Perceptions and cybertroopers

— conspiracytheor1st
The Malaysian Insider
June 09, 2013

JUNE 9 — “Cybertroopers” is a term I suppose originated from Malaysia. I would rank it as the next best Malaysian invention after err… belacan (did belacan originate from Malaysia?). A short search of “cybertroopers” on Google would yield hundreds of results, all related to Malaysian politics. However, there is no one exact definition of the term from any dictionary or on Wikipedia. Back to the main topic, one might not notice that there is a very inconspicuous but interesting relationship between the term “cybertroopers” and “perception” in Malaysia, both of which have been aggressively propagated by the mainstream media of late.

In Malaysia, everything is due to the problem of perception. The crime rate of the country is low. If you think it is high, then it is the problem of your perception. The police are doing great — so well in fact that our ex-IGP’s KPI score in 2009 was 113.8 per cent, as announced by Koh Tsu Koon in Parliament. A lot of us were wondering how it was possible statistically. Did that mean that the police had solved more cases involving crime than actually existed? Or that they had caught more people compared to the number of times when the law was actually violated like cases of candle vigils (ahem…)? Then again, if you still are scratching your head over how the numbers add up, then it has to be the problem of your perception.

Here, we have the powers-that-be telling us that Malaysia is one of the best governed countries in the world with the best education system that even exceeds the high standards of the US and Germany; the best democratic system; and the cleanest electoral system! The government claimed that corruption in the country is a mere perception and the MACC claimed that their tarnished reputation of being inefficient and inaction against the big shots was also perception. Now, even the EC has jumped onto the perception bandwagon in the midst of the post-election furore. If you still don’t agree with them, heck, you know what again? It is your bloody perception!

Humans are naturally inquisitive. Just like in the classic chicken-or-egg conundrum, humans tend to look a bit further and dig a bit deeper to trace the origin of everything. Thus, when everything good is the government and everything bad is perception, the next natural question that comes to mind would be how all these perceptions came to exist in the first place? That is when the cybertroopers come into picture — it is bogeymen time!

We used to have many bogeymen in the past, i.e. the Jews, the colonists, the imperialists, the Christians, Singapore, the US and the Chinese and of course, Anwar Ibrahim who is supposed to be the super-agent working for all the aforementioned influences. As the country advanced into the information age, the Cold War-style rhetoric no longer found an audience, thus cybertroopers have now assumed the role of the new super-villains. Nevertheless, we were made aware that not all cybertroopers are bad. Officially, we have the 1 Malaysia Cyber Movement and some bloggers like Papagoma who are supposed to be noble. One of our current deputy ministers even attended a workshop to teach these noble cybertroopers how to avoid lawsuits in cyberspace by “ending your sentences with a question mark”. By taking his cue, do Malaysians get prosecuted for telling the truth?

Of course, the not-so-noble cybertroopers have to come from Pakatan Rakyat. They are the ones who shaped the opinions of the gullible urban dwellers who are intoxicated by education. The rural folks (with no disrespect) know better because what they think is the truth as disseminated by the mainstream media, not the false perceptions from the Internet. The most notorious cybertroopers of all is the Red Bean Army, allegedly a local imitation of “Mao’s Red Guard’ which is allegedly linked to DAP. But then again, the only “shred of evidence” of their existence, not surprisingly, originated from some disgruntled ex-DAP supporter apparently vying for 15 seconds of fame. Nevertheless, it has to be the truth if it was repeated many times in the mainstream media.

A quick Google brought me to this website called the Pakatan Cybertroopers (http://www.pakatancybertroopers.com). It is a very simple website with suspiciously cheesy declarations like “…to bring down any establishment like in Arab Spring.” and “…to bring the Government down by promoting the negative buzz online.” The site even has a recruitment page that states “…we can afford to pay you for your effort. Please do not worry, we know where to find the money for you.”

For all the shortcomings of Malaysians, you have to give credit to our brutal honesty to ourselves. If we are bad or promoting something negative, we’ll label ourselves just that. Remember KMM, a supposedly organised terrorist group in Malaysia whose members were detained under the ISA about a decade ago? Initially, KMM stoode for Kumpulan Muhajidin Malaysia but because they were promoting terrorism, they changed their name to Kumpulan Militant Malaysia in matter of weeks after they were exposed. Just like those old James Bond movies, super-villains were ironically super-honest with themselves and prone to having very distasteful names like Auric Goldfinger, Gustav Graves, Dr. No, Elektra King etc.

Thus, now we have the Red Bean Army and the Pakatan Cybertroopers. Therefore, I am looking forward to the day when all Malaysians espouse such noble values of honesty. For burglars out there, instead of giving yourselves a fancy gang name, you should consider naming your gang as the “Petaling Jaya Kapchai Snatch Handbags Gang” or the “Puchong Robbing and Thieving Gang”. For those who intend to make a quick buck from bogus businesses, kindly consider names such as “Ah Chong Unhygienic Contaminated Food Sdn. Bhd.” or “Muthu Ponzi Gold Investment Scheme Sdn. Bhd.” It will make my day when some local carmaker finally rebrands itself as the “Faulty Window Rip-off Automobile”. Lastly, I would welcome any payment for my cybertrooping effort here that might have successfully shaped your perception.