UMNO's blogs

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,

When I look at the blogs of the UMNO's leaders (those newly created after the recent election), I can't help wonder who designed the layout for them, especially the Header banner. I am not saying that they are ICT-illiterated, but it really takes a lot to do the Header banner if you don't know how to use any graphic designing tool like Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Illustrator or any sort of technology similar to these. I can't help finding similarities between their blogs. See Khir Toyo, Ali Rustam, Muhammad Muhd Taib and Mahathir.



How many bloggers can design that type of Header banner? See Rocky's Bru, Marina Mahathir, Nuraina A Samad, etc., very simple.

Of course, the contents of what they are writing are really from these UMNO's leaders. My point is, is this a collective initiave by UMNO after they woke up from the political tsunami? Can they still say negative statements about the bloggers as some of them used to say?

ALLAHU'alam.

Wassalam.

A blog without the link to give a comment

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,

A blog without the link to give a comment is like a 1-way debate that many politicians in Malaysia prefer. You say A today in a press conference and the opponent will say B in another press conference the next day or days later. You can keep going on for ages, like what you see now PM and Mahathir are doing. You attack me today saying that I made UMNO deregistered, I'll attack you tomorrow saying that actually you are the one that made it happened; you are still not happy with me, you give me another blow that I should change the quota system, then I'll tell you that it's your fault that the quota system is still there; then you said that if I am truly democratic, I should abolish the quota system but I said that you are the one that made UMNO undemocratic. This can go on and on and then there is no conclusion left for the people, no facts, no figures, no proof of what they are claiming. Yet, they still can do this kind of 1-way debate. When you invite them together for an open debate, they say no cause they know that they will loose and they can't afford to loose. They said, there's no need to even care about the invitation to a debate.

You write your post today on your blog and you can say whatever you like cause you know that no one can say that you are wrong. There will be no comments. When you wrote this post on your blog, you thought that no one can say that you are giving the wrong facts cause there is no way that readers can put their comments on your blog to refute your un-basis attack. But you are wrong. People still can give their comments else where and finally you have to take that post away from your blog. Today, I can't find this controversial post anymore on your blog.

This is my comment to your blog.

ALLAHU'alam.

Wassalam.

How blogging changes the country - Part III (Popularity)

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,

Following the previous two posts on how blogging has changed the country, this post will continue to further elaborate the use of blogs among politicians where the drum of cyberwar will start beating, soon.

As many bloggers have known that the ex-MB of Selangor has started his blog and he said that it is truly his own writing and comment. Up to this moment, there are nearly 900 comments written on his two posts. This proves how popular he is, not that popular for positive reasons but most of the comments are asking him to make explanations and worse to condemn his actions before this, especially the position of UMNO & BN in persecuting the bloggers before the election. He should put a counter to see how many visitors to his blog, probably he can beat Millionaire Marina very soon.

Now that the ex-MB of Selangor has opened up the opportunity for people to ask him questions directly regarding his position as the opposition in Selangor and probably his ambition to become the Chief of Pemuda UMNO, we surely hope that many other politicians from BN will follow suit. The politicians in BA/BR have already been doing this even before the election and blogging surely has raised their popularity among the voters. BN should learn from this too.

In another case, for the first time, Khairy Jamaluddin who has descended from the main stream media after being accused as the main reason for the failure of BN in this election, he suddenly gave his response to a blogger, Susan Loone on the Penang land accusation. There have been so many blogs and posts in the blogosphere that accuse him in so many different matters but he has never given any response to them, especially the Antikhairy blog when the main stream media is no more an effective channel to do so since many are boycotting it now? Is it because really takes . Interestingly, this time he said something and Susan tried to verify it by asking his mobile number. If it is truly himself that replied, I wonder why now? Is it because Susan is a popular blogger that he has to reply? Is it because this is the only wrong accusation while other accusations in so many blogs and posts before this are all correct? Is it because now that he think that whatever written in blogs can have big impact in his political career that he cannot ignore them anymore if he wanted to be PM by the age of 40? Is it because this is the time to gain popularity through blogosphereBN is the opposition now in Penang, so it is the time to challenge the new MB of Penang like many other are trying to bring down the government in Perak, Selangor, Kedah & Kelantan? No matter what the reason is, I hope this kind of development in blogosphere should bring some positive impact into the cyberwar. If the new MB of Penang answered KJ's request to carry out an investigation, I would be happy with that because it proves that whatever said in the blog is not just ranting but is taken seriously by the politicians.

What the bloggers want is truth. No matter how the politicians and bloggers arrange their strategies and tactics in winning the cyberwar, we pray that only truth will surface at the end. Constructive comments and posts should be interacting with good manner. The good and 'gentleman' image of the bloggers/politicians will win a vote from the readers in the future. So use this space properly if you want positive popularity!

ALLAHU'alam.

Wassalam.

How blogging changes the country (Part II) - Cyber War

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,

As I have written right after the election regarding how blogging changes the country, today it amplifies louder as the PM finally admitted that he has taken the bloggers' writings for granted in his election campaign. Now, following the success of many opposition politician bloggers, the BN politicians who used to condemn bloggers and threaten them to be imprisoned under the Internal Security Act (ISA) start to think of starting their own blogs, mashaALLAH! Now, as I said I dislike spreading rumours and if the politicians decided to start a cyber war here, the situation can be very ugly because at the end, again when the big guys are fighting up there, the victims are always the civilians, and in this context, it is those citizens who don't really want to educate themselves properly.

