SARAH PALIN!

OK, now that I've got your attention...

I started my off-and-on series of posts about Malaysian politics with a look at how the blogosphere was influential in shattering the decades-old power lock of the ruling Barisan National Coalition, and it's fitting that I end it with a look at how badly the ruling party has reacted to this shift:

Malaysia's leading political blog was being blocked yesterday in
what was seen as a crackdown on internet websites credited with
contributing to government losses in this year's general election. The
move came as former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was being sworn
in as the new opposition leader following a by-election victory this
week that returned him to parliament for the first time in a decade...The
Malaysia Today website was blocked by state-owned Telekom Malaysia, the
country's leading internet service provider, on the orders of the
Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, which said comments
posted on it were "insensitive, bordering on incitement".

This censorship comes even as bloggers are getting themselves elected to Malaysia's parliament (something we in the West haven't quite managed yet). It's also a symbol of how this fascinating, fractious, and turbulent country is handling a major change in its structure, even as it celebrates 51 years of independence:

Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said the country could lose its independence if the Barisan government loses power. "If we do not safeguard the nation's independence, we will only be
left yearning for it if we lose power," he said on Saturday in his home
state of Pahang. Anwar is banking on Barisan MPs from the eastern states of Sabah
and Sarawak on Borneo. The two resource-rich states have complained
that their grouses have often been overlooked by the federal government. In a major setback to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, several
of his MPs from the two states have refused to sign a petition launched
last week pledging support for him.

Anwar has pledged that Malaysia should belong to all races, though he himself has dipped into the anti-Semitic well when it's convenient. Given that he himself is under the gun from Malaysia's usage of DNA testing as a political tool due to his ongoing sodomy criminal case, should his coalition build a majority, one of the first things he should do is prove that Malaysia belongs to all viewpoints as well--and that means providing protection for critics of the government from the government.

This should also stand as a strong argument for Internet freedom and net neutrality. Critics of net neutrality like to paint it as heavy-handed regulation of the Internet, but as the Malaysian situation indicates, without protections to prevent governments OR corporations from manipulating "the tubes" as they see fit, new avenues of innovation, discussion, and creativity can be easily choked off. Censorship is wrong, no matter who does it, and the ability of the Malay blogosphere to rally so strongly around people like blogger-turned-parliamentarian Jeff Ooi and Raja Petra has completely reoriented the country's political landscape. Things might have gone very differently had such an avenue been inaccessible, or available only to those willing to say nice things about people in power.

People like Anwar, Ooi, and Petra are inheriting a nation in economic flux and undergoing rapid social change. Ooi notes that (like many of his Western counterparts) he is criticized for engaging in direct political action rather than staying on the outside, and his move has cost him financially, but he believes it's the right thing to do:

Ooi has no regrets about his career switch from IT consultant. “The
keyboard is mightier than the sword…. Even a blogger can no longer
tolerate the quality of governance that the country is having now,” he
says...Ooi claims to be uninterested in climbing the party hierarchy and says
he earns less now than in the private sector. “What I find exciting is
to experiment with political thinking,” he says.

It will behoove us here in the West to watch this experiment take shape. We could learn a lot from it, I think.

(Thanks to Techdirt for turning me on to this story.)

Meanwhile, that other major election ended in a veritable landslide:

On Tuesday, Mr. Anwar won back his parliamentary seat in a by-election, sealing a remarkable political comeback and putting Malaysia's emboldened opposition closer to its goal of taking power. Anwar received 31,195 votes, beating his top rival's 15,524 for the seat vacated by his wife Wan Azizah, who had held it since 1999.

As opposition leader in parliament, Anwar claims he can persuade enough lawmakers to cross sides so as to bring down the government, which saw its support crumble in national elections in March. Such a move would shake the foundations of coalition politics in a democracy that is fissured along ethnic and religious lines. Anwar has said a vote of no confidence in the government could come as early as next month.

Anwar's victory is definitely one with a populist bent, as he has combined national dissatisfaction regarding the country's faltering economy with a storm of support from the blogosphere to herald the first serious shakeup in Malaysia's political structure in decades. You can't underestimate the significance of this. The Barisan National Coalition has held power for fifty years. This is in the same realm as the Soviet Union falling apart, if not quite the same level of scope. If you see a parallel here with Barack Obama and his meteoric rise, that's probably not a coincidence.

