nipplegate

The world is a seething mess of depravity, desperation, hopelessness, cruelty and insanity. There are people out there waiting for their next victim. Hunting them. They prey on one helpless soul, or they prey on poor nations or minorities, or they prey on everyone without them even knowing it.

We in Malaysia are quite lucky. Though it's not perfect, we have a multitude of peoples living together in relative, day-to-day harmony. We have no war. We don't have poverty on the scale we see in other countries. Most of us abide by some code of behaviour which is mostly good and kind. Perhaps we are inconsiderate, perhaps boorish, perhaps we are a little too dense to understand exactly why we should take care of our earth or our selves... but all in all, Malaysia is a nice, safe place with no real reason to fear for itself.

That is, until people start taking their clothes off on TV and undermining the very moral fabric we good Malaysians like to sew our souls together from!!

The authorities seem to think that Faizal showing people his nipples would suddenly reveal to them the very basis of human evil and depravity. They seem to think that no mother has ever seen her father's, husband's or son's nipples, and likewise no daughter has seen her father's or brother's! That faithful wives would throw up their skirts in the streets. That young women might discover that, oh god, they want to strip for a living! Or maybe they are fearful of the sudden wave of straight men turning gay at the sight!

Actually, I'm trying to figure out why everyone suddenly got hysterical like a bunch of old ladies standing on chairs pointing and squealing at non-existent rats. Isn't there something more to life than Faizal and his form of self-expression?

The saddest thing was watching him the other night, in sombre sobriety, apologising to the people, the government, the fans and the tv channel for his offensive behaviour. How sad to see someone who obviously is talented and feels the music in his whole being, staring dead-eyed into cameras and looking whipped and drained of life.

You know what is killing our young? We spoil the rotten ones and kill the good ones. Kids are a reflection of us, and if that's what we do to them, why, we must hate the thing that looks back at us in the mirror.

What better than to replace other really tragic news that we don't know what to do about, with something that makes us feel like "we can do something about this, let's teach him a lesson! Showing us his God-given body, who does he think he is? Pah! BLAH! BYAAARRRGGHH!!" We are just making ugly faces.

Have some love, people. I don't just mean give it or show it. Feel it, and open up to the world and the joy of feeling alive. Don't crush it in others just because you fear it in yourself, you stingey, stingey soulless shells.

C