Let’s start with a number of\ndisclaimers: first, I’m writing as an individual and not as a representative of\nany organisation; second, I’ll be talking about freedom of expression and\nculture, specifically relating to the performing arts in Malaysia; third,\nthere’s nothing I will tell you that you don’t already know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You know, I’m sure, that there are\nmajor constraints to what can be articulated in the arts. You know that there\nis censorship. You know about the actions taken by the authorities on recent\nfilms and plays — you’ve heard about what happened to The Last Communist<\/em>, written and directed by Amir Muhammad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks to the Home Ministry, I\nhaven’t seen this film, a documentary that road-maps the small towns where Chin\nPeng, leader of the long-defunct Malayan Communist Party, lived and fought\nagainst the British.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Last Communist<\/em>, or Lelaki Komunis Terakhir<\/em>,\nwas originally passed by the Censor Board without any cuts. In fact, Special\nBranch officers were given a screening of it. Something never done before —\nbut hey, why not, to be on the safe side? After all, Malaysian artists have\nalways worried about what the SB thinks — and the consequences of these\nthinking. So, before they come after you, get their approval first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking as an artist, I’d say\nthat’s pathetic. But it is a fact that the Special Branch can make or break\nyou. I speak from personal experience:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1986, I was the actor in a one-man\nplay called The Coffin Is Too Big for the\nHole<\/em>, written by Singaporean playwright Kuo Pao Kun. It was a story about a\nman who had problems burying his grandfather. All funeral plots had to be of\nstandard size — but his grandfather’s coffin was a huge traditional Chinese\none. So the grandson battles with the authorities to make an exception. Not a\nplay to upset anyone, wouldn’t you say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n But to stage plays in this country, one needs to obtain a permit. In Kuala Lumpur, it is City Hall grants these permits –\u00ad but they, of course, must have the approval from the Special Branch, first. (Maybe the authorities consider policemen as the most cultured people. How dare we dispute that? The producer of The Coffin<\/em> dutifully submitted an application, together with a copy of the script.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than two months passed, and\nthere was still no word about the permit. We panicked. Money, time and effort\nhad been put into the project. Opening day came. Still no permit. Our producer\nwent to see City Hall that afternoon, and was informed that the application was\ndenied. No reason given. That night, people who came to see it had to be turned\naway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We followed the proper procedures.\nWe didn’t screw around with Special Branch. And yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Doing the Right Thing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n So, our Censor Board probably did\nthe right — albeit pathetic — thing by arranging a special screening of The Last Communist<\/em> for the Special\nBranch. Guess what: the cops thought it was okay. One of them even noted that\npeople might be bored, watching it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two weeks before The Last Communist<\/em> was to open at the cinema, however, something happened. A Malay-\u00adlanguage newspaper published a series of articles denouncing the film as a glorification of Communism. One of its editorials advised Amir to document the lives of Malay heroes, instead. According to Amir, none of the journalists had seen the film, nor did they ask to see it. Neither had the historians or politicians they interviewed for those articles. They hadn’t seen it — but they had a lot to say about it. These were intellectuals or, at least, thinking people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, as they say, Malaysia Boleh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the attack by the newspaper,\nthe Home Ministry retracted the Censor Board’s approval. The Ministry said it\ndid so because there was a public protest. When other members of the public\nprotested — later, against the ban \u2013 they were ignored. They, apparently,\ndidn’t count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even the Minister of Culture, Arts\nand Heritage had felt the film was inoffensive and should not be banned. To\nprove his point, the Minister arranged for a special screening of the film and\ninvited Members of Parliament to view it — who also found it innocuous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Home Minister was not swayed by\nhis esteemed peers in Parliament. The ban stayed. In an interview with The\nStar, he revealed that the ban was partly because the timing the film’s\npremiere, a week apart from the celebration of UMNO’s 60th<\/sup>\nanniversary, was inappropriate. He had earlier said that the movie needed the\napproval of the UMNO Supreme Council, not the Cabinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even the Minister of Culture thought it was inappropriate — that a political party decides on a matter that concerns the Film Censorship Act. It should be the elected Government that decides. Interestingly enough, UMNO Youth had also been on The Last Communist<\/em>\u2019s case, a year earlier — they protested the making of Amir’s film, even before it was shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paranoia and Pornography<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Why has it come to pass that\npoliticians are interfering in the making of culture?