An update from yesterday's post.
Welcome to the Good Girl Gone Dhimmi Tour.
Barbadian R&B sensation Rihanna will shun skimpy outfits when she performs in Malaysia next month, the concert's organisers said yesterday, becoming the latest international star affected by the Muslim-majority country's strict rules on performers' dress.
Recent concerts by Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne faced protests by conservative Muslim Malaysians over immodest clothes.
Under government guidelines, a female performer must be covered from the top of her chest, including her shoulders, to her knees. Rihanna, 20, favours black leather bustiers, shorts and boots.
Rihanna's February 13 concert in Kuala Lumpur is part of her Good Girl Gone Bad tour, and has drawn threats from a radical Muslim group, Parti Islam SeMalaysia.
The group, which blasted Lavigne's onstage moves last year as "too sexy", said in an online commentary that Rihanna was "sexier and more dangerous" than Lavigne.
I wish artists like Rihanna would ask themselves what good is artistic freedom if it is surrendered so easily? Why should radical Islamic groups like Parti Islam SeMalaysia respect those rights if we don't stand up for them? To write this off so easily as a "when in Rome" situation is to ignore the dangers of an expanding radicalization of Islamic governments and even encourage them to be even more aggressive in the future. That fares badly for other artists as well as Malaysians.
