Time to act on investigative reports highlighted by the media

Republished from New Straits Times, Sept 30, 2020,
with the author’s permission. Read the original here.

By Yong Soo Heong

THE 2019 MPI-Petronas Malaysian Journalism Awards finally took place recently after the Covid-19 pandemic had initially thrown things off gear. Journalists who had excelled in various categories eventually got their deserving accolades.

With their improved investigative bent and quality of presentation, the marks separating the winners and finalists were razor-thin. I should know as I was again thrust into the punishing position of being the head of the judging panel! As with many award-winning entries of the recent past, many tend to focus on lax enforcement, mismanagement, corruption and red tape in government. The propensity for in-depth unearthing of such misdeeds was not lost on the guest-of-honour, Senior Education Minister Dr Radzi Jidin, who represented Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin at the function.

While urging journalists to uphold journalism’s core values of integrity, authenticity and relevance, Dr Radzi asked — could they turn their attention on positive matters for a change? I suggested in my remarks before the awards presentation that journalists should take up Dr Radzi’s challenge as education could be a fertile ground for positive stories.

While many jaded people would be quick to throw cold water on this much-debated subject, I believe that good education-related materials exist to be unearthed while not forgetting the not-so-good ones as well. On a positive note, one of the winning entries revealed that many urban poor students tend to experience more mental health issues and there was a need for more counsellors in schools!

Education-related matters need further probing to bring to light what needs to be done to provide the best for our leaders and talent of tomorrow. After all, Malcolm X, a Muslim African-American civil rights leader, had reminded us that “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

In my view, news organisations don’t go pursuing bad happenings for them to be sensationalised. These news items are for real, had taken place and warranted attention so that action can be taken for the benefit of the people. Media organisations play a central role in recording events and promoting greater awareness about pertinent issues that affect our lives day in and day out as today's news will stand as historical facts for the future.

Having said that, we cannot help noticing some of the unsavoury things that had been highlighted. Like the heart-wrenching tales of illegal migrants being smuggled into the country and forced to live like animals in the forests before they are “safely” transported were rife.

Not only humans were trafficked, animals too, such as the prized pangolins, rumoured to have medicinal powers for pregnant women to lactate even more! Stories about our rivers and reservoirs being polluted were aplenty. And how the health of young schoolchildren was affected by the now infamous Sungai Kim Kim and other filthy rivers in Johor. Or the frequent encroachment into our rich marine waters by foreign fishermen or villagers being exposed to unhealthy levels of lead pollution from processing industrial wastes dumped by developed countries.

I was also attracted to the New Straits Times’ focus on the daily grind of thousands of commuters at the Johor Baru Causeway, either going to work or study in Singapore. These early risers are doing just that because they want bring to a little more food to the table or to have better employment prospects later on.  It’s a crying shame that our people have to endure deplorable conditions each morning.

Now that the Causeway is not as crowded as before because of the Recovery Movement Control Order, perhaps the authorities could do something there fast. Strike while the iron is hot. Democratic governments change because of shifts in voting patterns of voters or in political colours of politicians. But there's little change in the government machinery or personnel.

It would do the rakyat a lot of good if these investigative reports were seriously evaluated by heads of relevant departments and acted upon immediately. After all, our current government's tagline is “Kita Jaga Kita” and William Shakespeare did say: “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

• Datuk Yong Soo Heong is a former chief executive officer and editor-in-chief of Bernama. Read more about him here.

Marbles or buah guli

EVERY YEAR, usually on Good Friday, a crowd gathers at the carpark of the Greyhound Inn, Tinsley Green in West Sussex for the World Marbles Championship. The game had been played in the county for centuries; the tourney in its present form started in 1932. Bearing striking resemblance with what some of us did as kids, the competition is like this:

• The game: Forty nine marbles are placed in a ring. Players get a point for each marble their tolley — a shooting marble — knocks out of the ring. The first team to reach 25 points wins.
• Nose drop: At the start of the game, players perform a “nose drop” i.e. drop their tolleys from their noses to a line drawn in the sand. The player whose tolley lands nearest the line goes first.
• Knuckling down: When they position their hands for shooting, knuckles must rest on the concrete ring.
• Fudging: It is a foul to move your hand forward when shooting. This is called “fudging”.
• Cabbaging: This is another foul – shooting from an incorrect spot.

In 2019, German side “1st MC Erzgebirge” won the World Marbles Championship beating former champions Black Dog Boozers by 39 – 0 in the one sided final. Watch the Youtube video here. Read also here and here.

Marbles: Tiny spheres of fun and innovation

Variations of the game existed in India (read here), Singapore (read here) and Malaysia (read here), no doubt via the colonial influences.

During our school days, the English game did not resonate with us. We played another instead. It went like this:

• Players would wager equal numbers of marbles each. For example, if there were five players and the wager was five, there would be a total of 25 in the pool.
• These 25 marbles would be arranged in a straight line. One end was the head and the other, the tail.
• Play started when each player threw his lunggu (“tolley” in the English game) using the lined marbles as the starting point. The one who threw the furthest got to take first aim at the row of marbles.
• The object of the game was to hit as near the head as possible. If the first person hit the head, he claimed the entire row. Assuming the head was on the left, if he hit the middle, he took all to the left of the one he hit.
• One of the tactics of the game was to place the lunggu near the line so that if most people missed you still had a sizeable remainder to win. To give themselves a 100% chance, the lunggu would be placed next to the head.

Some gems of the game

• The lunggu (or “tolley”) was a prized possession. It was rated for its accuracy. Some people would pay a fair bit (I cannot remember how much) to get hold of a good one.
• The spin: Sometimes, in order to get the lunggu to hit the line, you could not throw in a straight line. Some people spun the lunggu. Others used the incline of the ground to curve the roll, much like putting a golf ball.
• Team play: It was not unusual for us to play in a team of two or three. The team would invest together and place all their marbles in a common “bank” to draw from at every game. The tactics were straightforward: At every play, they would have players with their lunggu at different positions to arrive at the best outcome – usually one very far, the second in the middle and the last near the head of the line.
• Phak chniaw! This means “rob” or “snatch” in Hokkien. In school, just before the bell rang to signal the end of recess, a few boys, usually the more naughty seniors, would gather near the line of marbles. When the bell rang, they would scream phak chniaw! and grabbed whatever they could get. This was robbery, however, for some reason, we accepted it as part of the game.

© Lim Siang Jin