By Sholto Byrnes
Sunday, 24 April 2011
The Independent
Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia’s opposition leader, tomorrow faces the resumption of one of the less edifying cases to have been heard amid the colonnaded formality of the Kuala Lumpur High Court: his trial for allegedly sodomising a 25-year-old aide named Saiful Bukhari.
It is not the only scandal with which the former deputy prime minister, whose dismissal and first trial for sodomy made world headlines more than a decade ago, is dealing.
The man once feted as Newsweek’s “Asian of the Year”, whose supporters include Al Gore, the former US vice-president, and Paul Wolfowitz, a former World Bank president, is also accused of being the star of a 21-minute sex tape featuring a Chinese prostitute (by way of variation, female), a clip of which was briefly posted on YouTube.
But these are only two instances of the sexually related incidents that fill the country’s papers and gossip sites every day. So numerous are stories of physical misdemeanours in this conservative, Muslim-majority but essentially easygoing country that the question is being asked: are Malaysians obsessed with sex?
Within the past few days, it has emerged that the education department in the eastern state of Terengganu has set up a boot camp to which it has sent 66 schoolboys to deal with their “effeminate tendencies”.
“The severity of the symptoms vary. We understand that some people end up as homosexual,” said the department’s director, Razali Daud, “but we will do our best to limit the number. If left unchecked, it could become a problem for them, their families and society.”
Earlier this month, a well-known MP, Ibrahim Ali, the leader of the Malay rights group Perkasa, asked in parliament if wives truly “understand their roles”. “Husbands driving home after work see things that are sexually arousing and seek their wives to satisfy their urges,” he said, complaining that sometimes women pretend to be busy with other matters. “They will say, ‘wait, I’m cooking,’ or ‘wait, I’m getting ready to visit relatives’.” They evidently required a “proper explanation” that “in Islam, wives are supposed to stop everything to fulfil their husbands’ demands.”
Although now an independent, Ibrahim was once a luminary in the governing Barisan Nasional alliance, which cannot appear too overbearing in matters of personal morality given that it includes non-Muslim Chinese, Indian and indigenous components as well as Muslim Malays.
The Islamist opposition party PAS, however, is less constrained, as its youth leader, Nasrudin Tantawi, made clear in February. “We have identified favourite spots where lovebirds mingle,” he said, warning that his organisation would be helping to check “immoral activities” in the run-up to Valentine’s Day. “We are deploying our members to preach and distribute pamphlets promoting sin-free lifestyles.”
The action was certainly necessary, he said. “Last year there was a campaign to promote a no-panties day.”
Such remarks do not go without comment. The country’s Women, Family and Community Minister, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, has already condemned the Terengganu state government’s boot camp, and Ibrahim’s antediluvian views have provoked widespread condemnation.
“Ibrahim must apologise and submit himself for gender sensitivity training,” said Teresa Kok, of the opposition Democratic Action Party. Nasrudin’s Valentine’s Day campaign, meanwhile, led to PAS’s youth leader being slapped down by more senior members of his own party.
Anwar’s sodomy trial, which has been dragging on since February 2010, is widely thought to be politically motivated. So is the sex tape, which was produced by a trio collectively known as “Datuk T” (Datuk being a Malaysian honorific all three bear), one of whom is a former Barisan state governor with a personal axe to grind against the opposition leader.
But while many dismiss the allegations, what Ziauddin Sardar calls “the seeds of doubt” have been planted in the minds of others. Sardar, a prominent scholar of Islam and cultural critic in this country, was an adviser to Anwar when he was deputy prime minister in the 1990s and warned him then that his enemies would seek to destroy him through manufacturing allegations of homosexuality.
“One can always fudge the evidence,” he told me. “And in Malaysia it carries a heavy penalty” – both a prison sentence (Anwar’s initial conviction for sodomy was later quashed) and, even before any verdict, the suspicion of the rural and religious Malays that he had been up to something “abhorrent and unnatural”.
