We exercise our freedoms in modest\namounts. Selecting carefully which brand we prefer, what newspapers to read (or\nnot), musicians to support, our select hang out spots, restaurant, coffee\nchain, bank, mobile phone service and sport. At least in consumption, some\namount of autonomy can be exercised. To push boundaries takes a lot more than\nmost of us can afford. It takes a certain amount of self-certainty, commitment,\ntime, energy, emotions, risk and metaphysical dreams. There are some amongst us\nwho take this on as a vocation. Making a life that is about identifying points\nof discrimination, inequality and substandard quality as they see it, thinking\nof ways to make that obvious to the rest of us, trying to get people in power\nto pay attention and make some changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Malaysians in general are unused\nto freedom. We are unaccustomed to speaking out against unfair government\npolicies. We are nervous with providing unfettered critique against lousy\ncreations by architects, legislators, horticulturists, artists or activists. We\nare awkward in our demands for basic needs like affordable healthcare, clean\nwater, thoughtful politicians, functional democracy, independent media or\nrelatives of different ethnicities and religions. We cannot think about love\nwithout customs, costumes or lawyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps this is the only way to live in current Malaysia where we have a plethora of laws like the Internal Security Act (ISA), Emergency (Public Order and Preventive of Crime) Ordinance (POPO), Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA), Sedition Act and a chain of other acronyms to help secure our boundaries. It can almost be comforting to exist within limited freedoms — as long as others are in the same bind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our collective imagination festers\nwith lack of trust. We have grown with the awareness that much is apparently\nnot allowed in Malaysia, and long shadows of taboo lurk in public spaces. We\nare warned about the ‘sensitivity’ of others, and have cultivated a highly\nattuned sensitivity of our own. Small differences are magnified to solidify\nstuff that is in reality, constantly shifting; from culture to identity to\ndesires. National policies that ostentatiously call for equality cleave even as\nthey seek to equalise. Rhetoric of unity is always accompanied by its sharper\nunderbelly of potential violence. To keep the wheels of our society going, we\nfunction under the cozy paradigm of economic development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So while a few may join NGOS,\nbringing them in direct confrontation with state policies, for most of us, our\nheroics happen in smaller (s)paces. Despite depressing tidings of suffocating\nlaws and stifling discourses, there are still pockets where we can, and do\nperform some mini acrobatics in pursuit of freedoms. Writing letters to the\neditors is an obvious (and maybe a little boring) example. Even if out of a\nhundred letters only a handful are printed, the editor is still aware about the\nmass of stuff currently discomfiting people a little more than usual. This has\nsome impact on the direction of reporting and coverage, although not seen. Or\ncalling in to the radio. Traxx.fm especially, still has to maintain some level\nof ‘seriousness’ in their programmes. The DJs might be getting cross-eyed with\nfrustration, listeners are at least given one channel of information that is\nnot endlessly streaming imported tunes in uniformity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Agony aunt or Big Brother columns\ncarry a surprising potency for social transformation. Somehow, normal people,\nusually reticent, place a lot of trust in such spaces. The flesh of human\nrelations in crisis is presented raw to be untangled. The most intimate of\npower negotiation — between romantic partners, family members, friends and\ncolleagues — is put into the most public of spaces. Generously assuming that\nmost readers are not just in it for voyeuristic pleasure, it does give a\nglimpse of what is in reality hurting real people, and gives us a chance to\nexercise our Inner Social Architect in us to come up with alternative\nsolutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In side streets, alleyways and bus\nstops, sticker and stencil revolutions are happening in gritty colours against\nconcrete. Some may carry clearly political messages while others are simple\nmarks of individual taggers. Even then, it is an exercise in the subversion or\nreclaiming of open spaces that have been given up and sold in a forgotten\nsocial democratic contract. When young people especially are bound by norms or\nnamed as apathetic robots of tomorrow, a spray can and some street cred can\nmake a huge difference in individual empowerment. Walls become potential\ncanvasses for independent thought, subaltern communities and occasionally bad\nart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Malls are the ubiquitous democratic\nspace of contemporary urbanscape. Where else can anyone enjoy shelter, air\nconditioning, clean