According to report The Star 20th page 11, our Information Minister said that Malaysians and other Asians should ignore the Press Freedom ratings by Reporters Without Borders because they are based on Western Values of press freedom mainly driven by market and money.

Zam lauded Lee Kuan Yew for fighting western values of press freedom and winning against London’s Financial Times recently. Zam said: “For me, the only language understood by the Western Media is when the pockets are hit”. By taking legal action and winning the case, he said Lee had proven to the world that the Western media valued money more than press freedom. Zam said Malaysians and Asians should not be worried about the drop of rankings of press freedom in Malaysia as it did not reflect the truth of press freedom in the country. (By his inverse measurement of things, he must think Singapore’s placing in 141 spot of Freedom Rating is better than Malaysia’s 124 spot to give cause for us to strive beat and overtake our Southern Neighbour’s).

It is a welcome relief to hear Zam waxing lyrical about Lee Kuan Yew when it serves his agenda to discredit Press Freedom ratings by Reporters Without Borders. He has not always been an admirer of LKY unless he serves to make Zam’s points.

On other occasions in a three-day working visit of Xinhua News Agency on 29th September 2006 he told newsmen that Lee Kuan Yew “had ulterior motives in accusing Malaysia of marginalising the Chinese community when he himself had killed the Chinese culture in his own country” – that “he wanted to scare the Chinese, to make them feel that the wealth that they have amassed can never be safe in the region”. Zam added, “Today, Malaysia has more Chinese schools than Singapore and the newspaper with the biggest circulation in the country is a Chinese language newspaper. Lee Kuan Yew, on the other hand, has systematically killed Chinese culture by disallowing many Chinese practices. He also closed down Nanyang University and Ngee Ann College”. Zam said Lee must be congratulated for changing the Chinese identity in the island state such that it had become unrecognisable. He called on Chinese newspapers in Malaysia not to be taken in by Lee’s statement to the extent of playing up Chinese chauvinism and endangering Malaysia’s racial harmony.

See link – http://powerpresent.blogspot.com/2006_09_24_archive.html

But Zam conceded to LKY being smarter than Tun Dr Mahathir when the latter attacked PM’s leadership. He said that former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad would have fared better if he had remained in the Cabinet as a mentor minister like Singapore’s former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew; that it was too late now as “he has missed the boat.” Zam said Dr Mahathir should have emulated Lee, who chose to remain within the government’s administration after serving as Singapore’s first prime minister for 31 years. “Lee Kuan Yew is smarter than Tun (Dr Mahathir) for he chose to remain as a mentor minister to the government (in 2004) after stepping down as prime minister. See link: http://www.malaysia-today.net/Blog-n/2006/09/zam-kuan-yew-smarter-than-mahathir.htm