Category: Monarchy

Oh Royalties, Politicians, Religions and Racist Parasite; Where the Bull ‘Art’ Thou?

Editors Note: It’s a long one this round. Please bear with me.

We all know by now that for the first time in Academy Award History, a non English movie won the most coveted award Best Picture. Not only that, it won arguably second most coveted award Best Direction as well. Altogether, it won 4 Oscars (the physical award itself, the gold bald standing guy, is nicknamed Oscar) including Best International Picture and Best Original Screenplay.

It also won Golden Globe Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language award, BAFTA Best Screenplay (Original) and Best Film Not in the English Language, SAG Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or, Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement and many more awards from the world’s film industry. To date, the total awards have reached 202 Awards in various categories. It’s such an achievement.

Bong Jun Ho with his Oscars.

Personally, I love Parasite. I’ve watched 7 out of the 9 nominations for Best Picture and in my non-academic and non-expert opinion, it deserves the Award. They are all great films but Parasite is indeed on top of the heap.

Not everybody agrees with Parasite being a great movie though. Flipping through social media timelines and talking to friends, many believed 1917, Joker, Marriage Story or the Irishman should’ve won instead. Many saw Parasite as something you can get easily on TV3’s Cerekarama slot. Not even good enough for a proper film. Just a telemovie.

I don’t know much about Malaysian movies to be completely honest. I do however have a few favourite Malaysian Directors. They are P. Ramlee, Mamat Khalid, Yasmin Ahmad and Aziz M. Osman. That’s all I will say about Malaysian film industry.

This creation of Mamat Khalid really hit me hard. I love it so much.

The Politics Surrounding Our Arts

On the politics surrounding our art however, I have much to say. Let’s start with the big elephant in the room. Censorship. This has been the bane of art and freedom of expression in Malaysia since forever. I still remember in my younger days when Malaysian can no longer appreciate ghost movies just because someone in FINAS/Jakim/Cabinet believed watching ghost movies can somehow cause Muslim’s to distort their belief in God. This is a load of bulls

I’m sure those who lived through the 80’s and 90’s remember the time when we can no longer enjoy those great Chinese ghost movies from the 80s. I was too young to understand politics back then but to have ghosts stories banned is still something that I feel was unwarranted.

The great Lam Ching-Ying as the One Eyebrow Priest. He was in so good in many of these Hong Kong horror movies that everybody in school wanted to be him back in the day. We all wanted to either be him or Jackie Chan.

Fortunately today we no longer have that ban in effect. Since the ban was uplifted we had an explosion of creativity with all those Blok 404, Kem 505 and more recently with Hantu Kak Limah franchise.

Ghost stories is a part of our culture here in Malaysia. Ever since we were a small kid, our parents would tell us, “Haaa! Pi la kat situ, ada hantuuu”. During slumber parties we exchanged ghost stories with our friends. During our days in boarding school we heard lots of ghost stories, some even dated back during Japanese occupation of Malaya. Everybody must’ve heard of Hantu Jepun (Japanese Ghost) in the form of dead Japanese soldiers marching down the street. We have all sorts of ghosts. These ghosts in our culture is very charming and interesting to me.

Hantu Pocong, one of the many types of ghosts in Malay culture.

It’s not so much the ghosts that fascinates me but it’s more of the expression of creativity. How one sees horror, how one interpret these ghosts and how it interacts with our daily lives. How much they influence the way we lives. From there we would have the Pawangs, the Bomohs, the good and the bad. It’s nothing more than an expression of art.

People would ask, what if people really believe in ghosts and bomohs and pawang Shaik? Well, we have been having ghosts movies and stories since the beginning of time. If we were to compare current situation to say 50 or 100 years ago, we actually have less and less people believing in them. Is it because we have less ghost movies in cinemas and TV?

No, it’s because of the advancement in technology. We now have lights, camera, and all sort of technological advancements. So much so that ghosts are finding it hard to exists. That’s why. We are more educated. We now realised it’s not what it is. No amount of movies will change our mind. And we certainly don’t need someone in Finas/Jakim or Cabinet to protect us from these ghosts movies.

