A big lie told repeatedly

By Dean Johns via M'Kini

I’ve mentioned this saying before, and no doubt will again, as it has become one of my favourite mantras against the mind-boggling barrage of mendacity we face every day from people bent on messing with our minds.

I first heard it said about advertising, a business notorious for its cynical not to say shameless disregard for veracity.

But as irritating as it may be to long-suffering consumers, stretching the truth about brands is nothing compared with filling citizens’ heads with nonsense about issues that affect their lives, livelihoods and liberties.

When employed by leaders to mislead their people, ‘bull**** baffles brains’ techniques chillingly recall Nazi ‘information’ chief Josef Goebbels’ secret of successful state propaganda, “a big lie, told repeatedly”.

And I’m repeatedly reminded of this by politicians who emulate Goebbels’ methods, from George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard with their now long-debunked ‘Iraq weapons of mass destruction’ story to Robert Mugabe and his ridiculous claims that in contesting elections against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, he’s “fighting a war against the would-be re-colonisers of Zimbabwe”.

Currently the world’s most successful practitioners of the ‘bull**** baffles brains’ approach to government must surely be the paranoid, power-mad mandarins who have been bending the minds and dominating the existences of more than a billion citizens for almost 60 years in a totalitarian dictatorship posing as the ‘People’s’ Republic of China.

For almost as long, if on a comparatively minor scale, the Castro brothers of Cuba and the Kim dynasty in North Korea have also managed to imprison their people behind virtually impenetrable walls of ignorance, misinformation and flat-out lies.

And a close runner-up in long-running rule of the ruthless over the truthless has been Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional (BN). Only now, after 50 years in power, has BN finally begun to be exposed as the clique of kleptocrats and incompetents it has long since become.

No thanks to the nation’s mainstream media for this long-overdue revelation, however, as they’re as busy baffling Malaysians’ minds with bull**** as ever they were. Even more so, in fact, considering some of their contributions to opposition and citizen calls for media freedom.

Wong Chun Wai, the chief group editor of Star has, as I pointed out in a previous column, made some shining statements in his blog, like “The freedom of expression is an essential part of democracy. A healthy democracy means a meaningful participation of Malaysians in the political process.”

Not a favour

But there’s little evidence of his newspaper practising what he preaches. Quite the opposite, to judge by the recent ‘Stray thoughts’ column in Star, in which New Media Editor A Asohan had the effrontery to accuse the Malaysian people of colluding in their brain-washing by the media.

“The media, the government..who else can we point a finger at here? How about you, the people of Malaysia? There is some truth to the saying that the media acts as a mirror on society, and that it can only reflect the ideals and aspirations of the society it serves.

“For 50 years, you folks kept returning to power, and almost always with a two-thirds majority, the parties that have enacted these laws (the Printing Presses and Publications Act, Official Secrets Act, Internal Security Act, Sedition Act and Communications and Multimedia Act). By doing so, you gave your tacit approval.”

Blaming the readers like this strikes me as a bit rich, considering that Star was one of the major movers in keeping the electors ignorant enough to keep voting for BN and its miserable media-repressive laws.

And as if his assault on the unwitting victims of his newspaper’s dereliction of its duty to the truth wasn’t sufficient, Asohan also heaped praise on Minster in the Prime Minister’s Department Zaid Ibrahim, for the latter’s “courageous” speech to journalists, bloggers and activists who gathered for the “walk for press freedom” two weeks ago.

Zaid had said: “Don’t blame the government for everything. What have you done to push for reforms? How many of you are willing to risk jail or unemployment for your principles?”

Another piece of arrant bull****, blaming journalists for “failing” to defy laws specifically designed to force them to prostitute their profession or pay the price.

Press freedom, let me remind Zaid - as if as an eminent or at least affluent lawyer he wasn’t already aware - is a right enshrined in the constitution, not a favour to be fought for. Nor, despite what he was so snidely implying, is there any shortage of people or organisations who’ve fought very hard indeed for the restoration of this right.

Malaysiakini, Malaysia Today, the Centre for Independent Journalism and countless journalists - and more recently bloggers - have fought tooth and nail for years for press freedom. They have received nothing but vilification, intimidation, persecution and prosecution for their pains, from the government of which Zaid is now part.

As for his assertion that if press-suppressing laws were to be reviewed or repealed, the media had better have something to replace these or else there would be “anarchy”, even Asohan thought it was a load of crap.

Where is the anarchy in the US, UK, Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and all the other nations whose citizens enjoy press freedom?

And don’t anyone try telling me the old BN fairy-tale that Malaysia’s a “special case” due to its “unique” need to maintain unity and harmony between its races and religions. There are lots of other nations whose populations are as diverse, and there’s no evidence that press freedom poses a threat to peaceful co-existence.

On the contrary, a free press is more likely to be a force for cohesion and tolerance, as people who are intelligently informed and enlightened are less prone to be racist and sectarian.

BN not only promotes such evils the better to ensure its own survival, but also contrives to combine them with cronyism and corruption.

But thanks to the free virtual media, BN’s bull**** isn’t baffling nearly so many brains these days, and, thanks to petrol and other price rises, there are even hopeful signs that it’s no longer altogether baffling the brainless.