An ethnic Chinese rapper who enraged authorities with a profanity-strewn anti-racism rant on YouTube says he was only trying to speak out against discrimination in multiracial Malaysia.
Wee Meng Chee, 27, better known as Namewee to his fans, was hauled in for a police grilling last month over the clip which saw him accused of stirring up ethnic tensions — a taboo in a country where race is a sensitive issue.
In the three-minute rap titled Nah, Wee used obscene language to bitterly criticize a Muslim Malay headmistress who is accused of making racial slurs against her ethnic Chinese and Indian students.
“My purpose is to stand up against racism,” insisted the flamboyant rapper, who has developed a cult following among young Malaysians.
His Facebook page has more than 340,000 followers, and his songs have had more than 600,000 hits on YouTube.
“Regardless of what I did was right or wrong, whether you like it or not, I am just giving you an extra choice — you can choose not to watch it,” Wee said.
The rapper, who began writing songs at 15 and graduated with a mass communications degree from Ming Chuan University in Taiwan, first made headlines in 2007 over another YouTube clip of his song Negarakuku mocking the national anthem. The parody touched on abuse of power, corruption, government bureaucracy and controversial positive discrimination policies designed to advance Muslim Malays who dominate the population.
Authorities condemned the performance as seditious, and pulled him in for what would be the first of three police interrogations during his short career. Wee apologized and escaped charges.
His latest clip Nah, which authorities also said was seditious, prompted criticism, including from the prime minister who warned of tough action against those who try to provoke racial tensions.
Elements in the ruling party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), called for his citizenship to be revoked and for the rapper to be held under internal security laws that allow for detention without trial.
“He cannot be let off the hook again,” Rosnah Abdul Rashid Shirlin, the chief of UMNO’s young women’s wing who first made the complaint over the Nah video, reportedly said at the time.
“We regret that whenever the Malays talk about their rights, they are described as racist, but at the same time the non-Malays are free to say anything,” she said, calling for a tough response to act as a deterrent to others.
Wee, who would face up to three years in jail on sedition charges, insists he has done nothing wrong.
“We should be able to speak up and not keep quiet when we have to deal with injustice,” he said.
“Malaysia should be a country that treats everyone fairly, regardless of their different background, Wee said.
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