The Royalties, Politicians, Ulama and Race censorship

The second part of censorship, which has a bigger impact on our lives, is of those people who have a higher status or caste in our lives. God forbid if we do a story, movie, book or even painting on the politicians, royalties, ulama and race.

These four topics are off limits even today. There are so many ways we can express ourselves with these four topics and from there everybody can learn a thing or two. Unfortunately, nobody can come close to these four topics. Till today have not seen much art concerning some of the more pivotal times in politics, be it during Malayan Union times when the people opposed what has been agreed and approved by the Royalties and British nor the more recent stuff like Memali. I hope we will one day have a movie with Malayan Union and the royalties as the central theme.

Similarly, God forbid if we ever make movies on corrupt politicians of yesteryear or even of today. Some of these stories we hear could really make it big in the movies. Some of the big corruption and abuse of power cases would’ve made some darn good movies. If you complained about our film industry not making enough money, these are the stuff that will make the money rains.

Then we have the issue of equality among the people of different races. There has been many work of arts regarding the conflict between the black and white in Hollywood. Stuff like blacxploitation and black power. Change it to Malay, Chinese, Indian. Heck, we should have more coming out from Sabah and Sarawak fighting for their rights to be equal on all field. All of these are off limits it seemed.

Why are these topics off limits?

One has to wonder, why are these off limits? Politicians keep saying we are not there yet as a society. We, the rakyat, apparently, can’t handle it yet. We apparently will start killing off each other if we have all of the above topics be made movies the way we want it.

Are we really that weak that we can’t handle any of these stuff? Let’s take a look at some of the more contemporary art that may help to tells us whether we can handle it or not.

First up, Drama Band performance during AJL. It has a spin on social and political commentary touching on Najib and Rosmah and their handbags, PU Abu and the issue of him leaving his wife while she’s still pregnant with his child. Dai’e Farhan who got married with his second wife in Makkah and lastly all the people who love/hate the above folks.

The public were up in arms about the show. Furious! TV3 took down the Band’s performance on their YouTube channel. Censored. Saying they are checking with MCMC if this is in their performance is against the code or not. Just tell the truth that you don’t want to piss off your lords Najib and Rosmah please. This is just a load of bull.

Next, we have these art pieces by Ahmad Fuad Osman. Apparently National Art Gallery (Balai Seni Negara) removes 4 pieces of art that portrays Anwar Ibrahim in it. Ahmad Fuad learned that National Art Gallery justified its decision based on the complaint of a single board member who found the works obscene and political. One person of power didn’t like what he sees and he removes them. Censored. Again, this is a load of bull.

One of the four art pieces taken down. This is entitled ‘Missing’.

Fortunately, Deputy Minister of Arts, Tourism and Culture have instructed NAG to reinstate those art pieces.

Next, who can forget the shitstorm that Fahmi Reza had to go through for the infamous Clown poster of Najib. He was expressing his politically charged opinion of what a clown Najib is. That is all. And yet the shitstorm he has to go through is crazy. Censored. A load of bull indeed.

On the subject of race, we have Engku Iman excellent experimentation on labeling our beloved Lee Chooong Wei as Jaguh and/or Pendatang. This is an excellent piece of art experimentation and how it makes us think and react. Quite a few folks were taken aback by her experiment. Why were you taken aback? Triggered? And she was called out on it. It’s a load of bull.

One of the few local authors and writers I like, Dr. Faizal Musa or his pseudonym Faisal Tehrani. He has written several books and many of his books has been banned by Jakim on the basis of having Shia elements. He has denied it multiple times but you know lah. Censored. It’s all a load of bull.

Lastly, the drama caused by a movie made by the wealthy businesswoman Sajat while she was in Mekah performing umrah. The whole nation went apeshit. Everybody talks about her. I don’t need to share more as the whole nation just went totally apeshit and I’m sure you got to see it all unfold as well. People were and still are so angry because she has apparently insulted Islam, Mekah and the whole ritual of umrah all in one fell swoop. Everybody was asking for Sajat to be taken out of Mekah. And they succeeded. Sajat Banned. Censored. It’s a load of bull indeed.

