KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 4 ― Umno will oppose any public screening of “The New Village” if the film is found to glorify communism, Datuk Seri Nazri Mohamed Aziz said yesterday.

Mingguan Malaysia, the weekend edition of Umno-owned daily Utusan Malaysia, also reported the Umno supreme council member as calling rapper-turned-filmmaker Namewee a “stupid kid” for criticising the temporary suspension of the movie screening.

“My friends and I in Umno will fight to ensure that any form of glorification of communism will not take place here,” Nazri was quoted as saying in Padang Rengas, Perak, yesterday.

“If the film is really found to glorify communism, we do not want the film to be screened at all. Even if it comes out on blogs or on YouTube, we will keep finding until we get them,” the tourism minister added.

Namewee, whose full name is Wee Meng Chee, was reported by news portal The Star Online last Friday as saying that it was “unacceptable” for a movie to be banned on the basis of complaints.

Nazri said in response that Namewee did not understand Malaysian history.

“As we live in a multi-racial country, we must take into account the sensitivities in this country,” he said. “He must remember that the police and the armed forces defend our country. If anything happens to him tomorrow and the police refuse to take action, he shouldn’t get mad then.”

“The New Village”, a local film directed by Wong Kew-Lit, was suspended by the Home Ministry from its original release date of August 22 last Sunday after the movie trailer sparked a storm on the Internet. The movie is undergoing a review by the Film Censorship Board.

Extreme right-wingers alleged that “The New Village” sought to glorify the communist insurgents from the Malayan Emergency.

But Astro Shaw and Yellow Pictures, the joint producers of the film, said last Monday that “The New Village” was a Chinese period feature film of a “forbidden love story” set in the 1950s, a time when the Chinese communities were resettled into new villages by the British.

The relocation by the colonial British government then had been aimed at preventing the Chinese villagers from aiding the Malayan Communist Party, either willingly or unwillingly.

The furore over the trailer also moved other filmmakers to express disappointment with the irrationality that met attempts to retell the nation’s history in ways that differ from what far-right elements consider “official”.

Amir Muhammad, whose documentary “The Last Communist” was banned by the government in 2006, questioned recently the “copyrighting” of Malaysian history.

Another independent filmmaker, Ho Yuhang, questioned why communism or the May 13, 1969 race riots are still taboo topics.