Malaysia: popular ethnic Chinese rapper is detained for ”insulting” Islam

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Hugh Fitzgerald: Thin-Skinned Muslims In Malaysia
JUL 21, 2018 1:27 PM BY HUGH FITZGERALD



Here is the story in all its preposterousness:

Malaysian police said a popular ethnic Chinese rapper was detained Thursday [Feb.15] over complaints that his latest music video featuring dancers wearing dog masks and performing “obscene” moves insulted Islam and could hurt racial harmony.

It was the second time in two years that Wee Meng Chee, popularly known as Namewee, has been investigated over his music videos.

Police said in a statement that Wee was detained after they received four public complaints that his video marking the Chinese year of the dog had “insulted Islam and could negatively impact racial unity and harmony.”

In the video entitled “Like a Dog,” Wee sits on a chair in a public square in the government administrative capital of Putrajaya with dancers wearing dog masks around him. Several of them mimic the “doggy-style” sex move. A green domed building in the background led some people to speculate it was filmed in front of a mosque, leading to criticism, but this turned out to be false. Wee later said it was the prime minister’s office.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...dog-video.html

The video was clearly meant to comment obliquely on corruption in Malaysia, and the “dog” masks for those who dance in front of the prime minister’s office, were perfectly fitting because 2018 is, according to the Chinese Zodiac, “the Year of the Dog.” That calendrical correspondence alone explains the choice of the dog-masks, as it does the sounds of barking dogs from around the world. None of this had anything whatsoever to do with any supposed intent of Wee Meng Chee to insult Muslims, who consider dogs to be unclean. Thin-skinned Muslims, however, are eager to detect insults to them and their faith where none is meant, in order to make non-Muslim “offenders” jump through humiliating hoops of apology, removing the imagined offending text or video, or even taking off the market products Muslims claim “contain elements that look just like the Arabic for ‘Allah.’”

The way “Allah” is written in Arabic can be detected, if you are a Muslim looking for insults, in many perfectly innocent up-and-down patterns on products. These have included a Muslim in the UK who became enraged at a swirl design on Burger King’s ice cream which he said looked like “Allah,” and pledged to make it his life’s work, if necessary, to force an end to the design, and have Burger King broadcast a deep apology in every Muslim land. Or he would, he promised, “bring the country down.” To us, the offended Muslim in question merely sounds unhinged, but to many Muslims, alas, he will be seen as an admirable Defender of the Faith. Similarly, Muslim groups carried on a campaign against Nike for a line of sneakers that they claimed bore a design that resembled “Allah” in Arabic; Nike, deeply apologetic, dropped the line. A victory for Islam. And just in January of this year, the Swedish clothing brand H&M apologized for the appearance of “Allah” written, angry Muslims complained, on a new line of children’s socks. All the offending socks were recalled. Another victory for Islam. Muslims yet again had forced the kuffar to take seriously absurd Muslim complaints, to cravenly apologize for their error, and to remove the offending product.

The song of Wee Meng Chee has, in the same way, offended Muslims who are looking for ways to be offended, and to force non-Muslims to beg forgiveness — or else. The video includes the sounds of dogs barking in various countries. In an apparent reference to government corruption, Wee sings that dogs in Malaysia go “mari mari, wang wang,” which in the Malay language means “come come, money money.” Actually in China it is still popular to name dogs Wàng Cái (旺财), which means “prosperous wealth,” and comes from dogs’ barking sounds (旺旺—wàng wàng). “Wang wang” is merely the Chinese for “bow wow.” In Malay, the word “wang” means “money.” Wee Meng Chee is punning on the same sound — “wang wang” — that yields two meanings: “bow wow” in Chinese, and “money money” in Malay. The corruption to which Wee is alluding is equal-opportunity in nature: Muslim Malays, Chinese, and Hindus have all been implicated in corruption scandals. No need for Muslim Malays to take special offense, but if the shoe fits, wear it.

Muslims complained that the green building that served as the backdrop to Wee’s video was a mosque; so eager were they to find fault, that they failed to recognize that the building was in fact the Prime Minister’s Office, and some refused, even when it was pointed out, to believe it.

Several ministers have called for Wee to be arrested. He has defended the video as a form of entertainment and said he has no intention of disrespecting any race or religion.

These were thin-skinned Muslims, of whom there are far too many, the kind who assume that any up-and-down pattern ever so slightly suggesting “Allah” in Arabic — on socks, on sneakers, on a prefabricated ice-cream cone — must be a deliberately hostile act by Infidels. So they assumed, in similar lunatic fashion, that any mention of, or appearance of dogs, in a video created by a celebrated Chinese Malaysian rapper, must surely have been meant as an insult to Muslims, rather than as an apt allusion, as of course it was meant to be, to this year being the Chinese Year of the Dog.

