Mistaken identity is an oft-used theatrical device. Shakespeare used the trope in several comedies, most famously in Twelfth Night.
Alfred Hitchcock also used it in his classic “North by Northwest,” frequently cited as the top movie in the mistaken identity genre. Mistaking someone for another is supposed to be great for creating confusion among characters and much fun and humor for the audience who are in the know. That’s the how the device works in works of fiction.
But when it comes to the real world, mistaking the identity of a group of people or a company mascot isn’t so funny. In fact, it can be downright dangerous.
In the case of the mascot, the animal in question was a wombat which had a black snout and a roly-poly body used by an Australian-based company, Servcorp, as its cute little ambassador. To wish Muslims “selamat Hari Raya,” or “happy holidays,” Servcorp dressed Sidney, as its mascot is called, in baju Melayu (a traditional Malay outfit for men) for an electronic billboard ad in the heart of modern, cosmopolitan Kuala Lumpur.
But in the increasingly intolerant climate now heating up Malaysia, people mistook the wombat ― a marsupial related to the koala ― for a pig and that was enough for the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) to immediately pull the plug on the billboard.
Servcorp Malaysia quickly issued an apology for creating confusion and stated it was not the company’s intention to offend any race or religion and that there were no prior issues globally with the use of its mascot, even at their many Middle Eastern and Saudi Arabian offices. What’s more, Servcorp said the baju Melayu-clad wombat had been approved by DBKL before the digital advertisement went up.
I feel sorry for Servcorp. It had no niat jahat (ill intention), paid for the ads to be created, booked the billboard space, got City Hall approval and still ended up “offending” some people.
So whose fault is it? City Hall for not noticing the piggy resemblance or people who can’t tell a wombat from a pig? Of course this was a cartoonish version but it still looked a lot like the real wombat.
I would say it’s the people. Why have some of us become so intolerant of an animal that the mere sight of it in any form makes them angry? It’s become so bad that even another animal that looks a bit porcine is unacceptable.
Besides, why would anyone just assume that a company would put out an ad to mark a much-revered festival to offend the people observing that festival? Does it even make sense?
At least Sidney’s mistaken identity didn’t lead to riots and damage to property. For that, perhaps DBKL did the right thing. But it also gives me the shivers to think that Malaysians have become so volatile and intolerant that such a reaction might have occurred.
Scarier was the news coming from Turkey about another case of mistaken identity. This involved a group of Korean tourists who were nearly attacked by participants of a Saturday march to protest China’s alleged restrictions on ethnic Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang in practicing their religion.
The protestors saw the Koreans near a top tourist attraction in Istanbul, mistook them for Chinese and decided to vent their anger on them. Luckily for the Koreans, the police prevented the attack from happening and no one was hurt.
But that was not the case of Sikhs being mistaken for Muslims in America. There were several cases of violence against Sikhs because the assailants assumed the bearded and turbaned Sikhs were Muslims, who were targeted for hate crimes after the 9/11 attacks.
This is not to say it would have been fine for the Turks to attack the tourists if they were Chinese or for Americans to kill “real” Muslims. It is not fine. It is, in fact, downright wrong to identify the “enemy” simply by their outward appearance and to hold all Muslims responsible for 9/11 or all Chinese for the Uighurs’ plight.
If sympathetic Turks want to protest against the Chinese Government, by all means do so outside its embassy in Istanbul, but to want to take their anger out on a group of visitors who happened to look Chinese is going beyond the pale.
Visiting Turkey had been on my bucket list as I have heard so much of its natural beauty, its rich history, culture and architecture. Much as I would like to dismiss the Istanbul incident as an isolated one, as a Malaysian Chinese, I am now hesitant about making any travel plans to that country for the time being.
What to do? I am a sensitive traveler and just like how the Middle East respiratory syndrome has spooked me from visiting South Korea this year, such news has put me off Turkey. I would also not be surprised if news about our ultra-sensitivity to a number of things, like pigs and crosses, sends the wrong message to foreign tourists and investors.
In our multiracial country, it is a well-known and accepted fact that Muslims are prohibited from consuming pork, but is there any injunction against looking at the animal? This demonization of the pig did not exist in the not-so-distant past, but it has become increasingly so of late.
Will it get so severe that come the Year of the Pig in the Chinese lunar calendar in 2019, we can’t show any images of the creature in our decorations or greeting cards or screen National Geographic and Discovery specials on pigs and reruns of “Babe?”
June Wong is a senior editor at the Star. ― Ed.
(The Star/Asia News Network)
