KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 15 ― Social activist Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir announced today that she will take a break from writing her weekly column in The Star.
Marina said she was worn from trying to write her columns while also ensuring that they are suitable for publication over the past 25 years, after another of her columns did not make it to print last week.
“My editors are not to blame, they try their best but life gets difficult for them if they let some of what I say through,” the eldest daughter of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said in a public Facebook post on her profile.
“But I don't want to sound happy when I'm not, satisfied with everything when I'm not, or to talk about other irrelevant things when there are so many elephants in the room. I don't want to be pessimistic and I would like to give everyone hope but it's not easy these days.”
Despite that, Marina said she will not stop writing and would be seeking another platform such as social media service Facebook or possibly return to blogging.
“Writing after all is the way I express myself. But I would like to write more authentically, without too many restraints and constraints,” she said while conceding that blogging was time-consuming.
Marina wrote on her blog suggesting that her column last week was rejected because its contents made reference to the recent Umno general assembly.
The human rights activist’s column was first held back by The Star in 2006, and Marina was quoted in South China Morning Post as saying that it was because she had been “too tough” on Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s administration.
In 2012, Marina had complained after three of her columns were either rejected or heavily edited, after the editors asked her to “tone down” her writings.