If Anwar can maintain his fractious coalition without resorting to cheap anti-Semitic demagoguery in order to maintain favor with the religious right, and can successfully duck the charges of sodomy that the ruling party has been harassing him with, he will have a golden opportunity to begin large-scale transformation of a country that is evolving in fits and starts to become a technological and economic giant, but is still crippled by race, cultural, and religious fissures. This, too, is a clear parallel, and any rising Western leader would do well to watch Malaysia's--and Anwar's--progress. There's a lot to be learned.

It seems an odd tack to take for a politician as loved in the West and at home as Anwar Ibrahim to invoke claims that his opponents in the Malaysian government are pawns of Israel and Jewish lobby groups, but that's exactly what he did:

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has accused his country's government of supporting the pro-Israel lobby in the US and Jewish groups inside Israel."I have evidence proving that the government is backing the Jewish lobby in the US and some parties inside Israel," Anwar told IslamOnline.net in an exclusive interview. Anwar, a former deputy premier contesting legislative by-election as the next step in his plan to become premier, declined to elaborate on the nature of the support or his evidence. Malaysia, a Muslim Asian giant, does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

Anwar is widely expected to win the election next week, even in the face of charges he violated state law by having sex with a male aide, which places him dead center in the maelstrom of a fractious coalition trying to knit together a cohesive national identity in the diverse nation:

"Mr. Anwar is the glue that binds the opposition alliance together," says Shamsul Ahmad Baruddin, an anthropology professor at the National University of Malaysia. "He's the only one who can bring these disparate groups together in protest. And that's why his opponents are ready to knock him down at any cost."

Among those coalition members is the Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, which seeks to recast Malaysia as a country even more firmly governed by Islamic law, and criticizes the ruling Barisan National party for failing to address what it perceives as cultural corruption (such as the off-again, on-again Avril Lavigne concert--no, seriously). It may be that Anwar foresaw the need to bring the fundamentalist wing of Malaysia's Islamic politics under his coalition, since he was extremely critical of both Israel and the U.S.' policies toward it in 2006, when he was being considered to succeed Kofi Annan at the United Nations:

Israel must be reined in, and genuine democracy must be promoted in the region - which means the US must be prepared to deal with parties that are not willing to be dictated by its whims and fancies. This is really unfortunate, because historically the US has been seen as the beacon of freedom and democracy throughout the world. The neo-conservative policy unfortunately has only exacerbated anti-Americanism in the Muslim world.

Such statements seem both politically courageous and sharply ironic when you consider the close personal relationship Anwar has enjoyed with disgraced former World Bank head Paul Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of the Iraq war and a die-hard supporter of Israel's hardline policies via the PNAC cabal. It's also depressing when you consider how an Anwar-led governing coalition in Malaysia could much more easily broker ties with Israel than either Barisan or PAS could.

Ibrahim himself addressed this contradiction in another 2006 interview:

MARK COLVIN: You have many friends in Washington, including a number who have been labelled neo-conservatives, like Paul Wolfowitz.

What do they say when you say these things?

ANWAR IBRAHIM: Well, I continue to engage, I mean despite the fact that many of my friends have attacked me severely or ferociously for being submissive to the neo-cons, I'm not.

To the contrary, I've used the engagement to articulate frankly to them that we are together in terms of promoting reform and freedom, we are together in securing peace in the Middle East.

I am agreeable, I mean, I support the policy to protect the security of Israel, but I cannot rationalise the continuing bombardment of Iraq. I cannot rationalise the intransigence of Israel to the Palestinians.

So we have to try and get them to understand and appreciate the concerns are there. You can't treat a group of people as slaves, but well, I have not been successful. I have been having a few sessions with Deputy-Secretary Zoellick, I continue to have sessions with Paul Wolfowitz, I'm not giving up.

As Bridget Welsh notes for the Guardian, the stakes for Malaysia have never been higher as the election looms, and authoritarianism is running rampant to crush voices of dissent, the majority of which support Anwar. Anwar can easily (and justifiably, in many cases) criticize Israel's aggressive policies and the circle of moneyed neocons in the U.S. who back them without verging into conspiratorial shadow-cabinet theories. If the PAS needs this kind of fearmongering to continue giving its support to Anwar, he might want to reconsider the company he's keeping before he leads his country down a dark path.