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have dwelt, at length, on the\nbanning of The Last Communist<\/em> because\nit says a lot about the kind of society we have become. We are supposed to be\nembarking on an exciting journey towards developed nation status, by the year\n2020, but we are obviously insecure, obviously paranoid — and, far worse,\nobviously confused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What happened to The Last Communist<\/em> demonstrates the\nnarrow agendas and petty fears of politicians and journalists. If you bring in,\nas examples, Yasmin Ahmad’s Sepet<\/em> and\nGubra<\/em> — both films that have been\nreviled for non-artistic reasons — you will meet another set of people who\nhaven’t realized that the world is bigger than their coconut shell: racists and\nreligious extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The all-important question is this:\ndo these people represent the majority of Malaysians? If not, do a handful of\nindividuals have the right to determine what art is approved, and what art is\nnot?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is this power — a power\ndisproportionate to numbers — that allowed the banning of The Last Communist<\/em>. It also explains the closing down of the\nKakiKino Film Club, which screened films at Finas — until a member of the\npublic complained that it was showing pornography. Sure, the films screened\nsometimes contained scenes of nudity. But this is the same sort of misjudgment\nthat calls Renaissance paintings of nude women in classic Renaissance paintings\n— paintings proudly exhibited in famous museums and art galleries throughout\nthe world — pornography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It allows the censor’s black marker\nto blot out any part of a piece of art that gets them wild — either with moral\nindignation or delight. I’m not sure which. They’re vandals, all the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take The Vagina Monologues<\/em>, a critically-acclaimed feminist play,\nwritten by American playwright Eve Ensler, that speaks out on issues relevant\nto all of us, such as rape and violence against women. In 2002, two theatre\ngroups in KL collaborated on a performance of the play that ran for five shows.\nThey had managed to secure a permit from City Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Encouraged by the success of the\nshow, the producers decided to extend their run, but now found their\napplication for an extension denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why? A scholars’ association in\nKedah read about the workshop of this performance in the newspapers, and filed\na complaint against it. An objection raised by people, all the way from Kedah,\nwho had not even seen the play. It seems to have become a Malaysian habit to\ndenounce something one has not seen, hasn’t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n National Identity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The African American writer James\nBaldwin once wrote: ‘Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy\njustice can have.’ Replace the word ‘justice’ with ‘culture’ and this\nobservation is just as apt. We Malaysians are truly in the grip of the tyranny\nof a minority, dictating just what we can see and do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yasmin Ahmad’s Sepet<\/em> presents our society’s multicultural reality by showing\nslices of Malaysian life, centering on the love between a Chinese boy and a\nMalay girl. But — in Parliament, no less; through an MP, no less; with the\ntitles ‘Datuk’ and ‘Dr’, no less — the film was said to not reflect national\nidentity. This MP criticized the movie for ‘rojak language’ and ‘inappropriate\nscenes’ — for the latter he cited a scene of a young man in his underwear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do we Malaysians not speak ‘rojak language’ in our everyday life, throwing in bazaar Malay, English, Tamil, Mandarin, Cantonese, Iban, and so on? Don’t some of us go about in our underwear, at home? A more important question, though: what did the MP mean by ‘National Identity’?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I suppose that MP would also have\nconcurred with the Malay-language press for denouncing Sepet<\/em> for a scene in which the Malay girl meets her boy in a\nChinese coffee shop. There was a stall selling pork rice. But she doesn’t\nactually eat the pork, or even touch it — and, so far, there are no laws that\nsay a Malay girl can’t step into such a coffee-shop. Would National Identity be\nseriously jeopardized by such an innocuous act?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we already deduce from this is that there are people who do not want to embrace pluralism, multiculturalism –\u00ad the idea of Bangsa Malaysia. Well, that’s fine. If that’s how it is with them, they’re free to adhere to their own beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It becomes a problem, however, when\nthey try to make their beliefs prevail over the activities of others who don’t\nshare these beliefs — a blatant infringement of human rights. The\nrepercussions of this have significant, negative effects on the arts, for the\nvery fact that the arts have the potential to foster what is positive and\nlife-affirming and progressive and democratic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The State of the Union<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not only the arts that have\nbeen short-changed by this tyrannical minority. Recently, a gag order was\nissued on discussion related to Article 11 of the Malaysian Constitution —\nthat piece of writing upon which our nation is founded. This directive comes\nfrom no lesser authority than the Chief Executive Officer of Malaysia, himself.\nSuch discussion, he says, can cause tension in our society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay. As authority-fearing\nMalaysians, we won’t say that such an order goes against the spirit of Article\n10 of that same Constitution, the Article 10 that guarantees Malaysian freedom\nof expression. We won’t say that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, thinking hard about it: isn’t\nthe Government sending out confusing signals? We are all Malaysians, but our\ngovernment does not seem to treat us equally. We are a democracy — yet not so.