JANUARY 25 — A fan gets chosen to go onstage and meet the pop star he has previously only seen from afar.

He cannot believe his luck. His heart is still beating fast and he can barely contain his excitement. His eyes are fixated on the star, everything else is just noise.

There might be handshakes, friendly hugs. Photos are taken. The moment is awkward, but it is also fun and funny.

The same scene has replayed itself over and over again across the world. Anywhere else, it would be left alone and in time forgotten, except for the smitten fan.

It did not seem so recently when the fans were three Malay girls who were thrust into infamy just because their heads were covered in the traditional tudung.

After a Facebook page maliciously labelled the scene as “Malay girls molested on stage by K-Pop men”, the incident has become a lightning rod that united certain quarters of the Malay community, hasty and eager in their moral policing.

The response that followed was mostly vile, with Malay daily Sinar Harian mentioning the incident on its front page, claiming that what happened was “worse than hugging dogs.”

Religious authorities and scholars were quick to condemn the event, promising brimstone and fire. You would have thought that the world was ending.

But above all, at the centre was a feeling the insecurities of the Malay community was finally unleashed after years of simmering denial and pent-up frustration.

1. Insecurity about pop culture

Hate it or love it, Korean pop culture — from K-pop music to TV dramas to variety shows — is perhaps South Korea’s most successful export. Starting in the late 1990s, the Korean wave, or hallyu, has since swept across the whole world and Malaysia together with it.

Members of the Korean K-pop group ‘Girl’s Generation’ appear on the red carpet during the K-CON 2014 (Korean Culture Convention) at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. — Picture by AFP

Several Malay-language radio channels now play K-pop songs in their programmes and chart shows. Malay youths are actually paying big bucks for these concerts, merchandise, and even actual physical albums that cost up to hundreds for their special editions.

Shows like Running Man are household names. Songs and dances by artists such as Wonder Girls and PSY became viral to the point of annoyance, but it is a level of fame that many can only dream of.

Compared to that, where is Malay pop culture now? Are we to be forever defined by P. Ramlee, Sudirman, and Yasmin Ahmad?

It is understandable how this might have spooked the entertainment industry, where certain quarters held the audience to ransom with their tired cry of “support our local scene.”

2. Insecurity about virility

Some Malay men were quick to shame the Malay girls for allegedly being “cheap” with their Korean stars. The girls were made to feel unworthy of their faith.

Such comments masked the suspicion that some Malay men feel inadequate about their chances to attract a mate. As such, they fall back to their male entitlement: that Malay women belong to them, and it is only they who deserve the women’s attention.

Korean idols can look flawless, with their androgynous looks, perfect hair, stylish attire, and their toned physique. The fact that Malay women can fall head over heels for men with features that can be described as feminine can be unnerving to some.

One minister even tweeted, either jokingly or defensively, that Malay women should return to “real men”: the tall, dark, and handsome, instead of the pale, skinny, and pretty. It is telling that most men who support this notion would themselves only prefer the pale, skinny and pretty when it comes to women.

This myth has been recycled many times over, that the foreigners are coming for the Malay women: from Arabs, Africans, to South Asian immigrants, and even white expats. Now it is the Koreans.

3. Insecurity about identity

Lest we forget, K-pop is just the latest “threat” against the Malay and Muslim communities. Before this there were black metal and punk. Go years back, and there were probably warnings against just about anything that young people listen to.

Even years from now in the future, the same old folks will still cry the same warnings.

If you believe the religious authorities, Malay youths would suddenly forget to be Malays and Muslims if they expose themselves to foreign culture.

Years of failed nation-building and reconciliation with other ethnic groups have left the country without a cohesive identity. The ones suffering the most might perhaps be the Malays, many of whom retreat into their shell of Muslim identity when faced with culture clashes.

As always, when faced with a foreign juggernaut such as the Korean wave, the easiest step would be to blame “The Other” rather than face up to our own shortfalls.

There is always somebody else to blame behind the phenomenon: the liberals, Christian evangelists, church activists.

It is easier to call for protectionism for our own entertainment industry, or dismissing K-pop for being inferior, rather than stepping up our game.

Perhaps Malay men should look at themselves and figure out what it is that makes Korean idols so attractive, even sexually? Is it their image of being sweet, romantic and sensitive? Or their image of not seeing women as objects and possessions that belong only to men of certain ethnic groups?

Religious authorities should ask themselves, why are some Malays not taking religion as seriously as they take entertainment? How important is religion to Malay youths these days?

K-pop will still be around, at least for another few years. Should Malay fans now pre-emptively be banned from sharing the stage with their idols for fear of enraging some entitled, hypocritical men?

To punish our youths’ taste for our own insecurities would be unfair. Just as we can embrace K-pop, we can also learn a lot from it.