Malaysia cancelled a rock concert but metal fans made us proud

For those of you who typically stereotype people, it’s time to be blown away.

Check out this Facebook posting 2 weeks ago:

For those of you who don’t know Carcass (like this writer, so please forgiveses me), they are a British metal band from Liverpool. Some of their early work genres are grindcore, splatter death metal, hardgore and goregrind, and their later work is described as melodic death metal, according to Wikipedia.

So when people stereotype metalheads, they usually think of crazy hair, spikes and studs, tatts, sign of the horns, satanic face make-up and other weird occultic stuff. Patriotism probably isn’t one of them, right?

So how do you think they reacted to the Facebook post?

How fans (now possibly ex-fans) really reacted…

Whoa! Can you smell that? That’s PATRIOTISM.

People were outright furious at Carcass for disrespecting Jalur Gemilang.

Turning a national flag upside down is seen as a sign of disrespect. Along with burning it, urinating on it, shouting insults at it, and shooting at it with guns (wth?).

Anyone would have thought Carcass’ fans would get upset because their band won’t get to play here. Quite a normal reaction for any fan, right? But they stood up for their country. It goes to show that Malaysians can restore your faith in national loyalty, through something so random as a band banned from playing here.

But speaking of stereotyping…

TV viewers show their ugly side

So if people stereotype Astro Awani audience, they’d probably think, these people have Astro, means they have decent homes, they’re interested in current events, they like to be educated and up to speed on news, etc.

Then 2 days later, when Astro Awani posted this up on Facebook:

You’d think hundreds of Astro watchers would be posting up condolences on Lee Kuan Yew, right?

But here’s how some people responded:

You can read the report by The Malay Mail Online here.

We don’t know any other way to say it la – these comments are so backward and narrow-minded. Usually after someone has passed away, you should show some respect for him and sympathy for the family. If you don’t know how to, follow these steps.

Even rivals know to be respectful. Our former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir and Lee Kuan Yew had their differences, but he wrote this on his blog (yeah, the one that was temporarily suspended):

“I cannot say I was a close friend of Kuan Yew. But still I feel sad at his demise.” – Tun Dr. Mahathir, Chedet.cc

And why bad mouth Astro Awani? Like every media channel, they were just doing their job – reporting NEWS. The Multimedia and Communications Minister said:

“As a news channel, when they report something, air something live and so on, it is not seen as a sign of respect but from the angle of whether something has news value.

A news channel is a platform to present news that people want to know about.” – Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek, Multimedia and Communications Minister, The Malay Mail Online

Seriously, it’s as if these commenters saw the post and went:

But we were so happy to see people reminding others than there was no need for negativity and thanking Astro Awani for the coverage.

And the moral of the story…

Sorry we sound like Mother Goose, but, what we learned from this lesson is Malaysians are a surprising bunch and we should never stereotype.

Metalheads, we didn’t expect would be so geram against their own favourite band. On the other hand, those few Astro viewers, we didn’t expect to react so narrow-mindedly against the satellite TV service for covering a standard international news event.

When something happens, do we rise above the occasion or do we stomp our feet in a tantrum? From these 2 cases, it looks like we’ve got both types of people. So the moral is, you can never judge Malaysians by their music tastes or Astro subscription.

“We typically stereotype those whom we do not understand or about whom we have no knowledge.” – Sally Raskoff, Chair of Sociology and Ethnic Studies at Los Angeles Valley College, Everyday Sociology Blog