KLue published a list of five things that catapulted Malaysia to international infamy, and does it hit the spot! Haha!
Right on number two is the case of Kartika’s caning, eloquently put:
She will be the first Malaysian woman to be caned under Syariah law. Never mind that she’s a woman, or that caning, as corporal punishment in general, makes us look medieval. Kartika will be caned because she was drinking beer – a personal moral decision into which the state should have no business interfering.
However, our favourite is number three, our so-called “space exploration”:
Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, the first Malaysian national to transcend terra firma, was originally slated to play batu seremban, paint batik, and make teh tarik during his stint in the International Space Station.
“We want to awe and inspire, and spur Malaysians to attain greater success by embracing science and technology,” said then-Innovation Minister Datuk Seri Jamaluddin Jarjis. The Americans, incensed, refused to let us use the word “astronaut”.
Hah! We can not agree more when KLue suggested:
This is the sort of thing that gets quack science like V M Palaniappan’s homophobic H1N1 cure noticed; and real achievement like UNIMAS’s discovery of the 5th malaria species ignored.
Who says Malaysia is not famous?
Do you have anything that we can add to this list? Let us know in the comments!
