Not the X-Factor

Before readers continue reading this article, I wish to say a few things about the last article I wrote. I stated cleanly that it was intended as a rib tickler. I don't mind being called names of this and that. But there was one particular blogger who irked me greatly who termed me a bingai. I don't mind being called a senduk but not bingai. Bingai as the blogger defines it is a derivative of bahlul. Now, bahlul where I come from is a genetically inherited mental trait. Being genetically determined, such mental state comes from our parents. You pick out issues with me, but to cast aspersions of my parents is another matter. I responded deservedly. I too have the liberty to call him out by whatever name which I think he deserves. I have also responded to his veiled threat of wanting to do what if he meets me or in his street language- nasib baik gua tak jumpa lu.... I have stated a long time ago, if you pick a fight with me, I get you in a cul-de-sac; I take out my knuckle dusters. Call me anything, but don't abuse my parents.

Now, the main story.

A few years ago, The Star newspaper was one of the most strident critics of Mahathirism. The term is used loosely to signify anything; policies and projects that were associated with Dr Mahathir. Whatever Mahathir did and accomplished were regarded as baneful for Malaysia.

Bold business decisions were taken as cronyism, vision 2020 regarded as wasteful personal dreams, development taken as ecological disaster, assertive foreign policies regarded as quarrelsome. Accordingly, to be associated with Mahathirism is an unforgivable sin.

I remember reading Star editors who were among the most virulent and contumelious of critics. Sometimes they were openly contemptuous. And not one Malay writer worth his salt defended Mahathir. Certainly not those who now jump and go berserk whenever disagreeable comments are made on Dr Mahathir or on the greenhorn Mukhriz Mahathir.

Every major newspaper editors and lesser writers acted in unison in condemning Dr Mahathir. After 2003 until the exit of Pak Lah, Mahathir was treated almost like a pariah.

Now The Star is singing a different tune. Its chief spokesperson, Jocelyn Tan is saying Dr Mahathir is the X factor in the government. Usually one treats an X factor as the determining factor that ensures success. Like many people, I am puzzled. How can a person who was treated for a number of years as an untouchable now becomes the X factor?

Sometimes people subscribed to the existence of an X factor when they do not know what the crucial element determining success is. That unexplainable factor is assigned an X. Adopting an X can also be a sign that you are clueless and lost. Hence the slain Black American leader, Malcolm X was said to have adopted the 'X' in his name because he was a lost child.

In many ways, the adoption of 'X' by J Tan a well known journalist at The Star seems to be a fitting description. She hacks her way clueless. J Tan is a chameleon herself. She blends according to her surroundings. She was singing praises for KJ then when Abdullah Badawi was in power. She obviously knows which side of her bread is buttered. She even knows who butters it. She has earned many nicknames. In 2007 when I wasn't even blogging yet, she earned the moniker of UMNO media mistress. I have even heard her being called a whore.

But she seems to have her admirers deep inside the PM's office. Why is that so? That would suggest one of two three things. First she is regarded as best in her field. Two, those press people in the PM's outfit suffer from inferiority complexes. Finally, she is admired simply because DS Rosmah has a special place for J.Tan.

And so, she becomes a most admired media notable by the PM's press people. The adulation even if false confers a sense of invincibility which at times can be used to demolish others. J Tan has demonstrated that power when she contributed to the successful halt to the progression of one ex journalist as Press Sec to the DPM.

The admiration which I find unreasonable is nonetheless understandable. If you have people within the PM's press setup who cant even respond with a decent answer to the accusations by RPK, the adulation and even respect accorded to someone regarded as the belle of Journalism, is understandable. Those guys were probably besotted with her or were practical enough not to offend the PM's wife's pet.

I have said and will say it again. Her prowess as a journalist is vastly exceeded by her close relationship with Datin Seri Rosmah. As a journalist she is a paper tiger, undeservedly venerated during an age, when the internet wasn't around. At that time, what a journalist says was almost a monologue and opinion shaper. When the internet age came, when people can talk back, the shallowness and flimsy premises on which opinions were formed are easily undone. With that, comes a sobering realization that journalists like J Tan for instance is just another conjurer with words. Mesmerising for a short time, but unreal.

