Sampah Nonsense

Hamas Headband Mystery (I hate you, censorship)

- Trashed by SampahMan @ 10:03 PM

The Malaysian Censorship Board has done it again. This time, it has affected the June 19th 2006 edition of the Time Magazine. Previously when boobs and bare-asses were censored with the black ink, I would not hesitate to state that the Censorship Board are run by dumbasses who cannot tell the difference between pornography and nudity. This time however, I do not know what is underneath the black ink in the picture above. The caption says: "A woman in Gaza rallies for Hamas". In fact, I stayed in the can longer than expected trying to figure out the dangerous message that HAD to be censored by the old coots on the board. Therefore, I cannot criticize what I do not know.

Research on the Internet didn't help much either. The online copy of the article did not contain that picture. A search on "Samuel Aranda", the photographer from AFP did not yield much favorable results either. Search on "Hamas Headband" brought me to an Ebay listing but the words on both headbands were probably different (read the Ebay listing for a description of the words. Nothing out of the ordinary there).

So here is a plea to all you Hamas fans/Internet sleuths out there: Please help me find out what was written behind the black ink! I will supply you with whatever information I can get my hands on.

By the way, since we're on the topic of the Malaysian Censorship Board, if you caught "The Da Vinci Code" in cinemas, you would have noticed that the entire film was shown to us immature Malaysian minds UNCENSORED. Usually, the excuses that were given for censorship of films was that the scene was too sexy, violent, etc. and by snipping it off, the story would still make sense. Previously ANY nudity would have been snipped off regardless of context, those WERE the rules, the old coots were told.
So I wondered, why didn't they snip off the albino Opus Dei dude who was whipping himself while showing us his bare buttocks? It didn't really matter if they censored it, the story would still be intact.

Then the conspiracy theorist in me put 2 and 2 together. Let's start by saying that we are in an era of accelerated Islamization of our woefully secular country (I'm sure you've seen signs of it happening everywhere, you're just too afraid to say anything about it, because you shall not blaspheme against Islam). My theory was that the censorship board did not censor this show because they wanted to show (or prove) to all gullible Malaysians the backwardness and cruelty (kezaliman) of the Christian faith. Thankfully, those Christians and non-Christians that I have talked to can differentiate fiction and non-fiction. Because they know that a movie shall not shake their faith. Unlike the people who burn cities because of a few comics in a Danish newspaper (by the way, if you have not seen the cartoons yet, you can go Google it. Some of it are pretty funny, and yes, comics are meant to be funny).

So there you have it. A simple Malaysian's personal experience of the current state of the Malaysian Censorship Board, and also a guarded statement that our country should have less religious tolerance, and more religious acceptance.

Oh, why do I fucking hate the Malaysian Censorship Board? February 13th 2006, Time Magazine. You judge for yourself below.

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