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View on a single page 27. 07. 2006
Articles of Faith by Kathy Rowland
They say that you should never discuss sex, religion and politics at a party, and it seems that the Malaysian Cabinet, those party crazy people, are toeing the Ms Manners line, on one count anyway.
So, the media has been directed not to talk about religion again. We, at Kakiseni, being party crazy people too, would much prefer to discuss sex and politics anyhow – I mean, who wouldn’t?
But, we do claim to be an arts website, so, lets talk about art.
Some years ago, actor and director Zahim Albakri staged a performance that comprised simply of him sitting on stage reading the Federal Constitution. Artist Tengku Sabri once webbed together exercise books, those brown ones with the Rukun Negara at the back, into an installation presented at the National Art Gallery.
Two artists, taking two articles that sit at the very heart of our nation, and making explicit the performative function of both institutions of the state, and art.
Where is the art you might say? How is this different from a lecture, a forum, a headline story about the constitution? Just reading the constituion, unadorned, ‘devoid’ of interpretation, saying the words, one by one, as they appear – is this art?
Those huge billboards by highways with the Rukun Negara printed on them – so now they’re monumental public art, rather than public eyesores?
In art, as in life, context is everything.
And our context now is one where interpretation has become the domain of he who shouts the loudest and the longest. You want to silence the loudmouth, then silence his challengers, even those who whisper. Problem solved. In such a context, a return to ‘text’ is perhaps the most radical art of all.
Lets talk about culture as well.
What is our culture now? Not just a culture of fear, but a culture of fearing the wrong things it seems – we fear rational peaceful dialogue rather than silence, we fear thinkers rather than bullies, we fear loss of votes rather than loss of integrity.
“If I’m too afraid to explore, then I should just stop thinking,” says director U-Wei HajiSaari, as he talks about his new play, Wangi Jadi Saksi, opening today, which explores the consequences of blind loyalty. Another great explorer, Krishen Jit, is remembered one year after his departure with a Datukship from Negeri Sembilan, a personal story of sake and art by Jo Kukathas, and a sharing of his many legacies by artists he had touched.
This week, exercise your right to explore – read your Constitution, all the articles, not just the one we can’t mention. And read your Rukun Negara. And weep for our country.
Kathy Rowland
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Editor's Recommendations
Minggu 'Ngadap Seni @ ASK: Our traditional arts are not dying, they are being buried alive. This week, Akademi Seni Kebangsaan honours the indomitable ones. Some of the most well-known living practitioners have been invited from remote corners of Malaysia to the city to present: Menora (dance drama with men as women), Randai (harvest celebration with silat), Mak Yong (dance drama with comic improvisations), Wayang Kulit (shadows telling illuminating stories) and Dabus (healing dance with sharp objects). May their work continue, may the nation heal. Tue 25 – Mon 31 Jul 2006. Akademi Seni Kebangsaan.
Wangi Jadi Saksi: Tuah and Jebat. Killer of best friend and killer of innocent women. Such is our lean picking of heroes that we have to keep coming back to these two. Notorious filmmaker U-Wei HajiSaari returns to the theatre to prick our collective psyche (the Mahathir-Pak Lah debacle fresh on our minds) with his version of this legendary dilemma. With so many femme fatale in his vault, U-Wei's account is unsurprisingly seen through the eyes of the Jebat's wife, Wangi, the only witness to his murder. Starring Vanidah Imran, Dato' Rahim Razali, Khir Rahman, Sobri Annuar, and Khalid Salleh; with set design by Desmond Crowe, art director for Alexandar and Band of Brothers. Thu 27 Jul - Sun 6 Aug 2006. Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka.
The Flowers Beneath My Skin: About a year ago, Kit Ong surfaced like an exotic mushroom in our indie garden with his mysterious black and white short films about thumbtack-eating and tear-stealing. His new feature film promises to trip us further: still black and white, it is seen through the hallucination of a woman undergoing carbon monoxide poisoning as she commits suicide with five strangers. The film is silent with live music by Ciplak, and guest appearance by Pete Teo. Tue 25 Jul 2006. HELP University College Theatrette.
