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Censorship

Looking Backwards

By Helen Musa Recent coverage in Kakiseni about the phenomenon of censorship in private sector Malaysian arts may seem like a new thing to some. But to a keen Kakiseni reader, these articles conjured up a past era of Malaysian arts, when the seeds of interference were sown and the trend of individuals setting themselves […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • February 21, 2008

The Year The Arts Showed The Way (Part II)

By Veronica Shunmugam In last week’s part of what the arts meant to 2007, I looked at what the arts community offered in terms of nation building, promoting heritage and arts-culture exchange. In the second part of this overview, I’d like to highlight arts outreach, arts for health, how options for arts training as well […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • January 18, 2008

Playing Catch Up

By Kathy Rowland Malaysia has a long history of conflicts over arts and culture, pitting artists against the Japanese during the Japanese Occupation, against the British during the Communist insurgency and anti-colonial movement that followed World War II, and, since independence in 1957, against the Alliance government. Over the past 49 years, the space for […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • October 5, 2007

Bad Theology Leads to Bad Morality

By Aloysious Augustine Mowe An image deemed insulting to a prophet is printed in a newspaper. Religious leaders express their dismay. The common faithful see the picture as an attack on their religious beliefs. Welcome to the delicate world of religious sensitivities. But where are the violent protests? Fiery denunciations are not issued from pulpits […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • September 14, 2007

Press Statement on the banning of “Apa Khabar Orang Kampung”

By Artis Pro Activ (APA) Artis Pro Activ (APA) unreservedly condemns the Malaysian Film Censorship Unit’s decision to ban director Amir Muhammad’s documentary film Apa Khabar Orang Kampung (Village People Road Show) which documents the lives of former Malay Muslim Communist Party Malaya members. The film was submitted to the Censorship Unit on January 18th […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • February 22, 2007

Free To Speak

By Kee Thuan Chye 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. […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • October 19, 2006

The Freedom to Worry

By Zedeck Siew I have been worried that my teeth are falling out. It has been six months since my last visit to a dentist. Being immigrants to the city, my family never really acquired a new orthodontist, so dental examinations require a one-and­-a-half hour drive back to Port Dickson: a Dr. Lim handles all […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • August 24, 2006

The Freedom of Limits

By Jac SM Kee 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 […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • August 24, 2006

The Freedom to Justice

By Sonia Randhawa The Federal Constitution establishes and protects the Judiciary. In turn, the Judiciary’s main task is to protect us, the Malaysian citizen. There are signs that its almost uninterrupted decline from the debacle of the Tun Salleh Abas trial has been arrested. But the fundamental liberties protected by the Constitution, from Article 5’s […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • August 18, 2006

Who’s Afraid of Harmony Street?

By Concerned Citizens There is a street in Georgetown, Penang that has been affectionately dubbed “The Street of Harmony”. Once officially known as Pitt Street, it is now Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling. Along the axis of this street, there are three mosques, two churches and several Hindu and Chinese temples, all of them within easy […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • August 11, 2006

Bringing Chin Peng Home

By Sharaad Kuttan It is near impossible to write about Lelaki Komunis Terakhir without dealing with the immediate politics of the affair; the circus of the UMNO-directed banning (including the Arts Minister’s intervention) as well as a divided media, caught between anti-communist hysteria and liberal breast-beating. So perhaps the only thing to do in order […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • July 20, 2006

Where have all the Commies Gone?

By Zedeck Siew After watching Amir Muhammad’s Lelaki Komunis Terakhir l remembered I had a copy of In Search of the Revolution: A Brief Biography of Chin Peng, by historian CC Chin. I rescued this from a pile of dusty paper in my room several days later. It begins with a flourish: “There is no […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • July 20, 2006

Rockin’ in the Free World

By Chuah Siew Eng Music as a tool of political consciousness doesn’t happen often enough — perhaps unsurprisingly for a society wary about the uncontrolled consequences of freedom of expression. But that rare occasion of bands banding together to bandy an important issue did happen recently when, on the last weekend of May, groups like […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • July 12, 2006

Talk Is Action

By Benjamin McKay There will be some among you who believe that talking about problems, about crises and about rights is a passive act. All talk, no action. I disagree with those sentiments. Talk, conversation, dialogue, argument and general discourse ARE actions. Identifying problems and the responses to those problems are important diagnostic activities too. […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • June 15, 2006

Where Muftis Fear to Tread

By Toni Kasim Gubra raises a whole pile of socio-religio issues — some may even consider it somewhat overburdened — and in a heavily censored society, you really want to credit Yasmin Ahmad for using narrow windows of opportunities to test the limits of national and social discourse, even if some viewers may come away […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • April 14, 2006

Kee Thuan Chye: Vorpal Pen*, Actorly Aspirations

By Michelle Woo Professionally: an editor, and formerly a literary one. Creatively: a writer of socially-provocative plays and stirring prose. From the heart: an aspiring actor. Kee Thuan Chye, at 47 years of age, talks about his ripening dreams. Kakiseni: What drives your writing? Is it a sense of the past, present, or future? Kee: […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • October 17, 2001

Smorgasbord: A-Z of Spinning Gasing (Rampai Sari: “Spinning Gasing” dari A ke Z)

By Amir Muhammad Klik di sini untuk versi Bahasa Malaysia yang diterjemahkan oleh Abd. Latiff Bidin. A is for ARIFF. A campy Malay character played by Edwin Sumun, which explains why the campiness is more convincing than the Malayness. I kept waiting for him to come out with the revelation that he was an adopted […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • October 17, 2001