April was quite a hilarious month for us. April showers should bring May laughters, I’d say. I have been reading about the ongoing cases of demons possessing humans in Kelantan, a university developing an ‘anti-hysteria kit’, a Sharia-compliant airline doing non-compliant business, 15,000 bomohs pledging support for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, and to make matters bigger, a report of a stall selling chickens that have undergone ‘Quranic therapy’, at twice the price.

I wrote my own news report on the case of the mass hysteria and on Pontianak the she-demon on trial.

BREAKING NEWS... bigger than Malaysia's 1MDB

PutarJaya, April 22, 2016: The cause of the recent mass hysteria in Pengkalan Che’ Pa Kelantan has already been discovered. The demon or evil spirit responsible was not The Pontianak (The Nail-in-the Neck-Daughter of Ponti-Female-Ghost from Pontian, Johor) as claimed. She was arrested under the Intestinal Insecurity Act of 2015, Malaysia’s notorious and draconian and Draculanian Act preventing conversion, reversion, and possession of human beings.

It replaced the Orang Bunian Act of 2014 which prosecute those illegal voters who received instant identity cards if they could prove that they were possessed by demons at the time of the general elections.

Pontianak denied possessing the spirits of those girls.

“This is certainly as conspiracy against me and the entire rusty-nail industry,” she yelled and screamed and shrieked in the Kota Baru police station. Her lawyer, Draku anak Ular (dracula, in short) formerly a rock star-turned televangelist and who had made a U-turn to become a criminal lawyer specialising in demon possessions, was with her.

Pontianak will be bathed, perfumed, and sent for cosmetic surgery in Sydney before being presented to the judge and the 500-men jury - in a trial fashioned after the 5th century in Athens, Greece when the fate of Socrates was decided upon, ‘No bathe, no trial’ Judge Sir Nahi Mungkar said.

Pontianak is not keeping silent. She is claiming invisibility and transparency on the matter.

New evidence, provided by the government’s private investigators, The Toyols (little golems in bottles bought wholesale in Mecca) reveals that there is strong possibility that Pontianak may have been framed.

Police, with the help of private investigators and a team of Forensic Ghost Busters from Golok are now looking for a new suspect: HANTU GULI or the Marble Ghosts claimed by some of those possessed as being the real culprit in kidnapping those female souls in Pengkalan Che’ Pa.

This new development is going to shock the nation. There has been no record of a ghost by the name of Marble Ghost or HANTU GULI. The closest to that name the police have is THE MARBLE CAKE.

Or the case of losing one’s marbles.

Details at Friday Night midnight. As always.

The trial of Pontianak

“Where were you on the night of Friday the 13th. in Pengkalan Che’ Pa?" the chief prosecutor, Pandawa anak Raya, yelled into Pontianak’s left ear.

“I was with Hantu Galah outside Hankyu Jaya Alor Star. We were playing ‘galah panjang’.”

“After that?” Pandawa roared.

“We went to Pekan Rabu to get some nasi lemak kaw kaw and drink some minyak gamat Langkawi.”

“After that?”

“We walked invisibly to Bulatan Wan Jah to meet with Hantu Raya and Hantu Laut. We were practicing our Rempit-izing skills for the upcoming KL Grand Rempit Prix organised by the City Mayor. You know, every Friday night is KL Rempit Maharaja Lela night. They have a racing category for ghosts like us. They call it Ghost Riders.”

“After the meeting... you go where?” the prosecutor screamed into Pontianak’s right ear, in seemingly bad Malaysian English.

“Then we went to do some laundry.”

“What laundry? Be specific, You Devil Woman!”

“MONEY LAUNDERING lah... bodoh punya lowyar buruk!” Pontianak was losing her cool after being yelled at in both ears.

“And then?”

“WE ATE 6,821 AMERICAN PIES. Yes, that many was sent to us through our secret restaurant in PutarJaya. Restoren Satu MalaysianDah Tahu Of course, being ghosts we ate everything and nothing.”

“What do you mean those pies were missing?” the prosecutor, dressed like Darth Vader, barked.

“Well, as ghosts, what you eat will all end up on the ground or the floor. We do not have stomachs like you human beings.”

“I rest my case, Your Honour,” Pandawa anak Raya said to the judge. “This is getting too nauseating and disgusting. Eating that many American pies and not taking the responsibility of going to a proper toilet, Dajjal punya perempuan hantu! Mau tipu ka?” he looked at Pontianak and screamed, this time, into both ears. A stereophonic scream.

‘Quranic Therapy Chicken’

And then there was this story of a Pasar Malam stall selling ‘Quranic Therapy Chicken’? I wrote these on my Facebook:

BELIEVE ME

HELP ME

GET ME A STRAIGHT JACKET

PLEASE SEND ME TO THE ASYLUM

I can’t stop laughing... been five minutes already... !

