Information, Truth and its Enemies

Saturday, November 20, 2010
Opinion by MP

Thank you KI Media team for your heart and dedication. No need to apologize on your part for this minor ‘interruption’, nor cause for you and the readers to be concerned, unless your mighty institution is being sabotaged in some way!

Beside the fact that you have graciously provided us readers with a free news service out of your own time and passion, KI Media is by far the most efficient information outlet for those following Cambodian affairs, but most importantly, it is refreshing to have such a liberal and critical news messenger in the age of the internet, characterised by near instant relaying of news of world events as these occur, including those pertaining to Cambodia, via 'the information super highway'.

We have read of the Chinese government blocking their population's access to certain domains of the internet deemed subversive to or critical of the Chinese authority. This is understandable given the pervading influence of internet technology and human beings' innate curiosity as well as their instinctive desire to explore new, unchartered frontiers of knowledge.

The worst totalitarian rule in Cambodia's history - the DK regime - made sure ordinary people as well as its own party members and cadres were deprived of a window into the outside world first so that a window into their own world is subsequently denied them. No one was allowed to own a radio set bar selected hardcore supporters of the regime. Even Khiev Samphan took it upon himself to gift prince Sihanouk a radio set - the latter was then under house arrest - to keep the former monarch tuned with the outside world.

Khmer people today may not be so deprived, but their ability to communicate or connect with the outside world; to be informed of their due rights and obligations as citizens under the law and the constitution has not, sadly, vastly improved within the last three decades.

The batch of foreign owned 'mass' press circulation news outlets may wear the look of an independent liberal media, but the nature and extent of their influence is nevertheless more peripheral and superficial than decisive or substantial, even though their symbolic relevance is not in question. Beside members of the expatriate community, NGOs, the Ministry of Information and the press community itself, as well as the ever watchful Vietnamese embassy in Phnom Penh, the vast percentage of the Khmer population, including those residing in urban towns and cities, continue to digest news provided through informal, culturally accustomed sources, which range like anything from unverifiable gossips and superstitious portents to words of mouth, some of which have, no doubt, been deliberately inserted into this stream of popular parlance and consciousness with clear insidious propaganda motives.

With such limitations on the part of the written press and news agencies (part of which, including this comment, is presented in non-Khmer languages) to widen up their influence beyond a dedicated but selective readership and make inroads into the minds and consciousness of the citizenry; with the education institutions (like all state institutions) under the sway of partisan and unbridled exercise of political power and directives, and with the main plank of popular broadcasting mass media (in particular, television broadcasting) firmly under one-party state control, the task of impregnating and arming the electorate with factual information and knowledge conducive to their social development process, to their emancipation or empowerment through thus becoming informed and self-conscious decision-makers instead of being ones conditioned to be obedient and obsequious and, above all, content to be pulled by the nose, regardless, is the challenge that remains to be met.

It is said that truth is truth and that only propaganda distorts its meaning. Freedom of expression like all other forms of expressing one’s freedom attains or manifests its fullest essence and noblest fruit only where such an expression is driven or propelled by the force and sanctity of Truth itself, and with strict regard as to prevailing moral climates and values considered conducive to the welfare of both the individual and society as a whole, rather than to any specific, favoured segments of that society.

Why does one speak of ‘sanctity of Truth’, or how, indeed, is this ‘sanctity’ to be explained? For my own convenience, I am afraid I will have to leave this question to my esteemed readers to answer! Meanwhile it should be added that the manner in which public information is channelled and the institutions invested with the power to manage the flow of that information have real ability to do the public either great harm or decisive good in inverse proportion to the manner in which these institutions choose to define Truth as such, for its interpretation will determine outcomes in real life, separating truth from falsehood through deliberate misinformation and propaganda.

An understanding of Truth, not, and never will be, Truth itself, is a double-edged sword, and until the masses come to grasp this, they will never be free.