Did you catch the Hamid Albar interview on BBC’s Hardtalk recently?
It felt good to see him handle Sarah Montague, the pompous British HardTalk Tv host with the firmness and seasoned manner befitting his position as our Foreign Minister by the way he gave her a thrashing every now and then when she tried to corner him into admitting this and that about our nation?
She was outrightly rude to DS Hamid when she kept interrupting him when he was giving his replies or clarifying his points.
If this is a measure of British etiquette or civilization after all these years of their so called Western progress, then I’d rather stick to our much more cultured and amiable Eastern values where we allow others to finish speaking before we do?
Sarah Montague was very rude and deserves to not be allowed to interview our Foreign Minister or any other Malaysian Government official until or unless the interviewers learn to respect our government leaders!
It is one thing for us to take our ministers to task here in our spaces but I will never stand by and watch a foreigner come in and bad mouth or attempt to ridicule our people no matter if they are from the current BN government or opposition?
These are our internal affairs and best left to us. The outsiders should go attend to their own affairs first!
Not like the British, American, Australian or any other nation out there are any much better than us?
It was bad enough watching Anwar Ibrahim getting grilled but to see the BBC woman try to be so bloody ‘kurang ajar’ to our Foreign Minister was simply too much for me to bear!
Anwar Ibrahim got toasted in his session last time and I was a bit pissed off at Anwar for failing to give that HardTalk host an equal brushoff as what Hamid Albar has succeeded!
Anwar’s a well known orator and learned individual but the poor man wasn’t up to his usual self when he allowed the HardTalk host to skewer him time and time again in that interview.
Hamid Albar must probably be well aware of the HardTalk host’s pressuring tactics to get her way and that’s probably the reason why he was able to fend off her attacks and dish out some of his own smashing her every now and then!
Bravo! At least there’s someone in the Malaysian Cabinet who has the brains and the balls to go about it especially in defending Malaysia on the international scene albeit of all the kind of nonsense we have going on here in our government.
I am proud of our Foreign Minister for the way he handled himself in the interview. Wish that there were many more like him in government.
I am not saying that I support the current bida’ah introducing Premier. No bloody way!
Far from it…but I am just glad to see someone like Hamid Albar give the likes of the BBC’s HardTalk hosts like Sarah Montague a taste of her own pushy bitter medicine!
There’s a download link here for you to watch that interview.
It’s good to see a Malaysian leader kick ass once in a while instead of being made to look like a fool on international television by those nasty HardTalk hosts! Well done Pak Hamid!
You would have made a better PM had Tun Mahathir chosen you instead of you know who?
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Good one brother. I have my own entry after reading what you wrote.
I noticed!
As they say, birds of a feather do flock together and in our case, feel the same way about things that are important enough to garner our interests and focus.
It’s one thing for us to take to task our government and its ministers but no way am I going to sit and watch some pompous foreign ass come in to our sovereign nation and try to make a mockery of our nation’s leaders!
I might not like the way things are being done by some of the BN’s leaders especially the introducing of the Islam ‘Hadhari’ BS but no way am I going to let slide that HardTalk host’s rudeness go by without airing my objections about it!
Hamid Albar handled himself well and defended our nation’s reputation accordingly.
We may not be perfect but no way in hell are we gonna allow any bloody country or its media try to badmouth us here in our soil and get away with it!
May this be a lesson to our people!
We might be free from occupation by the bloody colonialists physically but we must remain alert and safeguard our nation’s honor by not allowing foreigners to waltz in to this ever gracious nation and allow them to crap on us by their arrogance and ‘holier than thou’ bloody attitude!
That’s why I applaud Hamid Albar for his ability to be able to launch his counter strike against that ‘female canine’!
Its Ramadan you know so I am inferring the term I’d actually wanna use to describe that BBC ‘Hard to let others Talk’ creature!
