PAS-led Kelantan isn't normally the first place you would choose for kicking off the festive season. But the hilarious Christmas bunting at the Sultan Ismail Petra Airport in Kota Bharu has captured our imaginations and gone viral on social media.
For those who are unaware, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) placed buntings in airports around the nation. Someone had taken a photo of the Christmas bunting in Sultan Ismail Petra Airport, bearing the MAHB logo, which read, "Wishing you a Mary Christmas & Happy New Years".
As the photo went viral on social media, the conservative Muslim state of Kelantan will now trend as the place for helping to spread the Christmas cheer. PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang should be pleased – although having nothing to do with the bunting, but who will easily forget this link between Christmas and the pro-hudud Kelantan state administrators.
MAHB's comedy of errors included the new year message, "Happy New Years". Presumably, the person who wrote this wanted us to have several years of enjoyment.
Did someone at the MAHB have a little too much festive spirit, or perhaps the Christmas trifle or pudding had a little too much brandy? Who knows?
One retired teacher who saw the sign remarked on social media, "Do we wish one another ‘Mary Christmas’ to celebrate the birth of a baby by the virgin ‘Merry’?”
"Maybe that is one valid reason for text books to be sourced from abroad. If locally printed, there will be ‘new’ nursery rhymes, such as ‘Merry had a little lamb’ and ‘Merry, Merry quite contrary’.
“The Christmas song will be renamed ‘We wish you a Mary Christmas’ as well as the Christmas carol ‘God rest ye Mary gentleman’.
Travellers and visitors to the Kota Bharu airport would have had a good chuckle at the message, but why should anyone get angry? Isn't Christmas a time for loving and forgiveness?
Some of you will undoubtedly criticise the state of education in Malaysia. Why?
You should direct your energies at MAHB. Was the message not proofread? Was it left to a junior employee, and a non-English speaking one at that, to approve the copy before it was sent to the printers?
You should breathe a sigh of relief that whoever wrote the message is not in charge of issuing messages to the air traffic controllers.
On the other hand, when you see the flooded state of the runaway at KLIA2, you wonder if MAHB planners had imagined they were building a port facility and not an airport. The airport company is the problem here. There is no one to oversee what they do in their operations.
The Christmas bunting also shows that we have bred a nation of robots. Perhaps, no one at the printers spoke English and they did not see anything wrong with the message.
We have also encouraged a generation of people who stay quiet, even when they know that something is not right. Many companies cultivate a culture of "the boss is always right," and few employees dare speak out and upset the boss. Maybe an employee did notice the mistake, but did not want to incur his boss' wrath.
The same happens in the civil service, and in the government. It is known as the culture of fear.
Malaysians are familiar with the moral police, the seditious police and the social media police. Why not form the language police, which will fine us for the incorrect use of English? After all, plans are underway for the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) to act against Malaysians who use the national language incorrectly.
On Nov 14, the DBP director-general Abdul Adzis Abas confirmed that it has been empowered by the government to act against the improper use of Bahasa Malaysia.
It was claimed that the objective of the enforcement was to educate the public in the correct use of Bahasa Malaysia, discourage the use of "broken" language in print and on the internet, so as to prevent it from being "contaminated".
Adzis claimed that anyone who uses Bahasa Malaysia incorrectly, including online advertisers, would be fined up to RM1,000, after the amendments to the National Language Act 1963 and Education Act 1996, have been passed in Parliament.
Imagine if we had the same for English.
The Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, gave a toe-curling performance when he spoke in English at the 71st opening of the UN general assembly in Sept 2016.
How much in fines would he incur, with English being the international language of business and all?
NB: “Mary Christmas and Happy New Years” to you!
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