OVER the past two weeks, our national budget, booster Covid-19 vaccination doses, SOPs for the Malacca elections, reopening borders, and Malaysia’s exclusion from Singapore’s ‘safe’ list took a distant back seat as MPs, politicians and government ministers saw fit to debate, argue and highlight the issue of Timah – a home-grown whisky that has been around for a few years, and has been winning international awards since 2019.

To further add to the ridicule, the name, a common Malay word meaning “tin” has been stretched rather elastically to suggest a short form of a female name, and a bearded middle-aged man that has actually been named in promotional material as Captain Tristram Speedy, the founder of (mining) town Taiping, has been suggested to be that of an elderly Muslim religious man.

The reason? He sported a beard and covered his head, practically as did half the adult male population living from 1836 to 1911.

Even applying the most stretched application of the mischief rule of interpretation, the most creative lawyer would find this a hard spin – but apparently not for Malaysian politicians.

The fact that the large proportion of the Malaysian public failed to take the bait did not stop lawmakers from playing to a nearly non-existent gallery.

While the faux debate ‘raged’ on, no one asked why a drink that is placed in a section of a supermarket religious Muslim clients never venture, on a rack to which he will never reach out, ever “confuse” him?

Of all the ridiculous statements, the one that takes the cake came not from a PAS or Amanah, the two parties provoking the issue, but from the usually level-headed PKR.

How Tangga Batu MP Rusnah Aluai ever equated drinking an alcoholic concoction to “consuming” a female is ridiculous, especially coming from a party that advocates women’s rights.

It begs the question of more confusing and widely available products like Kacip Fatimah, which carries the full name of this theoretical character Timah.

While the politics of it may carry some short-term mileage for those indulging, it comes with an expensive cost.

The dumbing down of our political discourse, for starters. The fact it frays the already stretched socio-religious fabric of harmony.

Worse, it looks bad for various Malaysian industries – tourism, exports and even alcohol production – which contribute billions in sin tax, with breweries alone contributing RM2.27 billion ringgit in 2019.

Alcohol consumption contributed 1.2% of our GDP in terms of final consumption expenditure (FCE), so the more rhetoric is played up on alcohol, ultimately, our economy suffers.

Malaysia already has among the highest alcohol taxes in the world, and the highest among developing countries.

If PAS is serious, it should just propose us to join the five or six Muslim countries that prohibit alcohol completely, ignoring Borneo traditions and the practices allowed by minority religions.

Politicking aside, the reaction by Environment and Water Minister Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man – who is accused of missing an important global summit regarding his portfolio for this – and even of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Alexander Nanta Linggi to be personally involved in mitigating a non-issue, mediating in a name change and ensuring no further “confusing” names are used, is quite unprecedented.

Rhetoric and playing up issues to attract target electoral demographics are common, but it is incumbent upon the ruling government to rise beyond and respond in a moderated and fair manner, even at the cost of some popularity.

The implied benefit of having a juggernaut of machinery with the government is dissemination of information and explanation of issues.

To take the easy way out to close issues, is allowing politics to get in the way of governing. – November 3, 2021.

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on Earth, and that motivated people can do far more good than any leader with motive.