TIMAH has been making headlines the past few days. Who is she? A lawyer? Magistrate? A corrupt politician caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar? An Instagram influencer who partied a little too hard?
Unless you've been keeping away from social media, which at this point seems like a good thing to do considering all the hullaballoo over nothing, Timah is the name of a Malaysian made whiskey.
Forget the fact that Timah in this case is the Malay word for tin, also forget the fact that the company behind Timah has been around for over 30 years, suddenly many are angry at them for naming their whiskey as such.
The ultranationalists have come out of the woodwork denouncing the use of a Malay word to name an alcoholic drink. Now for the most part, 'national language extremists' have been harping for years on how important it is for all Malaysians to embrace the Malay language. Some hit out at Malaysians who are not fluent in it. However in the case of the misunderstood Timah, they are unhappy that a Malay word is being used as a whiskey brand.
The unhappiness predominantly centres around the fact that Malays are Muslims. This begs the question, is the Malay language an exclusive right of the Malays, and by extension, Muslims?
Should a company wish to manufacture pork ribs, can't they use 'Lazat', for instance, as a brand name? Malays don't eat pork, 'lazat' is a Malay word, so to apply the same logic behind the Timah argument, said pork ribs shouldn't be labelled as 'Lazat'.
The other side of the Timah argument is that it sounds like the common short form for Fatimah, a name from the Arabic language. It is a common name among Muslims in the country. Nevermind the fact that the company has explained that Timah is used as an homage to the tin-mining industry in the country.
The sad part of this Timah madness on social media is that, from my observation, it started out as a troll post. Some moron on Twitter discovered the whiskey, which has been around for quite some time, and posted about it, allegedly just to troll.
The thing about trolling, or 'menganjing' as it is referred to in the Malay community, is that more often than not, it will lead to unnecessary controversy.
In this case, the posts that trolled the whiskey brand went on to become viral, inviting knee-jerk politicians and religious figures to make statements.
One minister said a report was lodged with KPDNHEP.
What is he reporting about? The company behind Timah is a registered corporation, operating legally in the country since the 80s. While I have no idea exactly when Timah hit the market but for the brand to have won some international awards, my guess is that the matter pertaining to the registration of its name and label has long been settled. Hence, the reason why I call some of these politicians 'knee-jerk'.
If the concern is that Malaysia, being an Islamic country, should not be producing its own liquor, this issue should have been taken up in Parliament where laws are enacted. If a company is well within its rights under the laws of the land to open a liquor manufacturing facility, then why the sudden attack on one whiskey label?
As is the case with most of the things that go viral in this age of social media (read: age of madness), the Timah controversy is just much ado about nothing.
