Tidbits of the region's media   April 2011

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The Maldives National Broadcasting Corporation (MNBC) has found its own source of embarrassment: the suggestive cucumber. The corporation recently censored the word cucumber itself from an advertisement produced by the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives (IFM). The ad featured a voice clip in which one Sheikh Ibrahim Fareed asked viewers whether it was the cucumber or men whom Allah created for women. After giggling for a bit, CP wonders whether, in a bid to avoid ‘public embarrassment’, the corporation has inadvertently championed the cause of women’s empowerment. This news hit the Internet right after International Women’s Day, and what better way to mark the occasion than by silencing, albeit at the cost of the humble vegetable, Sheikh Fareed, who is notorious for his misogynistic views? His sermon on love recently led Maldivian feminists to gift him women’s underwear for Valentine’s Day. Let’s just hope that in censoring Fareed, MNBC’s motives are to tell the sheikh to leave the women alone. Just Google ‘cucumbers are better than men’ and vice-versa to see the results: 37,700 hits for the former versus, and just nine for the latter! But seriously, MNBC, whither has your sense of humour waddled?

 

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Talk of cucumbers has made CP long for some juicy, succulent news and, thanks to WikiLeaks and The Hindu, the hunger will soon be satisfied. After The Guardian, New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and El Pais, the Indian paper now has the rare honour to entertain and enlighten the world with some 5100 India-related cables and beyond. Certainly that’s just what the region needs: Semi-substantiated political gossip!

 

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The road to transparency, however, is never easy. CP lauds the Indian government’s recent orders to monitor and investigate paid election news. But in the first week of March, the same government blocked blog-hosting sites. Instead of blog posts, visitors now read, ‘This site has been blocked as per request from Department of Telecom’. (You can tell this is a pukka message, given its lack of articles.) Although implemented for a very short period, the Indian government has shown its citizens who the big daddy really is. New Delhi mandarins did not even deem it fit to give the reasons behind the ban! Coupled with the Indian authorities’ demand to monitor emails sent from Blackberry handsets, it seems that Big Bhai is nervous about something. OK, terrorism has to be curbed, but paranoia ain’t gonna help. Just look at Burma.

 

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Speaking of which (hey, presto!), the Burmese government – or the lack of one – is not only asking its citizens to swallow a bone, but to choke on it as well. It has forbidden its people – if only it put the emphasis on ‘people’ rather than on ‘its’ – from using cheap Internet phone services such as Skype because the military exchequer is not filling up! Bollocks! How much wealth do they think they will accumulate by asking people to pay a dollar instead of ten cents per minute when, first, the average annual income is only about USD 400 and, second, only four percent of Burmese have access to telephone services in the first place? Of course, what the Burmese military is really after is restricting the free flow of information, which, as we have seen very, very recently, has the power to topple tyrannical regimes. Indeed, just the other day CP saw that a group of Burmese activists had opened a Facebook page entitled ‘Just do it against military dictatorship’, in an attempt to spark a revolution similar to those sweeping the Egypt, Tunisia and, maybe, Libya. CP wishes them good luck and hopes the number of ‘likes’ will shoot up more than the (then) current 1856. Go finger power!

 

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CP is proud of the Maldives for being so ahead of the other countries in the region, according to the Press Freedom Index 2010, compiled by Reporters Without Borders. The atolls ranked 52nd out of 176 countries. Incredibly, second among the Southasian countries was Bhutan (Bhutan!) at 64 (second!), followed by Nepal at 119, India at 122, Bangladesh at 126, Afghanistan at 147, Pakistan at 151 and, last but not least, Sri Lanka at 158. That last is very near the bottom. No clinking flutes in celebration, regardless. Compared to the 2009 index, the Maldives, along with Nepal, India and Bangladesh have actually dropped in the rankings. All CP has to say is two steps forward, but not three steps back! Yet!

 

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Hail the power of signatures – although emotional blackmails and some (misplaced) threats of self-immolation were also involved. In an almost u-turn, the BBC World service has decided to continue its Hindi shortwave service for one more year, after it reportedly received CDs full of complaints, articles condemning the move (including in what The Economist would refer to as this newspaper) and a letter signed by biggies such as Arundhati Roy and Vikram Seth. Well done, friends and lovers! Although significantly cut short, you Hindi-walas at least have an hour-long programme each day. What makes CP a bit uneasy, though, is that it seems as if parties on both sides are hesitant to move on. The listeners are willing to accept reduced hours just as long as they don’t have to cut the antenna, while the BBC threatens to axe the service if no commercial funding comes along in the next 12 months. Hopefully the break-up, when it happens, will be more dramatic.

 

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A travesty site, roznamajawani.com, has to be cheered for alerting the world that things could yet get worse for women. One of the site’s recent articles, on padded bras, gave a look inside an alternate universe in which, instead of gender equity, a roundtable decides that padded and colourful bras are devil’s cushions and should therefore be banned. Awesomely, this spoof – as, yes, it turned out to be – riled some this-world feminists, one of whom suggested leaving breasts bra-free. CP brazenly backs this and says BRAAAvo!

 

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Moving from brassiere to baila, everything was going well for Sri Lankan pop star Lahiru Parera’s song ‘Enna Dinawanna’, with a great beat, jaunty tempo, lovely baila dancing and lyrics in both Sinhala and Tamil. It was billed as the Official National Cheer for the Sri Lankan cricket team, and hit the waves ahead of the World Cup. Alas, its lyrics upset President Mahinda Rajapakse and the song was ignominiously dropped. CP blames the president – he should have had at least one person from his family review the lyrics before stomping a stamp of official approval in the first place. What Parera seems to have failed to grasp is the difference between a zealous cheering and a possible incitement of aggression. Melting snows from the Indian Himalaya and injuring sharks in New Zealand is not the same as beating teams (in terms of scoring) from those countries. Just because you have rights to freedom of speech does not mean that you are free to be insensitive with an official seal. Having said this, Mr President, let’s not ban the song per se. Bad taste is one thing; censorship is another.

 

- Chhetria Patrakar