Transcript

The power of alternative media

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Transcript

Matt Smith:

In the Western world, freedom of press can be taken for granted. the right to uncontrolled news does not exist in many countries, Malaysia being one of them. I'm Matt Smith and you're listening to a La Trobe University podcast.

Raja Petra Kamarudin is an editor and an activist, and, to many in Malaysia, a symbol. For years he has been publishing an alternative news source on line called Malaysia Today and has been questioned, interrogated, detained without a trial, and is now living in exile, for publishing anti-government news.

Raja Petra Kamarudin:

I started back in the seventies. At that time I was involved with a few Islamic movements. You could say in a way we were inspired by developments in Iran and the Islamic revolutionists, stuff like that. Later, the focus was on a more what I would say, civil society. We realised that under Islamic regime, things like civil society are not top on the priority list. Eventually we looked more at issues like how to fight against detention without trial or fight for the abolishing for detention without trial and stuff like that, more freedom of speech, freedom of association – which are denied in Malaysia. So those are the issues eventually that brought us to the 1990s, when the internet first came to Malaysia.

Matt Smith:

How controlled is the media in Malaysia? You first started to try and disseminate your word by print, didn't you?

Raja Petra Kamarudin:

To print anything in Malaysia, you need a permit. Not only do you need a permit, also the printer needs a permit. Of course they monitor whatever you print. If you publish a newspaper you need a permit and practically every day you might receive a phone call from the Ministry, expressing their unhappiness about a certain news item or a certain article, and this would eventually involve you not getting your permit renewed. So there's very heavy censorship in the print media. Everyone down the line will get charged, and even the vendor. If you own a newsagent or you own a bookshop and you happen to be just selling the stuff – in fact most times you didn't even read the stuff – but you too will suffer prosecution when they confiscate any … what they regard as offending material, they will not just confiscate that particular material, they will confiscate everything in the shop.

Matt Smith:

So you did try at first to get your message out through the print, did you?

Raja Petra Kamarudin:

Yes, of course, in the early days and the days before the internet, it was a running battle in the sense that most times you publish and be damned or you publish under a pseudonym so that no-one can find out who you are. There are times when you can't publish your material in a licensed newspaper, so you've virtually got to publish in an underground newspaper, what you can call an illegal newspaper, and distribute it through your underground network, because you're an unlicensed newspaper and you have to run an unlicensed newspaper because whatever you're going to publish will never get approval by the government.

I suppose we had a very limited market. Those who get to read what we write are probably dissidents and those who operate on the fringes of the law, so to speak. It was not until the mid 90s when the internet came to Malaysia that we began publishing things on the internet. The Government didn't take much notice initially because they didn't regard the internet as any serious threat to the position of the powers that be. The internet got a boost a couple of years later when Anwar Ibrahim was arrested and thrown in jail, especially when it was discovered he was beaten up while under arrest. So people who were hungry for news went to the internet to get it, because they couldn't get it on the mainstream newspapers and from 1999 thereon it just started to expand. And this went all the way up to probably 2004. 2004 was a most disastrous period for the Opposition, in fact that was the worst performance in history that the Opposition ever suffered. Many of us decided that we really needed to engage the Government in a media war. We were losing the media war. The Government with all the newspapers and TV and radio at its control, they were able to disseminate news and information far better than we could. I decided to launch Malaysia Today 2004 soon after disastrous election and many other blogs also emerged, over the next two years until 2006. Probably Malaysia, per capita, had the most number of blogs in the world, you know.

By 2007, we had sort of saturated the market with thousands and thousands of blogs. When I think we saw the success, in November, we organised an enormous rally and march to the King's Palace and we got a crowd of about 50,000. It was a mixed crowd. You had older people, young people, you had Malaysians, Chinese, it was quite a multi-racial crowd. We realised that the message probably sunk in. And that was proven just a few months later, in March 2008, during the elections, when most of the urban areas, which means areas with a very high internet penetration, fell to the Opposition.

