Malaysiakini (http://www.malaysiakini.com)
Deepavali TV ad raises religious ire, 7 November 2010
by Krishnamoorthy Muthaly
The airing of a television advertisement for the Deepavali celebrations has raised the heckles of a DAP senator, who has questioned the message its producers are trying to put across.
The 30-second film - said to have appeared on RTM and Astro - shows how a male member of a Hindu family faces reluctance on the part of his siblings to accept his marriage to a Muslim girl.
The Muslim girl, on her part, shows reluctance to partake of the meals prepared by her in-laws. She concedes, however, after being assured the food is halal by a visiting friend of the family.
It is only after the Muslim girl has given birth that her in-laws warm up to the fact of their marriage and display affections toward the new-born child.
Produced by the National Film Development Corporation (Finas), the film has led senator S Ramakrishnan to wonder why those behind the advertisement portrayed such an imbalanced portrayal of the Islamic and Hindu religions.
While conversions to Islam are encouraged and backed by governmental institutions and a number of religious NGOs, most conversions out of Islam to other religions that have caused significant controversy and have led to punitive measures on those deemed to have 'apostasised' from the Muslim faith.
'Mischievious and misleading'
Yet, Ramakrishnan noted, the Finas advertisement showed the hostility of the Hindu family while neglecting to address the compulsion on non-Muslims to convert before marrying Muslims.
"This is mischievous and misleading," said the senator. "Why is there a double standard?" added Ramakrishnan, who urged that action be taken against Finas for the provocative advertisement.
"This is against the spirit of 1Malaysia being promoted by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.
"The government agencies should walk the talk by Najib by accepting the diversities of different religious practices in Malaysia," Ramakrishnan says.
In September, private television station TV3 got into hot soup after it aired a one-minute advertisement that interspersed elements of Christianity and Hinduism with the Eidil Fitri message of the advertisement.
TV3 was last month fined RM50,000 for the offending commercial by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
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