETITIVE ROAD ACCIDENTS, IF THEY WANT TO BE OF ANY USE TO THE COMMUNITY AND COUNTRY.
This is what’s happening in Blogsphere in Malaysia.
Blogging in Melayu is more widespread than in English while blogging in Mandarin and Tamil is almost non-existent. Does this prove something?
In fact, even Dr Mahathir now writes more in Melayu than in English, so he is able to get the right people to access his website to see what he writes most of the time. There are so few of his essays that are in English.
So most of the comments he gets are from Melayu who write in Melayu instead of in English with only few non-Melayu commenters.
So you want to wonder what the bloggers of Malaysia who do it in Mandarin and Tamil write on and what are they fascinated about. You can’t because you don’t know what they write.
Most likely they don’t write as passionately as their brethren who write in English in their blogs.
The Chinese and Tamils who blog in Malay do not sound like their brethren who do in English.
The English language has a way of making them feel empowered, because they think they are more expressive in this language than in Melayu or Mandarin or Tamil.
In fact, I have not come across blogs by politicians and community leaders in Malaysia which are in Mandarin and Tamil only.
Or, are there blogs in Mandarin and Tamil by bloggers in other countries other than from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong?
There are many blogs which are in Melayu, created by the Melayu in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapura. There is hardly anyone from Brunei and South Siam who are blogging in this language.
Why are those who write in English feel powerful with their words and thoughts?
Because they know what they write can be read by more, compared to writing in Mandarin or Tamil when only those who are literate in these languages are able to follow them. And chances are, they are also of the same race as they are so there is no need for them to bring their woes to.
Does it prove that vernacular school background does not take one very far; it only can take the students who study in Mandarin and Tamil to a certain point.
So no wonder many of the Chinese and Indian students, as well as the Melayu ones opt to study in the national schools once they go to secondary school so much so that there are only so few vernacular secondary schools in the country.
Worse still, when one by one they are demanding compensation and financial support in order to maintain their schools or else they would collapse.
What they are not aware of is how by doing so, they disregarded their self-respect, and can not call their schools ‘independent schools’ anymore. They are now dependent on the charity of the government, from which they had turned their backs from, to prove that they could remain independent of it and of charity because they thought they were able to conduct business with the full support of their own business community.
Now they are feeling helpless, so they want to seek financial allocation from the federal and state governments, or else they would collapse. They cannot depend on their own communities to survive.
And there is no university which offers courses in Mandarin and Tamil. In fact, there is no cry from the leaders and educators of the respective communities to compel the government to allow them to establish universities whose only medium of instruction is Mandarin or Tamil.
So, what’s the cry for the need to maintain and sustain the so-called vernacular schools by their respective community leaders?
It is no more a cry of discontent. It is also a cry of helplessness by communities who prefer to be displaced so they can feel displaced at their pleasure, since this can give some of them some measure of satisfaction for being able to construct their imaginary fortresses in lands which their ancestors had come from so far away to flee from their immediate miseries.
It is also mostly a philosophical matter and not just political as what many of them had made it out to be.
Whatever it Malaysian bloggers mostly write on the same tired issues.
Many of them have been in the business for many years and have managed to get millions of hits but there is nothing that kicks the imagination of the better qualified.
They mostly get hits for whatever they write which is mostly on the current issues, those that are on the front-pages of the newspapers dealing with scandals and more controversies.
Not many of the bloggers in Malaysia come up with pieces which are thought-provoking in the positive sense; many are general essayists or hacks.
No blogger in Malaysia deals with international issues, concerning the Middle East problems and such lissues. The world to them is restricted to what they hear.
But they do care for the environment, the more colorful global issues, but they can’t write anything on them because their minds are restricted by their limited capacity to elucidate them.
So these issues remain outside of their realm of thinking.
Besides, there are not many hits that they can get writing and posting such pieces anyway.
Maybe some Malaysian bloggers should start to write about the small issues that affect them everyday such as clogged drains, interrupted electric power supply and also of uninterrupted noise pollution by inconsiderate neighbors who keep on renovating their houses to turn them into their mini-palaces.
These are the sort of issues that some of the petty community leaders and other politicians should be dealing with, and not those that they were not elected to do.
How many of the members of parliament and state assemblies in Malaysia have blogs where they bring such matters to the public’s attention?
In fact, most of the drains which were clogged long before the last 8 March, 2008 general elections are still in the same condition.
And the roads and highways such as the JLT-II or MRR2, in Pandan Jaya are still clogged even during the off-peak hours.
Didn’t the assemblymen pass by this highway, to know that it is clogged still and why it still happens?
They only know how to hang banners to greet them for all their respective religious and cultural holidays.
This is the only way they think they can show their presence and tells everybody they are their representatives in parliament and the state assemblies and nothing else.
By Mansor Puteh
THIS NEW YEAR IS NOT GOING TO BE A NEW YEAR IN THE RIGHT SENSE OF THE WORD, BUT JUST AN EXTENSION OF THE OLD YEAR.
I M POSTING THIS ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE NEW YEAR IN THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR OR OF THE COMMON ERA.
AND I CAN BET MOST OF THE THINGS BLOGGERS IN MALAYSIA WILL BE CONCERNED ABOUT ARE GOING TO BE THE SAME ISSUES THAT HAD BOGGED THEM LAST YEAR AND THE REST OF THE PREVIOUS YEARS SINCE THEY STARTED TO BLOG.
