Abstract
Malaysia is far from a multi-ethnic paradise, as its musicians will tell you. Will anything change with the new governmnent, asks
The National Front, a predominantly ethnic-Malay party, has run Malaysia since its formation in 1957, the longest time a political coalition has ever held power in the world. Compared with Malaysia’s other ethnic groups, the Malays hold special native rights (the bumiputera status) which, for example, give them favoured treatment in terms of access to higher education, work placements and the ability to buy housing. Their religion, Islam, has been used as a normative tool to justify their social and political decisions. It has been hard for other ethnic groups to have a voice.
And yet this is not the image the government has been portraying. Landing in Kuala Lumpur, visitors are confronted with leaflets that promote “Malaysia, Truly Asia”, a paradise land of beautiful white-powder beaches, transparent seas and endless rainforests, where three of Asia’s main ethnic groups — the Chinese, the Indians and the Malays — peacefully co-exist. In the city proper, the National Front’s propaganda hasn’t even spared the Light Rapid Transport network: information screens are often filled with another fickle, beautifying, multi-ethnic campaign, 1Malaysia.
The government has tried to broadcast the convincing image of a united, harmonious, multi-ethnic nation. And it has poured lots of money into tourism (projects to improve infrastructure in Langkawi, for example, were recently announced). These efforts work, to an extent; millions of tourists flock to Malaysia’s capital and beaches each year.
Speaking out against this lie can get you in trouble. But not all are willing to remain silent, and amongst the most outspoken are Malaysia’s underground musicians. In this nation where mainstream media has been tightly controlled by the National Front, underground music scenes have provided a space where young Malaysians can voice their real opinions.
Take Kuala Lumpur’s melodic punk band Dum Dum Tak, well-known on the scene for their outspoken and daring lyrics. They play in underground venues such as rented halls and rehearsal studios, which are hard to access for general tourists who rarely explore beyond Malaysia’s famous tourist hotspots.
Anti-fascist skinhead punk band Street Boundaries performs at Soundmaker, a longstanding alternative music venue and studio on the island of Penang
CREDIT: Cole Yew
Ahmad Nizammudin, the band’s bass player, backing vocalist and main lyricist, said they sang “about dirty politics [and] the dictatorship of the ruling party”. They have a song bashing Razak and the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, which saw state funds equivalent to $700m allegedly siphoned off to his personal accounts, and they sing about the goods and services tax – “a tax applied to everyone, including the poor”.
“Other bands sing about these topics, but the fact our songs are melodic and in Malay [means we] attract even people outside the punk-rock scene,” he said.
“We try to organise events and produce music that allow or encourage people to be critical towards society and the media,” said Cole Yew, a Malaysian Chinese guitarist of multi-ethnic “stoner rock” band White Crow and manager of Soundmaker, northern Malaysia’s prominent independent music venue and studio, which is located on the tourist island of Penang.
“It’s a way of practising our rights: artists should be more socially aware in order to maintain a healthy music and art movement that supports constructive social values.”
Malaysia’s underground music scene stretches back to the mid-1980s, when Anglo-American music and magazines such as NME reached the country and spawned heavy metal and punk bands. Blackfire, a metal band formed in 1982 in the state of Perlis, is believed to be Malaysia’s first heavy-rock outfit.
The positive, egalitarian themes promoted by global underground sub-cultures helped give young Malaysians an alternative. By the late 1990s, Kuala Lumpur’s Central Market had become the meeting place and breeding ground for a number of young, multi-ethnic Malaysian artists and musicians, who were disillusioned with the increasingly conservative mindset of the rural Malay hinterland.
These first bands enjoyed the tail end of musical freedom in Malaysia which, throughout the 1980s, saw long-haired, scruffy “mat rockers” (Malay hard rock fans and musicians) such as Search, Wings and Kembara obtain popular success. They recorded platinum albums and packed Kuala Lumpur’s stadiums to the gills, playing a mix of melodic European hard rock and lyrics sung in the Malay language that appealed to all races and segments of society.
The government initially paired with the mat rockers to promote Malaysia – see Cinta Buatan Malaysia (Love Made in Malaysia), Search’s 1985 debut album, and a song of the same name that promoted local industry. But a few years later, the loud voice of hard music ended up being curbed by the hardest Islamic line in the political sphere: during the Mahathir era in 2001 and 2006, authorities cracked down on an alleged rise in “Satanic black metal fans” who “fornicated freely and desecrated the Koran”. As a result, the whole music scene was shot down in flames: records were confiscated, shows were cancelled and the events were sensationalised by the Malay-language media.
“It was a classic case of societal ‘moral panic’ created, and further inflamed, by the always opportunistic, moral-baiting media,” said Joe Kidd, ethnic-Malay guitarist of Carburetor Dung, one of Malaysia’s pioneering punk bands, and an authority in the local scene.
“The local metal scene was old and mature enough to know that it was a seasonal occurrence. They just laid low for a few months, waited for the heat to dissipate, and then sprang back into action, like countless of times before since the beginning of the scene in the late ‘80s.”
Today, performers and organisers have learnt to maintain low profiles. When political cartoonist and punk activist Fahmi Reza – who was recently sentenced for “violating multi-media laws” with his famous caricature of Razak as an evil-looking clown posted Dum Dum Tak’s song Turun Najib Turun (Get Down, Najib, Get Down) to his online following in 2016, the band refused a resulting interview request from the BBC.
“We thought about the risks, and realised we have commitments towards our families as breadwinners, so we declined,” explained Nizammudin, who feared repercussions.
Azmyl Yunor, a songwriter, singer of multi-ethnic punk band Ben’s Bitches and a senior lecturer at the department of performance and media of Sunway University, near Kuala Lumpur, said Malaysian musicians and songwriters “self-regulate on what they deem to be ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ expressions”.
When Yew was interviewed, he was about to return to his home town of Brinchang in the Cameron Highlands to vote, hoping for a new and more open-minded government. With this crucial election result, perhaps his wish has been granted and the country might more closely resemble the Malaysia of the tourist brochures.