Earlier Thursday, Wee posted a picture on Facebook of himself at the federal police headquarters as he was wanted by police for questioning.

“I am not afraid because I believe Malaysia has justice,” he said.

In 2016, he was detained after enraged Malay Islamic activists lodged complaints that a video titled “Oh My God,” which was filmed in front of various places of worship and used the word “Allah,” which means God in the Malay language, was rude and disrespectful to Islam. He was not charged.”

Race and religion are sensitive issues in Malaysia, where the ethnic Malay majority has generally lived peacefully with large Chinese and Indian minorities since racial riots in 1969 left at least 200 people dead.

Actually there were 800 dead, most of them Chinese

The reference to ethnic Malays — that is, Malay Muslims — who “lived peacefully” with “large Chinese and Indian minorities” since “racial riots” in May, 1969 — conceals several disturbing truths.

First, the “racial riots” of 1969 are vaguely described as if both sides were equally at fault. But it was the Malay Muslims who, infuriated by the results of a general election in which the opposition — anathema to the Muslims — made unexpected gains, first ran amok through Chinese neighborhoods, burning down shops, and attacking and killing any Chinese they could find. Almost all of the victims initially were Chinese. But then the Chinese, especially members of their self-defense societies, having recovered from the shock of this sudden aggression, began to fight back, and during this period almost as many Malays were killed as Chinese. The final period was again one of Malay Muslims overwhelming Chinese neighborhoods, destroying houses and shops, and while the Chinese defended themselves, almost all of those killed late in the day on May 13, 1969, not just by ordinary Muslims but also by Malay members of the army, were again Chinese. That reality, of Malay Muslims suddenly attacking Chinese is not properly conveyed by the words “racial riots.” As for the description of the three main groups having “lived peacefully” since May, 1969, that, too, is most inadequate a description. During this period, to appease Muslim Malays who were resentful of the economic success of both Chinese and Hindus, the government in the 1970s instituted the Bumiputra system, a kind of affirmative action on stilts for Muslim Malays. According to this system, all Malays are required to be counted as Muslims, and all Muslims benefit from a disguised jizyah tax on non-Muslims which is called the “Bumiputra” or “Sons of the Soil” system. Although the word means “sons of the soil,” it is not the indigenous Malaysian tribes (most of them Christians) that benefit from the “Bumiputra” policy, but Malay Muslims alone.

According to this “Bumiputra” idea, all economic undertakings, all examples of entrepreneurial flair, must have Muslim Malays as their full partners. Two Chinese who wish to open, for example, a computer consulting company, or an architectural firm, are required to take on a Muslim Malay (but not a Hindu, nor another Chinese) as a full partner, with an equal financial stake — even though he may not contribute anything of value to the enterprise. This is simply a way to ensure that the Muslims can improve their economic position, and continue to live, legally, on the backs of non-Muslims, who through this Bumiputra system pay a disguised jizyah. They are “living peacefully” since 1969 only because the Muslims have attained one of their main goals: a massive affirmative action program. But that “living peacefully” description is misleading, for there has been a steady stillicide of attacks by Malay Muslims on both Chinese and Indians (though nothing to compare with the May 12, 1969 attacks), including the destruction of hundreds of Hindu temples and the vandalizing of hundreds more. Buddhist temples and statues belonging to the Chinese have similarly been subject, though in smaller numbers, to attack by Muslims. That is what “living peacefully” together means for non-Muslims in Malaysia.

Meanwhile, the rapper Wee Meng Chee is now being held by the police and faces up to a year in jail if convicted of insulting Islam. He has already felt compelled to apologize abjectly to the Muslims of Malaysia for daring to include dog-masked dancers on his latest video, which could only have been meant, these thin-skinned Muslims insist, as a deliberate insult to dog-despising Islam.

And the thin-skinned farce will continue, wherever Muslims can find a way, however ludicrous, to consider themselves insulted, and non-Muslims will find a way, equally ludicrous, to tug at their forelocks and beg their Muslim masters to forgive them, as they promise to never ever do it again. As for Muslims ever apologizing for 1400 years of the continuous destruction of Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Hindu, and Buddhist sites, or for their subjugation of many lands and many peoples who, once conquered by Muslims, were offered only the options of death, conversion, or the humiliating and onerous status of dhimmis — of course, no apology is necessary, don’t be silly. And please check the swirl on your next ice-cream cone. You can’t be too careful.

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their land.. their rules...

they follow Islamic law.