If you keep changing positions, something is bound to give in. That something, without which a journalist worth his /her salt cannot survive, is credibility. You can only conclude as losing any semblance of credibility of someone who said A was a pariah at one time, now that we have a new master, A is a darling. As Karpal Singh once used to say- you can't be two extremes at any given time. If you are to change positions, you could have hedged your bets the last time by straddling the middle road.

That should be an apt description of J Tan's journalistic behaviour. Suddenly as J Tan says TDM is back in the loop. Dr Mahathir has always been in the loop whether one likes it or not. TDM is an institution unto himself. He says what he wants and provides reasons therein. One disputes him by building a better mousetrap and it is no skin of his nose, if people disagree with him.

Whether he PM approves or otherwise, Dr Mahathir will say what he thinks is right such as insisting that UMNO must battle in Penanti. Or that DS Najib's cabinet has unsavoury characters. Or saying that the foreign press is ganging up on the PM.

As J Tan admitted, TDM did not ever stop- but newspapers like Star and people like J Tan, made sure what he said did not make it into the mainstream media. It was the Fourth Estate after all who created its own Berlin Wall keeping away dissenting voices.

Now Dr Mahathir, once reviled and abused is regarded as the X factor, treated as a returned hero, one in a million and indeed rarer still. The once derided Mahathirim is now re-christened as Guided Democracy. The suffix Democracy is at least palatable.

Those days when Mahathirism held sway were actually, it is indirectly claimed, our temporary displaced glorious path. The message is unmistakably clear- that if DS Najib were to emulate the style of Dr Mahathir, that is acceptable. Actually it is not Mahathirism we are hankering after but renewed leadership which has been forfeited since 2003. This was what JT missed out.

But when we pressed for resurgent leadership during PakLah's years, JTan and the Star enjoined the other MSM media doing a Berlin Wall on valid criticisms on weak leadership. Indeed strong leadership exemplified for example by Mahathirism was fashionably denounced. Dr Mahathir himself was exiled into the media wilderness, forced to reach the masses through his own blog. The more than 18 million readership is now finally accepted as very credible.

What are the hallmarks of Mahathirism that may supply DS Najib, content to his leadership? They include like what the Blogger Bigdog listed as "policies like Look East, Vision 2020, privatisation and Malaysia Inc. It was about big ideas and projects, bold decision-making, and the public and private sectors working to achieve economic growth."

But wait- JTan is not unlike the proverbial Greek bearing gifts. The gifts being in the form of grudging acknowledgements and even acceptance of Mahathirism. Whether this changing position by JT is a product of enlightened awareness is debatable. Maybe, her changing position is dictated by reasons of self preservation and a need to reinforce her presence as unsolicited adviser to the PM's team.

She's sending the message that Najib will ensure that Mahathirim will not be entirely discarded. On what is the guarantee given? That guarantee says JTan is given because of the existence of certain dynamics between the two men. When I was reading the romanticizing of the bonds between DS Najib and Dr Mahathir, I asked myself, were the many heart warming behavior described artfully by J Tan, a product of J Tan's wet dreams? I am not going to reproduced it here. Readers can read it in her article.

What should interest us is the use of Dr Mahathir in her scheme of things. Just like what she was doing during the Abdullah and KJ years, she is now placing an insurance factor for Najib's success. Mahathirism will no longer to be mistreated, but it will not enjoy prominence still. It's put on reserve as the X factor that can be called up assist Najibism.

Hence even though she hacks her way clueless, J tan has finally got her own X factor. If during the Abdullah years, she saw it fit to reject wholly Mahathirism and even demonising Dr Mahathir, this time, just to reinforce awareness of who butters her bread, she quickly elevates what was totally discarded as the X factor.

I for one will not steal her thunder and won't be in the way to ensure the PM succeeds in leading Malaysia even if the path leading to it is created in such a seductive way as done by J Tan. After all she is the UMNO media mistress.