Why Hartalmsm Reconsecrated?

On 30 July 2009, well-known socio-political activist Haris Ibrahim of The People’s Parliament blog, gave his blessing to a new blog called Hartalmsm. Haris warned:

Spin-doctoring editors, watch out!

The word ‘hartal’ is an Indian word (in several Indian languages) for strike action. According to Wikipedia, it was used often during the Indian Independence Movement. It is mass protest often involving a total shutdown of workplaces, offices, shops, courts of law as a form of civil disobedience. In addition to being a general strike, it involves the voluntary closing of schools and places of business. It is a mode of appealing to the sympathies of a government to change an unpopular or unacceptable decision.

In like fashion, it can also mean 'boycott', which had been the case when the Hartalmsm blog was created, while 'msm' stands for mainstream media.

At that time, the English language msm were the New Straits Times, Star, Malay Mail, etc, all in the hands of the ruling party Barisan National (BN). Today the msm has expanded to include The Malaysian Insider, The Edge, etc and even Malaysiakini, the last still a small online (only) news portal but which is gradually growing in stature and credibility as a propagator of news and current affairs.

There were and are of course msm in other languages such as Malay, Chinese, Tamil.

Because the ruling party used and still misuses the msm as a propaganda machine, Hartalmsm was set up to monitor and expose the lies in the msm news.

That’s what the image said: Have you had enough of lies? Boycott the local newspapers.

I don’t agree with the boycott call because that would be denying a sector of Malaysia a voice to reach out to the Malaysian public, much as it may differ in political ideology or stand to the founding members of the blog. The better solution would be to do what Hartalmsm was set up to do, expose the lies by msm. And that’s precisely what Haris Ibrahim, in his support of Hartalmsm, annotated as the raison d'être of the blog:

Spin-doctoring editors, watch out!

But in recent times I note with regret that Hartalmsm has lost the plot, and has seriously deviated from its objective of exposing lies. It has become a mere political blog, just like any other partisan political blog.

Instead of monitoring the msm for lies, distortions or misinformation, or deliberate omission of happenings that could and should be made known to the public, it has taken to criticizing politicians from certain parties.

While criticizing politicians or political parties (short of telling lies or being slanderous) is a legitimate activity in a democracy, obviously it is inappropriate to misuse and thus abuse the Hartalmsm blog as a vehicle for mere politicking, where the messages in some Hartalmsm posts have been immature, highly personal and even racist, with puerile caricatures and name calling - see this

Hartalmsm currently has 4 bloggers. Only one is known thus far to have misused the blog to indulge in politicking, at the behest of a 'friend', so he claims. Whether the other three bloggers have participated with him in his politicking penyelewengan in insulting a certain political party and its members, is yet unknown. Whether someone has hijacked and diverted the blog from monitoring msm lies into a political attack machine is also unknown, though this is a suspected likelihood.

But in the current situation where Hartalmsm has lost its way, I feel obligated to assume responsibility for the monitoring of msm, at least to honour Haris Ibrahim's advice to the blogosphere.

Initially I will limit my monitoring to only Malaysian English language msm, to include Malaysiakini, The Malaysian Insider, Star Online, New Straits Times and Malay Mail. Much later I will expand my scrutiny.

I will not include blogs under my volunteered scrutiny as these are not msm, save for one exception, Hartalmsm. Because Hartalmsm has endowed itself with the noble sheen of being a guardian of truth in msm publications for the benefit of the Malaysian public, a monitor of msm lies, but has now deviated badly from its original objective, it must also be subjected to the same monitoring it had earlier conducted on the msm.

I do not deem it the duty of this blog to, for example, defend Israel or attack Iran or Iranian President Ahmadinejad or Dr Mahathir, so long as the Malaysian msm report the international news in as accurate a manner as they possibly could. In some exceptions, where the news by international news media are obvious lies, gross distortions of facts or of a double standard or hypocritical nature, I may include these as fair game to comment on.

I promise a non-partisan approach and will abstain from attacking political parties or personalities, unless the personalities have been responsible for the msm publication of lies or misinformation or factual waffling, for example, columnists or guest writers (sometimes politicians) invited by msm to pen articles. Even then, I will only comment on the errors in the content of the publications. This blog is neither about the analyses of political trends nor assessments of the intentions or conduct of political personalities. It is also not a political medium for anyone.

This blog will be solely about msm lies, their incorrect or distorted reporting of factual events, misinformation or deliberate omission of actual happenings which could be significant news for the public. I will also bring to the attention of readers when two different sources in the msm published vastly differing reports about an event.

At a lower scale, the blog will also comment on obvious errors in the contents, such as incorrect use of English, spelling mistakes and exaggerations in news reports. I may also include what I opine to be funny, annoying or unique idiosyncrasies in media writings or grossly sexed-up headlines.

I’ll be basically doing what Hartalmsm was set up to do, supposed to do but in recent times did not do. Not only has it failed to do what its charter promises, but it has actually transformed its facility into a partisan political blog. Either due to hijacking or the personal political proclivities of a Hartalmsm blogger, I am convinced that Hartalmsm has already desecrated the high altar of its once noble aim. Suatu penyelewengan yang sangat serius.

This is why I call my blog Hartalmsm Reconsecrated.

I will depend greatly on and thus welcome the contributions of readers where I may be reached by email at guwawijaya1@yahoo.com

Thanks.