Apparently the politicians are correct. The Rakyat can’t handle it.

Let’s prove we can handle it

It’s up to us, the Rakyat, to be able to be clear-minded and be open. Many believes to be open is a western thing, hence not a good thing. Being open is often labelled as liberal and it carries this negative connotation with it. What many ulama have said is Liberal Islam is bad. I’m not sure if there is such a thing as ‘Liberal Islam’. Islam is Islam, there shouldn’t be anything else right?

Now to me, Liberal is a good word. To me, liberal means the notion or idea of liberty and equality. Anas Zubedy have written about how Liberal in Islam is a good thing. Go read it. The point is, we need to encourage others to be able to listen better and be emphatic to others. Encourage others to explore and discover their potential.

What if the art insult YOU Shaik?

What if that piece of Art is an insult to you Shaik? Would you just listen and be emphatic still Shaik? Well, I got a simple answer for that. Islam teaches us how to handle insult. It’s very easy to follow.

The Quran tells us how to handle insult in 33:48.

And incline not to the disbelievers and the hypocrites. Disregard their noxious talk, and put thy trust in Allah. Allah is sufficient as Trustee

Quran 33:48

So easy right? We just need to disregard their noxious talk. We just need to ignore their insult. It’s so easy, we basically just need to DO NOTHING. Just a simple nothing. Ignore them. It can’t get any easier than this. Literally do nothing.

Then what do we do?

The good deed and the evil deed are not alike. Repel the evil deed with one which is better, then lo! he, between whom and thee there was enmity (will become) as though he was a bosom friend

Quran 41:34

It’s so easy, repel, push away, reply the bad deed with a good deed. If you do this, you and the person who insults you will become good friends. When someone insults us, we shouldn’t go and kick him in the balls. We shouldn’t scold him/her. We also of course shouldn’t jail the person. Those are not a good deed. We just need to reply the insult with good deeds. Very easy to do as well.

This is exactly where the problem lies

The problem lies with us the Rakyat. Quran tells us to ignore the insults. Quran tells us to repel bad deed with good deeds. However we continue to not ignore the insults and use more bad deeds to repel bad deeds. We continue to care about the insult and throw some more insult back to them, ban, scold, get angry, hit them, or worse threatened to kill the person who insulted us through their words, movies, paintings, comics and whatever form of art they use.

Let’s all learn to ignore these insult and repel bad deeds with good deeds. Rise above enmity and insult. Go back to what the Quran says.

So the next time you read a comic, or watch a movie, or see someone performed some form of arts in a manner that insults you, your religion, your mom, your family, your whatever lah. Remember, to ignore them and reply the bad deeds with good deeds.

Take a look these non-believers, non-muslims. They actually do what the Quran says and see how it results in something great.

It’s great to see what Allah says works on everybody be they muslims or non-muslims. But we, decided not to do what Allah have said. That ladies and gentlemen, is where all bullshit is.

Peace be unto all.

Editors note: If you made it here, a big big thank you. I apologise for the super long one this round. I’ll try to keep it shorter next time.

Black Pants, Birds and how it all disappeared.

As you have probably known by now, I find the Unprincely Prince so fascinating the I’ve written about him a few times. Not so much of his cars, or football team or his other worldly possession, but rather his princely demeanour or lack thereof.

Recently my brother sent over a screenshot of the Unprincely Prince Instagram story. Here’s a screenshot of it courtesy of the Internet.

This is the Instagram Story that started it all. Kinda legendary.

It tells us of the history behind the palace’s garb. It also tells us just how exclusive they are and not to be worn by anyone else. It also tells us that they are the eagles and the rest of the worlds are just sparrows. It also tells us that many people don’t like Johor Palace and that many folks are saying lots of nasty stuff about them. Then it also tells us that he believes that many people are copying their styles and that many people wants to be be like the King. And lastly, it also tells us that the lowlife be just that, lowlife. Know your place lowlife, you should shouldn’t dream any taller than the lowly grass.

