Boycott Malaysia
Yes I am back, fresh from a stay at a lesbian hotel in Penang – well at least I am assuming it was a lesbian hotel because none of the women I spoke to would sleep with me.
I actually got back almost two weeks ago but then my computer died and now a new graphics card and $200 later I am ready to go.
After narrowly avoiding the tsunami that hit Penang on Dec 26 by about 12 hours (I thought the tsunami hit about 9am but it didn’t hit Penang til about 1pm and I arrived about 1am the following morning)
Anyway – we’ll come to that in a moment. Let’s talk about my boycott.
What did it to me was at the Penang War Museum. There was a section that was essentially a documentation and show case of the Japanese atrocities. They had pictures of women whom had been raped and beaten, a man the Japanese had beaten then locked in his house as they burnt it down with him in it. He somehow managed to crawl out but suffering terrible burns.
They had the various "tools" on display that the Japanese used to torture and execute POW's
And in the middle of it all was a picture montage of the Iraq War (with most of the pictures having the Al Jizzeater watermark copyright) and all these dead bodies, essentially equating the Liberation of Iraq to the Japanese atrocities of WW2 such as the Railroad of Death..
Apart from even being there in total disrespect – just think about that.
That is the biggest fucking insult to those who suffered at the hands of the Japanese that I can think of. And I find it especially offensive since there were so many Australians who suffered at the hands of the Japanese such as those in the Alexandra Hospital in Singapore. Soldiers were bayoneted while on the operating table and their surgeons shot. Nine orderlies wearing Red Cross armbands were gunned down by the Japanese. One Australian soldier was coming down the stairs with his arm in a sling. He got to bottom and saw the Japanese there. He just stood and stared. One of the Japanese soldiers went over and bayoneted him.
A total fucking disgrace.
Now. I don't know who put it there and I don't give a fuck if the government had anything to do with it. I don't care to give them a chance to rectify it. Fuck them for that.
That was pretty much all I needed, but then came the icing on the cake.
Then came the call to cancel New Years celebrations. I was going to be in Kuala Lumpur for New Year’s Eve and was looking forward to what I had hoped would be a spectacular show.
Other nations cancelled their celebrations and that is fine (but I was very happy to see Australia didn’t and the Sydney show went ahead). When places like Ache and Sri Lanka and Phuket have lost hundreds of thousands of lives, and have been so totally devastated, celebrating the new year is a low priority – but Malaysia didn’t lose tens of thousands or suffer much damage.
Malaysia lost 67. Terrible for the families of those 67 but lets put it in perspective. Only 67 dead and very little damage. No infrastructure damage. No problems with running water. No risk of disease.
And it was the way in which it was announced.
Private organisations and non-muslims were referred to as such and told to cancel all new years celebrations by the government. The government cancelled celebrations and called on all non-muslims to do the same. "You must do what we muslims tell you must do"
Not "The government has cancelled all celebrations and asks all individuals to do the same out of respect." Nope. The government has to identify itself as muslim. So much for ruling for everyone. Just another excuse for muslims to say “we are doing this and all you infidels must do the same”
The muslims get all sort of special treatment that the Hindus and Buddhists don't get such as discounted housing prices. A number of years back, the decision was made to build the State mosque in Penang. Everyone in Penang had to contribute – everyone – parents and children. Adults paid with taxes, children were required to donate something at school. They were required to do this because the State mosque would be like a cultural centre as well and open to all – hence all had to contribute to it. Except of course, once it was built and paid for, only muslims were allowed to visit. Everyone else was banned.
Which makes it pretty much like every other mosque. All the Hindu and Buddhist temples in the travel brochures were open to all who wished to visit. Their only request was that you remove your shoes upon entering. For the one mosque listed in the tourist brochure "All visitors must obtain permission from the [insert dickhead in charge] to enter"
In a tourist brochure - I shit you not.
And when we made the mistake of saying Malaysia was primarily a muslim country, our Hindu taxi driver explained that when the British left, they handed over power to a council of muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists to run the place, but that the muslims had essentially used thuggery and the such to take more power from the others. That is only one cabbie's opinion but entirely consistent with muslim behaviour pretty much everywhere else.
So fuck Malaysia. They neither need nor deserve your tourist dollars. Yes food and accommodation is cheap. Yes software and dvds are dirt cheap. But this is also the case of Thailand. There is cheap food and cheap accommodation in Thailand. There is cheap software, dvds and shopping in Thailand as well.
Thailand was hit very hard by the tsunami. Its main tourist area has been devastated, and the fact that tourism is the lifeblood of the Thai economy, only compounds the problem.
And with the gracious offer from the Thai government to fly all the bodies of foreign nationals back home and apparent offer to pay for their burial - I would rather send my tourist dollars to them as they clearly have a greater need for it and are far more deserving.
Oh and if you do have to transit through Kuala Lumpur and find yourself there for a few days, stay at the Sheraton Imperial. Fucking beautiful hotel and they were one place that told the government to go fuck themselves and didn't cancel their big New Year's Eve bash.
And as Mr Scottish Jew always said, the quality of "cheap" software and dvds available in Thailand is much higher than the shit available in Malaysia. After seeing so many of mine turn into nothing but blocks on screen I see that he is right. How fucking hard is it to not fuck up a dvd burn.? You put it and burn it - where is the window to fuck that up and yet these arseholes somehow manage it..... errr..... not that I do that sort of thing of course.....
© by Tiberius Alatheus 2005