No, really:

The Canadian faux-punkette has become the latest Western pop star to face trouble in the Asian country as she was uninvited from performing a planned Kuala Lumpur gig. The Muslim-majority country's Arts, Culture and Heritage Ministry canceled the show today amid growing protests and claims the singer was, quite simply, "too sexy."

Seriously? Miss "Complicated" is suddenly on the same sex plateau with Nicole Scherzinger and Gwen Stefani? Dayumn, girlfriend must be growing up.

Of course, the stated reason is that the concert would tarnish Malaysia's upcoming independence celebration by exposing the youth to prurience. It's a reminder that what we in the West consider harmless bubblegum confectionery is akin to the Scarlet Letter in countries controlled by strict interpretations of Islam.

Of course, it could also be a sign of a larger crackdown on dissenting views of all stripes in the country, from Catholics to feminists to bloggers:

"Taken together there is a growing climate of fear and intolerance," said Yap Swee Seng, executive director of Suaram, a leading human rights organization. "Tolerance for dissent and freedom of media is narrowing. What little media freedom existed is now under severe threat," he said. Lawyers and civil rights activists say that this string of events points to an official assault on media freedom, freedom of expression, and religious freedoms. They fear the recent oppression signals the beginning of the end of a more liberal atmosphere ushered in after the 2004 general election, which saw Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi win a huge mandate on a pro-reform ticket.

Given that the incumbent government is resorting to passing a mass DNA-testing law in order to intimidate opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on charges of sodomy, I'd say the honeymoon is long since over. Or to quote Avril herself:

You're so full of shit
I can't stand the way you act
I just can't comprehend
I don't think that you can handle it
I'm way over, over it

Indeed.

No, really:

The Canadian faux-punkette has become the latest Western pop star to face trouble in the Asian country as she was uninvited from performing a planned Kuala Lumpur gig. The Muslim-majority country's Arts, Culture and Heritage Ministry canceled the show today amid growing protests and claims the singer was, quite simply, "too sexy."

Seriously? Miss "Complicated" is suddenly on the same sex plateau with Nicole Scherzinger and Gwen Stefani? Dayumn, girlfriend must be growing up.

Of course, the stated reason is that the concert would tarnish Malaysia's upcoming independence celebration by exposing the youth to prurience. It's a reminder that what we in the West consider harmless bubblegum confectionery is akin to the Scarlet Letter in countries controlled by strict interpretations of Islam.

Of course, it could also be a sign of a larger crackdown on dissenting views of all stripes in the country, from Catholics to feminists to bloggers:

"Taken together there is a growing climate of fear and intolerance," said Yap Swee Seng, executive director of Suaram, a leading human rights organization. "Tolerance for dissent and freedom of media is narrowing. What little media freedom existed is now under severe threat," he said. Lawyers and civil rights activists say that this string of events points to an official assault on media freedom, freedom of expression, and religious freedoms. They fear the recent oppression signals the beginning of the end of a more liberal atmosphere ushered in after the 2004 general election, which saw Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi win a huge mandate on a pro-reform ticket.

Given that the incumbent government is resorting to passing a mass DNA-testing law in order to intimidate opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on charges of sodomy, I'd say the honeymoon is long since over. Or to quote Avril herself:

You're so full of shit
I can't stand the way you act
I just can't comprehend
I don't think that you can handle it
I'm way over, over it

Indeed.

<a href="http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b24682_avrils_sexy_show_gets_scrapped.html" target="_blank">No, really: </a>

<em>The Canadian faux-punkette has become the latest Western pop star to face trouble in the Asian country as she was uninvited from performing a planned Kuala Lumpur gig. The Muslim-majority country's Arts, Culture and Heritage Ministry canceled the show today amid growing protests and claims the singer was, quite simply, "<a href="http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/detail.jsp?contentId=24282" target="_blank">too sexy</a>."</em>

Seriously? Miss "Complicated" is suddenly on the same sex plateau with Nicole Scherzinger and Gwen Stefani? Dayumn, girlfriend must be growing up.

Of course, the stated reason is that the concert would tarnish Malaysia's upcoming independence celebration by <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSKLR29765020080820" target="_blank">exposing the youth to prurience</a>. It's a reminder that what we in the West consider harmless bubblegum confectionery is akin to the Scarlet Letter in countries controlled by strict interpretations of Islam.

