Reformasi 1998

The Reformasi is a protest movement throughout Malaysia by young Malaysian (mostly Malay) and initiated by Anwar Ibrahim after he was sacked as Deputy Prime Minister by our forth Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir. A novel titled 'SHIT' by Shahnon Ahmad was released in 1999, which is about the dirty politic in Malaysia regarding to this issue and it was banned by the government.

'SHIT' by Shahnon Ahmad.

Ahmad Fuad Osman, a Malaysian artist from Kedah, has created a series of paintings that reflect the political situation in Malaysia after the Reformasi.

Syhhh..! Dok Diam Diam. Jangan Bantah. Mulut Hang

Hanya Boleh Guna Untuk Cakap Yaaaa Saja, Baghu Hang

Boleh Join Depa.. Senang La Jadi Kaya.

The titles of his artworks are so special that the told the viewers what his paintings are about that usually artists will not do. The titles are in Malay but as you can see it is not in proper Malay, it is more on his hometown dialect, 'Kedahan Malay'. The painting above is telling us to just sit down and stay quite, our mouths are used just to say 'Yes', which reflect to the situation in our country even until today it still exist. We must agree what the ruler says if we do not want any problem. Malaysia have no freedom of speech at all.

Issshhh..Busuknya!!! Hangpa Bawak Masuk (S)Apa Ni?!!

His second painting is telling us the politic in our country is stink, which means the politicians are using dirty tactic to rule the country.

Hoi Hoi...Apa Ni?! Dia Kata Hang Salah, Hang Kata Dia

Yang Tak Betoi..Sapa Yang Salah, Sapa Yang Betoi Ni?!!

Hangpa Ni Sebenaqnya Nak Apaaa???

The third painting is referring to the confusion that made by the politicians. Every issue has 2 sides of stories which confuse the people and we do not know who is right and who is wrong, most importantly, who to support?

Wong Hoy Cheong also created two artworks to respond to this issue. The first one is Tapestry of Justice, which is a collection of thumbprints of people who disagree with the ISA.

'Tapestry of Justice' by Wong Hoy Cheong.

The second artwork is Vitrines of Contemporary Events. He crafted judge's wigs and police batons out of cow dung and displayed in a glass box. This is obviously showing that our legal system is just 'bullsh_t'!

Judge's wigs in 'Vitrines of Contemporary Events'.

Operasi Lalang

In August 1987, Malaysian government sent non-Mandarin speaking senior officers to Chinese primary school. This made the Chinese community in Malaysia to think the government wants to remove Chinese in education and they protest to fight against this move. However, Anwar Ibrahim, who was the Education Minister in that time maintained stand despite protest. On 8 October 1987, joint committee set up by 15 Chinese-based groups including MCA, Gerakan and DAP. It is the first time MCA work together with the opposition party in Malaysia history. On 11 October 1987, Chinese groups met at Thean Hou temple to propose boycott of classes, which asked the parents stop sending their children to school until the government to take action about this issue. It resulted 30,000 students boycott classes. Umno Youth carried out a counter rally that mobilised 20,000 Malays in Kuala Lumpur on 17 October, and there is a rumour says that our current Prime Minister, Najib Razak, who was the Umno Youth Leader in that time said 'This kris will be bathed with Chinese Blood' in that rally, but there is no prove of it.

On 18 October 1987, an armed Malay soldier, Adam Jaafar, known as 'Private Adam' ran amok in Chow Kit, he took his machine gun and shoot on random people on the street, killed and injured civilians. All the Malaysia citizens are worried and afraid of racial riot like the May 13 tragedy will happen again. There is no official reason on why he did this, rumour says a Sultan killed his brother but he could not sue the Sultan in court, which made him crazy and he just took an M16 machine gun from his army camp and go to the street to shoot the civilians.

Adam Jaafar aka. Private Adam(left).

On 19 October 1987, Anwar Ibrahim reiterated Chinese school policy. The government took action against protestors, which resulted protests escalate. The government said that races riot is going to happen if this issue continues and they want to remove all the 'lalang'. Operasi Lalang began on 27 October 1987, which 199 people was detained with trial under ISA (Internal Security Act), most of them are opposition party leaders, and 3 newspapers closed within a week (The Star, Sin Chew Jit Poh, Watan). 

