COMMENT I was researching topical materials for this article to be published next month. But the ever so colourful headlines recently have provided enough fodder for this second instalment of the next 20 things to ban in Malaysia, for release now:

1) Signboards of ‘lembu’ crossing - I suggest that all these traffic signages be banned from the roads. In their religion, the ‘lembu’ is never angry but always at peace and thus, (since we need to respect all Malaysians' sensitivities) we must not offend the Hindus. You see, a naive Hindu could mistakenly read the sign as meaning a holy animal is crossing over to another religion.

2) Positive (‘+’) sign - this symbol should be eliminated from Malaysian electronic devices because non-Christians who use them daily, may be fooled into converting to Christianity seeing the crucifix-like symbol appearing ubiquitously as if it’s a calling from God.

3) Plus highway - this infrastructure should be renamed as ‘Minus’ highway due to its false advertising and again, Christian connotation. Anyone traveling on this Christian themed (‘+’ see above clarification) highway may think that this is indeed the path to heaven and would be sorely disappointed that upon consummation of their journey, instead of 72 dainty virgins at the end, only a decrepit vestibule (toll booth) awaits them.

4) Anchor beer logo - should be banned because the logo has a ‘cross’ at the top of the anchor’s shaft. According to an NGO, non-Christians may be tricked into converting when they drink this liquid as complained recently of a certain branded bottled water. To nail it, I suggest a name change to ‘Screw’ beer. Then, most Malaysians won’t feel shafted by a loose screw or two.

5) RM1 note - this note contains pictures of flying kites. Using these notes may lead us to think that we too can fly or ‘berkhayal’. As we know, ‘khayal’ is a mystical foreign habit, possibly ancient Persian, that may destroy the local culture of lepak-ism. Without our youths busy lepak-ing, how can we get them to lobby for dubious causes for a mere RM60 a day. Certain political parties would find it extremely difficult to find supporters otherwise.

6) Batu Caves - because we can see the cave and the huge Murugan statue from the main road. There are also some Malay and Chinese kampongs nearby. There's a danger that these rakyat may ‘ter-convert’ to Hinduism by looking at these structures.

7) Tourism Ministry - because this ministry is promoting Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist beliefs by encouraging foreigners to visit their places of worship in Malaysia. Innocent Middle Eastern tourists may accidentally convert by visiting such places instead of thronging Bukit Bintang’s redlight areas and contributing to our economy.

8) Cigarettes - sounds extremely hypocritical but there's already a fatwa against smoking but nobody (including all the concerned NGOs) is protesting at all. Similarly, ‘shisha’ should also be banned because there are too many foreign ‘shisha’ vendors when hundreds of highly qualified UiTM graduates are unemployed. As an alternate form of relaxation henceforth, we should pet an amphibian because from recent croaks heard, some wild frogs are feeling rather untouched.

9) Female swimwear - no longer necessary because soon, with Islamic State (IS) wanna-bes operating without restraint in Malaysia, half the population can no longer swim in the seas off Malaysia. I may be royally wrong but my sister is lamenting that such liberal dressing is totally unacceptable in a prudish country like ours. Just stick to track bottoms/bicycle shorts when swimming and ignore the false western health safety warnings, clearly a Zionist plot.

Subconsciously tricked

10) Popular term ‘tambah’ gula/susu/nasi - it's so obvious we are being subconsciously tricked into converting: Tambah = add = ‘+’. See (2) above for those still blur. From now on, to add something, a law shall be enacted to use only the words ‘kasi lebih’ or aptly in English, ‘castrate further’.

11) The half-moon logo - it represents a certain religion’s common symbol. And you know what they say about the moon's influence - it causes insanity. (As noticed recently, these moon watchers in Malaysia make new rules daily). We can’t have confused Confucians who are weak in their ecclesiastical convictions coincidentally converting by craning at the crescent. Completely crazy.

12) Britney Spears - in a certain religion’s manifestations, some of its deities are depicted holding spears. It ‘Should be Easy’ to see that this is a Jewish conspiracy disguising Britney as a Hindu deity (as in Whoopi is a Jew?). Oops, ‘I Did it Again’ but we cannot have the rakyat converting to Hinduism accidentally. It would be a ‘Circus’.

13) 2019 - I suggest Malaysia skips that year as it would definitely offend certain peoples' sensitivity. We should call it the Year after the Year after the Year of the Cock. Even the Year before the Year of the Cock, is one that some doggedly would not touch. Hence, to respect their sensitivities, just let them talk Cock year.