WHILE I TRY TO LOOK AT ALL OF THEM AND THEIR PECULIAR ANTICS AND WRITE ON ALMOST DIFFERENT THINGS THAN WHAT THEY COULD COME UP WITH, THE BIGGER ISSUES INSTEAD OF THE PETTY ONES.
MAYBE SOME OF THE BLOGGERS FROM AMONGST THE AMATUER POLITICIANS AND COMMUNITY LEADERS OUGHT TO TAKE MORE INTERESTS IN DRAINS WHICH ARE CLOGGED AND HIGHWAYS WHICH ARE ALWAYS JAM-PACKED DUE TO POOR ROAD DESIGN THAT INVITE REPETITIVE ROAD ACCIDENTS, IF THEY WANT TO BE OF ANY USE TO THE COMMUNITY AND COUNTRY.
This is what’s happening in Blogsphere in Malaysia.
Blogging in Melayu is more widespread than in English while blogging in Mandarin and Tamil is almost non-existent. Does this prove something?
In fact, even Dr Mahathir now writes more in Melayu than in English, so he is able to get the right people to access his website to see what he writes most of the time. There are so few of his essays that are in English.
So most of the comments he gets are from Melayu who write in Melayu instead of in English with only few non-Melayu commenters.
So you want to wonder what the bloggers of Malaysia who do it in Mandarin and Tamil write on and what are they fascinated about. You can’t because you don’t know what they write.
Most likely they don’t write as passionately as their brethren who write in English in their blogs.
The Chinese and Tamils who blog in Malay do not sound like their brethren who do in English.
The English language has a way of making them feel empowered, because they think they are more expressive in this language than in Melayu or Mandarin or Tamil.
In fact, I have not come across blogs by politicians and community leaders in Malaysia which are in Mandarin and Tamil only.
Or, are there blogs in Mandarin and Tamil by bloggers in other countries other than from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong?
There are many blogs which are in Melayu, created by the Melayu in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapura. There is hardly anyone from Brunei and South Siam who are blogging in this language.
Why are those who write in English feel powerful with their words and thoughts?
Because they know what they write can be read by more, compared to writing in Mandarin or Tamil when only those who are literate in these languages are able to follow them. And chances are, they are also of the same race as they are so there is no need for them to bring their woes to.
Does it prove that vernacular school background does not take one very far; it only can take the students who study in Mandarin and Tamil to a certain point.
So no wonder many of the Chinese and Indian students, as well as the Melayu ones opt to study in the national schools once they go to secondary school so much so that there are only so few vernacular secondary schools in the country.
Worse still, when one by one they are demanding compensation and financial support in order to maintain their schools or else they would collapse.
What they are not aware of is how by doing so, they disregarded their self-respect, and can not call their schools ‘independent schools’ anymore. They are now dependent on the charity of the government, from which they had turned their backs from, to prove that they could remain independent of it and of charity because they thought they were able to conduct business with the full support of their own business community.
Now they are feeling helpless, so they want to seek financial allocation from the federal and state governments, or else they would collapse. They cannot depend on their own communities to survive.
And there is no university which offers courses in Mandarin and Tamil. In fact, there is no cry from the leaders and educators of the respective communities to compel the government to allow them to establish universities whose only medium of instruction is Mandarin or Tamil.
So, what’s the cry for the need to maintain and sustain the so-called vernacular schools by their respective community leaders?
It is no more a cry of discontent. It is also a cry of helplessness by communities who prefer to be displaced so they can feel displaced at their pleasure, since this can give some of them some measure of satisfaction for being able to construct their imaginary fortresses in lands which their ancestors had come from so far away to flee from their immediate miseries.
It is also mostly a philosophical matter and not just political as what many of them had made it out to be.
Whatever it Malaysian bloggers mostly write on the same tired issues.
Many of them have been in the business for many years and have managed to get millions of hits but there is nothing that kicks the imagination of the better qualified.
They mostly get hits for whatever they write which is mostly on the current issues, those that are on the front-pages of the newspapers dealing with scandals and more controversies.
Not many of the bloggers in Malaysia come up with pieces which are thought-provoking in the positive sense; many are general essayists or hacks.
No blogger in Malaysia deals with international issues, concerning the Middle East problems and such lissues. The world to them is restricted to what they hear.
But they do care for the environment, the more colorful global issues, but they can’t write anything on them because their minds are restricted by their limited capacity to elucidate them.
So these issues remain outside of their realm of thinking.
Besides, there are not many hits that they can get writing and posting such pieces anyway.
Maybe some Malaysian bloggers should start to write about the small issues that affect them everyday such as clogged drains, interrupted electric power supply and also of uninterrupted noise pollution by inconsiderate neighbors who keep on renovating their houses to turn them into their mini-palaces.
These are the sort of issues that some of the petty community leaders and other politicians should be dealing with, and not those that they were not elected to do.
How many of the members of parliament and state assemblies in Malaysia have blogs where they bring such matters to the public’s attention?
In fact, most of the drains which were clogged long before the last 8 March, 2008 general elections are still in the same condition.
And the roads and highways such as the JLT-II or MRR2, in Pandan Jaya are still clogged even during the off-peak hours.
Didn’t the assemblymen pass by this highway, to know that it is clogged still and why it still happens?
They only know how to hang banners to greet them for all their respective religious and cultural holidays.
This is the only way they think they can show their presence and tells everybody they are their representatives in parliament and the state assemblies and nothing else.
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