User Comments
| posted by that pang kin taik |
| kepada si KATHY ROWLAND yang masih lagi teresak-esak menangis hendaknya, ini saja yang aku nak katakan;buat masa ni (nyanyi jangan tak nyanyi) ROW, ROW, ROW your boat... ...life is like a DREAM
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| posted by anti zionis |
| Thursday, July 27, 2006 Five myths that sanction Israel's war crimes by Jonathan Cook This week I had the pleasure to appear on American radio, on the Laura Ingraham show, pitted against David Horowitz, a "Semite supremacist” who most recently made his name under the banner of Campus Watch, leading McCarthyite witch-hunts against American professors who have the impertinence to suggest that maybe, just maybe, Arabs have minds and feelings like the rest of us. It was a revealing experience, at least for a British journalist rarely exposed to the depths of ignorance and prejudice in the United States on Middle East matters -- well, apart from the regular wackos who fill my email inbox. But five minutes of listening to Horowitz speak, and the sympathy with which his arguments were greeted by Laura (“The Professors -- your book’s a great read, David”), left me a lot more frightened about the world’s future. Horowitz’s response to every question, every development in the Middle East, whether it concerns Lebanon, the Palestinians, Syria, or Iran, is the same: “They want to drive the Jews into the sea." It’s as simple as that. Not even a superficial attempt at analysis; just the message that the Arab world is trying to finish off the genocide started by Europe. And if Laura is any yardstick, a lot of Americans buy that stuff. Horowitz is keen to bang the square peg of the Lebanon story into the round hole of his claims that the “Jews” are facing an imminent genocide in the Middle East. And to help him, he and the massed ranks of US apologists for Israel -- regulars, I suspect, of shows like Laura’s -- are promoting at least four myths regarding Hezbollah’s current rockets strikes on Israel. Unless they are challenged at every turn, the danger is that they will win the ground war against common sense in the US The first myth is that Israel was forced to pound Lebanon with its military hardware because Hezbollah began “raining down” rockets on the Galilee. Anyone with a short memory can probably recall that was not the first justification we were offered: that had to do with the two soldiers captured by Hezbollah on a border post on July 12. But presumably Horowitz and his friends realized that 400 Lebanese dead and counting in little more than a week was hard to sell as a “proportionate” response. In any case Hezbollah kept telling the world how keen it was to return the soldiers in a prisoner swap. Hundreds of dead in Lebanon, at least 1,000 severely injured and more than half a million refugees -- all because Israel is not ready to sit down at the negotiating table. Even Horowitz could not “advocate for Israel” on that one. So the chronology of war has been reorganized: now we are being told that Israel was forced to attack Lebanon to defend itself from the barrage of Hezbollah rockets falling on Israeli civilians. The international community is buying the argument hook, line, and sinker. “Israel has the right to defend itself," says every politician who can find a microphone to talk into. But, if we cast our minds back, that is not how the “Middle East crisis," as TV channels now describe it, started. It is worth recapping on those early events (and I won’t document the long history of Lebanese suffering at Israel’s hands that preceded it) before they become entirely shrouded in the mythology being peddled by Horowitz and others. Early on July 12 Hezbollah launched a raid against an army border post, in what was in the best interpretation a foolhardy violation of Israeli sovereignty. In the fighting the Shiite militia killed three soldiers and captured two others, while Hezbollah fired a few mortars at border areas in what the Israeli army described at the time as “diversionary tactics." As a result of the shelling, five Israelis were “lightly injured," with most needing treatment for shock, according to Haaretz. Israel’s immediate response was to send a tank into Lebanon in pursuit of the Hezbollah fighters (its own foolhardy violation of Lebanese sovereignty). The tank ran over a landmine, which exploded, killing four soldiers inside. Another soldier died in further clashes inside Lebanon as his unit tried to retrieve the bodies. Rather than open diplomatic channels to calm the violence down and start the process of getting its soldiers back, Israel launched bombing raids deep into Lebanese territory the same day. Given Israel’s worldview that it alone has a right to project power and fear, that might have been expected. But the next day Israel continued its rampage across the south and into Beirut, where the airport, roads, bridges, and power stations were pummelled. We now know from reports in the US media that the Israeli army had been planning such a strike against Lebanon for at least a year. In contrast to the image of Hezbollah frothing at the mouth to destroy Israel, its leader Hassan Nasrallah