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STRIP-SEARCHES, MEDIA FARCES AND AGITPROPS

I am publishing this article ahead of schedule as I got mugged two nights back, half an hour before a political insider could get a sneak preview. This happened in what should be the safest spot in Kuala Lumpur, a taxi stand near Bukit Aman, where the Royal Malaysian Police HQ is located. The cops were puzzled at how it could have happened and after the incident, this redacted piece looks like it has an added "relevance."

By Mathew Maavak

There are times when you just zip up because instincts tell you that something is dead wrong. In this cosmos of interconnectivity, the flap of a butterfly's wings in Beijing can stir up a vortex into which the media can be sucked in, and spat out, into the day after tomorrow. By then, it's too late and unwitting journalists would have clinched a game of geopolitics for free and a red ink for life.

So, when the media began circulating stories of a Malaysian "Abu Ghraib," I knew... the Americans were in trouble.

The Story

During the last week of November, a 71-second video clip emerged. In it, a woman stripped nude, was forced to perform degrading ear squats in front of a female officer. That clip was captured on a mobile phone and relayed till an opposition Member of Parliament exposed the scandal to her colleagues. Somehow, "news" morphed from ethnic Chinese dailies and this version was accepted and relayed through the wires. The unlucky woman, as the story went, was a Chinese national in detention over some charge.

Major news networks carried the story with emotion. Editorials supplemented it with past police brutality, the most conspicuous one being the black eye inflicted on former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Watching the video clip, any propaganda and psyops connoisseur would be cautious because:

1) Much of the clip revealed the woman's back. Her face was barely visible for a second or two. Identity uncertain. Beware! Write in very generic terms.

2) The video clip lasted 71 seconds. Cellphone video clips can last longer than that. A longer clip leads to a longer trail of clues. Again caution.

3) The female officer was issuing instructions in Malay. All Malaysians are taught English from year one. Despite the lack of proficiency here, one would expect the officer to use simple English words like "sit" and "stand" to a foreigner.

4) An angry China didn't produce or name that woman. The Malaysians and the media couldn't find her either but articles and outrage kept rolling out. Strange, isn't it? Remember the tearful clip of the widow of Chinese fighter pilot Wang Wei who went missing during the Hainan fiasco of April 2001? That's when I learnt the words bao qian and dao qian - from CNN's Rebecca McKinnon.

5) You have to pay me to learn the extra discrepancies. No more freebies.

Points one to five were not observed, especially no 5. It was ripe for one mother of an agitprop.

How Bizarre?
A permanent government-in-denial owned up to the human rights abuse with gusto. They were not alone. The media, NGOs, political parties, blogs, and Chinese associations were all united.

Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak wanted "stern action against the culprits."

"This is a slap to our image."

Image is very important here. After all, "losing face" is an Oriental term. Facts need image makeovers as well.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who was then at the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting in Malta, demanded an "immediate investigation" with "no cover-up."

Now, I rarely read the local papers - especially when I worked for one - but this show of local unity was pretty much unprecedented to ignore. Something was fishy.

Why now?

Someone thought of tying the 71-second clip to Abu Ghraib and it became a byword. I have read Abu Ghraib's horrors and had written three or four articles on it. There were no human pyramids here, no electric prods, no hooded heads bunched together and no sadistic smiles from army personnel. If there is an Abu Ghraib in Malaysia, Opposition MPs or the mainstream media should just tell us.

Anyway, "stern action" or some action was taken against the Abu Ghraib culprits. Brig Gen Janis Karpinski was demoted to a colonel. You think some action would be taken against a person of a similar constabulary rank here? "Stern action" is a clichéd metaphor for scapegoats and short memories. Perpetrators of the Malaysian haze faced just that - two words till next season.

But the geopolitical scenario would change next season.

Malaysia's deputy police chief Musa Hassan reinforced the Game Theory scenario.

Such strip-search procedures, it seems, are used by the "United States and Australia" to ensure suspects aren't "concealing banned objects such as weapons and drugs."

Really? Weapons? And why single out these two nations?

Before we get to the game, weapons and drugs can indeed be concealed in the nude.

If you are puzzled, prison warden Zuraida Ghazali provides the answer:

"I once saw a cigarette lighter dropping out of a woman's private part."

What was in that lighter? Enough morphine to make a flight viable?

The Game

This agitprop came a week before Home Minister Azmi Khalid's pre-arranged visit to China. The Home Minister is in charge of the local police. Quite a coincidence.

His original diplomatic agenda was "immigration," a curious term to use unless one factors in the 50,000-odd illegal immigrants from China. Some segments of the mainstream media - in this dividing line - went out to prove otherwise, by interviewing immigration officers.

