Just over a month ago, Wee Meng Chee took a familiar tune, added some lyrics, turned it into a rap and uploaded it online. It was such a hit on Youtube it was viewed over a million times in a month.

This might have been unremarkable – except the familiar tune was the Malaysian national anthem and his rap is derogatorily titled “Negara Kuku” and labelled by authorities to be “racially sensitive.” 

Bernama reported the Malaysian minister for Culture, Arts and Heritage, Rais Yatim as saying he “will leave it to the Attorney-General to see whether Wee can be charged under other Acts.” 

Shortly after the furore, Wee made a public apology through the vice-president of the Malaysian Chinese Association, Chua Soi Lek. 

“To not prosecute him is not ‘on’ at all because he has committed an offence against the nation and no one, not the Cabinet or political parties are in a position to forgive him,” minister in the Prime Minister’s department, Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz told The Star. 

Employing an entertainingly local combination of imagery and metaphor, Wee’s rap lyrics brushed against politically sensitive topics. 

These include corruption in the police, bureaucratic inefficiency, and the cultural differences between Chinese and Malays. Wee’s rap criticised the pro-bumiputera policy employed in university admissions for driving Chinese students like himself overseas. 

A final-year mass communication student in a Taiwanese university, Wee told the New Straits Times that he “[had just been] rapping about things Malaysians talk about all the time.” 

Like any social satire, his rap employed caricature and humour to great effect – but it also highly offended some groups of people.  

Rather than addressing the social ills that probably resonated with the Malaysian public, thereby accounting for its popularity, Malaysian officials have focused more on his apparent misuse of the national anthem. 

“It’s not that we are not accepting his apology but we don’t want a recurrence of such an action. If Negaraku is sung that way today, maybe the Jalur Gemilang (national flag) song will also be subjected to ridicule,” said Umno Youth chief Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

The furore over Wee’s “Negarakuku” also coincided with a pre-election period where the testy issues of race and religion loom large in public consciousness. 

Last month, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak declared Malaysia an ‘Islamic state’ to an uproar that resulted in a ban on all media reporting on the controversy. 

Prior to that, the head of the European Commission delegation to Malaysia, Thierry Rommel publicly criticised the pro-bumiputera National Economic Plan, and a prominent blogger was detained for publishing racially sensitive remarks on his website. 

Some regarded the government’s de-emphasis on the video’s politically sensitive slant as a means to avoid further fracturing of Barisan Nasional, the coalition which holds together the largest racially-based parties. 

In its recent annual general meeting, MCA delegates said the Chinese community felt that the Chinese ministers in the BN were not defending non-bumiputeras rights adequately. 

Fearing an unravelling of the coalition, government officials urged each other not to aggravate the topics highlighted by Wee’s video. 

“Let the legal process takes its course... don't turn it into a political and racial issue,” MCA vice-president, Chua Soi Lek told Bernama. 

But it remains to be seen whether the efforts to play down the politically sensitive content of "Negarakuku" will be successful. Any failure will empower the critical elements of Wee's rap and may fuel the unspoken discontent of the public.