There’s a lot to unpack there. Like A LOT. The beauty of it though, the collective wisdom of Malaysian people as a whole have somehow came together to tell the Johor Palace that the Pipits can really flock together and agree on a common ground that would make the eagles scared shitless and disappear. So in today’s post, I’ll be sharing some of the stuff that I came across on the Internet and together with it I’ll review these rather exquisite postings.

First up is another tweet from the the Unprincely Prince.

Yup, there it is. Blamed the late Sultan instead of owning it.

As what is typical of a princes in many bedtime stories, they are usually so very full of themselves and doesn’t seem to understand the concept of accountability or ownership. As in this case, after he was called on it, he blamed it on the late Sultan Iskandar. How very predictable this Unprincely Prince is, really living up to his name. A leader would gladly own up his shit, but not him, he “passed the buck” to his late grandfather. And then, in the classic shoot-you-back-move he also blamed others for being ‘too triggered with his post’. What’s not to like isn’t it? Well, perhaps you’ll like the next one better.

Tweet captured by my brother as well. He’s a big fan of his shenanigans.

So at the height of the hullabaloo that he has created, he tweeted the above. In this tweet he elaborated and proved (rather unsuccessfully, do read on to know why) that Johor is the trend setter and that people are copying or at least following Johor in many aspect.

What tickled me was he started the tweet with ‘1 thing you can’t you can’t deny’ and ended it with, ‘well, I know I’m good all over and the best and the number one and everything else super, BUUUUUT you guys also special lah, semua special gitew kaaaannn’. We all know that the last bit was as condescending as condescending can be. But what’s more funny and really tickled my funny bone was his opening statement. That “one thing you can deny” bit. It turned out, that one thing was denied “en masse”. Here it is in all its glory.

I can’t fathom just how clueless the Unprincely Prince can be. Did he not know that our IC number state designation is in alphabetical order? We all know this when it was first introduced. I am from Kedah, I remember asking this question to my teacher back then how come Kedah is number two, we should be number one! (Yeah kids always like that, we always want to be number one, I wonder which other grown up nagoi like that, can’t really put a pin on it 🙂 ). Just like that, his tweet got denied so hard. Sorry my dear Unprincely Prince.

Okay lah, maybe this is blown out of proportion by the Internet. As we all know, the Internet have this habit of blowing up stuff out of proportion. Also, maybe it’s true that it’s not him that is imposing these crazy belief, maybe it’s true that it was his late grandfather. However, the next tweet by a fellow Johorian kinda sealed the deal that his grandfather wasn’t to be blamed entirely as well.

So this guy was asked to not wear his raya outfit should he wants to attend the open house. To be specific he was asked to take off his sampin because he was wearing it together with a pair of black pants and a Teluk Belanga. I asked him who told him to take it off, he said it was the JMF (Johor Military Force). This can’t get any crazier than this. And here I thought that it’s just his grandfather doing as he said, apparently it’s still going on today lah. On to the next one.

Since we are talking about being first an all, I’d like to remind everyone that Johor was also well known to be among the first to agree in supporting the British through Malayan Union. Johor Palace have agreed on the basis of friendship in establishing the Malayan Union. Unlike other Sultanate who were coerced to agree lest they lose their position. You guys can read all our history books on this but let me hook you with with a refresher HERE. Here’s an excerpt.

Sungguhpun tugas MacMichael dilihat berjalan lancar, namun pada hakikatnya ia bukanlah suatu tugas yang mudah. Hanya Johor dan Selangor sahaja bersetuju menandatangani perjanjian tersebut tanpa banyak bantahan atas dasar setia kawan. Manakala di Negeri-Negeri Melayu lain seperti Perak, Kedah, Negeri Sembilan dan Perlis, MacMichael terpaksa menggunakan kaedah ugutan sama ada tidak mengiktiraf baginda sebagai Sultan ataupun menggantikan baginda dengan calon Sultan yang baru. Sementara di Pahang, Kelantan, dan Terengganu MacMichael turut menerima tentangan daripada para baginda tetapi tentangan tersebut tidaklah begitu kuat. Oleh itu, laporan Willan ternyata tidak menepati harapan MacMichael

Well, yes, Johor Palace was in love with the Brits back then. So in love that they are willing to sell our motherland to outsiders. In the end, the rest of the Rakyat banded together and opposed Malayan Union, the very thing that the Sultans have signed. Go figure guys, the rakyat do know better than the Sultans. It has been proven then, it on this matter, it’s being proven again.