held off from serious retaliation. For the first day and a half, he limited his strikes to the northern borders areas, which have faced Hezbollah attacks in the past and are well protected. He waited till late on June 13 before turning his guns on Haifa, even though we now know he could have targeted Israel’s third largest city from the outset. A small volley of rockets directed at Haifa caused no injuries and looked more like a warning than an escalation. It was another three days -- days of constant Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, destroying the country and injuring countless civilians -- before Nasrallah hit Haifa again, including a shell that killed eight workers in a railway depot. No one should have been surprised. Nasrallah was doing exactly what he had threatened to do if Israel refused to negotiate and chose the path of war instead. Although the international media quoted his ominous televised message that “Haifa is just the beginning," Nasrallah in fact made his threat conditional on Israel’s continuing strikes against Lebanon. In the same speech he warned: “As long as the enemy pursues its aggression without limits and red lines, we will pursue the confrontation without limits and red lines.” Well, Israel did, and so now has Nasrallah. The second myth is that Hezbollah’s stockpile of 12,000 rockets -- the Israeli army’s estimate -- poses an existential threat to Israel. According to Horowitz and others, Hezbollah collected its armory with the sole intent of destroying the Jewish state. If this really was Hezbollah’s intention in amassing the weapons, it has a very deluded view of what is required to wipe Israel off the map. More likely, it collected the armory in the hope that it might prove a deterrence -- even if a very inadequate one, as Lebanon is now discovering -- against a repeat of Israel’s invasions of 1978 and 1982, and the occupation that lasted nearly two decades afterwards. In fact, according to other figures supplied by the Israeli army, at least 2,000 Hezbollah rockets have already been fired into Israel while the army’s bombardments have so far destroyed a further 2,000 rockets. In other words, northern Israel has already received a fifth of Hezbollah’s arsenal. As someone living in the north, and within range of the rockets, I have to say Israel does not look close to being expunged. The Galilee may be emptier, as up to third of Israeli Jews seek temporary refuge in the south, but Israel’s existence is in no doubt at all. The third myth is that, while Israel is trying to fight a clean war by targeting only terrorists, Hezbollah prefers to bring death and destruction on innocents by firing rockets at Israeli civilians. It is amazing that this myth even needs exploding, but after the efforts of Horowitz and Co. it most certainly does. As the civilian death toll in Lebanon has skyrocketed, international criticism of Israel has remained at the mealy-mouthed level of diplomatic requests for “restraint” and “proportionate responses." One need only cast a quick eye over the casualty figures from this conflict to see that if Israel is targeting only Hezbollah fighters it has been making disastrous miscalculations. So far some 400 Lebanese civilians are reported dead -- unfortunately for Horowitz’s story at least a third of them children. From the images coming out of Lebanon’s hospitals, many more children have survived but with terrible burns or disabling injuries. The best estimates, though no one knows for sure, are that Hezbollah deaths are not yet close to the three-figures range. In the latest emerging news from Lebanon, human rights groups are accusing Israel of violating international law and using cluster grenades, which kill indiscriminately. There are reports too, so far unconfirmed, that Israel has been firing illegal incendiary bombs. Conversely, the breakdown of the smaller number of deaths of Israelis at the hands of Hezbollah -- 42 at the time of writing -- show that more soldiers have been killed than civilians. In fact, although no one is making the point, Hezbollah’s rockets have been targeted overwhelming at strategic locations: the northern economic hub of Haifa, its satellite towns and the array of military sites across the Galilee. Nasrallah seems fully aware that Israel has an impressive civil defense program of shelters that keep most civilians out of harm’s way. Unlike Horowitz I won’t presume to read Nasrallah’s mind: whether he wants to kill large numbers of Israeli civilians or not cannot be known, given his inability to do so. But we can see from the choice of the sites he is striking that his primary goal is to give Israelis a small taste of the disruption of normal life that is being endured by the Lebanese. He has effectively closed Haifa for more than a week, shutting its port and financial centers. Israeli TV is speaking increasingly of the damage being inflicted on the country’s economy. Because of Israel’s press censorship laws, it is impossible to discuss the locations of Israel’s military installations. But Hezbollah’s rockets are accurate enough to show that many are intended for the army’s sites in the Galilee, even if they are rarely