So, did this episode force concessions? Ethnic Malays are suspicious of pro-China moves and an incident like this was convenient, especially after other Chinese nationals had claimed similar harassment. There was also a drop in "tourism" from China. Were the missing 50,000 taken into account?

When the news broke out, Beijing was indignant and wanted Kuala Lumpur to sort out the mess. It was obliged. Neither party identified the woman. Traditionally, this region has been paying tribute to China. Commies can come and go, but tradition remains.

Quite a coincidence that diplomatic fences would be mended during the 11th ASEAN Summit, which, ran alongside the inaugural East Asia Summit (Dec 12-14). China was the star participant; its glitter received an extra media sheen from this incident. Almost every report, commentary or photo had China on it. The United States was absent; Vladimir Putin was in. Summit chairman was the pro-China Badawi.

ASEAN has gone beyond talk shops to become a forum for the pro-Beijing softening up process. The trick is to nudge the Americans out, dangle sweeteners for problematic nations, and eventually get China to be the power-broker in this region. The first step starts with media slurps over "China's high quality products...the new Economic Superpower...immense markets."

Rupert Murdoch's minions do it best and you should really give the Times worldwide ranking of Far Eastern universities a closer scrutiny. Check out alumni/R&D quality and volume and you know something is missing. It stretches that far.

As for China's "high quality products," they are repeated way too often. All my Made-in-China electronic products went bust too soon, while a deliberately picked Made-in-Hungary Siemens cellphone survived a thousand drops over three years, and I used it till two nights back. Now, Siemens cellphones no longer exist, going the same way as IBM PCs, to China.

That's economic might from an immense market. The future though lies in the economics of R&D. Dutch giant Philips knew that for a long time. Traditionally, it has forfeited manufacturing for innovation, and electronic products that pass WTO rules may likely carry a Philips patent and royalty obligation.

This region, however, is returning to its traditional sweatshop manufacturing role.

In preparation for that, the media needs to be muzzled, in favor of the biggest player. Vietnamese journalists have been jailed before for raising questions on territorial concessions to China. There will be more, depicted in terms like "mutual prosperity." This may eventually include carving up the contested Spratlys for oil.

More money will be rolled out to problematic nations and politicians. Pro-US Philippines will not like this one bit. The Indonesians may play a double game. The situation in Thailand and Indochina looks uncertain. There has been heavy investment there by ethnic Chinese businessmen. Informed Malaysians are getting alarmed at the spiraling rate of investments from Singapore.

So between the Indian Ocean (Burma, pro-China) and the South China Sea (Philippines, pro-US), there is growing tension across opposite geographic spectrums.

This scenario was predicted in Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations.

Ethnic Chinese overwhelmingly control the Southeast Asian economy, and they are finding it cost effective to move their industries to China. Malaysia cannot compete even in niche industries. In the sinecure state perfected by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, one victim was national innovation. He has realized rather late that critics create critical minds and critical industries. The South Koreans are an example. In an ironic twist, the doctor wants a new prescription: Alternative online media.

Too late. Our R&D/Innovation to GDP/PCI ratio is perhaps the most pathetic in the world. Uprooted Palestinians have consistently produced better scientists, journalists and even footballers (Malaysia lost one fateful game to them, just after the Israelis killed a key player). There is an ongoing campaign hyping up our biofuel industry, specifically the B5 blend which has a cost-effective component of 95 per cent petroleum diesel.

In lieu of new ideas, and new industries, Kuala Lumpur will have to accommodate itself with Beijing. The media will have to produce a semblance of non-confrontational unanimity against two potential trouble-makers - the United States and Australia.

It's difficult to take on the United States. Australia on the other hand can be arm-twisted, even from within by the likes of Rupert Murdoch.

Badawi helped along at the summit.

"You are talking about a community of East Asians; I don't know how the Australians could regard themselves as East Asians. We are not talking about being a member of the community, we are talking about common interests."

It had echoes of Harry Lee, Singapore's Senior Minister who once described Australians as the "White thrash of Asia."

I hope he was referring to Murdoch. When the US reached an agreement to get its crewmen out of Hainan, Murdoch's Star News triumphantly announced that "the US" had "apologized to China" - at least in its Asian edition - which CNN did not on the same day. Wonder how Murdoch's Fox News spun it in the US before getting all gung-ho in the War on Terror...

Asymmetric control of the infosphere results in asymmetric rules. Singapore recently pounced on "racist" and "seditious" statements on the Internet, in a warm up of sorts before the Beijing Manual replaces its Chicago counterpart in the regional media.

Australia has been making steady concessions over the years, all for minor gains. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer talked about a "quid pro quo" in the run up to the EAS. In other words, even Gitmo detainees might find the United States more hospitable (read true story below).