A Malaysian artist, Wong Hoy Cheong, had made an art in respond to this issue. He made an artwork out of lalang in front of the old National Art Gallery. He planted the lalang plant and burnt it, but it grew back after several months. He wanted to show that what government did was useless because the 'lalang' would not die. He also did some famous artworks and one of them are Sook Ching.

'Sook Ching' by Wong Hoy Cheong.

Wong Hoy Cheong (2nd from right).

Sook Ching is a huge artwork, it is about the cruelty of Japanese when they invade Malaysia during World War II. He will perform a drama performance in front of his artwork with several performers. Sook Ching was then purchased by a Japanese.

Malaysia Tragedy

Malaysia became an independent country in 1957. During the pre-Merdeka period (before independent), which is in the 40s, artists in Malaysia perceive our country as a peaceful and beautiful country. On 13 May 1969, which is the post-Merdeka period (after independent), a tragic incident was happened in the Malaysia history. A racial issue that created riot in Kuala Lumpur area and Klang area, Malay and Chinese were fighting and killing each other, every citizen in the country was hiding in the house. The reason of this incident is sensitive to talk about and there are some rumours says that it is related to politic.

After this tragic incident, Malaysia artists were all shocked and did not know how to give response to this, but there are 2 artists who did arts to respond to this sensitive incident. Ibrahim Hussein, one of the most famous and richest artist in Malaysia, created an art titled 'May 13th'.

"May 13th" by Ibrahim Hussein.

This art is in black with a red line and white circle but when we look closely it has a Malaysia national flag and a number 13 hid under the white circle. The appearance of the art and the title are clearly related to the May 13 tragedy. Ibrahim Hussein painted a Malaysia flag and cover it with black colour, obviously it means Malaysia was in dark period. I personally think the red line represents the blood of the people who died in this incident and the white circle represents the hope of Malaysia, which mean we still have hope. Maybe?

Another artist who responded to this incident is Redza Piyadasa. He is one of the first Malaysia artist who do conceptual and abstract arts. In response to the tragedy, he created an art titled 'May 13th, 1969'.

"May 13th, 1969" by Redza Piyadasa.

It is a coffin shaped 3D art, standing on a mirror with Malaysia flag wrapped around it with some black paint covered. The standing coffin with Malaysia flag shows that Malaysia is still alive on the outside but it is actually dead after the May 13 tragedy. The mirror reflect the people who go towards the artwork and view it, which we can see ourself in it that means we are part of dead Malaysia. The original artwork are destroyed by the artist himself but recreated a replica in 1970. This artwork are currently owned by Singapore and placed in Singapore National Art Gallery. I, as a Malaysian, feel really sad that non-Malaysian appreciate Malaysia arts more than Malaysian do.

There are an interesting event happened, which is a Malaysia famous poet, Salleh Ben Joned peed on Redza Piyadasa's art and it is surprised that he did not get arrested. Every artist was shocked and discussing about it during that period. They wonder is there any hidden meaning of his behaviour but he is just simply did not understand Redza Piyasada's arts and thought those are crap.

Salleh Ben Joned.

Malaysian ART

ART, is the things that are created by humans. Creativity comes from the word 'create', and it can represent the meaning of perception, re-imagine or imagination. Once a creative person takes action to create something from his/her imagination, an art is formed.

There are plenty of artists in the world who's works are worth millions of dollar, but not in Malaysia. Since the old times, even until this modern era, we, Malaysian have a wrong perception towards artists. We think artist are all poor because Malaysia Arts do not have value. Why Malaysia Arts do not have value? The biggest reason is Malaysian did not know how to appreciate arts that are created by Malaysian artists. This is a sad truth that we did not proud of our own arts, instead we mostly are influenced by foreign culture, such as K-pop that influence young Malaysian the most.

However, there are an art form has value in Malaysia, which is commercial. Yes! Commercial is art, because it requires imagination to be created. One of the most appreciated series of commercials are Petronas TV commercials. Malaysian will look forward to the releasing of Petronas commercial in every festive season, such as Hari Raya Aidilfitri (Malay New Year), Chinese New Year, Deepavali (Indian New Year), and also the HARI MERDEKA (Malaysia Independent Day). Petronas is the company that starts to create a short film like TV commercial that convey meaningful message without product placement in every festive and Merdeka season.

Rubber Boy is the Chinese New Year 2016 short film commercial by Petronas.