Public entertainment is no sin and cinemas are no vice

WHAT could have possessed Dr Shafie Abu Bakar to want to ban cinemas in Bangi? The straightforward answer is that the PAS assemblyman wanted to discourage vice activities in the area.

Where then is the connection between cinemas and vice? That exists essentially in Dr Shafie’s stressed-out mind, and what a prissy, pent-up place that must be.

Of course, vice is something that no society can or should tolerate. But public entertainment outlets like cinemas are generally well managed and regulated in this country.

Vice, however, can happen wherever there is demand and supply: coffeeshops, foodstalls, shopping centres, car parks, street corners and private residences, among many locations. Will we now hear calls to shut all these places?

Malaysians have been subjected to similar dim-witted notions in the past, such as the one about shutting 24-hour restaurants to discourage criminal activity. What next, close down 24-hour petrol stations and seven-day-a-week ATMS?

This kind of ludicrous Third World mindset works only to stifle legitimate business activities while making Malaysia a laughing stock in the world. It does nothing to achieve its purported aim, while only pretending to serve its distorted sense of piety.

Dr Shafie’s pathetic nonsense boggles the mind and beggars belief. The problem for cinemas is not the “vice” that he imagines, but the kind of vicious policies that he seeks.

He is no ordinary simpleton, being an elected public official with higher education qualifications. Yet we are being treated to this insult to the integrity of Malaysian cinemagoers.

If this is the best that a PAS assemblyman can propose as a public service, anyone would shudder at the other similar offerings of his party colleagues.

They have for too long slid too effortlessly from a supposed purism of faith to a rampant puritanism in everything.

It is high time that PAS’ partners in Pakatan Rakyat state clearly where they stand on these public interest issues. Let the public know; elections require people to make informed choices, so failure to inform people of their options amounts to gross neglect and wilful negligence.

Malaysians have already responded online in rejecting such flagrant extremism in our nation’s policies. All candidates for public office from every political party needing and seeking public support have a moral duty to do the same.