Natalie Shobana Ambrose – (28th January, 2010 – theSun)
When visiting another country, one of the first questions people ask is “Where are you from?” And I’ll always proudly say Malaysia with a big smile.
I was the first Malaysian he had met and the automatic response at times for the person asking would be to scour the brain for any piece of information about Malaysia and true enough he didn’t know too much about Malaysia.
It’s always fascinating when people say they know Malaysia or have been to Malaysia. It’s almost like a brownie point of validation.
Well this bloke did know something about Malaysia and waiting to hear the typical Malaysia Truly Asia advert being regurgitated to me, he exclaimed “You can divorce your wife via text message in Malaysia!”
From a proud smile to a sheepish whimper of “Yes, this is my country, where we make headlines for being different”.
I was hoping no one else heard it but I’m not that lucky. So there I was feeling awkward trying to do some damage control wishing the ground would swallow me or that I’d be teleported to a different part of the room.
Though I must say, I’m glad this conversation happened before Avatar was released. I would not know how to positively defend that point of view for sure.
It’s moments like this where reality kicks us and we know what we look like from a distance. It’s like looking in the mirror. Up close we see the warts and detail whereas from a distance it might all look like a good package but then once in a while we get a hard kick about our warts.
We can hire as many public relations firms to help us project the right image however our best PR tool is ourselves and paying someone else to do damage control only goes so far if we continuously give ourselves bad press.
A good starting point would actually be to try and stay under the radar by making good decisions and be in the press for positive actions but how can we when everyday, politicians present, former and future make statements that go against the universal code of ethic and respect?
We’ve had some pretty bad international press lately.
If you do a quick search Malaysia is highlighted in many articles of religious and ethnic unrest and been on the front page of the New York Times for a polygamy club.
We’ve also been in the news for the possible canning of a model who admitted to drinking alcohol and we’ve made a fuss every time international female artists schedule performances in Malaysia only for there to be protest and the artist to perform in a neighbouring country even though her videos are readily available for public viewing anytime of the day on Malaysian television.
We’ve not had any good press from human rights groups because of the way we mistreat migrants- legal, illegal and even the ones with proper documents. We also have a total disregard of the damage our oil palm plantations are causing to the Sumatran forests.
In a way I’m glad the international press highlights these issues, because we don’t do enough of it locally and many people only know what’s allowed to be fed to the public anyway.
But somewhere, we have to stop and think, where is all this bad press getting us? When public figures and groups act for themselves not realising every bad decision eats away at the reputation of the country, we are left with very little.
We are delusional to think that Malaysia is progressing positively because we seem to live in a bubble that limits our thinking to stereotypes of race while we laugh at other countries we think are backward because we have tall buildings and they don’t.
We’ve allowed for organisations to incite hate on half the population who have lived in Malaysia for generations without reprimand or criticism and we think we’ve progressed?
I recently watched a movie about a country considered backward by many but there was a line in the movie that really summed up how cohesive this so called backward nation was – “In a culture where a white catholic woman gives up her post as Prime Minister to a Sikh, who is then sworn in by a Muslim President to govern a country that is 80% Hindu.”
How much more evolved are they?
For all the development we’ve achieved, we’ve lost so much in essence from all the bad press we’ve been getting. If our selling point in racial and religious cohesiveness, we’ve failed miserably, if it’s having the twin-towers the Burj has surpassed us, if it’s about the beautiful islands our environmental track-record is telling.
I think it’s time we took stock and genuinely work on our PR, so that when people think about Malaysia it might just be a happy thought.
Natalie is for press freedom but also ‘malu’ about all the international press Malaysia is getting these days.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
When visiting another country, one of the first questions people ask is “Where are you from?” And I’ll always proudly say Malaysia with a big smile.
I was the first Malaysian he had met and the automatic response at times for the person asking would be to scour the brain for any piece of information about Malaysia and true enough he didn’t know too much about Malaysia.
It’s always fascinating when people say they know Malaysia or have been to Malaysia. It’s almost like a brownie point of validation.
Well this bloke did know something about Malaysia and waiting to hear the typical Malaysia Truly Asia advert being regurgitated to me, he exclaimed “You can divorce your wife via text message in Malaysia!”
From a proud smile to a sheepish whimper of “Yes, this is my country, where we make headlines for being different”.
I was hoping no one else heard it but I’m not that lucky. So there I was feeling awkward trying to do some damage control wishing the ground would swallow me or that I’d be teleported to a different part of the room.
Though I must say, I’m glad this conversation happened before Avatar was released. I would not know how to positively defend that point of view for sure.
It’s moments like this where reality kicks us and we know what we look like from a distance. It’s like looking in the mirror. Up close we see the warts and detail whereas from a distance it might all look like a good package but then once in a while we get a hard kick about our warts.
We can hire as many public relations firms to help us project the right image however our best PR tool is ourselves and paying someone else to do damage control only goes so far if we continuously give ourselves bad press.
A good starting point would actually be to try and stay under the radar by making good decisions and be in the press for positive actions but how can we when everyday, politicians present, former and future make statements that go against the universal code of ethic and respect?
We’ve had some pretty bad international press lately.
If you do a quick search Malaysia is highlighted in many articles of religious and ethnic unrest and been on the front page of the New York Times for a polygamy club.
We’ve also been in the news for the possible canning of a model who admitted to drinking alcohol and we’ve made a fuss every time international female artists schedule performances in Malaysia only for there to be protest and the artist to perform in a neighbouring country even though her videos are readily available for public viewing anytime of the day on Malaysian television.
We’ve not had any good press from human rights groups because of the way we mistreat migrants- legal, illegal and even the ones with proper documents. We also have a total disregard of the damage our oil palm plantations are causing to the Sumatran forests.
In a way I’m glad the international press highlights these issues, because we don’t do enough of it locally and many people only know what’s allowed to be fed to the public anyway.
But somewhere, we have to stop and think, where is all this bad press getting us? When public figures and groups act for themselves not realising every bad decision eats away at the reputation of the country, we are left with very little.
We are delusional to think that Malaysia is progressing positively because we seem to live in a bubble that limits our thinking to stereotypes of race while we laugh at other countries we think are backward because we have tall buildings and they don’t.
We’ve allowed for organisations to incite hate on half the population who have lived in Malaysia for generations without reprimand or criticism and we think we’ve progressed?
I recently watched a movie about a country considered backward by many but there was a line in the movie that really summed up how cohesive this so called backward nation was – “In a culture where a white catholic woman gives up her post as Prime Minister to a Sikh, who is then sworn in by a Muslim President to govern a country that is 80% Hindu.”
How much more evolved are they?
For all the development we’ve achieved, we’ve lost so much in essence from all the bad press we’ve been getting. If our selling point in racial and religious cohesiveness, we’ve failed miserably, if it’s having the twin-towers the Burj has surpassed us, if it’s about the beautiful islands our environmental track-record is telling.
I think it’s time we took stock and genuinely work on our PR, so that when people think about Malaysia it might just be a happy thought.
Natalie is for press freedom but also ‘malu’ about all the international press Malaysia is getting these days.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
