Sketch of Self as a Consumer of News

Hello,

The purpose of this entry is to furnish you guys with information oh how verocious I am as a consumer of everyday news, or not. Well, I guess I had better start from the very beginning. Of course, like any other child, life in the beginning was carefree and the news on TV never did left any impression on me. However, that would soon change.

My first piece of news that I could never forget came was when I was nine. The year was 1997 and the haze from the forest fires in Sumatra was getting on everybody's nerves. The situation was desperate. The public's health badly deteriorated and I will never forget the small details like how I used to wear face masks to school and how we could all skip PE lessons and play in class instead. I now realise that I became more attentive to the news then because it affected me. I became curious to find out where all this soot came from and who to blame for it. It is interesting to note that 1997 was a year particularly bad year (for me at least) as I could remember all the grave tidings the TV brought: Princess Diana's sudden death, the beginnings of the Mahathir-Anwar Ibrahim saga, the Japanese Encephalitis epidemic, the return of Hong Kong to China and the Asian economic crisis. I believe 1997 was the turning point in my life where I officially became a consumer of news.

Now let's flashforward to 2001. I was sitting near the coffee table supposedly doing my Math homework when my eyes were actually fixed on the TV screen, watching my favourite show (I forgot what it was, but it started at 9 pm). Suddenly it was replaced by a special bulletin or 'Berita Khas' in Malay. I did not know what to make of it since it never happened before. A mix of excitement and curiosity engulfed me for the first time in 4 years. The date was September 11th. Honestly, I could not believe my eyes when I saw a plane came crashing into one of te WTC towers. What I thought to be an accident was actually a terrorist attack on American soil. After 15 minutes, another special bulletin was aired and this time millions of cameras caught sight of a second plane crashing itself into the other tower. When CNN reported moments later that none other than Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda cohorts were responsible for the attacks, the first thing I thought about was "How could the FBI or CIA or whatever it's called so quick to find out who masterminded this plot?" From then on, I was a great fan of the post 9/11 controversy theories. One thing's for sure, 9/11 has certainly replaced 12/7 as the date that will live in infamy. The events that occured in both dates had something in common: the greatest army in the world set out in an honourable journey to exact their revenge upon those they deemed as the 'enemy'.

As the years past, my interest in news came from my eagerness to discover more about politics. My curiosity in politics grew daily partly because of the events that happened after 9/11 and also after I deepened my knowledge about history and its politics back then. I wanted to know all I could from the past so as to learn from other people's mistakes and be equipped with historical knowlege for the future. As George Santayana once said, "Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it,"

In 2004-2005, most of my time was very much dedicated to the past. I borrowed plenty of books and after alot of choosing, the events that occured during World War II captured my heart. Well, nobody said I could not consume the news of the past! I skimmed through the great battles fought duing the bloody 6 year war but my interest was mainly in the politics that drove nations to war. National Socialism in Germany looked like the model government to rule over its population which was deeply affected by Great Depression and reeling from the aftermath of the Treaty of Versailles. As the Fuehrer Adolf Hitler placed blame on all Jews in Germany for her miseries, the masses which was so amenable to propaganda back then ensured that 6,000,000 Jews would be summarily murdered in later years. The then Minister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels once said to the German press, "Tell a lie enough times and it becomes the truth," Nazi Germany once planned to to carry out the Final Solution to the Jewish Question to "rid of all Jewish vermin" but the events that happened in recent past has proven that it has failed outright. The facts are these: instead of an extermination, survivors of the Holocaust propered in the Promised Land now called Israel. Because of the Holocaust, 50 years political unrest in the Middle East ensued with no sign of abating anytime soon. Without the Holocaust, perhaps it would have been a safer world today.

Back in the present, I became more aware about Malaysia's own past and how it helped shaped the country that it is today. Suffice to say, I was exposed to new terms like 'positive discrimination' and 'New Economic Policy'. Initially I was outraged to discover how much was done to ensure that all races 'played on a level playing field' and that the 'distribution of the economic pie was even' among all races. After piecing together the facts, however, I came to find out that without compromise and tolerance, the minority ethnic groups would not have survived till today.

But then again, I would rather not delve too much into only one topic or else life would be too mundane. I still do enjoy the finer things in life to keep my sanity, minus all the political fiasco that is occuring and the horrible things that are still happening worldwide. Keeping track with such news is important, but I find it useless to be obsessed over something you have no control of. That should not be mistaken for apathy, ever. Well, it's time to stop ranting about life and make way for more 'news-consuming' sessions. Yummy!

*searches for week's worth of newspapers*

Cheers,
Adrian