DramaLab has been intimately connected to the Instant Café Theatre Company from its inception. We started as a project of ICT, and have grown into a theatre company which reflects the vision of the founding members of ICT. Instant Cafe has performed over the years for a wide variety of the Malaysian population. The company has proved to be a space where people can laugh – but it is also an important arena for people to respond – to issues of the day, to the complexities of our society, and to the need to talk about where we, as a country and a people, are going. To silence that voice is to silence the conversations that are so important to the growth of a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society that promotes values of acceptance, tolerance and broadmindedness.

DBKL’s actions have been informed by a letter sent to Utusan Malaysia, complaining about ICT’s rudeness and insensitivity. We applaud the writer of this letter, and Utusan for publishing it. Opinions count, and we had hoped that this letter might create an interesting debate about freedom of speech, and the place of artists in political, cultural and social dialogue. Because we are a country that propounds a multiplicity of opinion, we felt that at least this could be the beginning of a fascinating dialogue. Instead, DBKL reacted to one letter, and finally last night issued the company with a compound fine and declared that it would not issue performance licenses to the company again. Dialogue over. How is it possible that one complaint can have so much power? If 20 people wrote in and said that they felt ICT should continue, would that have as much influence? What if 50 people wrote in? 500? 5,000? How much positivity do we have to generate to counter one letter of negativity?

ICT has been creating theatre for 14 years, and it seems that up to now, it has been a successful and positive influence in our country. They have an audience because what they say is relevant – and people want to hear their voice, because it reflects our thoughts and ideas. If ICT did not have an audience, then it would not have been able to survive these past 14 years – and it is a shame and a disgrace that one letter could negate all that history.

May be ICT should close down and become ICT Baru. Its happened before in our history.

DramaLab