Pengecut meant shrunken testicles. I always thought they meant coward. In any case though, I doubt these people have the balls to answer this blogger’s challenge this close to the elections. I doubt they’ll even take him up on the offer, but we can certainly expect more mud-slinging from them. The Government, I mean.
Ok, who’s got the popcorn?
Edit: Dewan Bahasa has two translations:
pengecut orang yg kecut hati; penakut: A fraidy cat!
pengecut penakut: someone you CAN’T depend on.
Blogging radicalists are perceived as futile attempts due to their passive nature of their actions, and usually contained many frustrations and bad news to be used as leverage against them in case they were way too influential to be under control.
Even Gandhi’s passive resistance is enough to calm a war by simply fasting. If people are seriously going to oppose the government one day, those people must be spell V for Vendetta.
There’s not enough damage done by simply blogging.
damn typo
*those people must spell*
Think this one deserves a comment of its own instead of two:
Perhaps so, but this is the first time that I’ve seen a MALAYSIAN blogger willing to meet UMNO on its own turf. Raja Petra would do it too. The more infamous bloggers are the opposite of many; they put their money where their mouth is, which is more than what I can say for most politicians.
Remember the UMNO-PAS Islamic debate a few years ago? It never happened, mainly due to the goalpost shifting of both sides.
Are these bloggers passive? I doubt it. If they were passive, they would not have made the claims they did. By the simple act of blogging, they have taken the trouble and risk that comes with airing your own opinion in this country.
Remember that in Malaysia, bloggers are mainly urbanites; even if we pooled together, I doubt we could influence more than 5-25 constituencies, and most of that would be urbanites. However, it is the ability to speak out and voice up that frightens the government. Because if these voices of dissent are not properly *managed*, they will lose credibility among the rural voters, who form the majority of our voters.
Remember remember May 13. Remember remember the death of Merdeka.
I’m still skeptical about the whole idea of not being passive by just “simply voicing out”. I can already imagine major ad hominems that counterattacks credibility.
Geminianeyes: We now go back to the usual habit of writing within comments to reply! ^^
Point taken. However, by trying to attack the other person’s credibility you have already destroyed your own. Credibility attacks work when a person’s stabbed from the back and not given a way to defend themselves; it doesn’t quite apply in this case because people are bracing for it and they’re more confident in the original blogger than the other. Not to mention, in cases like these, the attacker is the one who falls flat on their face, not the victim.
Maybe, unless the person who attacks has perfect defence against anything that can be used against him. You may have not encountered anyone who has anything like that who is virtually untouchable on any personal issues that gives no signs weakness at all whenever they speak, a so-called “perfect” individual that their actions actually defines the words that comes out from the mouth.
Imagine a V for vendetta person, only at an extremely low profile. But then again, such a low profile may pose no threat at all to anyone who has the authority to assasinate that person who may be just too powerful to be kept under control.
Bloggers, on the other hand, well…are merely just trying. And that’s simply just an ignorable opinion of course.
Geminianeyes: Now this I disagree. That kind of credibility attack works when you’re too low profile to care, as people would think you have to behave in a certain way and all. For a person like Raja Petra, you expect him to be human, so a few PERSONAL flaws here and there are something you might be willing to accept.
Then again, what one person would accept in another differs to the next. I know I would accept most flaws but for the flaw of taking money to influence governmental decisions. Heck, if a person is gay or not, why the fuck would anyone care? Unless it interferes with their ability to make sound decisions, it should not be a factor.
The only people, I think, who would be most vulnerable to these credibility, are those who try to the social high ground, such as saying so and so’s music is bad and degrading. Or those who say that only women are sexually harrased, because men are such animals and women are too genteel to do such a thing.
Unfortunately our society has been taught that moral values are a social thing and NOT a personal matter. Respect for personal space is non-existent in this country if you’re someone famous, more so a entertainment celeb, and some people will stop at nothing to bring you down simply because you’re successful. Jealousy is a powerful motivation in this country, along with greed.