Erykah Badu's concert cancellation over religious tattoos

Grammy Award winning soul singer Erykah Badu who was scheduled to perform in Malaysia on 29^th February 2012 caused many senior editors at The Star newspaper of being suspended due to the fact that they published a picture of the singer with temporary tattoos of the word ‘Allah’ on her body. The Information, Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Rais Yatim put a halt to the concert because the picture that was published in The Star caused religious controversy (Ariffin, 2012).

Source: ekeleh.com

Badu was upset with the fact that her concert was banned due to the image that was published of her and later expressed in disappointed fashion that the paper wrongfully published the picture of her which was a fairly old one (Ariffin, 2012). Malaysia consists of multicultural ethnicity branches therefore it is most vital for one to fathom the cultural, racial and above all religious sensitive issues. According to the editor, he was not aware of the gravity of situation and that such images could lead to such repercussions and consequently apologizing along with The Star stating that publishing the image was indeed a mistake of theirs (Chooi, 2012).   

It is understood that ethnic and cultural differences may conjure a sense of ethnic bond and it is not always the message but the appearance of the image and how it forms an articulation of understanding coherent with their own comprehension (Eriksen, 1991). The matter could have clearly and easily been averted if The Star had paid more attention to details such as ethics which serve as pillars to the roof of understanding morality and service values (Walker, 2000). The comprehension of reading material may differ from different people from different backgrounds (Schriver, 1997).

In designing a document, it is most important to comprehend the cultural contexts that are involved in the dissemination of information to the reading public; therefore attention must be paid to the small details to avoid such circumstances (Walsh, 2006). The Information Ministry have come out issuing a statement saying that the main reason behind Badu’s concert cancellation was because she did offer sensitivity towards the religious backgrounds in Malaysia through her temporary tattoos (Yoong, 2012). 




References

1. Ariffin, L 2012, The Malaysian Insider Erykah Badu says disappointed, promoters blame The Star for concert ban, viewed 12th June 2012, http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/erykah-badu-says-disappointed-promoters-blame-the-star-for-concert-ban
2. Chooi, C 2012, The Star suspends two editors over Erykah Badu row, The Malaysian Insider, viewed 12th June 2012,http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/the-star-suspends-two-editors-over-erykah-badu-row 
3. Eriksen, TH 1991, ‘The cultural contexts of ethnic differences’, Man, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 127 – 144.
4. Walker, M.U 2000, Naturalizing, normativity, and using what we know in ethics.Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (supp.), 75 - 101.
5. Schriver, KA 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.
6. Walsh, M 2006, ‘The ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24 – 37.

       7. Yoong, S 2012, Associated Press Malaysia bans Erykah Badu show over Allah tattoo, Yahoo News,         viewed 12th June 2012, http://news.yahoo.com/malaysia-bans-erykah-badu-show-over-allah-tattoos-074941033.html