Malaysia Well Under Hussein Onn

It would be rather naive for anyone to velieve that Salient merely reflects opinions and views towards MSA; full stop. That would certainly be inconsistent with the policy of a "leftist-leaning" paper.

However for all that touch of your editorial subjectivism, it is good to note at least that Salient is not so radically political as the 'Malaysia Monthly Review' and 'Malaya News Service'. Being a student from a developing country where the censorship laws are by no means lax. your occasional articles on Malaysia and Singapore are significantly informative and interesting. Too much ideologically manipulative articles or radically distorted information or facts can only bring down the quality of a paper. For this reason, I would like to commend on your printing the article by Don Carson which I find relatively objective.

I can appreciate a student organisation or paper much more as a governmental watchdog. Malaysia apparently is restarted on the road to a (hopefully) corrupt-free, and a less 'closed' democracy under Hussein Onn. Singapore's problems are not problems isolated domestically. They are very much affected by the happenings in Malaysia. The situation in S.E. Asia is not exactly peaceful nor stable. With the recent change in the situation there I think it would be much more helpful, particularly to students from that region if issues relating to social injustices for example are discussed rather than vilifying Lee Kuan Yew or Hussein Onn in-toto and propagating the virtues of communism as in the 'Malaysia Monthly Review' and the Malaya News Service'. Perhaps this fear may be unjustified but if these magazines do truly reflect the present trend, particularly in Australia, I would think it is quite alarming. I would hate to see 'Vietnam' you helped to create on your consciences in the near future.