We either be very honest in what we are writing & saying or we educate people to differentiate what is right and what is wrong, i.e., teach them how to think! If the later is preferable, who cares who is controlling the main stream media or the alternative media? Now I am wondering if the government is regretting for giving big fat juicy tenders to their families to supply ICT facilities to all the schools & kampung so that they can surf these alternative media?

Cyber war can be a form of Neuro-Psychological war. What we want to win are the minds and the hearts of the people, and we can control the rest. Call it discussions, debates, arguments, persuasions, brainwashings, pressures, humiliations, etc., if the war started, I think we can think of a new career and earn some money from this new job opportunity.

To all the bloggers, whether it's a money-earning or non-profit blogging, please write with truthfulness and be accountable for what you have written/said on your blogs.

ALLAHU'alam.

Wassalam.

How blogging changes the country

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,

To readers who are not Malaysians, if you have read the past 3 posts, you will have gain a little understanding of the political scenario in Malaysia. Many claimed that the politicians picked the Chief Editors of the main stream media in Malaysia and control the messages to send to the people - most of the time positive news for the ruling coalition and negative news for the oppositions. With the same sentiment around the world where the muslims loose their trust to the media which always portrays distorted image about Islam, the Malaysian younger generation started to think the same to the local main stream media and decided to find alternative channels to spread their message, may I restate that it is not to spread the opposition's message but the youths' own message. Many youths do not trust the main stream media in Malaysia and switch to alternative media like blogs, youtube news from Malaysia, internet news and many other, until at a stage, the government decided to ban the 'misuse' of blogs in Malaysia and wanted to take legal action on the bloggers who spread the not-so-beautiful stories about the government. Sound like communist? I don't know because I don't support the spreading of rumours but if it's true and the people need to know probably concrete facts and proofs should to be presented in a professional way.

Also another political scenario in Malaysia is that, you won't be able to stand as a candidate of a party until you get old because the seniority sentiment in Malaysian's political parties is very strong that dispite the ability and credibility of the candidate, if the person has been long in the party and has many supporters, especially from the top, he or she will have the opportunity to rise and gain a seat in the parliament representing the party. This is what we call the political ladder. You climb one step at a time but if you want to cross other people you either do it in a very sinful way (including oppression, corruption, propping up the superiors, etc.) or you really have that special talent that stand out among the rest. It is usual to find the parliamentary candidates are among those who are older than 40 years old. This is especially true in a party that has been long established. For example, the former Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamed, he has been the member of UMNO for 18 years before he had the chance to stand as a candidate representing his party and only after 28 years that he became the Prime Minister. Probably another reason for this is because you need to earn enough money to register to compete (you need RM10,000.00 to pay the deposite on the nomination day).

Now, since the imprisonment of Anwar Ibrahim, a new party was formed and many youths who started to take politics, the survival and future of the country seriously have a chance to have their say in the parliament. In this party, Justice Party, there appears to be so many young candidates in this election and many of them are elected. Among them are bloggers and many of the bloggers use their blogs to appeal for donation to run their election campaigns. One of the blogger managed to collect more than RM123,000.00 of donation on-line from donors in and out of Malaysia. The blog is not just a way for them to spread their messages across the country, it also provides the facility to accumulate campaign funds and to interact with people. This way, the communication is more dynamic and it is a channel for the people to ask questions directly to the candidates and the candidates' opinions and answers are on the blogs to be judged and criticised by the public. This is more effective than running the election campaigns all over the places in just less than 13 days and of course saves a lot of money.

As I browsed through many blogs of the Malaysian politicians, I find that there are a lot of bloggers that support the opposition than the ruling coalition. Maybe there is no need for the ruling coalition to blog as they have the main stream media to spread their messages across the country. Shocking news, message and information are all around the blogs, some that can be trusted and some that need some research to verify, like most of the news in the mass media today. It would be a complete fool to take what the newspapers and broadcasting channels as 100% correct, hey, but there are still many people out there just take as they watch on the TV screen as the truth like in some other countries (you know which countries I am talking about). People in the rural areas in Malaysia can only have newspapers, radio and TV. They have been fed by the main stream media everyday and if they don't think out of the box and make a wise comparison, their votes are for the ruling coalition, no doubt. Again, I am not saying that they will not vote the ruling coalition after making a wise comparison, they might do.

Seeking knowledge and reflecting on what we have learnt are among the most important elements one must possessed if one is truly a learned individual. This will result in a wise thinking and action, prevent one from being deceived. With the bombardment of information from all around us, it is sometime difficult to make the best judgement. As a muslim, ultimately to make a choice is to rely on ALLAH, we might have enough information to predict who will be good as the members of parliament that can represent us, but who can guarantee the future other than the Al-Mighty ALLAH?

"The happiness of the son of Adam depends on his being content with what Allah has decreed for him, and the misery of the son of Adam results from his failure to pray istikharah, and the misery of the son of Adam results from in his discontent with what Allah has decreed for him."

~ Hadith collected by Al-Tirmidhi

ALLAHU'alam.

Wassalam.