Poor censorship by Berita Harian

As I was driving from Kluang back to Seremban on last Friday after out-station work, it was all the way raining, not that heavy actually but It was still pretty uneasy for me to drive in such gloomy day where you don’t see a ray of light since the morning till afternoon. The weather has been so unpredictable nowadays as some people had to endure a serious flood in January due to continuous rains and the sky cleared up since Chinese new year and it was raining non-stop again now.

As I reached home in the evening, sitting down on my couch switching on the TV, it was then I saw the horrific scenes of earthquake and tsunamis occurring in Japan, destroying a few cities and thousands were reported dead. My heart sank. Mankind are simply hapless in facing natural disasters such as earthquake or tsunamis, if it strikes, I guess we could just close our eyes and don’t say a word, don’t even pray, not even god can help, just accept that the time has come.

Many of the victims could have hoped that it was just a nightmare and when you wake up the next morning everything will be the same as before. The sun still shines, birds sing, your home still in one piece as comfortable as before, the bus or train still awaiting you, and your children are happily walking to the school, the flowers in your garden still flourish and your neighbors’ dogs will still be barking as loud as before making hell lot of noise.

But it was not a nightmare at Senai, it was real, it was more real than any of the disaster movies you have ever seen, it was frightening for people who have seen it on TV, what more for those who had witnessed it. As the earthquake and tsunamis had caused massive destructions, flattening cities and causing raging fires everywhere, thousands and thousands Japanese lost their families, it is simply disgusting to know that there are some people who have the hearts to poke fun on one of the most damaging catastrophe in the history of mankind and too bad that Berita Harian (BH) is one of them publishing a cartoon depicting the tsunami and earthquake that killed so many lives.

BH’s insensitivity had resulted in many quarters demanding the local daily to apologize for its poor judgment and distasteful publication of the cartoon, which showed the popular Japanese icon Ultraman running away from an oncoming tsunami. BH has issued a public apology saying that it had no intention to poke fun on the catastrophic disaster that has befallen Japanese people but whatever it is, they’re simply inconsiderate and for the veteran pressmen and women in BH, too bad that they have such a poor self-censorship.