A stall in Malaysia selling chickens that have been made to go through a ‘Quranic therapy’ before being slaughtered. It is more than halal and costs twice more... because of the Quran therapy and the ‘public conversion’ from a pagan chicken to an Islamic chicken now, just in time before they were sent to the gallows... I am laughing while typing this .... we are seeing the fall of the Colonel Sanders Empire as we are laughing! HA HA HA AYAM TERAPI QURAN... AYAM HYSTERIA!

QURANIC-THERAPY CHICKENS NOW AVAILABLE ONLY in MALAYSIA

Doubly-Halal slaughtered, Double-priced for quality assurance. Islamised before slaughterised. The only kind of chicken in the world prepared with the highest dose of religiosity. You think our chickens are expensive? Well - go eat pagan ones then!

Our chickens are double shariah-compliant and we made sure each of them gets a headphone for their pre-slaughtering therapy... If you too are stressed and depressed... you must try our therapeutic chicken.

For corporate orders of a hundred and one birds, we give you a free Anti-Hysteria Kit! And for two hundred and two orders you get a free CD of Zakir Naik’s recipe for Chicken Masala.

On the capitalising of religion and the invention of the anti-hysteria kit, I wrote these:

RELIGION, PSEUDO-SCIENCE, QUACK-ISM, and CAPITALISM at work?

but seriously here are some questions:

Because you claimed that this kit was developed using scientific studies and methods,

  • How do you then test the effectiveness of it as a product, using scientific methods of data collection,
  • How do you collect data and triangulate and test validity and reliability?
  • Do you interview the ghosts, too?
  • Do you put the demons under a microscope?
  • Do you set up controlled/experimental design? Of the possessed and not possessed? How do you get legal consent from the participants?
  • What methodology will you use?
  • Do you even consider a study of ‘demon/spirit’ possession as worthy of a ‘scientific study’?
  • How does science responds to phenomena based on superstition?
  • Or are you capitalising on the Malay-Muslim gullibility and trying to profit from it and thereby bringing pseudo-science to a level of pseudo-religiosity? – ar

Profiting on gullibility of human beings

On the story of 15,000 bomohs supporting Najib, I wrote these:

SERIOUSLY

I am not kidding... not Harry Potter stuff either

I think we should have a university on Bomoh-ism

we can call it University Bomohisma Satu Malaya (or University Da’Bom)

we need lots of ANGEL investors

15,000 Malay bomohs supporting Najib .

Those were the notes I made to document direction Malaysian-Muslims are taking in using religion to profit on the gullibility of human beings. The culture of scientism and pseudo-science enmeshed with the zealousness of some Muslims and the desperate need to be ‘shariah-compliant’ have made Malaysia an interesting case study of how religion in the practice of daily lives is evolving but also how stories as hilarious as these are developing as a smokescreen to the larger issue of the globally-linked and pervasive issue of the mega-massive corruption case of the 1MDB.

Yet, religion has been used as the ganja of the masses. Because there are addicts. And that is not a laughing matter.

DR AZLY RAHMAN grew up in Johor Baru, Malaysia and holds a Columbia University (New York City) doctorate in International Education Development and Masters degrees in the fields of Education, International Affairs, Peace Studies and Communication. He will be pursuing his fifth Masters in Fine Arts, specialising in Fiction and Poetry Writing. He has taught more than 50 courses in six different departments and has written more than 350 analyses/essays on Malaysia. His 25 years of teaching experience in Malaysia and the United States spans over a wide range of subjects, from elementary to graduate education. He has edited and authored six books; Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present, Future (2009), Thesis on Cyberjaya: Hegemony and Utopianism in a Southeast Asian State (2012), The Allah Controversy and Other Essays on Malaysian Hypermodernity (2013), Dark Spring: Essays on the Ideological Roots of Malaysia's General Elections-13 (2013), a first Malay publication Kalimah Allah Milik Siapa?: Renungan dan Nukilan Tentang Malaysia di Era Pancaroba (2014), and Controlled Chaos: Essays on Mahathirism, Multimedia Super Corridor and Malaysia’s ‘New Politics’ (2014). He currently resides in the United States where he teaches courses in Education, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Political Science, and American Studies. His forthcoming book, One Malaysia, under God, Bipolar, a joint project between Gerakbudaya and World Wise Books of New Jersey, USA, is his seventh compilation of essays on Malaysian Cultural, Creative, and Critical Studies. He is currently working on his eighth book, on Gifted and Talented Education in Malaysia, honouring a prominent educator. Twitter, blog.