precise enough to hit them. It is obvious to everyone in Nazareth, for example, that the rockets landing close by, and once on, the city over the past week are searching out, and some have fallen extremely close to, the weapons factory sited near us. Hezbollah seems to have as little concern for the collateral damage of civilian deaths as Israel -- each wants the balance of terror in its favor -- but it is nonsense to suggest that Hezbollah’s goals are any more ignoble than Israel’s. It is trying to dent the economy of northern Israel in retaliation for Israel’s total destruction of the Lebanese economy. Equally, it is trying to show Israel that it knows where its military installations are to be found. Both strategies appear to be having an impact, even if a minor one, on weakening Israeli resolve. The fourth myth is a continuation of the third: Hezbollah has been endangering the lives of ordinary Lebanese by hiding among non-combatants. We have seen this kind of dissembling by Israel and Horowitz before, though not repeated so enthusiastically by Western officials. The UN head of humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, who is in the region, accused Hezbollah of “cowardly blending” among the civilian population, and a similar accuation was levelled by the British foreign minister Kim Howells when he arrived in Israel. In 2002 Israel made the same charge: that Palestinians resisting its army’s rampage through the refugee camps of the West Bank were hiding among civilians. The claim grew louder as more Palestinian civilians showed the irritating habit of gettting in the way of Israeli strikes against population centers. The complaints reached a crescendo when at least two dozen civilians were killed in Jenin as Israel razed the camp with Apache helicopters and Caterpillar bulldozers. The implication of Egeland’s cowardly statement seems to be that any Lebanese fighter, or Palestinian one, resisting Israel and its powerful military should stand in an open field, his rifle raised to the sky, waiting to see who fares worse in a shoot-out with an Apache helicopter or F-16 fighter jet. Hezbollah’s reluctance to conduct the war in this manner, we are supposed to infer, is proof that they are terrorists. Egeland and Howells need reminding that Hezbollah’s fighters are not aliens recently arrived from training camps in Iran, whatever Horowitz claims. They belong to and are strongly supported by the Shiite community, nearly half the country’s population, and many other Lebanese. They have families, friends, and neighbors living alongside them in the country’s south and the neighborhoods of Beirut who believe Hezbollah is the best hope of defending their country from Israel’s regular onslaughts. Given the indigenous nature of Hezbollah’s resistance, we should not be surprised at the lengths the Shiite militia is going to ensure their loved ones, and the Lebanese people more generally, are not put directly in danger by their combat. If only the same could be said of the Israeli army and airforce. One need only look at the images of the victims of its strikes against residential neighborhoods, cars, ambulances, and factories to see why most of the dead being extracted from the rubble are civilians. And finally, there is a fifth myth I almost forgot to mention. That people like David Horowitz only want to tell us the truth… Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His book “Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democatic State” is published by Pluto Press. His website is www.jkcook.net
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| posted by Lee Weng Choy |
| Preaching to the converted is a criticism often levied on those who stake political positions in the arts community. It’s not an entirely unfair criticism, as artists and cultural activists occasionally posture self-servingly. But it’s important to recognise when staking a position in public really matters -- even if the public that pays most attention holds similar values. I was one of the co-organisers of last June’s Panic Buttons workshop and forum, which Benjamin McKay reported on in Kakiseni, and which generated so much online discussion. I’m still unclear exactly why there was so much heated debate over Panic Buttons by Kakiseni readers -- especially when contrasted with the lack of response to Kathy Rowland’s “Articles of Faith” editorial. While Article 11 may not have been one of the central talking points during Panic Buttons -- we dwelled more on the anti-pornography bill in Indonesia, for instance -- it was certainly an important part of the whole context. Benjamin argued in his report that talk IS action, and, for my part, I’d like to say that it does matter a whole lot that Kakiseni takes such positions in its editorials. It is vital for the public record that somebody is doing it. And I hope to pre-emptively refute those who might say that Kakiseni is just preaching to the converted. As if the mainstream media does not function precisely by saturating our consciousness with certain ideological messages. As if speaking in public was not a very important right as well as rite. Which if not exercised, would atrophy.
