Malaysiakini :: Letters
Malaysiakini :: Letters |
| Behind the Tony Yew-Chan Lilian spat Posted: 28 Jul 2011 03:44 AM PDT I refer to 'Blogger in trouble over tweet "promoting" Bersih' where one Malaysiakini subscriber made a reference to me. Going by the moniker 'Ade', the person commented: "Coming to that Tony Yew character, I don't believe he is a Christian. He's just like most non Christians who use Christian names for glamour. Remember Helen Ang?" It is a sad day for Malaysiakini if 'Ade', along with his like-minded compatriots who troll the feedback section, is representative of the crowd comprising the news portal's most ardent and addicted supporters. But it's beginning to look as if their mindset is the one prevalent as the general tone of the regular commentators suggests. Firstly, for Ade's information, 'Helen' is not a Christian name. His claim merely reveals his own ignorance. My best known namesake is Greek mythology's Helen of Troy. The earliest written record of her appears in Iliad and Odyssey - which clearly Ade has never heard of - an epic by the poet Homer who lived 800 years before Jesus was born. Secondly, on Ade's allusion that I'm a "non Christian who use(s) Christian names for glamour", again his unfounded allegation is telling of the childish malice that prompts certain readers to slander others simply for holding contrary opinions to theirs. I have dozens of relatives and cousins who call me Helen, the name by which they've known me since birth. That my mother chose it for me indicates that she was an educated woman, schooled during the British colonial rule. That Ade chose to take such a cheap shot indicates how the Pakatan cheerleaders, who are the most vocal segment, operate and their approach - the template of which I am cataloguing below. Thirdly, regarding Ade's slur, "I don't believe he is a Christian", Tony Yew similarly has family and friends who will vouch that he surely is. So what are we supposed to make of approved comments which scatter such baseless accusations like some nasty birdshot? For the sake of Malaysiakini's credibility, I hope that Steven Gan is reading this letter. Next, at the time of my writing, there are almost 60 comments in response to the said article on the Chan Lilian vs. Tony spat. They fall into a few broad categories. First is the personal attack on the 'offending' individual which does nothing for public discourse. Examples: "go to hell Tony Yew!", his name is "too obscene to be uttered", "so much crap coming out from him". In short, anyone critical of anything to do with Lim Guan Eng's office where Lilian is a contract staff must surely be "two faced hypocrite BN bootlickers". Actually, the level of sycophancy I've noticed accorded Marina Mahathir for her Bersih walk makes me wonder that a tongue infection epidemic had not broken out. Second, the knee-jerk assertion that Tony is trying to get a ministerial post, or a title/datukship. Any rational reader knows that it is unlikely to happen - with no disrespect to Tony but certainly it is unfathomable to imagine a reward over this trivial matter. Other wild comments insinuate, for instance, that Tony is taking instructions from Ibrahim Ali. Again, needless to say, the commentator had not substantiated his statement and nor will he be able to. Third, profanity and name-calling directed at Tony: The 'f' word, "MF", "idiot", "bonehead", "blockhead", "asshole", "arsehole". Evidently some readers spell the British way while others follow American spelling but in the same breath, these blindly charging brigadiers refuse to permit everyone else the privilege of diversity of thought. Coerced censorship through mob intimidation is symptomatic of fascism, just in case you weren't aware. Fourth, the holier-than-thou grandstanding of many commentators insisting that "shameless" Tony can't possibly be a Christian and that he is a disgrace to their religious community. This particular thread of abuse goes in tandem with a recurrent 'Christian traitor' motif. In addition to several comments along the same Judas line, there is the following: "the whole Christian community will curse you for behaving just like JUDAS" - a comment coming from someone who frames him/herself 'anak,bangsa,malaysia'. All I can say is that is if his/her hexing is illustrative of a typical follower of the SABM movement, then I can only hope I'm spared the misfortune of my path ever crossing theirs. They seem to lack the realisation that life is too short to be spent barbecuing those refusing to be DAP Malaysian First-ers over fire and brimstone. Fifth, in the Malaysiakini-reader lynching of Tony Yew can be seen the quite predictable attempt to silence the speaker, in addition to declaring him an outcast: "Diam lar", "let's excommunicate this unbeliever". However, some of the readers lent the cyber-ranting - already vile enough as evidenced in the sampling above - a greater earnest and extending their enmity to the physical environment. Malaysiakini subscribers wrote: "Please post a picture of Tony Yew, so all (especially Christians) will know how he look like", "if anyone knows which church this IDIOT Tony Yew attends, please let us know online", "So if anyone knows of this guy please place his photograph for all to see", "any Christian group (Catholic, Methodist etc.) know who this 'Tony' is, please post his picture and we will see who this guy is". Since these folks are so keen to know Tony's appearance and apparently to stalk him, may I ask what is it that they have in mind to do to him should they recognise him in the street? Tar and feather? The extreme political partisanship displayed by Malaysiakini pages has so clouded the commentators' judgment that none (as far as can be discerned from published remarks) bothered to take the trouble to find out the particulars of the spat before rushing in one voice to canonise Saint Lilian, and consigning Tony to hellfire. On July 7, I wrote an article that touched on the behind-the-scenes of the Lilian-Tony tweet war, where I said that I didn't buy Lilian's flat out denials and disagree with her harsh language used on Tony. For reason of space constraint here, an elaboration can be found in my blog posting 'Tony Yew and Chan Lilian duke it out' at www.helenang.wordpress.com. