The Singing Zero ***

I wonder how many readers noticed the advertorial entitled “The Unsung Hero” by the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli, in the STAR of 5th Jan 2009. The whole piece was written in small print, in the style of the North Korean Government, and in atrociously poor English.

The piece went on and on about how much money has been allocated for this program and that. The not-so-subtle message was that this department was doing so much, but no one was appreciative. In fact no one was noticing. So someone decided to spend more money to take out a full page advertorial.

What irritates me most is that the orang asli are in pretty bad state still, often lacking basic facilities, in spite of all the claims in the advertorial. Even the STAR (6 Jan 2010) reported the case of the orang asli community in Temerloh whose place of worship had the power cut off because the land was not gazetted as orang asli reserve. And yet, some bureaucrat feels it is necessary to spend tax-payers money singing his own praise.

The piece is shameful, both for the poor language as for the content. One of the most ludicrous “areas of focus” of the Department as stated in this advertorial is to “highlight the various and unique cultures to tourists.” It goes on to claim shamelessly that the department used orang asli to help out in a tourism campaign in Bali.

I hope whoever is in charge will take steps to see that such foolhardy initiatives are not repeated. And please don’t publicise your foolishness through paid advertorials. Only the newspapers concerned benefit from this.