‘One wrong step’: Malaysia’s careful comedians lament narrowing space for laughter

A joke about ham, a death threat and a wave of manufactured outrage. Malaysia’s comedians say the nation is galloping into a cancel-culture that will soon push satire and social commentary off the stage – and the political classes share the blame. In the latest eruption of outcry, it was the turn of stand-up comedy pioneer Harith Iskander to face the whiplash of Malaysia’s increasingly censorious social media. Harith, a 58-year-old Muslim from southern Johor state who is considered the “godfather” of Malaysian stand-up comedy, was hauled up by police and religious authorities for questioning last month after making a joke about ham on Facebook. In a January 18 post, he jokingly suggested that the word “ham” in the name of an iced coffee drink – ham sap kopi – could “lead me down the wrong path in so many ways”. The joke riffed on a recent controversy over “ham” sandwiches for sale with fake halal certification at a popular convenience store. Pork is haram – prohibited – under Islamic customs and critics were swift to detect an apparent insult to Islam. One of them, Izzuddin Md Salim, 31, threatened to rape and murder Harith’s family. He was arrested and sentenced on January 31 to five months’ jail and a 2,000 ringgit (US$455) fine for the threats. Harith has not spoken out on the issue, and did not respond to a request for comment from This Week in Asia. According to his peers, however, the ugly episode is just the latest in a catalogue of worrying incidents that are giving them the sinking feeling that the last laughs are on their way – at least in public. “I feel like now, the climate has changed [so much] that … if you say something I don’t like, I’m going to use it as a weapon against you,” said Kavin Jay, a stand-up comedian. You don’t have freedom of speech and always face the consequences Kavin Jay, stand-up comedian “That becomes problematic, because you don’t have freedom of speech and always face the consequences [for anything you say].” Malaysian stand-up comedy has given its practitioners space to ventilate hot-button issues otherwise discussed in hushed tones among friends at neighbourhood coffee shops and in private channels on platforms like WhatsApp. Harith gave Malaysian audiences their first taste of stand-up comedy in the 1990s, but it was over the past decade that the art has started to come into its own. Audiences have flocked to theatres and clubs such as the Crackhouse Comedy Club to watch Douglas Lim, Rizal Van Geyzel and other acts test and tease the shared boundaries of race and religion in a multicultural nation. Sharp, humorous social commentary is the key draw for regular audience-goers like Chin, who, like many stand-up devotees, is Western educated, tends to lean more liberal and is from a city. “It gives a sense of catharsis. We are constantly reading about all these ‘problems’ that nobody seems to want to address because of sensitivities,” said Chin, who asked to go only by his surname for fear of reprisal. “What happened to Harith is terrible. I love Malaysia and being Malaysian, but we all need to sit together and talk this out because this will only hold us back.” Funny how? Malaysia cannot seem to shed its thin skin when it comes to issues of race and faith. Dissonance surrounding the economic status of the majority Malays compared to the ethnic Chinese minorities was among the triggers for deadly racial riots in Kuala Lumpur in 1969. The aftermath saw a positive-discrimination policy granting preferential access in business, university placements and generous discounts to house purchases to the country’s bumiputra – a term used in Malaysia to describe Malays and indigenous groups that roughly translates to sons of the soil. Those undercurrents resurfaced amid a Malay nationalist wave in the 2022 general election, as the Malay-Muslim majority struggled with rising living costs and the perceived loss of economic and political power to the country’s ethnic minorities. Social media has widened the divide – the power of anonymity enabling unprecedented levels of vitriol aimed at anyone seen to be different. “People now have found a way to capitalise on certain rhetoric, cause a stir and take advantage of certain situations,” said Rizal, co-founder of the now-closed Crackhouse Comedy Club. “It’s all about getting the right attention, all about clickbaiting, engagement … all [public relations] stunts.” In 2022, Rizal’s comedy club was shut down after an inflammatory routine during an open mic session, when a Muslim amateur performer started undressing while she promoted her “swinging” lifestyle of freely choosing sexual partners and activities. The video quickly went viral, leading to a conviction for the woman – Siti Nuramira Abdullah – and an 8,000-ringgit fine for “uttering words with the deliberate intention of hurting the feelings of others”. Rizal was separately fined 8,000 ringgit for sending “offensive communications” on his social media accounts after outraged Malaysians dug up content from his past performances that they said had insulted Islam. “There are bigger situations going on where people are physically getting hurt, but no one is doing anything about it,” Rizal said. “But when feelings are hurt, people take action. And that really doesn’t make sense.” In a bid to shore up Malay support, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration has doubled down on punitive laws – like the colonial-era Sedition Act – he once decried as authoritarian when in opposition. Meanwhile, under his government thousands of pieces of content deemed offensive to race, religion and royalty – otherwise referred to as the 3Rs – have been taken down. The reflex to censor has also gone offline. In the year after Anwar came to power in 2022, the government shut down a music festival after an onstage kiss among male bandmates, which later led to a mandatory kill switch for all concerts; and confiscated a line of pride watches sold by Swiss watchmaker Swatch. “When the government believes it needs to maintain or build support among a constituency … they will act to be seen as ‘protecting’ religious or cultural sensitivities,” said Aziff Azuddin, a research associate with Kuala Lumpur-based think tank Iman Research. More fun overseas Comics say they still perform their live routines to meet expectations of their paying audiences, but are more careful when going on social media and are hyper-aware of the dangers of a clipped-up video comment going viral. “It can be a 30-second observation of this particular group, or a political situation, that might backfire on us,” Rizal said. Facing a deluge of social media hate is hard enough, but the greater concern is when issues lead to real-world confrontation and danger. KK Super Mart, the convenience store chain in the middle of the ham-sandwich controversy, was targeted by petrol bomb attacks in 2024 in a different furore whipped up by Umno and other Malay nationalist groups over the sale of socks imprinted with the Arabic word for Allah. “Even though there is a violation of the law, [enforcement] should be conducted by law enforcement agencies, not [regular] people,” said Wong Yan Ke, a rights activist and former student leader. “Otherwise it ends up being outrageous, where people can take their own actions based on their interests or beliefs.” Wong is appealing against a 2023 conviction and 5,000 ringgit fine for insulting the vice-chancellor of Universiti Malaya for a protest against alleged racist remarks by the varsity’s top administrator at a Malay Dignity Congress hosted by the university four years earlier. According to Wong, his experience is hardly unique in Malaysia, where conservative political forces routinely capitalise on “systemic racism” to whip up fear among the Malay majority of losing their political power and dominance. “When there is no one willing to step up, especially national leaders or those with credibility, to say this is wrong, it will just allow this to continue to happen,” said Wong, who is from the country’s ethnic Chinese minority. For comedian Kavin Jay, the situation is driving performers like him to find less “scary” venues outside the country to earn a living. “It is just so much easier,” Kavin said. “One wrong step and netizens are stepping on your neck and especially with death threats. [Malaysia] is just not a good place to do social commentary any more.”

‘One wrong step’: Malaysia’s careful comedians lament narrowing space for laughter

Malaysian stand-up comedy is being muzzled by an increasingly censorious social media amid heightened sensitivities over race and religion