(B2) Malaysian and Malaysia's Media

What does it mean to be Malaysian? Well, I think there will be definitely more than one answer. In general, Malaysian means the individual who is holding a Malaysia citizenship. In Malaysia, race and religion’s issue are overwhelming; you will probably get a different answer if you ask a Malay Muslim and a non-Muslim person, for instance, Chinese and Indian. I am a Malaysian as I was locally born and raised. Malaysia is a “multi” society, which almost everything is “multi” in Malaysia, multiracial, multilingual, multi-religious and more. I was a Chinese but I practice Chinese culture as well as Malay and Indian’s culture.  With the mixture of all culture, we formed our own unique brand new “Malaysian culture”. We speak “rojak” language, which means mix language. Mamak, which is a road-side-store, a.k.a hawker, is also one of the uniqueness of Malaysia which brings all races together. I am looking forward to the day that race and religion is just a background, we would not think and care about the different between races and religion anymore.

Malaysia’s media sometimes reflects and creates and even perpetuates stereotypes and discrimination. For example, the racist propaganda on newspaper, Utusan Malaysia on 17 April 2011, Utusan Malaysia has told Barisan Nasional (BN) to ignore the Chinese community for not supporting the ruling association during Sarawak elections with message like “The average Chinese voters have rejected BN and supported DAP. Therefore the BN state government can no longer be too generous to give place to representatives from the community… …” (Utusan Malaysia, 2011) It is taming the citizen’s minds further from democracy. Another racist propaganda occurred few days later, which Utusan Malaysia calls for Malays to unite and defend against the Chinese try to rob their land and power.

Wednesday, 20 April 2011 — Utusan Malaysia called on its owners Umno today to spearhead a 1Melayu, 1Bumi movement involving all Malay parties — claiming DAP was intent on toppling the country’s Malay leadership. In his Cuit column, he (assistant chief editor Datuk Zaini Hassan ) said that DAP’s slogans in the recently concluded Sarawak state election called for Chinese voters to change the Malay-led government, adding that they already controlled everything and was now aiming for political power.

“Only absolute political power has not been controlled by the Chinese, everything else has been taken. Now DAP bringing great slogans among them, Undi Untuk Ubah (Vote for Change), Enough is Enough and Selamatkan Malaysia (Save Malaysia).’’ (Utusan Malaysia, 2011)

Frankly, as a Chinese, I felt offended and it indirectly planting some negative thought deep down inside me towards the Malays. News reported by Utusan Malaysia is sometimes racist, and it always sided to Malays, which makes me do not want to read Utusan Malaysia and it somehow makes me losing faith to Malaysia’s media. Sometimes, when I received information from newspaper, it is a necessary for me to check with other media or foreign media. There are also times, where Chinese and Indian has been coined as “pendatang” in news report although 1Malaysia ideological was there, but we, other races, has been coined by media as foreign comer, it is really sad and disappointed to hear that.  

Sources:

http://hartalmsm.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/malaysian-media-promotes-racist-fascism/

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2014/01/02/utusan-just-being-racist-as-usual/

http://web.usm.my/km/24-06/KM%20ART%2010.pdf