Now, obviously I’m not the only person who knows his history, many others did to. Just do a quick search for “Malayan union” on Twitter and you’ll get a bunch of tweets mentioning the same. Here’s a screenshot of the search.

A simple search on twitter will show you just how many remembers what Johor Palace did during the signing of Malayan Union.

I’m from Kedah and we have our own Sultan and Palace too. So I’d like to share something that I stumbled upon while all these is happening.

A rather good find on this. Writing on this topic made me learn about things I would never learned by myself.

It turned out that Kedah Palace’s uniform for its biduanda is kinda like that infamous Johor Palace Royal garb. It’s rather surprising, the same black pants, sampin and Baju Melayu combination. Although its Baju Melayu is with Cekak Musang instead of Teluk Belanga. To Kedah Palace, that garb is only suitable for the biduanda, not the Royals, just the biduanda. Good find Mr Khalid Ismath, it shows no matter how high an eagle may fly, there will always be something else that can fly higher. This teaches us to always be humble as we don’t always know what lurks above us. And since we are on the subject of the black pants, sampin and Baju Melayu, here’s another gem I found on the Internet.

I can’t credit this to anyone as I don’t know where it came from. Do tell me should you know so I can credit it properly.

The above tweet shows that all these talking about palace garb, helang and pipit, and whatever else it entails, are just jokes to him. What I hope is he didn’t find the Johor Palace a joke to him as well. If indeed he finds that the Johor Palace is a joke, there’s only one person to be blamed and that’s our very own bedtime stories Unprincely Prince.

It’s telling that after all the endless pipit tweets, and postings on social media ridiculing the whole thing, the Unprincely Prince finally realised that he has opened a can of worms that he found from his own backyard. Since then, he has deleted almost all of the above tweets. I wanted to link to his tweets instead of screenshots of his tweets, however they are not there anymore. The tweets by the Unprincely Prince have totally disappeared. I guess the collective wisdom of the Pipit can really make the Helang disappeared with its tail between its leg. The Pipit do have this immense power that no one can challenge, not even the Eagle, should the pipit all band together that is. So let’s continue to band together and show to the eagles, parrots, vultures or even the pterodactyl that they can never be above us. Let’s show them that the best place to be, is among us, living together in harmony.

Peace be unto all.

Of Nangoi and Prince, can we tell the difference?

This blog have opined once or twice before of The Unprincely Prince. I have made it known among my circle of friends that I’m not fond of royalties who have lost the true meaning of being a royalty, even with so many bedtime stories, fairytales and legendary tales telling us how a good King, Liege, Sultan best play his or her role. If there’s one thing to learn from History, it’s that we need to learn from them, especially the mistakes we did. More on this history lesson later.

Recently, The Unprincely Prince was again in the news, and it’s all for the wrong reason of course. There was a video clip of a football fan asking him to change Mora (JDT football coach), The Unprincely Prince answered, “Better to change the PM rather than Mora”.

As this blog shared previously, if a prince decides to step down from his throne and no longer behaves like a prince, be prepared to be clobbered. History have shown again and again what will happen to an Unprincely Prince, so as fairytales and bedtime stories. The world as a whole have somehow slowly but surely stopped believing that a King’s blood and a peasant’s blood is not the same. So whenever someone who believes his blood is so much more special than the rest of the people, not behaving the way he’s supposed to behave, then he is no longer special in any way.

Back to The Unprincely Prince, since the video have made its way across the internet, it’s just a matter of time for it to be used as fodder for those people who’s hungry to see the Malays and the Royalties go against each other. The Unprincely Prince having a special kind of blood flowing in his veins should’ve anticipated this and not be the fodder that he’s about to be soon. Hence a question was asked to Dr. Mahathir our PM about this video starring The Unprincely Prince. This time, Dr. Mahathir no longer minced his words, watch the video below.

