October 17, 2024
KUALA LUMPUR – “HE was in drag?” I asked a Datuk friend of mine who attended Singaporean stand-up comedian Kumar’s show in Kuala Lumpur on Friday night.
My friend sent me a photograph of Kumarason Chinna-durai, popularly known as Kumar, taken during the comedian’s Beats, Rhymes & Punchlines international show.
In the photo, Kumar, who is also an actor, television host, and drag queen, is wearing a red suit, matching pants, and heels.
“Wah! He’s wearing a suit,” I replied in our group chat.
“Kumar complained. You can’t wear a dress nowadays in Malaysia. He asked the audience to write to Anwar,” my friend replied, referring to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
“Kumar said it is very difficult to do shows or concerts here. Most concerts/shows now skip Malaysia and go to Singapore, Thailand, or Indonesia. An entertainment licence is very difficult to get. Can’t wear a dress and say certain jokes,” my friend elaborated.
In the early 1990s, Kumar made a name at the Boom Boom Room, a cabaret nightclub in Singapore. There was also a Boom Boom Room in KL.
As a rookie reporter back then, I spent considerable time and money in the KL spot to be entertained by comedian Joanne Kam Poh Poh and her drag queens. Kam’s description of the Boom Boom Room as “kind of like Sodom and Gomorrah” was a little over the top, though.
Most of the capital’s who’s who patronised the cabaret, including some who were members of the Cabinet of then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Datuks and Datins, socialites, fashionistas, and fashion designers.
You would have thought that when Pakatan Harapan and Anwar came to power in December 2022, Malaysia would “Ubah!” (to use the then-Opposition coalition’s slogan). That Malaysia would become a progressive and accepting country.
However, some who voted for Pakatan feel the unity government panders too much to conservatives. They think – rightly or wrongly – that the Prime Minister is not stopping the wave of conservatism that is seemingly rising in Malaysia. Some even suspect Anwar is more supportive of the conservatives than the progressives who made his dream of becoming Prime Minister come true.
Some are also disappointed that the DAP is silent on many matters now that it is in power, unlike when it was in the Opposition.
One example is that DAP did not stand up for its MP, Teresa Kok, when she came under police investigation for raising concerns over a halal certification proposal. They also noted that the Prime Minister reprimanded Kok, the Seputeh MP, for generating “unnecessary controversy”.
Some also point to the lacklustre Chinese voter turnout in the Mahkota state seat by-election in Johor as evidence that the community has cooled its support for the Prime Minister and the unity government.
Was the Chinese turnout almost 50%, as the then Johor DAP chairman Liew Chin Tong claimed? Or was it slightly over 30%, as some political analysts calculated?
“The Chinese are fed up with this government. They are also worried that Malaysia under Anwar is becoming conservative,” a political analyst who believes that only about 30% of the community turned out to vote told me.
A defender of the unity government, however, told me that a by-election is a by-election, and it doesn’t reflect national sentiment.
The Mahkota result is also a wake-up call to Perikatan Nasional.
The message is that it should go to the centre and rather then entrench itself on the conservative right.
If Perikatan can’t increase the 74 MP seats it won in the 2022 General Election), it doesn’t have the numbers to rule Malaysia. It will need sizable numbers from Sarawak’s 31 parliamentary seats and Sabah’s 25 to form a “unity government”.
But the conservatism of the backbone of Perikatan, Bersatu and PAS, is spooking the Sabah and Sarawak-based parties.
Bersatu Youth chief Wan Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal hit the nail on the head when he said his party should pivot from its core philosophy of championing the Malay struggle and push to be more inclusive by fighting for the needs of non-Malays and non- Muslims. The Machang MP said that Bersatu must champion the people regardless of background to gain power in Putrajaya at the next general elections.
Back to my Datuk friend who attended Kumar’s show. This is his text in our chat group: “Our politicians have become sensitive and people around them more sensitive. During Dr M’s days comedians could make fun of him, but now it’s sensitive.”
“The power gap in Malaysia is big. At the end of the day, they are just fellow Malaysians who were elected by us. They should be open to criticism and jokes, more so when they make stupid or ridiculous or funny statements,” he wrote.
Kumar will be performing in Kota Kinabalu next week. I hope he will not find my Sabah, which is considered culturally progressive, to be a drag.