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| posted by benjamin |
| dear kathy and all at kakiseni, A succinct and spot on editorial - sad times - i read the links - i know we can no longer mention Article 11, but what does that do to Article 10?? Weep we all may, but keep up the crusade for truth - for the truth is not scary, but the fear of it is however very scary... Standing behind the founding tenets of a nation and its constitution is not a silly gesture, but an act of profound and important patriotism. You serve your nation well in reminding the readers of kakiseni of the importance of the constitution - hard fought for and finally won as it was. It surprises me that to defend it on the eve of it's 50th anniversary is seen by some to be a controversial act. Surely to question it is an act, if not of treason, but of sedition? Your constitution and the principles that it articulates were hard fought for - your postcolonial success is a testament to its worth and value. Everyone - local or foreigner - should honour the men and women who struggled for this document - and defend it. I just wish that the constitution of my own country did not still pay allegiance to a foreign queen and thus a foreign ruler - when we in Australia have a constitution that proclaims our true independence and honours and acclaims the value and importance to our nation of the indigenous people who provide it with its only unique and enduring spirit, then we can stand proudly beside Malaysia as a truly postcolonial nation. Keep up the defence - and remember that to talk and to debate that which shapes you should always be celebrated. Talk is not dangerous - denying it is... Best, Benjamin
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| posted by nique |
| What is art? (Part 1) -Having something new to tell, you have to live, you have to feel things, you have tonurture yourself with new things so that that it doesn't become a repetition of the one you've made before.It's like to say something new, to create something surprising, to allow the artist to enjoy it and have something new to learn from it or to feel from it. -Hunger is always an important incentive, it convey maturity.Many artists boast that they have got where they are despite hunger, but one gets many things thanks to hunger, because if you are born with a full stomach you have fewer incentives. -For some people it is a complex way to express the simplest things, for others it is a very simple way to express complex things. -Common sense is limited since it depends on your intellectual capacity. Imagination has no limits, and sometimes my imagination goes against common sense. Sometimes Not knowing the thoery of art is like not knowing reason, technique; but the unconsciousness, the ignorance make you fly higher or, at least, make you fly and land on places where reason would not land. -How can the primitivism of traditional values fit with the search of new ideas?-Well, you grab tradition with one hand, and with the other hand you scratch, you search.It is very important not to lose tradition, because the essence, the message,the base is there. With tradition you can go anywhere and run away,but without leaving that root since, in fact, the identity, the fragrance and the flavor of the traditional values are there. -Critiques are practically of no use, because you are your own critic.If you haven't played well and the critique is positive, or vice versa, you stop respecting the critic.In very few cases the critique can be constructive, even if it is not positive;Usually, they either write very lyrical, very beautiful things and that's all;or they say good things about an artist without even explaining why. -The artist wishes to be understood, to communicate and to prove that he holds a truth.I am not sure to what extent you want to brainwash the public but... yes,there is some truth to it. Maybe the success is to brainwash the public. -An artist must be faithful to himself, he must like himself and believe it because that's what he automatically reflects and that's what reaches the public. People say that in order to be universal you have to be from your own town first. I believe that,if you only think about what others would like, you go crazy, you would get lost. -To live within a society and within a system is like a game where money means that you win: you get money for doing something everybody likes. In the case of artists,money is the recognition of a valid job, just that. I imagine that the money a manipulator makes does not give the same feeling. One has to know how to value money because it's easy to fall into the trap of wanting more and more money despite having more than the amount you can spend. When it comes to that point, it becomes unhealthy and dangerous. -People are basically the same no matter what we do. A cyclist may be an artist and a singer may have the spirit of an athlete. Under this perspective, we all have in common sensitivity, laughter, weeping, sadness, it's just that our circumstances are different. I believe less and less in the label "occupation: artist".No labels. The fact that doing art does not give an artist a title, because when it comes to work an artist is a worker. Art is inherent to the human being. A person can express art in any way, even without singing, painting, playing or writing. Many persons practice as artists and they will never become an artists. Others, besides being artists, work in an artistic activity. Even if they do not have a technique, they know why they do it and how they do it. -Own personality. -Oneself identification and what oneself can do. -Have to study everything about it, but experience is fundamental. -Moments when you feel things that you just have to express it. -The emotion doesnt lie in quick/atheletic technique; Do it with heart and good taste. -Non-stop learning;constantly learning.It's more of a long-distance race than reaching a specific goal. -To be an artist you have to be born as an artist. -To continue improving, putting more of heart and more feeling into it. How much more innovation do you want? -A modern interpretation of Art that is respectful of tradition. -Nowadays, Art is too fast; young people are going too far. There are too many groups that use the word Art but they're really doing something else. I think that they should do real Art, and if not, then they should call it something else." -These days there are nice singers around, good singers, but they're all clones. -Competition shouldn't enter into arts.
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