\nWe are mature people — yet we cannot participate in mature discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is it because some sections of\nsociety are not mature enough? Well, then the Government is continuing to\npamper spoilt children, children who are given to ranting and raving, throwing\ntantrums — children who threaten to erupt in violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We live in a globalised world. We\nare going towards Vision 2020. At the very least, the Government could tell\nthese children: “Respect the rule of law, the principles of the\nConstitution. Don’t act like samseng. If you resort to violence, we’ll have to\ntake action against you as stipulated by the law.” It doesn’t take a\nrocket scientist to see the simple logic in that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps a rocket scientist would also point out that if the Government actually did that, it might not continue to be the Government.\u00a0Such is democracy. That’s the rub: nobody wants to bell the cat. And yet this minority, which behaves in such an unreasonable and unruly way, needs to be pulled up before it gets totally unmanageable. It is already getting away with posting death threats on the Internet against one of the organisers of the Article 11 forums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Situation Now<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I have been in the arts for 30\nyears, and I’m appalled: instead of improving, the situation has got worse for\nartists. The restrictions are still there. 16 years ago, I directed a play\ncalled Madame Mao’s Memories<\/em>, about\nMao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing but not at all about Communism. It was not given a\npermit. That same paranoia is still here today. In 2004, Huzir Sulaiman’s Election Day<\/em> was rejected by City Hall because\nit contained the names of real people: Dr Mahathir, Anwar Ibrahim, the lawyer\nSivarasa Rasiah. Even the mention of Guardian Pharmacy in the play was\ncontentious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, apart from these restrictions,\nwe artists also have to put up with the new, insidious phenomenon of not\noffending the sensibilities of the tyrannical minority — because a single\ncomplaint from them is all it takes to shut down our shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why pick on the arts? Our reach is\nsmall — minuscule, compared to the exposure politicians get on national\ntelevision. Now that’s the real theatre. The big stage is the political stage,\nwhere an event can be telecast live to millions of people, and made larger than\nlife. Reality is being theatricalised by the politicians in power every day.\nThey are the big-time actors, and their PR consultants are mega-stage managers.\nThey know how to use the medium to theatrical effect. The brandishing of a\nkeris, and all its threatening implications, are beamed to millions of homes to\nram a message through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If any censorship is required, it\nshould be for divisive gestures like that. Instead, the incident was allowed to\nbe a dramatic act on a big scale. When huge numbers of the public complained\nabout the keris drama, they were told to be silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By contrast, puny theatre companies\ncan have their productions closed down because a handful makes a complaint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Prime Minister, referring to our\npoor maintenance of public facilities, said we were a nation with first class\ninfrastructure but a Third World mentality. Perhaps he should have extended it\ninclude the mindset of those Malaysians who disrupt activities, including\ncultural ones, because they feel that their beliefs are under threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is the arts that are under\nthreat. There is precious little that artists can do to defend their rights.\nThe situation will not change — not while the Government and the people give\nin to tyranny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recently, we celebrated Merdeka Day,\nsymbol of our freedom. But are we really free? Are we free from fear, free from\nignorance, free from prejudice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don’t think I need to tell you the\nanswer. You already know it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kee Thuan Chye, a theatre practitioner and playwright since the 1970s, is also an associate editor for national daily The Star. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is an edited version of a speech Thuan Chye delivered at the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (SUHAKAM)’s Malaysian Human Rights Day 2006 Conference on Human Rights and Culture, held on Sat 9, Sep 2006. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First Published: 19.10.2006 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let’s start with a number of disclaimers: first, I’m writing as an individual and not as a representative of any organisation; second, I’ll be talking about freedom of expression and culture, specifically relating to the performing arts in Malaysia; third, there’s nothing I will tell you that you don’t already know. You know, I’m sure, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3773,3538,3544,3540,3543,3535],"tags":[245,3976,3598,3074,844,712,520,3774,3974,501,3975,737,223,3800,635,3979,3597,3978,3969,600,3925,3973,3970,1497,1119,744,3967,3972,3061,3921,3971,3977,3968,46,3790,521],"language":[7523],"writer":[7694],"class_list":["post-27547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-censorship","category-culture","category-film","category-politics","category-theatre","tag-amir-muhammad","tag-anwar-ibrahim","tag-article-10","tag-article-11","tag-arts","tag-censorship","tag-censorship-board","tag-chin-peng","tag-communism","tag-culture","tag-dr-mahathir","tag-eve-ensler","tag-film","tag-film-censorship-act","tag-finas","tag-freedom","tag-freedom-of-expression","tag-guardian-pharmacy","tag-home-ministry","tag-huzir-sulaiman","tag-identity","tag-jiang-qing","tag-kakikino-film-club","tag-keris","tag-kuala-lumpur-city-hall","tag-kuo-pao-kun","tag-malayan-communist-party","tag-mao-zedong","tag-merdeka","tag-multiculturalism","tag-pluralism","tag-sivarasa-rasiah","tag-special-branch","tag-theatre","tag-umno","tag-yasmin-ahmad","language-english","writer-kee-thuan-chye"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27547"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39106,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27547\/revisions\/39106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27547"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27547"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}