Why, however, the torrent of other stories, whether they be the Chief Minister of Malacca urging council workers to look out for couples indulging al fresco at heritage sites, police raiding hotels to uncover Muslims committing khalwat (close proximity), or international pop singers being warned to cut back on risqué moves and outfits if they want to appear in the country?
“This phenomenon isn’t limited to Malaysia,” said Nik Nazmi, the communications director of Anwar’s party PKR, on the Malaysian Insider website recently. “But Malaysians seem to be possessed by an insatiable curiosity about what happens in other people’s bedrooms.”
It is sad that some Malaysian leaders/politicians are obsessed with sex scandals instead of putting in more effort and energy to help solve the country’s problems.
“Insatiable curiosity” of what goes in on in other bedrooms is one thing – but the other is condemning what goes on in other bed rooms (“holier than thou’) whilst doing freakish things in one’s own bed room (hypocrisy) which is the problem!
Sex is natural instinct – a biological imperative- without which human species will perish. To condemn every sexual expression outside the marital context as immoral and deviant – and use the power of the law and state to proscribe and punish it only promotes repression of a natural instinct that will otherwise seek relief and manifestation in even more deviant and terrible forms.
Off the cuff there’re 3 undesirable consequences in repressing & over-restricting a natural biological (God Given) sexual drive: (1) it exacerbates than solves a social problem; (2) it makes people more sex obsessed – and hypocritical and concentrate on irrelevant things and (3) basically oppresses and curbs individual freedom & happiness.
Allow me to digress.
There’s an article in the Malaysia Chronical which highlights the dangers of a tie-up
with SNAP.
Perhaps the DAP should clarify this matter as soon as possible.
“Sunday, 24 April 2011 12:02
Anwar, top PKR leaders meet in S’wak as DAP digs in on SNAP merger plans
Written by Wong Choon Mei, Malaysia Chronicle” – End of quote
Example of (1) – When strict taboos & punishment are imposed on (say) on premarital sex in the name of preventing unwanted babies, this problem becomes exacerbated than ameliorated. One cannot repress permanently & for long the natural and recurrent sexual urge – just like waves (water the softest element) beating against hard rocks, the hard rocks get worn & will give way and be eroded by the recurrence of the softest element!
In more relaxed sexual milieu people are more prepared to manage the problem of unplanned pregnancy with family & societal members help. Some couples marry, others become single parent with family support – less will be persuaded to resort to abortions or baby dumping than in an otherwise repressive society where they fear the intense shame & ostracism from family members and rigours of legal punishment, which is so overwhelming that they’re prepared to wrap the baby in a blanket and dump it somewhere hoping some Samaritans will notice and do something before some stray dogs do!
(2) (on hypocrisy & double standards) is another result of natural instinct being excessively restricted.
When people internalize these social/legal taboos and thereby come into conflict with their biological instincts, they might just attempt to fight their recurrent unconscious desire to do what is forbidden by being (a) first to condemn others who can be accused of having similar desires (it feels good to condemn and better punish severely others for doing what one wants to do but dares not or is prohibited from doing) and (b) act out their repressed impulses in subterfuge & camouflaged forms for eg join a vigilante group to scour lover haunts ostensibly to restrict the other’s immoral expression but in part in satisfy one’s own repressed desires by engaging in voyeurism in the name of duty.
Lastly I think to curb a natural instinct too excessively is cruel & unusual punishment. Having said that I am not advocating that the sexual instinct to be totally unregulated & uncontrolled. It will cause social chaos and many practical, problems as well. It is striking a balance between extremes of unlimited sexual expression/freedom on one hand & unbridled full repression of basic instinct on the other. Where to draw that line? It is for a given society – and the maturity of its members – to determine where that line ought to be drawn but, as always, be better drawn based on rational reasons than just reasons like it is prohibited because it is bad, it is sin, it is base or animal instinct etc deserving of divine punishment etc….The problems of repression stems from a person being expected to reconcile his basic instinct against what society restricts that causes intra-psychic conflicts. He can manage this conflicts better if he knows the rational grounds why he should express, in certain cases, restrains in other cases and exercises rational choice over which course of action he takes than have it foisted over him based on non rational grounds.
