PAS Youth & sweet Rihanna

Malaysiakini - PAS Youth: Boycott Rihanna concert!

Well ..... the predictable right on schedule!

PAS Youth has called for a boycott of the mid-February concert featuring Rihanna, which it claimed, to protest against the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Then Kamaruzaman Mohamed, the FT PAS Youth chief, decided to have two bites of the cherry, stating, ‘ere his voiced support for the Palestinians has even faded, that the Rihanna concert “does not match with the local culture”, and that by having Rihanna in Malaysia would be a “disgrace to Asian culture”.

Wow, from politics to culture! What next? The economy?

Rihanna - Malaysiakini photo

It seemed Kamaruzaman couldn’t quite make up his mind because he then switched the reason to being against Rihanna (currently living in California) paying tax to the USA, a strong and generous Israel’s ally.

Hmmm, a bit of finance there (in income tax) sprinkled with populist politics.

Switching back (from anti-USA) to culture again (and social problems), he emphasized that “PAS youth wing will consistently protest against concerts that does not portray the positive Asian culture and which might create social problems in the country.”

So what about Inul Daratista? Isn’t she Asian? And isn’t her songs of the dangdut genre?

In fact the Indonesian dangdut originates from a mixture of Arabic and Indian music, and was developed some 35 years ago among working class Muslim youth.

Hmmm, the development of the Argentinian tango was also of working class origin and puts the dangdut together with it as dances of the ordinary people instead of the upper strata of society.

So why did PAS objected to Inul when her dangdut act has both Arabic and Muslim pedigree ...

... and of a working class origin too! Aiyah, PAS snobbishly sombong already?

And talking about Asian Culture, why did PAS object to the muhibbah Kongsi Raya celebrations? Hasn't it been a tradition and culture of Malaysians to celebrate their festivals together as muhibbah (rather than religious) events?

The answer to all these rhetorical queries is that PAS is still hanging on to its age-old and unchanging misogynist and parochial attitudes.

But no worries lah, nowadays PAS has become so popular with many non-Muslims that some Christians have abandoned the cause of Lina Joy in favour of PAS and its hudud, when they know fully well that under the hudud, Lina Joy may face capital punishment for apostasy.

And would Lina have said as did Steven Dietz: "One should rather die than be betrayed. There is no deceit in death. It delivers precisely what it has promised. Betrayal, though ... betrayal is the willful slaughter of hope."

O ‘Principle’, thou unfaithful self, failing to stand steadfastly firm. Thou hath hopped across the divide (like a frog) to sleep with the enemy.

Thus, after reading Malaysiakini Herald defies gov't ban on 'Allah' where Father Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Catholic Herald newspaper, said he intends to use the banned word of ‘Allah’ until the courts rule on the issue next month, I feel that may be an appropriate decision as afterall, one can embrace Allah swt as much as one has embraced hudud.