Give it to The Good Doctor to say things that cuts you into a thousand pieces. The fact that he used the word “nangoi” (a word we Kedahan use to refer to small kids, or kids who not yet know anything much, tells us that The Unprincely Prince is almost nothing to him. To Dr. Mahathir, The Unprincely Prince is nothing but a kid, whose balls have not even dropped yet.

What is more important, Dr Mahathir showed that The Unprincely Prince failed to understand and probably refused to accept that Malaysian have chosen Dr. Mahathir over his own choice in GE14. Dr Mahathir reminded him that even The Unprincely Prince can’t change that. Only the Rakyat can change that.

Of course this started a chain of events where more spats occurred between The Unprincely Prince and the rest of the Rakyat with nothing special running their veins but peasant blood. The ever so spirited Syed Saddiq, Minister of Youth and Sports have chipped in as well with a couple tweets below.

He has a good point on the FAM though. I had high hopes when The Unprincely Prince was about to take over FAM from the rut that they are in under the care of the Pahang royalties. However, after about a year, with so many drama unfolding, he quit FAM. I still remember feeling so stupid at the time, I had put my faith on another spoilt royalty who, through my eyes, values his wealth and possessions more than anything else. And that, as what spoiled kids always do (I know because I spoiled my kids too) they quit something when they just can’t wrap their head around them, usually with a bit of a tantrum. They don’t have the will and courage to continue with it and go through all the hard work. Spoiled kid can’t understand that money can’t buy everything.


Of course someone else chipped in as well, Rais Yatim, one of the old guards who I fancies whenever he speaks Malay, oh so eloquently. He didn’t quite minced his words as well. Look at his tweet below.

The fact that he used the phrase “…ikut selera anak raja saja. Nanti hurhara rakyat.” is pretty damning. He practically told off The Unprincely Prince to not wave the Prince Card around according to his whim and fancy or it’ll be chaos. On top of that, he’s basically telling The Unprincely Prince off again when he said “Tolong Waras”. It is basically a gentleman‘s way of telling The Unprincely Prince “You are too crazy la, Don’t be so crazy can or not?”

Lastly, I’d like you my dear readers to read this PIECE by Dato’ Kadir Jasin for some history lesson. It is important that we all learn from history because history tends to repeat itself. It’s all in our hands ladies and gentlemen. Be it to change Mora the coach, change the PM, or even change our stars so we all stand as equals. Like the old days, back in the kampung, in my teens, whenever we want to go have a swim at the abandoned lombong near our house. We would make sure no budak-budak nangoi followed us or it’ll be chaos.

Thanks and peace be unto us all.

The Prince and the Youngster

This article on our youngest minister really hit me hard. Here’s a guy who shared on his twitter page, his experience working with the person he really admires, and out of nowhere, our regal prince came and took a jibe at the young minister.

The Prince and the Youngster.

I can’t help but surmise that our prince just could let our dear Tun get all the attention and admiration he deserves. In the past, our prince had also took a jibe at Tun before GE14, not forgetting to mention the conflict our dear Tun had with his late grandfather.

He also said “Don’t change the boat if the engine is not broken, don’t even change the skipper but allow HM The Sultan of Johor and I to work with the skipper”. We all know what he meant by this.

Rewinding a little further back, our prince’s JDT Facebook Page has also been saying things that are unpatriotic and unbecoming of a Malaysian. I have said my piece in a Facebook posting I made on 31 August. and not long after that, the good prince complained that he and his father are being monitored on social media, and I’ve said my piece as well.

And today, here we are again, saying my good piece for the good prince, yet again. My prince, one’s age is not the absolute measure for wisdom or stupidity. Looking at the young minister, he is already a full cabinet minister. On the other hand, many, many years ago, I was still trying to figure out what to do with my life after I got married at 25.

After the stories of Tun’s wonderful UN speech, we have several people coming out sharing similar experience with Tun, on him being ‘a master at his own work’ validating our young minister’s ‘claim’. You can check them HERE and HERE.

I can’t but feel something is off when our good prince is in the news for all the wrong reasons this year. Perhaps something can be learned HERE.

Daulat Tuanku. Peace be unto all of you.