The Black List: Malaysia’s Arbitrary Bans & Regulations

By Alif Omar Mahfix  •  23 Apr 2012 in Features

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NO JUMPING & SHORTS
As sterile and safe of a rock band Linkin Park is, they were nevertheless told to not wear shorts and control their jumping. As one minister put it, artistes “must not display rough, raunchy actions that conflict with pure values, such as leaping around, screaming or throwing something from the stage to the audience.” All of which are regular rock gig staples in the local scene.

Imposed on: Linkin Park

NO ‘IMPROPER’ SEXUAL ORIENTATION
Homosexuality doesn’t exist in our culture apparently, if you were to believe a protest placard outside of Elton John’s concert. While Lady Gaga’s song was banned due to its gay pride theme, you don’t necessarily need to be an artiste who espouses their sexuality in songs. How many Elton John or Adam Lambert tunes can you name that explicitly talk about their sexuality?

Imposed on: Elton John, Adam Lambert, Lady Gaga (for being queen fag hag)

NO (PERCEIVED) SEXINESS
Beyonce and Rihanna weren’t the only ones told to cover up. Everyone from Gwen Stefani to Avril Lavigne was dubbed too provocative by PAS youths. It’s not always about clothes either, Indonesian dangdut sensation Inul was banned due to her sexually scintillating “goyang gerudi” (literally drill ar$e shaking).

Imposed on: Gwen Stefani, Mariah Carey, Avril Lavigne, Inul

NO CROTCH GRABBING
During the late Michael Jackson’s HIStory World Tour, he was forced to change his trademark castrato move – the crotch grab – to something more agreeable in the eyes of the religious authorities. It is reported that crotch-grabbing is considered impure in Islam – we’re unsure why such specific ruling exist in a religion.

Imposed on: Michael Jackson

NO MUSLIMS ALLOWED
The Black Eyed Peas were initially told that they weren’t allowed to perform to a crowd of Muslims due to it being an alcohol-sponsored event. Thankfully Dr. Rais Yatim, in a rare enlightened moment, vetoed the ban, saying “”we have no legal powers actually to bar people from attending functions.”

Imposed on: Black Eyed Peas

NO ‘OUTSIDE VALUES’
An oft-used reasoning for protesting any foreign act is their lack of Malaysian values, which makes us think; what exactly are these supposed values of ours? This also suggests a sense of cultural superiority among the higher ups as it implies these ‘foreign’ values are so inherently based that any chance it would affect us would be terrible. Looking at the bans, protests, and regulations so far, here’s what we can gather of what Malaysian values are;- averse to jumping, friendly to heteronormativity, bigoted towards everything else, sexually repressed, incapable of accepting difference, and most worryingly…

… we tend to ban what we’re unwilling to understand.