Johor-born rapper and director Namewee has done it again.
Last month, Namewee (real name Wee Meng Chee) released a new video for a Mandarin song entitled, “Oh My God”, which touched on various religions in Malaysia, including Islam. Featuring Taiwanese band Nine-One-One (911), the video, directed and produced by Namewee was shot in a number of places of worship in Penang.
It also includes a montage of visuals and sounds of religious prayers, a church choir singing, Buddhist meditation chants and gongs, and even the ringing of Hindu temple bells. Namewee can be heard saying, “Hallelujah”, “Om Mani Padme Hum”, “Allah”, and “Namo Amitabha” in the video.
Within a day, the YouTube video garnered over 40,000 views before it was taken down.
In speaking about “Oh My God” in one of his “Tokok” episodes on YouTube, Namewee insisted that the concept behind the music video was to promote religious harmony between Malaysians. “We just want to promote harmony within all religions. Many countries are having religious issues which caused a lot of terrorist attacks. Some countries even have conflicts which continued without reconciliation for centuries,” he said.
“So we combined the four main religions, we travel together happily and we’re having great times together. It’s a rare picture,” he added.
“Let’s open our hearts because a truly great religion will accept, understand, and be tolerant of others in all aspects,” Namewee concluded.
Unfortunately for the controversial artiste, despite his good intentions (as he claims), the authorities are now hot on his heels following the release of “Oh My God”. Penang Northeast district police chief Assistant Commisioner Mior Fraidalathrash Wahid confirmed that Namewee is currently abroad and that the authorities could not divulge his location as it may affect the ongoing investigation.
“We will arrest him as soon as he returns to Malaysia to help in the investigations on the video clip recording which has been said to have spread through social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp last week,” Utusan Online quoted him as saying.
The police have already opened an investigation paper on Namewee’s “Oh My God”, following reports lodged by 20 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), claiming that the rapper had insulted Islam.
Mior Fraidalathrash added that 4 other reports have also been lodged against Namewee at the Jalan Patani police station since 27th July, the first being a report from the chairperson of the floating mosque in Tanjung Bungah – based on suspicions that some scenes from the video were shot within the mosque’s compound.
The case is being investigated under Section 295 of the Penal Code for defiling a place of worship with the intent of insulting a religion.
Source: Namewee, Utusan Online.
