Pakatan Rakyat or Pakatan Hutan

The Malay Mail published an article entitled "Rape of forest reserve continues unabated" on 3 September 2008. It was topped (as usual) by a provocative photo of an excavator next to a mess of fallen trees, bearing the caption "Deforestation: Illegal land clearing taking place in the Raja Muda Musa Forest Reserve. This picture was taken last May"

This was a great expose containing multiple instances of hypocrisy:

State executive councillor Elizabeth Wong continues to display her utter disregard for the poor and disenfranchised. It's easy to shout "Save the forest" from her air-conditioned office and comfortable home, but who gives a shit about the farmers who eke out a living from huts next to the forest. “Officers in charge of enforcement should act firmly. We cannot be selective about when we want to carry out preventive action because this is a serious problem,” she added.

The best part of this latest nonsense from the immature state government of Selangor is that it was another State executive councillor, Yaakob Sapari, who was in charge of Agriculture and Natural Resources who stopped the enforcement officers. "Yaakob told Malay Mail that he wanted to give those who have encroached into the forest reserve more time to move out and find an alternative site... Almost all these farmers have been lurking in and around the forest reserve for many years and have refused to leave, simply because they have no where else to go."

On a general tack, this article is one of so many others by the Malaysian media that obviously pander to the public's desire for scandal at the expense of accurate and fair reporting. I've had the pleasure of chatting with various editors who have at various times separately commented that what sells newspapers is sex, violence and scandal; truth doesn't figure into the picture. Let the readers be misled, so long as they keep buying our paper!!

The entire barrage of articles accompanying the recent landslide in Damansara Heights provided a vivid study of how wildly differing accounts can be of just one, manifestly observable event: some reported that mud had flowed into the house while others claimed that whole houses were completely destroyed; some claimed that the residents were fearfully relocating while another emphasized that residents want to move back or are staying put, etc etc.

In this case, having failed to find tantalizing and current photos to back the article, the Malay Mail dug out a photo which was not only outdated, but not even of the affected areas and parties. Contrary to the title and photo, it turns out that there was in fact not just one excavator at the forest reserve, but three, all of which were driven by officers from the Selangor Forestry Department going about their duties! It's getting so bad that the newsstand looks like it only has tabloids on offer: next thing we'll see is pictures of little green men running about on the front page.

To the State Government of Tan Sri Khalid, I say: GROW UP! Life is complex and the last thing you ought to be doing is behaving as if there is only one solution to every problem. And while you're growing up, stop hypocritically calling yourself Pakatan Rakyat, and start calling yourselves Pakatan Hutan. At least we'll know what we're voting for.