As we enter into the Year of the Rabbit, I can almost hear Bugs Bunny saying ‘Wassup Doc’ with a huge grin plastered on its face. For some funny reason, I think of Bugs Bunny when I think of rabbits. I guess it must be the old Warner Bros cartoons on Cartoon Network back in the day when my shoes were size 5. But one thing is for sure, I am pretty sure that I can hear adults/parents grinding their teeth in despair when handing out ang paos to the younger, unmarried generation. I certainly can empathize with the ang paos givers. How would you feel if you are required by custom and tradition to hand over your hard-earned money to the grubby hands of small children who don’t appreciate the meaning behind ang pao giving & receiving? It’s like coughing up RM30 (10 Australian dollars) for a bowl of curry noodles in Melbourne. Weird comparison, I know, but that’s beside the point. Moral of the story: Stay single, and you don’t have to give ang paos.
Sticking to the Chinese New Year theme, what makes a great festive celebration? Good food and great company of course. Notice that I that wrote ‘good’ for food, and ‘great’ for company. Yes, being able to spend CNY with the people you are comfortable with is certainly more important than great food. Although it certainly helps that the people I am most comfortable with also provide awesome food.
Friendly reminder: The next few paragraphs may or may not contain political issues. Consider yourself warned.
As I was browsing through Malaysian news website a few days back, I came across an article reporting that the Malaysian government is looking to introduce a new set of regulations to regulate Internet in Malaysia. Flip through any dictionary and you will find that the word ‘regulate’ is closely related to the word ‘control’.
Does that mean that Internet users in Malaysia are going to be watched and controlled by some government regulatory body? Well, if certain websites containing illicit material such as pornography and such are blocked, I can’t say naught to that.
But wait, the relevant ministry (Information, Communication and Culture Ministry) said that it will, among other functions, weed out ‘false information’. What exactly is false information? What if the government tries to cover up an incident detrimental to their standing among the people in order to win the next election, and brands the incident as ‘false’?
Personally, regulating the Internet is like stifling information. That is definitely not the way forward, especially for a developing (possibly stagnant) country like Malaysia. To win the people over, the government needs to be transparent (among other attributes of course). Perhaps the events in Egypt and Tunisia had the current government worried, but I am only a powerless observer. If this is one of the many methods that the government use to ensure they remain in power, I say the country has really gone to the dogs.
On a sidenote, can you imagine a government-friendly website named 1Malaysia.com replacing Facebook? Fortunately I live in Australia most the time now, free and able to use Zuckerberg's creation.
Are the set of regulation guidelines a form of internet censorship? That is the question.