Of course, it could also be <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JH21Ae03.html" target="_blank">a sign of a larger crackdown</a> on dissenting views of all stripes in the country, from Catholics to feminists to bloggers:

<em>"Taken together there is a growing climate of fear and intolerance," said Yap                                                                      Swee Seng, executive director of Suaram, a leading human rights organization.                                                                      "Tolerance for dissent and freedom of media is narrowing. What little media                                                                      freedom existed is now under severe threat," he said.                                                                     Lawyers and civil rights activists say that this string of events points to an                                                                      official assault on media freedom, freedom of expression, and religious                                                                      freedoms. They fear the recent oppression signals the beginning of the end of a                                                                      more liberal atmosphere ushered in after the 2004 general election, which saw                                                                      Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi win a huge mandate on a pro-reform ticket. </em>

<em></em>Given that the incumbent government is resorting to <a href="http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&amp;item_no=236653&amp;version=1&amp;template_id=45&amp;parent_id=25" target="_blank">passing a mass DNA-testing law </a>in order to intimidate opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on charges of sodomy, I'd say the honeymoon is long since over. Or to quote Avril herself:

<span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><em>You're so full of shit
I can't stand the way you act
I just can't comprehend
I don't think that you can handle it
I'm way over, over it</em></span></span>

<span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><em></em><small><span style="font-family: sans-serif;">Indeed. </span></small>
</span></span>

The popular Malaysian blogger has been ordered to reveal his sources for allegations he made in the Anwar Ibrahim sodomy scandal:

Shafee said the court also ordered Raja Petra, who writes for his No Holds Barred column, to remove the contentious postings and to refrain from publishing similar allegations. Raja Petra is already facing charges of sedition and criminal defamation over an article and a sworn statement he made alleging links between the country's deputy prime minister and a murdered Mongolian woman. But Raja Petra said on Thursday he will not reveal his sources and denied knowing the identity of people who post comments on his blog. "Of course, I won't. I never reveal my sources," he said.

If you think this can't happen in America, it most certainly can. Remember, there is no federal shield law for journalists, and even if there was, many have argued that bloggers shouldn't be included.

Here's one of Raja Petra's articles alleging that Shafee Abdullah is behind the sodomy allegations, using them to gain the national Attorney General position:

Shafee’s hands are behind the whole thing. And this can only happen with Abdullah’s blessing. No, it is not Mahathir who is behind this. And it is not Abdullah, Najib and Anwar who are the three victims. The victims are Mahathir, Najib and Anwar. Abdullah is the hidden hand and Shafee is the henchman who was tasked with the job of implementing the evil deed. Politics is not what it always appears to be in Malaysia. That is how Malay politics is played out.

The idea of an ambitious politico using a sex scandal is hardly unique to any one country, but the issue isn't really about what Raja Petra is saying in and of itself. If it is bullshit (and I have no idea one way or another), Petra is on the hook for serious libel and defamation claims, just as he would be here in America. But if he's telling the truth, and has corroborated these allegations through investigation and extensive sourcing, how does that make him any different from a typical journalist? And why, then, should he not be protected from "outing" his sources and ruining their careers (and possibly lives) along with his? If he is wrong or lying, he loses his reputation and standing in the Malaysian community, but if he's right, should he not be able to access sources off-the-record the same way any Beltway pundit would, without fear of reprisal?

This is not the first time Petra has brushed with the law over writing articles deemed "seditious," but which largely seem to be controversial due to his criticisms of governmental shenanigans and wrongdoing. Petra is something of a folk hero in Malaysia, and his writing is deemed pivotal to the political shakeups that have led to Ibrahim's path to power in the first place. We in America tend to take the First Amendment too much for granted, not realizing how easily something so fragile and yet so powerful as the right to speak freely without fear of censorship can be removed. Indeed, too often we willingly give away the right to speak, when we say things like "Corporations are private entities and are allowed to censor you," or "We need to restrict some speech to keep people safe, or to protect national security."  And thus the slippery slope goes, but I digress.

Some states are recognizing that bloggers need the same protections as journalists and are acting accordingly. When you look at the type of real boots-on-the-ground journalism done by TPM, Raw Story, HuffPo, OpenLeft, and a million other blogs, the line between "blogger" and "journalist" is a thin one indeed, and on either side, both deserve the full protection of the law from being thumbscrewed into revealing their sources. Private should stay private, no matter what country you're in.