Age of extinction

The minister of information, communications and multimedia Dato’ Seri Dr Rais Yatim, Ph.D really blundered the past few days. The logo for this year’s commemoration of 55th independence and formation of Federation of Malaysia is really ghastly and hedious, if not amateurish and of low class.

It is as if it is the work of a teenager, who concocted this logo from the simple but lazy art of cut-and-paste, probably as an end of term assignment. With all the might and clout of the Minister and his ministry, plus the instant co-operation that he would highly get from media corporations, this is the result that they could come up with.

It is appalling. It is shameful. The first time this logo is shown to any of our peers, they are either flabbergasted caught by surprise or laughed their brains out.

Slightly earlier than that, it was the decision that was reported to have been made on FINAS’s decision not to allow public screening of ‘Tanda Putera‘, scheduled for 13 September 2012..  It was said that the instructions were either do the ‘necessary cut’ (which was said to be in the neighborhood of 30%) or screen it after the 13th General Elections.

Bloggers, who have had the privilege to watch the sneak preview or those who have not, including whose  comprehensive personal understanding of the whole episode of the 13 May 1969 racial riots were quick to criticize.

If any of these turned to be true, then it would a grave shame for the minister-in-charge of arts, archives, culture and media to have agreed for the decisions made, let alone was responsible to lead the discussions that resulted with the logo and/or immediate fate of ‘Tanda Putera’.

Minister-in-charge of Communications, Information & Culture Dato’ Sei Utama Dr. Rais Yatim Ph.D

It was said the Minister didn’t have the opportunity to watch ‘Tanda Putera’ right to the end even though he was privy for a sneak preview. Had he stayed on till the end, then he would understand the movie is about the lives of Tun Abdul Razak Hussein (from May 1969 till his passing on 14 January and funeral on 16 January 1970) and Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman (from May 1969 till his passing on 2 August 1973). The radical-elements-and-extremists incited 13 May incidence was an integral part of these duo’s lives and so was the crisis, challenges, decisions made by the duo and outcome of the racial riot.

Dr. Rais should have valued the work of art based on facts and historical accounts, which would be something worthy to allow younger Malaysians understand the bitterness of the nationhood process, till its present state and achievements. Discounting the accounts that lead and are integral landmarks in the darkest week of modern Malaysian history that were portrayed in ‘Tanda Putera’ would have marred a significant point of telling the history.

Let us hope of the best. Decisions such as these would naturally deem the Minister fallen into the band of no longer relevant and should be ‘extinct’. It is time the press get the Minister’s response to all these.

BTW, Shuhaimi Baba commissioned a much better theme song for her ‘Tanda Putera’ as compared to this year’s Hari Kemerdekaan ‘Janji Ditepati’. A really shoddy job, befitting a student’s half bake project waiting between sahur and subuh.

We at BigDogDotCom hope the decision of this Minister on the subject matters at hand would not have adverse effect on the rakyat’s perception towards the Prime Minister. Otherwise, he is counter productive and should be shelved or stored as an artifact in the archives, immediately. It is for the sake of the ‘bigger picture’ and betterment of the nation.

*Updated 12 noon