Censorship Central and the Malaysian Blog Community

At first glance Kuala Lampur looks like any other major first world metropolis. The streets are immaculate, there are mega-malls on every street corner chock full of fancy merchandise and a public transportation system that should be the envy of Asia. It's intensely diverse with large Malay, Chinese and Indian communities as well as a sizeable group of European and American business folks hammering out deals to invest even more cash into the already impressive economy. Some of my favorite images happen in the mall under the famous Patronis Towers (the spiky twin towers that dominate the city's skyline) where I routinely see women in full burkhas embossed with diamond studded Channel logos.

But underneath the gloss, Malaysia seems to be on the verge of a conflagration that will burn down the multi-racial viscad and leave unrest in its wake. Like many former colonial states, Malaysia is still struggling with the divide and rule strategy where British administrators set one group against another in order to keep themselves in power. Every cab driver I have taken has spent the entire ride complaining about other communities and has vowed that they were ready to take to the streets.

For the most part Indians here are lower and middle class, having been former laborers and bureaucrats for the British, while the Chinese have dominated the business sector and enjoy a comfortable standard of living. Local Malays, however, have historically been the most oppressed community, yet government affirmative action programs that give them favorable interest rates on bank loans, preferential treatment in corporate affairs and discounted property prices have seemed to level the playing field, and now the Indians and Chinese are resentful at what they see as an unfair advantage.

Yet airing your grievances can be dangerous. A government act issued in 1984 forces all newspapers to register every year and, if the ruling party doesn't like what they have been writing, they can shut them down for good. In 1987 the Star, a formerly liberal paper, was shut down for two weeks and almost went out of business. It has since begun to tow the party line and generally stays away from politics. This year, in the wake of the Danish cartoon that lampooned Mohammed, one paper lost its charter and was forced out of business.

The Internal Security Act (ISA) allows the government to imprison people without a trial for up to two years. In the past journalists and outspoken political leaders have been jailed and threatened by the act and more or less forced to shut up. The ISA is a leftover law from the days of the British when communism was a real threat to the country and they needed strong laws to put them out of commission.

In 1996 Malaysia made a bid to become a 1st world nation by 2020 and began an ambitious project to modernize the entire IT infrastructure. A 50-kilometer swath of land was wired for high-speed Internet access along with a new set of laws that eliminated all censorship from the electronic media. So while print journalists are cautious about what they write, bloggers have gotten a new lease on life.

Following a bout of racial unrest in the late 1990s Malaysiakini , a critical news portal for all liberal sentiments opened its doors and has become the most important place to get information about government scandals, crime, and political discussion.

Another influential blogger, Jeff Ooi has made it his personal mission to dish out straight talk about the government and he has been wildly successful with over 3 million hits a month.

Both Malaysiakini and Ooi have been threatened by the government and there are prominent voices that have called for them to be shut down or imprisoned, but so far they have remained up and running.

I have been interviewing prominent members of active blogging community here for the last few days and hope to publish something about it in an upcoming issue of .Net magazine.