POPULAR banning Fixi's HILANG and MURTAD

So did you hear about POPULAR banning Fixi’s books; HILANG and MURTAD. As an avid reader of Fixi’s line of books, of course I do have my own opinion in this matter. But first, we have to understand there are always two sides of a story. So for those who didn't got a clue on what i'm about to jibber jabber, Fixi’s got a letter from POPULAR, saying that they won’t sell MURTAD and HILANG because of the obscene words which are not suitable for the so-called “good society” we live in. How ironic is it when this are the society who display a scene from, shall I say, ‘porn clip’ in front of the newspaper and all over the news once? So for those who are lazy enough to click here for the actual letter POPULAR gave to Fixi, I shall put some excerpt of it. 

Oleh itu setelah dikaji, kita dapati beberapa perkataan kesat yang ada di dalam buku ini tidak sesuai untuk bacaan remaja mahupun dewasa. Antara perkataannya adalah seperti yang terkandung dalam muka surat :

Buku Murtad :

a) M/S 9, perenggan 1, "Haram jadah, bangang juga si Adudu tu."

b) M/S 9, perenggan ke 3 "Herr celaka betoi".

c)  M/S 11, perenggan ke 7 "Pergi Mampos la sial!."

d) M/S 12, perenggan ke 5 "Engkau, sama lelaki tua tu...Boleh pergi mampos"

e) M/S 82, perenggan 1 "Cilaka Boleh. Aku dah kata dah...aku dah kata dah.

 f) M/S 85, perenggan 3 "Ini kalau abang aku tau yang teloq aku ada kat telinga, sahih dia gelak kaw-kaw punya kat aku. Nak haram betoi!"

Buku Hilang :

a) M/S 167, perenggan 7 "Kuat betul drug yang Ikhsan bagi aku semalam.  Sekarang aku cakap ada ritma".

b) M/S 199, perenggan 4 "Kadang-kadang mulut kau ni macam celaka kan? Harap-harap ko dapat bini kaki pukul".

c) M/S 225, perenggan 5 "Payu dara dibiarkan tidak bertutup, lalu berayun-ayun bila dia berjalan menghampiri meja solek".

d) M/S 229, dialog "cipetlah kau" maki Jo sebelum dia memelapkan mata.

Seperti yang kita sedia maklum, walaupun dalam masyarakat kita hari ini ramai orang Melayu yang sudah berfikiran moden atau urban, namun saya percaya di luar sana masih ramai lagi memegang teguh pada ajaran agama islam dan mempunyai nilai-nilai murni dan berakhlak mulia.

Okey first of all, banning a book for these sorts of words is ridiculous. I’ve read those two books, and I shall say, (even though MURTAD does have a lot of cursing) MURTAD and HILANG is such a good book. The storyline, the mystery and the excitement. Sorry to say but most the local books here in Malaysia lack those fine quality. So why ban it? I mean, for such a subtle use of such word, plus it doesn’t really imply a real curse words. The character in those books are just saying that things, well because it is normal for human being to curse. This is what our books lack of. The use of human being in a real normal life. Honestly, do you think for example, a normal human being does not curse at all? Never say bad words, not even once in his/her life? Seriously? And it wasn’t even that bad. For me, I do consider this as normal. Is my environment of living bad? I don’t think so. Even tv nowadays are showing us too much of these stuff. You couldn’t really pinpoint the use of bad words only to the books.

Secondly, although I do not support the banning of MURTAD and HILANG, I do not entirely on #teamFixi. Yes, as you can see I’ve almost all of their books, and of course some of it are good, and some of it I can’t even recommend it to my friends. One particular book that I do not really understand the whole purpose of publishing it was CEKIK. Seriously, I don’t condemn people who wrote it. Based on the author lineage of books he wrote, well he do wrote some worthy books like AMERIKA. But not CEKIK.  No. Malaysia are not ready for CEKIK. No, I’m wrong. I am not ready for CEKIK. does it have some super artistic touch in it? I don’t know. But what I do know is this, the scenes in CEKIK are too steamy, and too explicit. The ending was weird enough, and it was a wonder for me why did CEKIK got published. I didn’t understand the plot; I did not see the point of the story. Was it mystery? Was it about life? Honestly I don’t know. What I do remember after reading CEKIK was this; it was so full of sex scenes and the scenes was detailed. Yup, that’s what I remembered.

So later in this night, I’ve read Fixi’s tweet on MAYBE they are not going to continue Fixi’s lineage. Probably they gonna stop publishing any new books or not. It depends. My opinion (thus concludes this sorta pointless debate in myself) is this

1. Fixi is a good way to introduce reading to Malaysian. People are getting tired with too much novels which only tell a story about love,love,love. I had enough. Does it ever make you wonder why Malaysian is such a lazy reader? I have a theory. Maybe, just maybe, Malaysian are NOT LAZY to read, but the only available (or worthy enough) books to read are in English. And to finish it up is such a hassle which is why they prefer not to read anything. By Fixi’s great effort to introduce a so-called urban/pulp kind of books, it opened up opportunities to Malaysian to read more, understand a lot more. Thus Fixi’s have a great responsibility to change people mindset isn’t it? This is why we shall go back to my second point, of filtering the contents inside the books they’ve published.

 

2. Fixi is a good way for talented people, such as Khairulnizam Bakeri (author of PECAH,whom I admire so much), kak Dayang Noor (author of HILANG,JERAT) , Nuril Basri (author of DOSA), and others to shine. If, for example, FIxi’s gonna terminate their work, it would be such a shame for Malaysian, to have lost a great deal of opportunity to witness a masterpiece in literature. Maybe, if they were to continue their publishing, maybe we could somehow produce a line of great work, great author who will come out with such a great storyline. Who knows right?

this is such a lengthy post i don't know whether you people are still with me or not. So for those who've been reading these shit till the end, i must congratulate you. With the grammatical errors here and there, i now conclude my case with this statement, Fixi must survive and adapt to the changes that they are faced with. Because, without realizing it, Fixi has become a trend (or a culture, if you insist) to society now. If you can achieve that sort-of title in a few years, then whether you like it or not, you have to bear this responsibility. Filtering the works of 'bakal-penulis' is not limiting creativity at all. Just remember that you have these social responsibility and you should think on a bigger picture.

With that, I rest my case. Thank you.