Boleh mengagumi, asal tidak berlebihan. Karena pers
Malaysia masih selevel Pers rezim Soeharto, dengan
segala represinya, yang sudah jauh kita tinggalkan...
Buktinya? Tolong sebutkan satu saja suratkabar
Malaysia yang bisa hidup tenang sambil mengritik
Mahathir Mohamad. Pers bebas adalah salah satu tiang
demokrasi.
Satrio
--- Mario Gagho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> dear all,
>
> setiap saya membaca artikel/berita di media india,
> yg
> wartawannya diundang ke malaysia, pasti isinya
> selalu
> kekaguman dan kekaguman. dari glamornya, indah
> alamnya, bersih birokrasinya, metropolisnya, dll.
> saya
> tidak tau bagaimana kesan wartawan2 yg diundang
> berkunjung ke indonesia, apakah begitu juga? Well,
> kita pasti tahu jawabnya.
>
> salam,
>
>
>
> Fairways, other ways
> - By S. Shankar Menon
>
>
>
> Here in Kuala Lumpur for golf as part of an Indian
> media team, it is not the fairways but the other
> ways
> that will interest you. More so since Mahathir�s
> Wawasan 2020, gathering momentum when I was last
> here
> three years ago, is in full flow with his successor
> Abdullah Badawi. The vision of this country getting
> a
> Newly Industrialised Country status by then,
> includes
> creating a common unified Malaysian identity, to
> replace the various communal identities of Chinese,
> Malay, Indian and so on, an educated society based
> on
> spiritual values.
>
> In the run-in from the state of the art airport, my
> colleagues in the team, as expectedly, go to town
> over
> the broad roads, how we are � guess, guess � held
> back
> only by corruption. They do not know of my misspent
> past, perpetually fighting these notions. Traffic
> jams
> of horrendous dimensions lie in wait the next day,
> the
> system here of adding percentages for the elected
> and
> selected in huge infrastructure contracts works very
> well with the delivered, spanking product.
>
> Badawi actually bothers about the bureaucracy. He
> constantly harangues the civil service to deliver at
> the cutting edge. Has any of our Prime Ministers
> done
> that over the last half century? Examinations and
> in-service screening of a deeply analytical nature
> are
> evolved lately for promotions, the unions are
> predictably miffed. Awards are given by the chief
> secretary Tan Sri Samsuddin Osman for performances
> by
> regional civil servants, honoured at the national
> level. When will this ever happen at home? The new
> PM,
> after the benevolent dictatorship of the old one,
> that
> found consistent electoral support by a country who
> knew they were on to a good thing, now pleads for
> religious moderation. Overwhelmed at the thought and
> breaking down in tears at a world conference on
> faith.
> The Petronas and Kuala Lumpur Towers, are only the
> symbols of this huge new thrust to modernity; Bukit
> Nanas, the equatorial forest with its swaying cable
> cars above in the middle of town when I first came
> here in 1978, is now preserved as a jungle trek
> without the accents of tourists from the Mid-West
> shrieking down from below.
>
> There is no time on this trip to breathe in the
> orchid
> or hibiscus gardens. Stumble across a clump in the
> Cameron Highlands from where the black lapwing Rajah
> Brooke butterflies rise like shreds of an umbrella.
> While doing the Kinabalu climb on an earlier visit,
> there was the largest flower in the world next to
> the
> path as you panted upwards. In the forests of Sabah,
> the
>
> rafflesia is a metre in diameter in full bloom,
> taking
> many months to develop; the open bloom lasts a few
> days, is a parasite, has seven species altogether. I
> am more obsessed with not missing putts smaller than
> that on the unbelievably zippety greens of Impian.
> Our
> scratch teaching pro in the team is partying till
> four
> every morning, while I hit balls at a driving range
> as
> thunder and lightning and rain sweep outside. Ajay
> Gujral and I have the same net score on the first
> day,
> he is asked to look for babes later, crackles in the
> second round at Saujana, while I sag miserably in
> the
> heat.
>
> It is all good fun. My playing partner, a lady
> photographer from Delhi, has completely different
> playing rhythms and I grit available teeth,
> generally
> silently. Our Golfline magazine business head, Anil
> Dev produces a great effort on the second of three
> days, but unless I deliver in the final round over
> three courses, chances of making it to the finals in
> October in Terengannu are bleak. An inter-team
> amateur
> world championship is being played a lot more
> seriously while the rest of us hack. Malaysian
> Tourism
> has splurged on hospitality. To be accompanied by a
> police escort for the media bus as we make our way
> to
> the venue of the day, reminds me of getting the
> President of Seychelles from Santa Cruz airport to
> Taj
> Hotel in Mumbai in 25 minutes flat.
>
> This country has a population less than twice that
> of
> Mumbai. The capital is at 1.6 million people, only
> twice that of a town where I was chief cook and
> bottle
> washer 20 years ago. Time being a function of
> interest, I still try to find the bookshop where
> under
> an atrium, there are waterfalls and ferns in the
> garden section, children sit around on park benches
> reading about the botanical and natural wonders of
> this amazing country. In the process, I find again
> the
> elaborate Kournikaya, where a small lift only for
> one
> wheel-chair, takes you straight to the poetry
> section
> in the fourth floor of a shopping mall.
> Unfortunately,
> Toni Morrison and her contemporaries are cellophaned
> from the itching hands of the seeking public.
>
> The MPH book-store in the Mid-Valley shopping mall,
> has no flowing water any more, but the garden chairs
> and the children are still there. There is also a
> competition to describe their outlets in three
> words.
> Comprehensive, delightful, romantic, I say and wait
> for the first prize of a car to be shipped to
> Prabhadevi.
>
> Malaysia gets 6 1/2 million tourists in six months,
> we
> get 2 1/2 a year. Their infrastructure is
> spectacular,
> from mountain biking to endurance events in Sabah
> around tea estates, the executive sportsmen in our
> stressed cities, have an ideal venue for combing
> back
> their disappearing hair. The charm of the people in
> the service industries is a magnificent plus. Though
> their wages are good, prices are reasonable, the
> bio-diversity, carefully preserved, takes the
> visitor
> through the enthralling countryside of Sabah and
> Sarawak in a fragile environment.
>
> Last time here, on the trail of Jim Thompson the
> maverick bringer of silk to this country and
> possibly
> a CIA agent straight out of Somerset Maugham, I saw
> a
> few of the Orang Aslis come down from the tea
> gardens.
> The original inhabitants will be dazed at modern
> Malaysia. The government looks after them as well
> without condescension. The press here may not welter
> in our great freedoms, which include rotten golf
> scores for our media team, but Mahathir has created
> a
> genuine nation. It is not about too many countries,
> including China or us, that we can say that.
>
> Hope to play better golf in Bangkok this morning,
> hopes [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
=== message truncated ===
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