Rojak and Cocktail: Backlash has begun

Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor has clarified that he did not label all women bloggers as liars.

He said his statement was specifically made in reference to an Indonesian journalist who wrote in her blog about the ministry’s inefficiency.

The Star published a letter quoted Director-general, tourism Malaysia as saying :

Nila made her ad hoc requests to shoot and film at the two malls. However, requests at the eleventh hour require some form of notification and accreditation. A prior consent in writing had first to be obtained from the relevant authorities before any filming could be done in any of these premises.

In a letter (addressed to Tourism Malaysia Jakarta), Bapak Gunawan, the producer for SCTV said Nila was acting on her own and her actions have transgressed the terms at SCTV.

Unspun wrote :

This is unfair and presposterous to blame the troubles of a department and minister on one lone blogger.

At this stage what Nila said is no longr the issue. The real issue is the behavior of the Tourism Minister and the MTB who dug their own holes by being in denial and pissing off all bloggers, especially women bloggers.

Now they are trying to shift the blame on to an Indonesian blogger. What will happen instead is that they will piss off all Indonesian bloggers. (read here)

Thank you for all bloggers - Nila Tanzil

Dear bloggers,

I would like to thank you for all your support. Am very sorry that I haven't been able to give any comments related to the statement of The Malaysian Tourism Board Tengku Adnan yet (on the “Bloggers are liars. They use all sort of ways to cheat others. From what I know, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women")) as I was still mourning of the loss of my special person in life.

I'm very touched to read the posts in the blogosphere. Just to mention some of them:
Susan Loone, Elizabeth Wong, screenshots, Nuraina A Samad, Kak Teh, Skthew, Marina Mahathir, and many many more.

And today, I got even more responses in my blog as Tengku Adnan made a clarification on the remarks last week on women bloggers by saying "I didn't mean all women. I was referring to Indon journalist" (Relishdish.blogspot.com),
Elizabeth Wong.

Soon after, I got a phone call from one of the online media in Indonesia, asking me about this matter. The media wrote 3 articles regarding this issue and there were some comments as well from the readers in their website as well as in my blog.

Reading all the comments and posts in the blogosphere, I'd love to thank all of you for the supports. As a blogger, all I wanted to do was to tell the truth, share my experience (and hopefully readers can learn from it), thoughts and how I felt toward certain things. I'm sure that's what we all do :)

So, again, thank you for Indonesian bloggers, Malaysian bloggers and all bloggers in the world! As for Malaysian bloggers, thank you for your posts and comments. I would love to visit your country again, and maybe promoting Malaysia in the near future (if not in the TV station - coz I'm still being suspended, could be in the printed media as I'm also a writer for a travel magazine).

xoxo,
Nila Tanzil

Nila Tanzil: Keep writing, keep telling the truth! - SK Thew