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| Trend is towards multiple identification system for voters Posted: 28 Jul 2011 03:04 AM PDT There has been a lively debate on whether using indelible ink or biometric system will be more effective in curbing electoral frauds such as personation and multiple voting. I would like to put forward a few points here from my experience as an international election observer to dispel some myths around the issue. Many electoral democracies in Asia have been moving towards a multiple identification system to ensure voter identification is done right. Bangladesh and Philippines lead in using electoral rolls with photographs to provide easy identification of voters, on top of the usual identification card and name. As if this is not enough, some countries e.g. Philippines, require voters who have claimed their ballot to sign a receipt of the ballot to stop the same person or another person, from claiming a second ballot using the same identity. In these countries indelible ink is also used to add another layer of safeguard on voter identification, which can be utilised in the most challenging situations e.g. locations where there is no electricity. So the trend is towards multiple systems of identification rather than relying on one supposedly sure-fire method. In additions to the above there are also administrative improvements to ensure that the above identification methods work. Bangladesh, for example, spent half a year to renew the entire electoral roll of close to 90 million voters, ahead of their last presidential elections, to get rid of multiple registrations and other dubious registrations e.g. dead voters. Some countries e.g. Indonesia, Singapore, Australia allow automatic voter registration, while others allow quick registrations eg 1-2 days in New Zealand, so that no one citizen is denied their constitutionally guaranteed voting rights. Not only that the entire electoral system-from the appointment of election commissioners to the complaint handling mechanisms, are overhauled to ensure that electoral frauds are minimised and the results of the elections closely mirror the voters' choices. From the rough sketch above it is clear that the characterisation of countries which are using indelible ink as `backward' with no identification papers is sweeping and, in most cases, factually inaccurate. It is true that some of the countries are poorer economically than Malaysia but their investment in democratic institutions are well in advanced compared to Malaysia. In fact these countries have gone beyond hardware dependence and adopt multiple safeguards to ensure integrity of the electoral operation. It would be most ironic if the Election Commission of Malaysia refuse to consider the use of cheap and adaptable method of indelible ink as an additional safeguard on voters identification, based on factually unsound allegation that the method is somehow `backward' and linked to a lack of identification papers for the citizens. From the discussion above it is clear also that any voter identification method can only work well in an electoral system where the election administration is transparent, credible, clean and fair to all. Just for discussion: there are many polling centres in Malaysia where there is no monitoring of polling by enough Polling Agents and Counting Agents, and where the Form 14 confirming the polling results are not available immediately to all stake holders -including the candidates, due, e.g. by the absence of the counting agents or their disappearance. Under such circumstances, the voter identification methods would not be helpful to ensure that only bona fide voters were voting or, as a whole, to ensure the integrity of the election result. Factually there is also no country -even so called `advanced' democracy that chooses to spend heavily on a biometric system for voter identification. They are happy to use multiple identification system coupled with more enhanced electoral administration to ensure, as much as practicable, fraud-free elections. In comparison our choice of heavy investment into an untested biometric system which is expected to operate within an electoral administration regime which is far from international norms, let alone best practices. It seems that the decision making in this regards had headed towards wrong direction if electoral integrity is the real objective. It may be speculative that the biometric system is considered not so much for its effectiveness on voter identification but because it has already been used on millions of legal as well as illegal migrants for another purpose. Putting the tool ahead of its intended purpose is certainly not a rational let alone cost-effective method of decision making. Just a word on the biometric system: since the system can only be used in conjunction with a computer/internet based database there are practical/logistic considerations to roll out the system in remote areas where there is no electricity, let alone internet connection. There are numerous such locations e.g. in interior of Sabah and Sarawak, where there is not even a computer to service the polling centres. ONG BK is part of the Malaysian Election Observers Network. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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