Monday, October 08, 2001

Never Enough Anti-Hysteria Department

A Malaysian reporter weighs in on the ban against black metal currently enforced by the Malay government.

C O L U M N S - Gov't blues, Black Metal and a red herring

I suppose I can take the anti-Black Metal campaign a mite more seriously if the timing hadn't been too convenient for comfort. But at a time when students are being detained under the ISA for daring to express views that differ from those professed at the recent Umno general assembly, and when the government itself is hell-bent on proving its religious credentials against the intransigent orthodoxies of the dominant opposition party, rounding up and detaining scores of kids in shopping malls just because they happen to be wearing black T-shirts with symbols even they probably didn't give any thought to seems too propitious.


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