No topless dancing, please. We’re Malaysians

No topless dancing, please. We’re Malaysians


2 HOURS AGO


The Rain Rave Water Music Festival over the Labour Day weekend has shown that we do not need self-appointed champions of morality to tell us how to behave in a proper manner

The much deliberated on water festival has come and gone, and the country and people are none the worse for it.

While revellers were busy getting drenched, money was flowing into our economy.


Estimates of the number of participants at the Rain Rave Water Music Festival 2026 range from 80,000 to as high as 180,000, with tourists accounting for 20% to 25% of them.

Even as the most conservative estimate, that would roughly be 20,000 to 40,000 additional foreign visitors to KL over the Labour Day weekend.


Tourists don’t stay for just one event. Some may already be on the way to Langkawi, Penang or Kelantan where they will spend even more money.

That, according to some estimates, is likely to leave an additional RM200 million into the country’s economy.

The main beneficiaries are the hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops, and retail outlets, not just in the city but also across the country.

For businesses, that would have been a welcome change from worries about the impact of a war being fought thousands of miles away.


Everyone benefits. What is so immoral about that?


Plenty, if you are a self-proclaimed guardian of righteousness. And we have many of them in our midst, most of whom are in the business of politicising everything, citing religious taboos or societal standards to back their arguments.

But most of them sound more irrational than logical.

PAS has described it as a large-scale disco that does not align with Malaysian culture or Islamic values.


If it is a misalignment with our culture, how was the Songkran water festival staged in PAS-ruled Kedah on April 18 in tune with our values — religious or cultural?

How is having fun while getting drenched in KL any less okay than doing the same in Kedah?

The moral policing by our self-appointed defenders of virtue is not confined to water festivals.

Various foreign artistes have faced opposition or had their concerts cancelled based on our standards of decency in their attire or their music. Even those who agree to abide by our dress code have had the door shut on them anyway.

For instance, PAS Youth objected to Selena Gomez’s 2016 performance based on allegations that she promoted “Western culture and hedonism”.

Heavy metal band Megadeth had its concert cancelled and its CDs removed from the shelves in 2001 based on our moral police’s perception that they portrayed a negative image.

Fans of these musicians end up spending thousands of ringgit flying to Singapore or Manila to watch these performances. That’s foreign exchange lost.

Imagine the economic benefits we could have reaped by welcoming Singaporeans, Indonesians and Filipinos to dance to the same music in KL or Penang.

What impact such restrictions will have on our Visit Malaysia 2026 campaign is anyone’s guess.

But who are we, with all our sins, to judge?

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In today's Malaysian weather, having water-festivals with the participants getting cooled by being fun-drenched is a brilliant idea. More of it please and frigg the detractors.