Its just a book!

Source: http://media.themalaysianinsider.com/images/uploads/2011/january/10/interlok.jpg

To me, books contain stories that are imaginations or experiences that the author had and to be able to share their stories to the public is a big achievement and honour to them. But some authors are being pushed back due to censorship of certain countries. 

            In the article titled ‘Book, a unitytool’ written by Melody Woon, she reported that after 40 years of the book ‘Interlok’ being sold in bookstores all over Malaysia, the books are then reclaimed by the government because of the words used by Abdullah Hussain, the author are ‘ugly’ and caused some racial tensions among the Malaysians (Woon 2011).

            The author should have knowledge of the culture about which words to use that will not trigger any problems with the public or the government (Schriver 1997). But he has the knowledge and he is just voicing out his opinion on his experience during that era but due to the sensitivity of racial issues in Malaysia, the government stopped his books from selling to the public. It took over 40 years for the government to realize that the book contains racial stereotyping in the book and this banning of his books is relatable to the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia (Woon 2011).

            Freedom of speech is defined as the right to express one’s opinion without getting restrained by the government and the censorship (Bowers 2006). In Malaysia, it seems that the term freedom of speech is not even applicable; the government has the power to control people from expressing their opinions, for example the author of Interlok and the famous Namewee. Malaysia has many laws that have been created to restrain people to express their opinions such as the Sedition Act, Printing Presses and Publication Act, Official Secret Act and many more. Therefore, the act of freedom of speech in Malaysia will never be successful with the government who created so many laws to control the media.

References

• Bowers, J 2006, Censorship and Free Speech, The Ethics of Modern Communication, Fair Use, viewed on 12 June 2011, http://www.jerf.org/writings/communicationEthics/node5.html .
• Schriver, K 1997, ‘The interplay of words and pictures,’ in Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York, ch. 6, pp. 361-441.
• Woon, M 2011, ‘Book, a unity tool,’ The Star Online 13 March, viewed on 12 June 2011, <http://thestar.com.my/education/story.asp?file=/2011/3/13/education/8216396&sec=education> .