Matt Smith:

So, has this version of alternative media in Malaysia become now the trusted new source?

Raja Petra Kamarudin:

We are supposed to be the alternative media, but we are probably not the main media and the mainstream media is the alternative media, because we get more hits and higher readership than the main media. Malaysia Today is an example. We have half a million unique readers. It used to be one million in the early days, but as I said, there are so many blogs and websites out there. Many others also probably existed and when you compare with a mainstream newspaper like The Straits Times which is the flagship of the Government's media, they've only got 65,000 circulation. And 65,000 circulation, half are distributed free. And the top newspaper, which is the Chinese newspaper, Sin Chew, their circulation is 300,000. I would say if you look at the print media, or what we would call the mainstream media, they are trailing behind the alternative media. We, the alternative media, should be called now the main media.

Matt Smith:

Has the Government tried to censor what goes on to blogs on Malaysia Today? Have they tried to control that?

Raja Petra Kamarudin:

Oh yes. Many, many times, on many occasions. They have raided my house, maybe six or seven times. They've confiscated my computers on most occasions until eventually I could not even own a computer and I had to go out of my house to do my work. I've been called to the police station for interrogation maybe, what, half a dozen times at least. I've been detained without trial, under the Internal Security Act twice. I've been arrested three times, separate to the detention. And I've been charged in court twice. Many have actually just gone underground. They do not dare publish any more. After being called to the police station for interrogation, they sort of just retired. I'm probably one of the most stubborn ones. Until now – I can't even live in the country any more, without worrying every morning about the police coming to my house. It was so stressful that every time we hear the doorbell, my wife will run to the window with this look of fear on her face, expecting the police, and out of every ten doorbell rings, she's probably right – the police were there. And she would panic, and say, "The police are in the front of the house", and there we are, you know, scrambling and stuff like that. Until she said she can't take any more, you know. I mean, every time the doorbell rings and she turns pale and runs to the window and panics – you see, what kind of life is this?

Matt Smith:

So, what stories have you been publishing on Malaysia Today that have warranted this sort of reaction from the Government?

Raja Petra Kamarudin:

Well, there are many controversial stories I've published, some more controversial than others. The one that they are most upset about is my stories linking the Prime Minister and his wife to the murder of that Mongolian woman Altantuyaa Shaariibuugiin. The Prime Minister's wife took this very personally, and the fact that a lot of issues I raised were very credible, contrary to what many people believe. I did not actually make any allegation that they were involved. What I did was, I raised a lot of questions and a lot of issues which I said were never answered, you know. There's this dark cloud hanging over their heads. Granted, the law says that you are innocent until proven guilty, but being a Prime Minister, I think you have to take that extra step. The fact that there is even a suspicion on our Prime Minister is not bloody good, and I think that got them a bit upset.

Matt Smith:

Well, if it landed you into detention – was detention worth it?

Raja Petra Kamarudin:

I don't think any form of detention is worth it, being locked up under solitary confinement for months and months on end, is very traumatic. You don't actually have to get beaten up. You don't actually have to get physically abused. The mental torture of being locked up in a concrete box with no windows, a big, cement box that you are put in, and you are not in communication with the rest of the world. You get to meet your wife once a week for only 45 minutes, and even then there is no physical contact – you are behind a screen and you have to talk through an intercom. I think that's enough to break you mentally. The worst thing is that you who are under detention may be going through this mental agony, but it's even worse for the family, the wives, the children, who are outside, who don't really know how long this is going on, because detention without trial has no time frame. You could be home in a year, or you might be away for ten years. The agony of the unknown I think is actually worse than serving a sentence. So that was what the family has to endure and it was very difficult for my wife, to come in every week, once a week, and just have 45 minutes with no physical contact. And in her mind she's saying "How long is this going on? Is it going to be the next ten years of my life, or what?" You know.