Singapore showed where Australia stood geopolitically by hanging a citizen on drug charges during the first week of December.

Narcotics and Potential Instability
Regional narcotics are a triad fiefdom. In Southeast Asia, they are into porn, illegal VCDs, prostitution, arms, trafficking of humans, and trans-Pacific intel. You can get the right information for the right price. The hard line taken during the Hainan episode was partly an attempt to mollify China's generals who were enjoying a cozy relationship with triad industries, mainly in pirated VCD production.

The biggest players are relatively untouched in the Pacific Rim. One of them, Chai Qinghai set up both home and narcotics labs under the Malaysia My Second Home program. He was arrested in April this year and before he could be extradited to China or Australia, he coolly walked out of Sepang's Immigration detention center. No stern action was taken against security personnel. This can only happen through graft. The biggest mystery: Where and what is he up to now?

The small fish can be hanged, as usual. Law and Order is another pronounced asymmetry in this region.

Going by the example above, China will be facing the biggest heat in the near future. As its economy grows, money will roll freely and this will be unchecked by the state-sponsored media. This expensive task will be performed by the state. Beijing knows its history too well. Any nationalist or religious movement - genuine or not - is viewed with paranoia. In modern times, the nationalist Chiang Kai-Shek was nothing more than a Green Gang thug who fought the Japanese when they weren't bribing him. Another colorful figure was Charlie Soong, who printed Chinese bibles by day and triad pamphlets by night.

China's communism is used to control the labor of its capitalist class. But it comes with a capitalist cost. Poorly paid security personnel, like in Malaysia, create a security nightmare.

As China grows, the potential to implode increases with it, a lesson lost in Kuala Lumpur. The exception are Chinese tycoons who already qualify for an immigration ticket to Canberra, where, property and bank accounts exist for an exit plan.

Twists in the tale

On Dec 12 the New Straits Times carried a report headlined LOCK-UP ABUSE INQUIRY: Envoys to China report success

Azmi said the group, sent there to clear the air over negative issues involving Chinese nationals, had had a successful mission.

He said China, while agreeing that action needed to be taken against its citizens who broke laws here, also wanted those guilty of singling out Chinese citizens and abusing them to be punished.

A happy ending for all parties. The Kuala Lumpur International Airport is now hiring up to three dozen Mandarin interpreters for Chinese tourists. No other country needs interpreters. How about African, Russian, Albanian, Uzbek and other Asian women who were singled out and abused?

Then came the shocker.

On Dec 13, the identity of the woman was finally known. Media sleuthing was not a factor. It rarely is. As the story goes, she saw the video on TV news, and recognized “her back, hair, body, hair band and face.” Note the order. Since her face wasn’t clear, the hair band was demanded as a star exhibit.

She turned out to be an ethnic Malay Muslim and the video was reportedly taken in June.

Among other problems in this story: The female officer was clearly seen in the video and should have been identified by fellow cops within two days. Yet, three weeks passed.

On Dec 14, the New Straits Times carried a commentary titled the Press Got it Wrong. Dead Wrong...

"Among those baying for blood will be politicians, businessmen and members of the chattering classes who have been uncomfortable with the greater leeway given to the media since Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became Prime Minister in October 2003.

They will relish the opportunity to argue for the controls to be tightened. They will use this case to argue why a freer Press is bad for the country."

Badawi had no choice as some of his top advisors failed their intelligence vetting before he came to power. A few of them botched recent attempt to censor the online media in sync with Singapore (which was really "bad for the country" and I didn’t wait for vintage then). As for the Press, it didn’t practice the basics of verification for the three weeks it spent on China appeasement. Real newshounds bay for blood and long for "freer Press."

For any connoisseur of fine propaganda and psyops, this incident tasted like bad Oriental snake wine. The connoisseur’s standards are more exacting. He will let the story mature for a little vintage in his Dell laptop, and two USB drives in case a third motherboard is needed before the one-year warranty is over. Besides, people all over the world are busy with Christmas shopping and vacations, students and workers are chilling out, businesses are busy with year-end reports, diplomats are on leave, editors too. All prefer French-sounding vintages from mid-December. This is best served after Jan 3, after the hangover.

The mugging of two nights back, where I lost this draft and not my wallet, changes things a little.

Dec 13: American dream for Gitmo detainees?

Can you believe it? Even Gitmo detainees prefer to remain in the States. Read this Dec 13 Washington Post report.

Two Chinese Uighur detainees at Gitmo may "appear before court to challenge their confinement." The prisoners posed a "genuine dillemma" to the US government because they "are not enemy combatants" and "no country so far is willing to accept them."