I actually disagree with you for once…No doubt I belief that through out the interview he did speak very diplomatically that I do salute but the fact that he dodge most of the questions is not admirable.He beating around the bush not answering the questions. Yes, she did come on hard on him I guess we all know why the show is call BBC HardTalk, I didn’t find her rude but persistent and determined to get her answers(perhaps not many women in our country are like that due to our culture etc). I believe is not about badmouthing our country or anything like that, it is just a matter of right or wrong. If we were able to settle our issues on our soil well, no one would dare question us but sadly the situation is not as such.Why agree to an interview with BBC if you are not going to answer the questions,dodging the question do not look good for us either way?He did have some good points but overall I felt that he was in denial on many parts perhaps his defensiveness over being a Malaysian but he is the minister of foreign affairs and should not answer emotionally but matter of fact.As an outsider of course she will pick on the weaknesses rather than the beauty of the country, that’s her scoop but I think perhaps rather than dodging he should had been more equipped to answer the questions intellectually but then again that’s just my opinion.
Dear cherwith,
You have the right to disagree with me or anyone else as it is not a cardinal rule that each and everyone of my readers MUST agree with me.
No way! We have our own views and thoughts which are our own and thus the phrase ” To each their own!”
You see cherwith, the acceptance of criticisms is part and parcel of engaging in a dialogue or debate as what Hamid Albar did but it is unbecoming for Sarah Montague to be allowed to get away with rudeness as a form of right as she was hosting ‘HardTalk’.
The program would be more acceptable with that kind of attitude by its host if it was renamed as ‘RudeTalk..but then again, you don’t have to agree with this idea as well.
We have our own ideas as to what freedom is and what it is not?
Maybe, its okay with you to have some foreigner come in and criticize our nation’s officials in the name of free speech or whatever journalistic rights they might imagine themselves to have but to me as a Malaysian, I do not relish the thought of having any such person such as the BBC host be so uncouth to Hamid Albar as she did!
I am not saying that our BN government is faultless.
You need to read all my writings to know that I am a regular critic of the BN Government and I do so without fear or favor.
Same goes with my criticizing of the Opposition.
To me, the host was rude to our Foreign Minister, plain and simple and we should stick to just that subject.
If you search the Malaysian Blogosphere, you’d see similar writings by others as well as mine who don’t cherish the way that Sarah Montague handled the interview.
You can stick to your thoughts though.
No one’s asking you or forcing you to agree to our’s.
Cheers.
I don’t expect you to agree with me Mahaguru. That’s the beauty of blogs…being able to have rational debate..where both of us can discuss our views without it getting messy. Yes I have read comments similar to yours but I chose to comment on your blog as I frequent your blog often…No hard feelings eh??Just my thoughts on the matter.You have the right to believe as you wish…no worries
Well mahaguru,
I do agreed with Cherwith that the host is not rude. Frankly the show is famous for the way they being Open and Direct, contradict our culture? Yes, but rude, well as you put it.. up to your own judgment.
And our YB Foreign Minister have known he will be ‘grill’ as other sites said it. So he is prepared but again he didnt answer most of the question.
Again, i am sticking to my views, but you can opt not to see or delete my post 🙂
Greetings people,
As rational adults, we all know that we are individuals with individual opinions and thoughts.
Sometimes we may agree ; sometimes we choose to differ.
As far as i am concerned, I have no problems with differing views to mine and will publish them here as long as there are no ad homineum attacks against my person and faith or anything that I hold precious to myself.
Reasonable opinions from my critics will always be allowed through no matter that I may not agree with them.
The order of the day is respect and understanding.
As long as we can accord to each other that, I am happy to let you be yourself here.
Have a nice day!
Cheers!
thanks mahaguru how well said….:)I think most bloggers are able to accept another’s view without it becoming a volcano erupting…that’s is highly commendable don’t ya think?Since bloggers are often labeled as troublemakers, liars etc.Hopefully Habermas vision of seeing critical rational debate that did not occur in TV and radio will prove true in cyberspace….. in the blogosphere…