| Yawning
Bread. 16 September 2008
At Malaysia's Freedom Film Fest 2008
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Now in its 5th year, the Freedom Film Fest is a project by KOMAS (I think it stands for Community Communications Centre) showing "daring human rights films from all over the world", according to its flyer. This year, it began its circuit in Kuala Lumpur 5 - 7 September before moving to Johor Baru the following weekend, 12 – 14 September. Thereafter it will travel to Kuching, Sarawak, 19 – 21 September before ending in Penang 26 – 28 September. As mentioned above, I caught some segments of the Johor Baru screenings.
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During the Q&A after the screening of the Seelan's film, one person noted that in the last few years, awareness has been growing in Malaysia over political rights. Has this been so in Singapore too? Seelan's answer was that he saw everything in Malaysia as inspiration. (Yawning Bread thinks most other Singaporeans do not.) The next person standing up to ask a question appeared to share Yawning Bread's scepticism. Identifying herself as someone who had been living in Singapore for 7 months, she said Singapore was very different in that people in the republic didn't seem perturbed. Is there anything specifically different between the two societies that makes it so? In responding, Seelan opined that a lot of Singaporeans were apathetic, ignorant and consumerist, but gradually one saw change. Even so, most issues people talked about dealt with economics, such as price rises. Another person from the floor offered the view that the biggest difference between Singapore and Malaysia was that the former was economically stable. People were content and not left wanting, "whereas in Malaysia, every day, people see injustices." Yawning Bread thinks it's more complex than that. There are plenty of injustices in Singapore, but Singaporeans have acquired a culture of not seeing. * * * * * The audience swelled to about 60 for the Saturday evening screening of his 30-minute film, which was funded by a grant from KOMAS.
In the film, the band members were shown discussing among themselves what they thought of the state of free expression in Malaysia as they worked on their new song Genggam Bara (Grasping Embers [2]), which included the line,
The film's strength, however, lay in the interviews Justin Johari recorded with some outspoken Malaysians, including V Gayathry from the Centre for Independent Journalism, Yusri Mohamad from Pembela (Muslim Organisations in Defence of Islam), Masjaliza Hamzah from Sisters in Islam, Azmi Sharom, a well-known law academic, and Farish Noor, a historian. On Islam, Masjaliza said, "In Malaysia, Islam is controlled, in terms of the kind of Islam to be promoted." It is not only the government who is attempting to control it, but civil society groups as well, she said. Yusri Mohamad pointed out that people voicing opinions on matters they know nothing about leads to confusion in the country. Azmi Sharom decried this common way by which self appointed groups try to silence others, when they say: "You have no expertise, so you cannot talk about it." Farish Noor pointed out that religion is both public and private. If you don't want others to talk about your religious ideas then you have to keep it private. The moment you bring your religion into the public realm and use it as the platform for policy, then anyone affected by such ideas will have the right to criticise your religion. Singaporean readers may find it striking that the issue of free expression in Malaysia is so wrapped up with the question of Islam. The dynamics are different in Malaysia, and for this reason, it is important to observe Malaysians debating among themselves first-hand, and not assume that social issues in our neighbour mirror the way they are framed in Singapore. That was why I thought it would be enlightening to attend their Freedom Film Fest. * * * * *
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The 3-day event also had a segment titled "Politics of Religion", which had a pair of films. One was When will my religion be mine? [3] featuring very sympathetically three anonymous cases of persons wanting to leave Islam, but were prevented from renouncing the religion by Malaysia's Shariah laws. The other was Qalam by Hadi Koh (10 minutes) which very subtly questioned what 'Allah' meant and how people reacted to its use -– I didn't think this film was good; the use of the itinerant monk device was too far-fetched. The real eye-opener for me was when question time began after these two films. A massive silence sat on the room. The moderator, Mien, had to reassure the people present that as far as she knew, there were no Special Branch officers present. With more coaxing, people began to speak up, and as I expected since such film festivals tend to attract the like-minded, they were generally prepared to question the exclusivist use of the word 'Allah'. However, on the question of allowing nominal Muslims to leave the religion, I didn't get an altogether clear sense of where people stood. The Malay-Muslims in the room tended to avoid addressing it directly, with the possible exception of one (Malay) Komas volunteer who pointed out that historically, Malays had not always been Muslim. During the Sri Vijaya period, they were Buddhist (He is correct. There were also long periods of Malay and Javanese Hinduism). His conclusion, and a sharp one at that, was that "The Malays only follow the sultans", meaning they adopted whatever religion the rulers held without much questioning. I wondered whether the moderator would call for a show of hands over the question of whether people should be allowed to leave Islam freely, but I guess she knew better. It might have been too provocative to do so in Malaysia. * * * * * One young woman in a headscarf argued that in Islam, a person is not complete until he or she marries and procreates, and that is why being homosexual is wrong, because it frustrates the possibility of completion. A young man, asked whether he would marry someone he couldn't love -- something often demanded of gay people -- evaded the question, saying it was "hypothetical", without explaining why he thought it was so. The same negative attitude was seen after the screening of Pecah Lobang, a documentary about transsexual sex workers, 88% of whom were Malay-Muslim, according to the film [5]. Again, the audience's stance seemed to be that they "should not be like that"; it's against the teachings of Islam which says "males must be male and females must be female". Also, why can't they hold a proper job, they asked, without even realising that it was the job discrimination the transsexuals faced that forced them into prostitution. I was quite amused to see how a group of
people, obviously attracted to a film festival that celebrated
"Democratic Space" as the tagline of the event called it, and
perceptibly sympathetic to the demand for greater freedom of expression,
reverted to religious authoritarianism once the subject of sexuality came up.
One moment they are nodding when the Mufti of Perlis is shown in a film
saying that when someone asks to leave Islam, he has already renounced it
in his heart and forcing him to stay within the religion is meaningless,
another moment the same people are demanding conformity with the religion
in matters sexual. It only goes to show how difficult it is to integrate
various aspects of liberty in people's thought processes. © Yawning Bread
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Footnotes
Addenda None
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Although we were in Johor Baru, about one in three of the audience of 25
– 30 were Singaporean. They were mostly friends and supporters of Seelan
Palay, whose 45-minute film One Nation Under Lee was being screened in
Malaysia's Freedom Film Fest 2008.