U.S. officials are not willing to send the Uighurs - Muslims who are seeking their own homeland on what is now part of northwestern China - to their native country for fear that they would be tortured or killed.

"The Uighurs, through their lawyers, have argued that because they are not a threat they should be moved to more hospitable living conditions and have asked to be released to live in the Washington area."

Now, if these Uighurs find the US more hospitable post-Gitmo, it reveals the sorry state of the world.

I am curious which nations rejected them while they remain in Gitmo to date.

Yes, the American dream exists, even for Gitmo alumni. But there are more tasteful stories of smart people whisked away from penury to Silicon Valley by discerning American executives.

Why were they whisked away? The Malaysians, for one, will not accept a qualified, migrant laborer from becoming a senior software executive overnight. It's bad for the national image.

Those who compared Guantanamo Bay to the video clip here may not have much to say on the Uighurs either.

Black Ops and Grey Ops
There has been a long-standing effort to pull this region into China's orbit. Badawi constantly remind Malaysians that China is not a "threat." Again, this is repeated too often to produce the opposite effect. Singapore's Harry Lee is the avuncular pro-China figure in this region. They would have watched glimpses of their Asian Values in that video.

When time came for damage control, two cops were contradicting each other at an "independent" inquiry on the origins of the video.

But forget the cops for a while. How in the world could journos, NGOs, political parties and governments assume the identity of the woman in the video, and play up a farcical story for three bloody weeks? The official crisis management mode in a genuine foul-up should be:

1) Stall. Make a carefully-worded statement and nothing more. Examine that video first. Anyone can dress up as a cop and anyone could play sit ups. The woman's face was not clear for the brief second or two.

2) Make no moves to placate China when you are not sure of the video's source.

But this drama was complemented by a morbid collage on the Prime Minister's website. Below Badawi's prayerful thanks to Malaysians who grieved over his wife's death in October, was a chauvinistic Chinese declaration in the Malay language, dated Nov 14. Essentially, it was a miniaturized Oriental version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

It was profoundly offensive. There are various possibilities on its origins. It could be from an ally playing a double game with Washington. That's not quite vintage. But there is one ingeniously contrived variant which involves 20-30 graduated steps.

Someone's stale psyops can be made into another's vintage. A smart Game Theorist can turn the tables easily. Where this one came from may not matter much; there is a small door open here for another to blast his way to "objective."

Effects on the US

When this agitprop broke out, I wonder how US diplomats either here or in the State Department took it. There was overt silence while Badawi triumphantly announced a US$50 billion trade flow with Beijing by 2010. That's a paltry sum but it does carry immense geopolitical ramifications for both Malaysia and the United States.

Some retrograde genius must have thought this was the right time. The United States is embattled on all fronts. Its powers have been weakened post 9/11. Allies are going in for the kill, and extra trading prospects with China. Reports of secret CIA prisons are springing all over Europe. I see this more in terms of impeccable timing rather than genuine human rights concerns.

There are growing problems over "allies."

Early in 2005, a mystery ship called Glenn Braveheart was photographed near Port Klang in Malaysia with mercenaries and weapons on board. Investigations revealed that it was owned by a Singaporean company, and was run by retired naval personnel. Simultaneous queries in Malaysia and Singapore produced explanations that vied for the ludicrous. One had it that the ship was providing security escorts for naval vessels, particularly those from the US. Warships need security escort from one vessel? Another explanation had it that the M-16s and uniforms seen on board were fakes issued for training drills.

Kuala Lumpur grapevine connected its presence to the increasingly rampant piracy in the Straits of Malacca, a vital sea lane through which 60,000 ships ferry half of the world's oil and one-third of its trade each year. The grapevine went further: The Americans were up to no good.

This latest incident would make any regional observer think again. And perhaps make the US rethink the role of "allies" but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. One of those who engineered this agitprop had an audience with the US Ambassador to Kuala Lumpur recently. What's next for the US?

The Future?

This is indeed a time of great geopolitical and economic stress with some historic parallels. If a certain threshold is crossed, look to the Great Depression for hints. The United States came out with a New Deal while the rest of the world - with few exceptions - plunged into fascism.

So, do not be surprised if each week throws up a new scandal to rock the White House. While US citizens are fighting for their freedoms, the rest of the world has waived it quietly and cheaply. From a capitalist viewpoint, this is partly a battle between individual ingenuity and state-moderated sweatshops. Remember the 30s.

The next step would be to hijack the infosphere, and hand over control of the Internet to the UN. So far the US has resisted...

Kuala Lumpur, Dec 30 2005
Copyright @Mathew Maavak 2005

Originally drafted in mid December.

Some of Mathew Maavak's more vintage stuff can be read here or
visit the Panoptic World homepage.

Article Source: http://www.articledestination.com

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