Matt Smith:

In Australia, and in many other countries, we've got so much freedom of the press it's routinely typical for the press to insult the politicians, who are the Prime Ministers and call them out and challenge them directly. What do you think of that sort of freedom? Would Malaysia be able to cope with that sort of thing? How much would things change?

Raja Petra Kamarudin:

If you want freedom to speak, freedom to accuse or freedom to allege, then the other side also has got the same freedom to rebut or reply, you see. And if you have you know, slandered the person in your story, then you will pay the price. Singapore, for instance, they do that a lot. The Government takes suits against those who criticise the Government. Of course they lose the case and the damages are pretty high. So most of the people who criticise the Government are eventually just declared bankrupt, you know. Singapore has a unique way of bankrupting all their critics while Malaysia detains them without trial. I don't know which is worse actually.

Matt Smith:

So what is it that keeps driving you to do this? Why do you keep throwing all your activities into Malaysia Today – this sort of activism?

Raja Petra Kamarudin:

Well, I suppose initially it was just idealism, as I said, when you're young, you're always full of idealism. As you get older, your idealism fades away and anger sets in. So I suppose I'm just angry with the way they've retaliated. I feel a great injustice has been done, not only to me, but to many, many other people. And I'm just angry and I want to fight back. Freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of association, I've been denied – that's one thing. Freedom of thought is being denied. That is frightening. And that I suppose is what makes most of us oppose it.

Matt Smith:

You've gone through a lot in your cause here, but you've also had a lot of success as well. Do you think that that's going to get easier and that you're going to succeed in your goal at any point? You've got to have hope, don't you?

Raja Petra Kamarudin:

I would say that we've made a lot of inroads. We have certainly gained some territory. It's not as much as we would like. I mean, I would certainly like to have seen the gains as far as being able to change the government but a fact that in 2008, the most recent election, fifty percent of Malaysians voted for Opposition and only fifty percent voted Government, I think that's already a gain in itself. But, because of the electoral system, the gerrymandering, vote rigging and so on going on, even though the Opposition gained, what, fifty percent of the votes, they only got forty percent of the seats, and the ruling party, which also got fifty percent of the votes, got sixty percent of the seats. So the problem is not convincing Malaysians that we are right and that the Government is wrong. If the Opposition wants to form the new government, the Opposition has to win at least sixty percent of the votes. But even then sixty percent of the votes will only give them a simple majority. It can't be done. You can't win that number of votes. It sounds very bleak but that's the reality of the situation. We need a massive landslide. We need a tsunami before we can see the change.

Matt Smith:

And what is the next step for you? Personally.

Raja Petra Kamarudin:

Well, the next step is for me to go all over the country. I've done that in the UK. I'm doing this now in Australia. And convince the one million Malaysians who live overseas, there's over one million Malaysians who live outside Malaysia, that every vote is crucial. They have to register as voters. Those who can afford it have to fly back to Malaysia to vote. We also are taking the Malaysian Government to court. We're filing a suit against the Malaysian Government – this is being done in England, but we have to file it in a Malaysian court, and we want the court to declare the one million Malaysians who live overseas should not be denied their right to vote. Malaysians overseas are being denied the right to vote and the Constitution says, every Malaysian has a right to vote. But the Constitution is silent on whether this right is removed or taken away if you're not living in Malaysia. And we feel that many countries, Indonesia, the Philippines, as an example, their citizens who live outside the Philippines or Indonesia are allowed to vote. Why are Malaysians not allowed to vote when you are not living in Malaysia? As long as you're still a Malaysian, you should be allowed to vote. The majority of Malaysians who live overseas are those people who are disillusioned with the Government. That's why they are living overseas. So chances are, eighty percent, maybe even ninety percent of these people would vote Opposition. That's why the Government would rather they not vote.

Matt Smith:

Well, that's all the time we've got for the La Trobe University podcast today. If you have any questions, comments or feedback about this podcast or any other, you can send us an email at podcast@latrobe.edu.au.

Raja Petra Kamarudin, thank you for your time today.

Raja Petra Kamarudin:

Thank you so much.