Thursday, January 17, 2008

If You Can't Laugh at Yourself, Who Can?

Some time ago I asked (playing Devil's advocate, I admit) whether Malaysians "get" satire.

Well, perhaps there are those in the Malaysian Internal Security Department (KDN) who (*gasp*) don't. The Wikipedia website reports that:
... Uncyclopedia, a parody of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, has been labeled by the Malaysian government as dangerous. The Internal Security Department of Malaysia issued the warning today, saying that the site has "messages and information insulting Malaysia".
And just how is Malaysia depicted? Here's a snippet:
Essentially the penis of Asia which is located to the north of their cousins who live on an even smaller island Singapore, Malaysia (also known as Bolehland) is a young nation of diverse cultures and races such as F1 Formula-1 and Nascar. The timezone of Malaysia is unique because it follows the system of +1/+2 PMT (Predetermined Meeting Time) which is 1 or 2 hours later than PMT. Most foreigners have difficulty adjusting to this new timezone as they tend to show up 1 or 2 hours earlier than the local counterparts. The nation is moving forward with a vision towards becoming a developed nation by the year 2020, 3030, 4040 or whatever catchy number. ... Another common state that Malaysians have is denial (no lah, where got?), which incidentally, is a river in Egypt.
The Internal Security Department urges folks not to circulate the content of the site. (Ooops!)

And in response to the warning, the Uncyclopedia Internal Security Department has issued one of its own ... and asked all Malaysians not to use the country today.

Please do your best to comply.

I picked up the story from Howsy and it is also covered by Jeff.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ouch, truth hurts, don't it? But our politicians are still immature and can't take criticisms lah...

- Poppadumdum

Anonymous said...

And I told you recently Malaysia IS shaped like a penis and that Singapore is the foreskin cut off! Small minds think alike! You think Uncyclopedia plagiarised me ah? I must ask Ms. Hudson's advice.
- Poppadumdum

bibliobibuli said...

now i know why all the boys i taught at mckk were laughing at me when i drew a rough map of the country on the board ... 22 years later i can blush

Anonymous said...

Male-asia !

-PPdumdum

bibliobibuli said...

owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Cain said...

Are we totally certain that the Internal Security Department of Malaysia doesn't actually have a far superior grasp on satire than anyone could have ever imagined? I've been laughing pretty much non-stop since heard the news.

Anonymous said...

They should add "mostly harmless" to that list.

Anyway, this is the land where people criticize the government for doing what they would have done themselves :)