Uh-oh, looks like heinous foreign invaders are at our doorstep again. And, yes, "we" (read "us, united Malaysians") need to focus our attention and work together these next couple of months (preferably until after the Umno general assembly and elections in May) to repel this invasion of the foreign mind-snatchers.

So, folks in the mainstream media, let's have less talk about whether the No. 1 and 2 positions in Umno should - and will - be contested. Let's not give Ku Li and Musa Hitam any more column inches.

Let's totally disregard Harakah's most recent plight and the damnable and undemocratic decision that it was handed. No, come on friendly media hacks, let's get this whole darn country together to terminate (yet again) these foreign monsters called program asing (foreign programmes).

Yes, indeed, let's stop - or at least regulate - that supposed purveyor of porn, that facilitator of filth, that manipulator of morals, Astro.

Four years since it started operating as Malaysia's first satellite television station, Astro, is currently reported to have 300,000 subscribers.

And now, suddenly, as if awakened from a drunken stupor, an assortment of community leaders, artists and cultural "experts" - a.k.a. "moral guardians" - are all at once crawling out of the woodwork and into the mainstream media.

In so doing, they trip clumsily over each other in an attempt, firstly, to prevent "foreign influences" through Astro programmes from becoming more widespread in this country and, secondly, to prevent these influences from adversely affecting racial harmony.

Yep, looks like it's "let's save our precious culture and bangsa " time again, folks. A time, that is, when there's a need to shift the public's attention away from messy political upheavals in the country, especially when the public is viewing the country's leaders rather cynically.

A time, certainly, when this cynical, skeptical public needs to be brought back to the fold, as it were. A time, therefore, when a moral panic is invented and the necessary "folk devils" need to be sourced out, to act as scapegoats, who are identified as a threat to the moral fabric of Malaysian society.

A couple of decades back, Michael Jackson and breakdancers were the folk devils. Also, there was the short-lived Solid Gold on TV3. More recently, in the mid-1990s, there was the supposed problem of lepak . Spasmodically, there were the "immoral" television shows or rock concerts.

It is obvious, therefore, that more often than not, the problem would centre on the young and their leisure activities, particularly what they supposedly watch on television and what they do in their spare time. Additionally, the focus would be - as it obviously is now - on a certain ethnic/religious community.

Indeed, how could any rational, responsible citizen not be concerned about the welfare of the young or a major ethnic/religious group? Both have tremendous drawing power when one is appealing to narrow nationalist sentiments, as is the situation now.

So, all this current talk and so-called debates surrounding Astro and its (purportedly) too-heavy contents of non-Malay programmes have to be seen within this wider context.

A context, that is, where the Malays are politically split and Umno is losing its grip, having lost a lot of ground and supporters, especially to PAS, in the last general election. A context where the establishment, apart from curbing PAS' influence through despicable means such as restricting Harakah 's publication, also feels it needs to reassert itself as the champion of the Malays.

So, what better and more populist way at championing the Malays than to appeal to supposed Malay culture? Hence, in the mainstream papers late last week, we had unbelievably idiotic assertions such as "If the Chinese only watch Cantonese programmes, they will not be able to master the national language, what more to seek their own culture."

For crying out loud, can these - and other - so-called cultural experts please grow up and stop spewing such garbage? Of the 300,000 Astro subscribers, I would doubt that even a small fraction spend their whole waking life just watching Astro, let alone "Cantonese programmes".

The act of watching television, Astro, Cantonese programmes, ad nauseam, indeed is but a part of most peoples' social activities and interactions. In other words, short of being so incapacitated that one can only sit in front of the television screen and do no other activity, it is extremely unlikely that anyone of us would spend our waking hours doing nothing else but watch television; real life just doesn't operate that way.

Therefore, in the unlikely event that this latest moral outcry comes out of a genuine desire to improve and expand on the variety of local television programmes made available, let us not hit out aimlessly and try to merely limit foreign programmes. That's the easy way out and really doesn't provide any solutions.

Let us, instead, seriously consider ways of developing a much-needed progressive television production policy that will, in turn, lead to more local programmes of quality being produced.

On the other hand, we may wish to recognise this sudden yet extremely unoriginal moral outcry for what it most likely is, an attempt by self-appointed moral guardians and chauvinists at bringing back support for dominant groups in the regime. Support which is desperately-needed leading up to the Umno general assembly in May and for the ongoing battle against PAS for the hearts and the minds of the Malays.