ON Wednesday, journalists around the globe celebrated 30 years of World Press Freedom. On that day, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released its 2023 World Press Freedom Index.
Malaysia moved 40 places up from the previous year to 73rd position among 180 countries indexed. The unity government is particularly jubilant about Malaysia making the leap, though a minister or two have been quick to blame the media for the ills of their politics.
Even the National Union of Journalists couldn't contain its unhappiness with one that it decided to make its distaste public. Be that as it may, we grant the government the freedom to be ecstatic. After all, RSF did say changes in the government and media environment were contributory factors.
But what really is press freedom? We say it to be this: the liberty to speak truth to power. Truth must have no limits, but herein lies a mighty danger: the power of propaganda to fake truth. We saw a blatant example of this during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan by the United States, Britain and their allies.
Even Ukraine and Australia, two nations as far away as you can get from Iraq, joined the US and Britain to spin the lie of weapons of mass destruction to make the war appear legal.
The very same propaganda is in overdrive in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. RSF's index fails to capture this. RSF has some explaining to do. Big names in the media, such as The Economist, The Guardian and The New York Times, which never fail to tell the world of how free a press they are, aren't exempt from the propaganda game.
To be a free press also means questioning propaganda. Consider the mother of all propaganda pushed out to the servile press of the West by no less than the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, last month. Let's go to the crux of her propaganda: "Today, we celebrate 75 years of vibrant democracy in the heart of the Middle East; 75 years of dynamism, ingenuity and groundbreaking innovations." That's not all.
Here is the crowning jewel of her propaganda: "You have literally made the desert bloom." Yet the three newspapers and others which think they are an unfettered lot didn't spare a word of criticism for her blatant love for the apartheid Zionist regime. Vibrant democracy, der Leyen? What was apartheid to the late Nelson Mendella is vibrant democracy to you? What is apartheid to B'Tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International is vibrant democracy to the EU? We are not surprised.
Giving truth a nasty twist appears to be a European Union disease, especially when it comes to the Zionist regime of Israel. Coming as it does from an organisation that ceaselessly peddles justice, the other side of truth, this is shamefully disturbing.
For der Leyen to see dynamism, ingenuity and groundbreaking innovations instead of genocide, persecution and settlement colonialism is a willing suspension of truth. Bloom or blood, der Leyen?
What is even more disturbing is this: leading newspapers in the West have chosen not to challenge der Leyen's false narrative. Unlike them, this newspaper has chosen to bury this European myth once and for all.
The desert of Palestine bloomed long before the Europeans settled the genocidal Zionists in the holy land.