Sadness
I wish PiN² would reconsider her decision to stop attending GP. She really seems to like GP (having completed all the GP homework, as I saw in her file today), but what is done is done. Still, I hope against hope that it isn't so, for "she is the promised sight at GP, that makes my lonely mornings before GP seem long".

And PiN², could you please, please reconsider and write me a critical piece on the thingy I wrote (clickety-clik here)? I know you say you aren't the best critic, but given your background in Literature (not the SPM component, but the big "L" as in the REAL Literature in English Paper), I wish you would. What you have to say would mean a lot to me.

Beauty - Is It Everything?
So it seems, according to a government minister:

"I am now looking for Malays... beautiful Malays, handsome Malays, who can read Mandarin. We want to de-politicise this [speaking another language]. Once we de-politicise, then learning another's language is not a taboo." - Information Minister, Datuk Paduka Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir, theSun, August 27, 2004, page 2.

While Abdul Kadir's move is laudable, he is promoting the unhealthy stereotype that newscasters HAVE to be beautiful. The "skill" of reading Mandarin seems to be but a secondary point of consideration by his ministry. Why is there a need to discriminate against obviously talented Malays by choosing only the beautiful? This is after all, only the government news.

Another thing, news is news. It doesn't matter how the news anchor looks; the most important is how the news is presented. The news on telly, by the way, is for us to get visual information on news items, not to drool over beautiful/handsome anchors. By subscribing to the baser human preference of beauty, the Information Minister is telling the public that it is okay to objectify humans. It really is a sad day when job-seekers are selected based on looks for a job that requires skill dedication, and finesse.

Anyway, why does the government need to choose only beautiful newscasters? What competition are they facing? What revenue/target need they meet? Unlike commercial stations, they can survive without having to resort to such lowly tactics to capture a target audience. And news being news, the rakyat will definitely tune in to see the news the government has prepared for us (sounds too much like Orwell's 1984? But that's why we HAVE government-run news, so that we know the government's agenda for us, and that they still care for us).

The Information Minister also jangles my nerves by his obvious need for Malays who can read Mandarin. Why not Indians who can read and speak Mandarin? Why not non-native Mandarin speakers? (again politics-lah as you will see)

A final bone to pick, when has it been taboo to learn another's language? And when has it been such a political thing? Ah, yes, ever since they made BM the medium of instruction when Mahathir was Education Minister, and when he tried to re-introduce English as the medium of instruction, some politicians took the opportunity to politicise the whole thing to their own personal gain. These devious politicians tried to undermine the government and destabilise our multi-cultural rakyat by trying to incite the ultra-nationalist elements to create a ruckus. Luckily, the patriotic and mature-minded rakyat didn't take the bait dangled by these shifty politicians. We all stood by our government.

Besides, I think that the rakyat has not minded the need to learn BM/Malay (our national language which we should all be proud of, for this is how we have communicated with each other over the decades since Independence) or English. For that matter, I know lots of Malaysians from various ethnic backgrounds who can converse fluently in dialects/languages that are not their mother-tongue. So why this statement by the Information Minister about learning another's language being taboo?

For those who read this article, it must be understood that the Information Minister is trying to get the narrow-minded members of the rakyat to open up and not be afraid to learn AND share the various aspects of our various cultures.

For the politically inclined, this can be seen as a political move to get the ultra-nationalist Malays in line with the mainstream tolerant Malays for the betterment of our country. Remember that Badawi's intention is to unite the Malays. This is but one of the many steps his government is taking.

Noble intentions, Mr.Information Minister, but they are marred by your criterion for newscasters to be objects of desire. Let's not forget that we should not discriminate by looks, nor should we degrade humans by treating them as "objects" judged solely by their beauty.