14) Cross junction (‘simpang empat’) - clearly the term was designed to fool some of us into the path of heaven. Henceforth, all cross junctions shall be converted into roundabouts so that all Malaysians can go around in circles to reach our final destination,

15) History - no longer shall we force our kids to study ancient civilisations and global theology. Why do that when we have thousands of local scholars who can rewrite history and spew theologically inspiring edicts currently. The rumour that a local academic may have plagiarised another’s literary content, must be seen positively as flattery to originality and not a lack of intellectual depth.

16) Elections - this western democratic practice is very dangerous because every five years or so, we are forcing millions of Malaysians to mark a ‘cross’ on their ballot paper. Imagine, some (especially those lucky enough to do it twice or thrice) may be influenced by marking the ‘cross’ and convert. It took a generation of hard work by the administration to change the demographics of one East Malaysian state before and we cannot expect the present government to legally divert resources again to do likewise.

17) Biskut nenas - we Malaysians are a very gullible lot. Though tidbit, eating a cookie named after a woman of loose morals may lead us to be as promiscuous. At this point, I also propose renaming the popular non-halal dish (which landed Alvivi in hot soup) because Bah Good Teh can mislead East Malaysians into thinking they are drinking an excellent Cameronian brew. Not to make a storm in a tea cup but if we can recently coin ‘padang kereta’ as ‘parkir’, the proposed renaming would be just a cup of tea.

Allow all to copy each other

18) Independent examinations - because in Malaysia, we have embraced capitalism better than anywhere else and only here, the laws of supply and demand work like textbook. There's always a method to procure solutions commercially.

Since we now have to spend something like RM44,000 per CCTV camera to keep watch over safe rooms, instead of wasting millions (maybe billions) by awarding negotiated contracts, let’s just ban such examination security measures.

Instead, we should allow all candidates to copy each other, or bring books into the examination halls. This way, we will encourage multi-racial comingling our our young minds and indeed, with the heavy books they have to carry, this will also lend appropriate meaning to exercise books.

Besides, we are already doing this in certain matriculation classes and places of higher yearning so all we need to do now is to extend this excellent practice nationally and save the money for the rakyat,

19) English-medium schools - this type of school is very disruptive. You can’t teach young minds to be racist, religiously militant, racially superior, economically selfish and socially rent seeking in schools where the students tend to speak in English mostly. To succeed in Malaysia today, you need to have all the aforementioned qualities, all that are served plentifully in a certain vernacular school type.

A nation of well-spoken and intellectually reasonable young adults, is not going to help in achieving national goals. Luckily we have the Biro Tatanegara where the principles of universal justice and notions of social equality can be thoroughly disabused from the minds of students from English/vernacular schools, and, made on par with those from local medium schools. Forget about long-term effects when short term goals are achieved.

20) Rukunegara - because paragraph (5) says “mutual respect and good social behaviour”. Obviously, totally outrageous and not applicable because neither of these tenets are practised in Malaysia.

I do realise that I've been proposing several bans so to be fair, I also have a couple of proposals that I suggest implementing as follows.

a) Aquatic runways - in future, all airport runway infrastructure must include swimming (only for men of course) facilities. This is because, with so much experience in ‘ponding’, Malaysian contractors are now experts and can expand the runway linked ponds into pools without significant incremental cost. We will indeed be envied by the Dutch (again) for Malaysia Boleh!

b) Graduate School of Stupidity - I know an honourable MIC leader had proposed an Act of Stupidity . Before they graduate and hence for his proposed Act to apply, we must have a school for students to learn the art of stupidity.

From initial research, it looks like we will have to have a very large school, and indeed, most can start at the post graduate level. From reviewing the level of stupidity exhibited by many politicians, senior civil servants and several NGO leaders, it appears that they are likely Masters of Stupidity. Hence, I think we may have to start doctoral classes for them.

Some, have got double PhDs in stupidity for sure. A self-serving convert who masquerades as an academic comes to mind. He keeps company with a minister who recently created the possibility of aquatic runways. Of course, I won't turn my back on a failed academic who now seeks infamy by blasphemy. Indeed, the school may have more potential applicants than available space.

Top 20 things to ban in Malaysia

RAMESH RAJARATNAM watches with amusement the headliners in Malaysia and offers his alternate views.