toilets, benches and sometimes even sample bite-sized food\nfor free from 10am to 10pm? In a country where State welfare for the homeless\nis non-existence, the benefits of such spaces cannot be belittled, especially\nwhen some are so kind as to offer complimentary shuttle-busses. As with all\nunabashedly commercially driven spaces, moral norms become a little more\nflexible. Hand-holding is not slapped with a criminal charge here and tank tops\nor loose hair is okay. You probably won’t get charged for handing out leaflets\nif you’re fast on your feet, and handing out flowers is definitely acceptable,\neven to security guards. You can engage anyone in conversation about anything\nas long as you’re not smelly, drooling, painfully shy or boring. It is a\nwonderful promised land for one-on-one shattering of normality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The internet is still relatively\nfree in its unruliness despite recent threats (aside: thank you for reassuring\nweb content producers of non-jail persecution Pak Lah). There are blogs\nmushrooming every other day with stories that are too often hidden. If you know\nthe lingo, you can find dissident discourses about almost every subject under\nthe coconut shell. Social networking tools and platforms spawned from web 2.0\ntechnologies like Myspace and Friendster are creating communities that defy any\nlaws against the right to assembly and association. Mailing lists abound to\nspread information, panic waves and thoughtful caution superseding any blind from\nthe Official Secrets Act. Even personals are giving new spaces for creative\nre-construction of identity. The anonymity that the web allows for enables\nfreedom that can bend the body, erase history, and materialise the darkest,\nfurthest depths of imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem though, is not that we\nlack in space or penumbra of legislations that expressly forbid. The problem\nseems to be our lack of imagination, or maybe desire, or perhaps need. We seem\ncontent to let our exchanges be numbed by circumscription. Most of the time. We\nseem to have swallowed the romanticism of the Economic Development Mythology\nand let it lead us into trepidation in any other facet of life. Like the\nadolescent who submits his existence, stories and fears in utter trust to Big\nBrother, we submit a whole range of freedoms to our dysfunctional democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead of creating, we seem to\nprefer to exercise the freedoms to disengage, to blame everything on race,\nclass or genitals, to enjoy privileges that come from accidentally occupying\nsome category of identity, to use all lack of freedom as a justification for\nun-interrogated enjoyment of privileges, to buy ciplak DVDs, to afford\nbroadband and populate forums and comment boxes with hate speech and reckless\nutterances, to refuse to read Utusan, NST, The Star, Berita Harian, Harian\nMetro and Kosmo, to buy and masturbate to Mastika, to update CVs, get another\njob, borrow more money to buy a house and family, to choose Maxis or Digi, to\ntake all our lack of freedoms, bunch them in a fist and take them home to our\nloved one’s face. We seem to choose the freedom of myopic forgetfulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am not sure. Chaos Theory promises\nthat a single flap from a butterfly at one end of the world can cause tornadoes\nin another. So perhaps there is a scattering of ordinary people who are shaking\nour foundations at the cracks through small uncommon movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
~~~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jac sm Kee is a feminist activist, poet and blogger. Sometimes she chalks pavements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
First Published: 24.08.2006 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We exercise our freedoms in modest amounts. Selecting carefully which brand we prefer, what newspapers to read (or not), musicians to support, our select hang out spots, restaurant, coffee chain, bank, mobile phone service and sport. At least in consumption, some amount of autonomy can be exercised. To push boundaries takes a lot more than […]<\/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":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3538,3543],"tags":[4075,3597,4074,4076,3794],"language":[7523],"writer":[7682],"class_list":["post-27590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-censorship","category-politics","tag-emergency-public-order-and-preventive-of-crime-ordinance-popo","tag-freedom-of-expression","tag-internal-security-act-isa","tag-printing-presses-and-publications-act-pppa","tag-sedition-act","language-english","writer-jac-sm-kee"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27590","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=27590"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39011,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27590\/revisions\/39011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27590"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27590"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}