Saturday, February 24, 2007

The "A" Word

When Being Anti is Ok
In the old days, the dreaded label was "anti-national" or "subversive".
It was the easiest tag to slap on your enemy.
Those days, anyone critical of the government was a pain in their backside. You'd be accused of being subversive or anti-national .
That could put you away for a long time.
We have come along way. At least, we are supposed to.
You'd think that this "anti-government" bogey used against people would have long gone.
Don't be surprised, though, if this is resurrected.
There are among us who are paranoid. Afraid of shadows. Most times, our own.
Of course, there are the exposes in the blogs.
Consider the remarks by Ahirudin Attan aka Rocky in an interview with AFP after his hearing was adjourned by the High Court in Denmark House on Thursday, February 22.
(The hearing on his application to strike out the defamation suit against him by the NSTP and 4 others, has been adjourned to April 2 2007 because the plaintiffs made last-minute amendments in their writ of summons.)
Rocky told the AFP that he does not write anti-government articles.
"(Articles) critical of the government, yes," he said. Later, he elaborated on this issue in his blog, pointing out that he is also not pro-government.
He said that he is anti many things --racism, apartheid, crime, spying and plagiarism, among them.
Well, that makes many of us, doesn't it?

Also check out Rocky's latest on Malaysia's Turkish Cobra here.

4 comments:

Nora aka Anon Fm Miri said...

Sis,
If we are not an "apple polisher" whatever critics being made will be categorized as ANTI. Dah nasib badan.

Adios.

p/s thanks for dropping..If you happen to be in Miri in the near future, let me know.

Anonymous said...

After reading two installments of "Tuesdays with Bapak" by Nuraina Samad, I am convinced that we are lucky this is the 21st century. At least we know that the people who think bloggers are anti-government can't possibly accuse them of being "communists" as Pak Samad had been labelled.

But that's not to say that they might not try something else. Apart from suing them to bankruptcy and mental fatigue, bloggers might want day find themselves hauled up for disturbing the peace (sleep?) of the people of this nation by inventing articles which are deemed irritating and against the interests of the public.

Anonymous said...

subversive = FL? kekeke....itz cool to be subversive~~~esp with the current regime ?

as per dictionary.com:

subversive = tending to subvert or advocating subversion, esp. in an attempt to overthrow or cause the destruction of an established or legally constituted government.

Anonymous said...

As far as i know, the ones who are anti-national or anti-government are the arse-lickers, the sycophants. they are the real enemies of the state.