Cerpun

Technorati tags: Cerpun, Chamil Wariya, Utusan, Slander, Teresa Kok

The talk that buzzing around the bloggerhood surrounds the short story written by Chamil Wariya, formerly from Bernama. If you must, you can download a PDF of the short story. Far be it for Walski to actually ask you to visit Utusan's website...

Hey boss... look at the crap I wrote...

Cerpen is a Bahasa Malaysia word that is a concatenation of two words cerita (story) and pendek (short), into which category this short story falls under.

Walski, however, has come up with a new word which categorizes "Politik baru YB J" ("New Politics of YB J") the story written by Chamil Wiraya, which is actually unimaginative and quite dull - something The Malaysian Insider seems to agree on.

The new Bahasa Malaysia word Walski has coined is Cerpun.
(what "cerpun" is, and more, in the full post)

Walski's newly created term is also a concatenation of two words - cerita and pundek. So, no, cerpun is not a very nice thing to categorize the story under. But hey... Utusan's full of it, so may as well provide a category for this kind of bad pulp fiction, right? 

Essentially, the short story is about a fictitious female member of Parliament, YB Josephine, or better known as YB J. The character is quite obviously based on MP Teresa Kok, and the short story pretty much continues the relentless onslaught by Utusan to smear the MP's reputation. Walski thinks that this story is part of Utusan's response to the RM 30 million lawsuit filed by the MP. 

Although Malaysia has strict government controls over print media (through licensing and constant harassment by the Ministry of Insecure Internals), Utusan plays by their own rules. No surprise, since it's an appendage of UMNO, making the newspaper almost impervious. And like a pit-bull on speed, once it has its fangs latched onto some bone to pick, it just doesn't know how to let go.

But what's rather disturbing about this otherwise boring cerpun is the ending, where the fictitious MP gets gunned down at a function, just as she's about to make her way up to the rostrum to speak. A note is found on the gunman, who doesn't survive the exercise, and who also gets gunned down by person or persons unspecified (translation & emphasis by myAsylum).

YB Josephine adalah ancaman terhadap keharmonian. Lebih baik riwayatnya ditamatkan supaya masyarakat berbilang kaum boleh tinggal aman damai di negara bertuah ini. Saya berkorban untuk masa depan.

YB Josephine is a threat to harmony. It's better that her life be cut short so that the multiracial people of this great country can live in peace. I have made this sacrifice for our future.
(source: cerpun "Politik baru YB J")

It implicitly says that violence, as a means towards a noble end, is okay. And this message is targetted, it would seem, to the Malays, as a means to solicit their support for UMNO. Some say that it's inciteful, others say just ignore these Utusan fuckers.

But the reality is that for many, this piece of shit paper is their only source of news, coupled with the equally UMNO-worshipping TV3. What these two media entities say, to them, is the gospel truth. Which is where the danger is - these are probably the same simpletons who think that Mastika is great investigative reporting.

Utusan needs to be taught a lesson. And that is going to be the center of Walski's next post, coming to this cerpun-bashing blog real soon...