So, according to our parliamentarian, whilst husbands driving home after work, get sexually aroused seeing a bill board along the way featuring a (fully dressed) female model, it is his wife’s duty and proper role (when he reaches home) to immediately stop all cooking that she is doing at the moment in order to satisfy the husband urges – or else she’s not playing a proper role?
No wonder Sholto Byrnes asks “Are Malaysians obsessed with sex?”
According to what our wakil rakyat says, the age old saying & advice to women – that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach – is obviously not true in malaysian context!
One simple word
Malaysia because of these, have became the lowest political democratic in the world
When the middle east toward fairness, justice nation
We are towarding lower and lower political screen created from those disgusting corrupted politicians
What I wonder is why people have not compared to what happens in Singapore?? In Singapore, if such things happen, they are packed up and shipped away never to be heard from again. If you put aside the repressive governance which we are guilty of also, its a FAR SUPERIOR practical thing to do and reflects the huge difference in focussing on practical things.
The difference in focus on what is important is what exactly the difference between Malaysia and Singapore GDP..
UMNO has tarnished the image of the Malay race and culture as a sexually explicit and depraved.
//“But Malaysians seem to be possessed by an insatiable curiosity about what happens in other people’s bedrooms.”//
Will there be a next;Malaysian also seem to be possessed by an insatiable curiosity about what happens in other people’s toilet?Then got more shit evidence and shit DNA to prove along with i bra him’s another 3 Big shits.When will be the day the government can put all the priority issues above all this trivial,political conspiration and shit till lau sai more issues??Arr…quickly ‘Change The Government’…other wise our beloved canland will be so perfect for international sex industry filming hub.
We are no more in the league of nations…trying to forge economies, better the lives of the destitute, curing the sick or helping the maimed….
We are a banana republic for we are governed by baboons…..
How to live and progress with this ruling government when so much racial,dam,shabu,ice,heroin,Tongkat,viagra n lethal venom being foisted on our nation.
http://malaysiansmustknowthetruth.blogspot.com/2011/04/utusan-targets-kit-siang-in-screed-over.html
UmnoB tahu seks is d most desirable opium of Malays, encouraged by MMK 2 procreate
Of cos Perkosa I Bra Him demanded dat it is d duty of Muslim wives 2 dress up sexily 2 sexcite their hubbies so dat d latter will hungrily disrobe d former 2 conjugate
Meanwhile UmnoB continues 2 promulgate seks education through msm n sex scandals
We hv now back n frontal seks, homo n hetero seks, n d entire nation is exposed 2 TITillating facts n fancies
Expect more sexciting seks scandals 2 b exposed – grp seks, masochistic seks, seks with animals, etc all performed by (who else?) d star enemy #1 of UmnoB, a certain opposition leader (as we r all conditioned 2 think)
2 prepare 4 d next GE, UmnoB had mapped out its strategies – 2 hentam DAP, PKR incessantly with exaggerated news n lies through msm, esp Utusan M, oredi begun
Who knows, after AI, d next series of seks scandals exposed by UmnoB will involve LKS n LGE! Don’t pooh pooh it as when pigs can fly, cos in 1M’sia under UmnoB, semua pun BOLEH
Be warned n b prepared, LKS n LGE!
perkosa political retard katak Ibrahim is saying wives are not fulfilling their duties. katak is finding excuses for him to go after his daughter or grand daughter.
anyway, any woman would find all sorts of excuses from having to have seks with this ugly katak takde otak.
Look people. Look carefully. Yes at the word umno. It is a shortened word for the expression urrrrggghh mmmmooooo nnnno ooooohhh.
Cintanegara, why dont you go and phaark a tree, huh?
Cintanegara is now assigned in Sarawak to sexaiding the scarce forest.
Because it is an orgasmic talk which is done to make one looks as cheap as a whore. Every day and night, some whore full time or part time, lover, is doing sex business. Why don’t we talk about her or him ? There will be plenty of hot stories that will fill in time for coffee break and for not working in the office ?