No Black Eyed Peas for Malaysian Muslims

The band, that is. Thanks to a government decree today, Muslims in Malaysia will not be allowed to attend the group’s concert next month. The policy, as told to the AP goes like this: “Muslims cannot attend. Non-Muslims can go and have fun.”

So… Where is the Love? It’s not the hip-hoppers that Malaysia is concerned about; it’s the event’s sponsor, Guinness. It’s part of a bid to crack down on alcohol use among the Muslim majority. On top of this incident, liquor sales are being watched more closely, and sharia courts — set up for the civil cases of Muslim adherents — are taking the laws seriously, granting rough penalties for infractions.

Not everyone is happy about all this, and not just because they will miss a rockin show. The country’s minority Indian, Chinese, and other ethnic populations have often chafed against the government’s pro-Malay (and hence pro-Muslim) politics. In regional elections earlier this year, ethnic and religion tensions came to fever pitch. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim led a multiethnic coalition that came the closest in memory to actually challenging years of pro-Malay rule by the United Malays National Organization and its partners.

So why did Malaysia give this concert a go-ahead in the first place? Tourism revenue, it seems. But there’s more Humps on the road to winning Black Eyed Peas cash than it seemed.

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