According to MalaysiaKini, Wee Meng Chee (aka NameWee) is once again embroiled in another stupid saga. However, I personally think that he is acting like an idiot now. I think that his touch with fame has gone to his head and he is now attention hungry. It speaks volumes of his musical talents if he has to resort to constant controversy in order to sell his music.
According to the article, “The video featured a school teacher teaching English in a class, using vulgar words. The clip also included several semi-naked scenes. The first part of the video was four minutes and 54 seconds long, the second was four minutes and 47 seconds and the third clip was three minutes and 3 seconds long. Wee had shown the name of the school in the third clipping.”
Personally, I have not seen the video myself as it has been flagged as inappropriate on YouTube. However, I can already draw some conclusions from the news article. They quoted him as saying that, “I think the school wanting to take action against me is a good thing because this will allow more people to get a chance to see the video and understand the issues.”
He claims that the education system in Malaysia is all screwed up for Chinese schools. The example given was for mathematics. The students learn it in Mandarin in primary school, switch over to Malay in secondary school and then switch over to English again at the tertiery level. While I totally agree with his observation, he should not blame the government entirely for the predicament.
At present, Mathematics is taught in English at all levels but there are certain quarters who want to revert the teaching of it back to Mandarin. These quarters claim that it is easier to switch the students over to English at the secondary level while maintaining Mandarin as the language in primary. To these people, I say “hogwash”. If the foundations were built with Mandarin, they would have to play catch up with the rest when they get to secondary school, which isn’t all that easy.
However, I think that NameWee is an idiot. While I think that he is free to comment on a pertinent issue, I vehemently disagree with him using the footage of his school in the video. There is absolutely no reason for him to do so. He can still raise awareness on the issue without naming any specific school. Afterall, this is a national issue, not a specific issue with the teachers in a specific school. This smacks of idiocy to me. I thought that after his Negarakuku saga, he would have learned to put a little more effort into his work.
Not only do I think that it is stupid, I also think that it borders on illegal. Schools are not public grounds where one can freely enter or exit. Moreover, his school is not a public school and I am sure that he has no grounds to use footage of his school in his video. Any person with half a brain should know that you will need to apply for permission from a school before you can shoot footage on their ground. I know because I had done it before in the past.
So, I think that NameWee is an idiot. He hungers for publicity, has to sell his songs through controversy, and has no respect for the law at all. I personally hope that the school sues him for every last sen that he has.