Looking for a reason to be insulted?
At present, religions have largely defined themselves by condemnation and judgment of the faith of others. Some religious folks get a kick out of pointing out the errors, faults and vices of other religions.
Alwyn Lau, The Malay Mail Online
”It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.” — Brian McLaren.
It’s like deja-vu. Controversial rapper Namewee produces a music video in which four dudes dress up as playful religious leaders, go gallivanting around town visiting, among other venues, religious places and hollering “Oh, my God!” throughout.
As night follows day, some religious NGOs report Namewee for insulting their faith, and in no time our papers show him cuffed by Penang’s finest. And for dessert, Malaysia seeks Interpol’s help to hunt down the other three performers in the video.
Bolehland strikes again. Other countries use the global police network to track down terrorist masterminds with stealth skills that even Jason Bourne would envy, but we use the system to pursue porn bloggers and, now, Taiwanese rappers.
First off, I think it can’t be denied that if Namewee was concerned about staying out of trouble with Malaysia’s funny-mentalist religious community, this video prima facie doesn’t help.
Haters are gonna hate and it doesn’t take much to latch on to, say, the juvenile behaviour of the religious characters, the mild sexual innuendos or even Namewee’s reputation alone to conclude that the song was up to no good.
But are things really that straightforward?
The Gospel according to Namewee
If I’m looking for reasons to be insulted by Namewee, me and this video will go together like roti bakar and half-boiled eggs (see Note 1). But an over-sensitivity to offense is like the haze — it blinds you and chokes the life outta you. A knee-jerk response to Namewee’s video, in other words, may miss a few things.
For instance, go ahead and play the video again. Watch carefully. Can you see what the “religious figures” are doing in the video? Give it an honest viewing and I think you’ll agree that the video tries real hard to say this and mainly this: All religions can be good friends. Period.
That’s the main idea. All faiths can have fun and visit each other’s places of worship. Every religion can go on a journey together. No matter who our spiritual Lords are, we can take selfies, do a Titanic pose on a ship, share a four-wheel bike, drink juice, buy souvenirs, etc. Basically, devotees (and even leaders) of all faiths can live like, duh, very close pals.
Is this at all insulting? Isn’t this, in fact, a true (and positively radical) expression of 1Malaysia? That our major religions learn from and live with each other in peace, harmony and, hey, even play a game of cards?
Furthermore, in the video, no religious place was defiled. Nobody threw animal heads or firebombs into any sacred dwelling; nobody was proclaiming that the name of God is something only “my” faith is entitled to and no religious police raided the sacred places of other people and confiscated their holy books.
