Several Barisan Nasional MPs have expressed legitimate fears about Western cultural imperialism in the era of Information Technology and the need to safeguard and promote Malaysian culture and values from being swamped and uprooted by Western values.
This in fact was one reason given by one Barisan MP to express pride that Malaysians now own their own satellite, MEASAT, failing to realise that what is most important in the era of Information Technology is content rather than ownership.
While Malaysians can be proud that Malaysia is having its own satellite, they will be prouder if ASTRO’s television and radio channels offer new Malaysian channels.
In its advertising blurb, ASTRO claims that it is offering “A World Of Choice with more than 30 television and radio channels, Direct-to-U”. Further examination shows that after excluding RTM1 & 2 which would be transmitted “Direct-to-U with enhanced picture and sound quality”, there is minimal local content.
The only channel where there will be some local content is touted as “RIA - Malaysia’s first All-Malay language channel”. Although this channel features made-in-Malaysia dramas, game shows and movies, it would also feature “movies, variety programmes, musicals, popular soap operas and dramas from Singapore, Indonesia and around the world”, and I will not be surprised if Malaysian content on this channel occupies minority position.
It therefore legitimate to ask as to how Malaysia’s own satellite broadcasting is promoting Malaysian social and cultural values, or whether it is just disseminating Western values?
Very soon, with the advent of satellite broadcasting, hundreds of channels would become available. ASTRO, for instance, is talking about over 100 channels by 1998 although there is no talk about plans to ensure that there will be significant local content in ASTRO’s radio and television channels.
One way to ensure that Malaysia’s social and cultural values are represented in Malaysia’s Information Highway is to deregulate and liberalise broadcasting and to allow the establishment of private broadcasting stations so that Malaysian voices, ideas, stories and artists can stake a presence on this Highway.
Malaysia’s greatest asset is our multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious diversity, and there is no reason why there should not be a deregulation and liberalisation of broadcasting policy to allow private radio and television channels to reflect this rich linguistic, cultural and religious diversity in Malaysia.
Yesterday, the MP for Sri Aman called for the greater use of Iban over RTM. DAP fully supports such a call, and the Ministry of Information should establish a task force to draw up a blueprint to make broadcasting in Iban over both radio and television more meaningful and significant than the position today. I would even go further, and suggest that a private broadcasting station be allowed where Iban could be one of the main language medium of broadcasting!
Similarly, the various religions in Malaysia, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Sikkhism, should be allowed to have their own or a joint religious broadcast station, which would fully be in keeping with the Rukunegara principle of creating a Bangsa Malaysia committed to the “Belief in God”.
This is all the more appropriate as the Government has refused to allocate proper and adequate time for religious programmes apart from programmes on Islam - despite the first Rukunegara principle of “Belief in God”.
The various state governments should be allowed to have their broadcasting station. I do not see why the Sabah state government cannot have its own state broadcasting station, or even the Kelantan State Government - although I am no spokesman for the PAS Kelantan State Government with whom I have great differences over its hukum hudud enactment.
Even the various universities, if they are so minded, should be allowed to have their own broadcasting stations.
The deregulation and liberalisation of broadcasting to allow the opening up of private broadcasting stations might seem a very bold suggestion, but how could the government justify refusing to allow the establishment of private broadcasting stations when there are hundreds of broadcasting channels accessible by Malaysians, the overwhelming majority of which are Western?
I wish to refer to the amended definition for “television broadcast receiver” in the Bill, defining it as “any apparatus used for the visual and aural reception of broadcast matter trafnsmitted by radio waves or any other electromagnetic waves, through ether, wire, cable or satellite, including a receiving antenna or any combination of apparatus capable of direct reception of any broadcast matter’.
As personal computers are now fully capable of receiving audio and video, does this mean that they would require television license fees under the amendment Bill?
The same question applies to pagers and digital handphones which subscribe to text-based information broadcasts, such as traffic updates, magnum 4D results, toto, etc. Would these pagers and digital handphones also need additional licenses apart from the current one under the Telecommunications Act?
I have been told that metal clothes-lines or iron grilles can enhance radio transmission and under the Bill, they could fall under the definition of “radio broadcast receiver” - which is indeed most ridiculous.
The Minister of Information should be aware of plans by several multi-national telecommunications companies to create satellite-based alternative telephone systems, like Motorola’s Iridium project, which will use 66 satellites to cover most major urban areas of the globe. With increasing digital convergence, blurring the division between broadcasting and telecommunications, what is the position of these alternative telephone systems under the Broadcasting Amendment Bill?
A very important subject when we discuss broadcasting is the issue of the freedom of the press, as news and commentaries are among the broadcasting matters. Time does not permit a full discussion of the issue of independence of the press, but all broadcasting stations must be reminded of their duty to uphold high journalistic standards of independence, impartiality and fairness.
Unfortunately, the electronic media in Malaysia have fallen far short of these standards and are even worse than most printed media in this regard.
All broadcasting stations must live up to their social responsibility to produce quality programmes in all the categories of information, entertainment, education and culture. RTM, for instance, must be Radio Television Malaysia and not Radio Television Mahathir.
(End of Speech)