Current location:	At home
Current mood:	enraged

Their true colours are showing now
The Star today quotes Kedah state executive councillor Dr Ismail Salleh as saying that rock, reggae, pop and dangdut concerts will be banned. I am from Kedah. I am a singer-songwriter who makes pop music, and I often collaborate with other musicians who make rock music. So I am directly affected by this.

And I am pissed off as hell. I just came back from reporting on the PAS Muktamar in Ipoh a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I had found stories of hope there. Of course, there were the delegates and high-ranking leaders within the party who exhibited precisely this kind of repressive, sanctimonious mentality. It's safe to say they form the majority of the PAS delegation I saw. But I also spoke to a few key leaders in PAS who offered me some great perspectives about their democratic aspirations. But I think they are vulnerable within their own party, and I wonder, when push comes to shove, whether they will object the party's positions on such things like concert banning and so on.

This might seem trivial, but it's not. I think concerts, even pop concerts, are cultural barometers of a democratic state. Sure, you have stupid artists singing stupid songs. You have stupid gigs. But that does not mean you need to ban concerts. An intelligent and discerning public will demand intelligent pop music. 'Intelligent' not meaning 'inoffensive'. When I say 'intelligent', I speak as an artist whose obsession is with the quality of the craft. I think when the state chooses to ban concerts, it makes no consideration on quality - it merely wants to silence voices that contradict its own agenda. In this case, it is an agenda of very regressive and repressive Islamism.

I have always been accused of being hopeful. And I am. And I think that's why it shocked, or maybe frustrated, so many of my friends when I refused to join in their euphoria after the March 8 elections. I refuse to join in any post-Permatang Pauh euphoria too.

On one hand, I definitely feel that the leadership of this country has lost its marbles. The PM, the DPM, and many, many other high-ranking BN leaders and Cabinet ministers. All have lost the plot. Their credibility is shot. They are bungling and clueless right now, and when bungling and clueless leaders have access to repressive laws like the ISA, the OSA, the Sedition Act, and also continue to be able to manipulate our public institutions and the mass media, we have ourselves a dangerous combination. A deadly combination.

But what of the Pakatan Rakyat? If I support the Pakatan Rakyat, I am supporting a coalition that:

1) Refuses to do anything to pass Freedom of Information legislation (all Pakatan state governments)
2) Wants to ban concerts (Kedah, Kelantan and Selangor)
3) Persecutes sexual minorities, like mak nyahs (Kelantan)
4) Publishes their own state newspaper which only contains news that is pleasing for the government to hear (Penang)
5) Does not seem to be making any effort to hold local council elections
6) Does not seem to be making any effort to ensure that body-snatching of non-Muslims does not happen (Perak, Penang)
7) Has no clear or comprehensive program to increase women's participation and access to politics
8) Has one party that is all for setting up a state ideology that polices and separates citizens on the basis of religious affiliation, another party that whines a lot about this and yet does nothing about it, and a third party (the leader of parliamentary pack) that does not even have a stand on this, and whose lack of a stand on this speaks volumes about where it actually does stand.

In other words, if I support the Pakatan Rakyat, I am supporting a coalition that is no better, in political substance or composition, than the BN.

And where is Anwar in all of this? Where indeed is he? I sent out a petition that protested the way the state has been gay-baiting Anwar, trying to use sodomy allegations to discredit him. Anwar has his rights, and his dignity, and these deserve to be respected at all times. But do I trust him as a politician? Never have, still don't and probably never will unless I hear him actually say something that is principled and makes democratic sense to my personal conscience. Engineering parliamentary defections in order to form federal government on September 16? That's undemocratic to me - that sounds like a parliamentary coup. It sounds like what armies in Burma, Pakistan and Thailand do, only Anwar is trying to legitimize it by parliamentary means. And forming federal government? Please! You cannot even run your five states properly yet! Any principled leader would be thrilled to be living in this historic moment - to have denied the BN its two-thirds majority in Parliament and to control an unprecedented five state governments! Here's a golden opportunity to prove to Malaysians what an effective Parliamentary opposition should look like, and how to revive a truly federal system and govern these five states as beautifully as possible. It's too early to see any results in these states, and in Parliament. But have we even seen any attempt at running these states more cohesively and in a more principled manner than the BN did? 

I keep telling my friends about Iran. I have several Iranian friends who are wonderful artists and activists in their own right. They assure me Iran is a vibrant place, where interesting things are happening now. But they also assure me that activsts, journalists and artists have been persecuted, tortured and killed over the past three decades of the Islamic Republic.

And from Reza Aslan's "No God But God", it is clear that the US-backed regime of the Shah was a nightmare. Again, you had a clueless, megalomaniac leader who had the backing of a superpower, an array of repressive legislation and the assistance of an abominable secret service (the SAVAK) to pummel Iranians into submission and misery. So when he was forced into exile, everyone was thrilled. Finally, a mass movement that managed to overthrow a despotic regime. And what a mass movement - it saw alliances among feminists, secular leftists, democrats and Islamists. The Ayatollah became the symbol of a new, democratic Iran.

And for about a year after the Islamic revolution, things looked good. A new constitution was promulgated, backed by the Ayatollah, and it was such a beautiful document - it upheld such lofty doctrines like Constitutional sovereignty and separation of powers, and it protected cherished liberties for all Iranians.

And then the Ayatollah's reign of terror began. Leftists started getting arrested and executed. Feminists, too. Gay and lesbian Iranians were executed as well. Rival Ayatollahs who did not agree with Khomeini were also executed.

And you know what was the indicator to this that nobody paid attention to? When everyone was still caught in the elation of overthrowing the Shah, the Ayatollah's Revolutionary Guard had started to quietly shut down theaters in Tehran. Nobody paid attention, because after all, this was only art. This was only entertainment. What could it possibly contribute to the larger struggle for democracy and social justice? 

But this was the trend, and when I tell my Iranian friends what is happening in Malaysia now, they tell me, "It sounds like Iran just on the eve of the Islamic Revolution." And they don't mean this in a good way. They say this with a sense of foreboding.

Don't take my word for it. I'm just a singer-songwriter who happens to have a blog. Read for yourself testimonies by Reza Aslan, by Shirin Ebadi, by countless other Iranian journalists and bloggers.

So, at the risk of being ridiculed by friends who support either the Pakatan Rakyat or the BN, I have to articulate the one big fear I have: are we going down the path of Iran? And I do not say this condescendingly. I love Iran. I always have. I love its films, its music, its literature, I love hearing its language being spoken, I love looking at pictures of historical ruins in Iran. But to go through what Iranians went through, after they realized the true nature of the Islamic regime of Ayatollah Khomeini, that is something I want to avoid if I can.

Do I remain hopeful? Of course I do! I have just lost faith with our politicians. I have lost faith with all the political parties. But I always have faith in citizens. I have faith in public opinion. I have faith in public institutions and civil society. It's not too late to assert our voices so that our leaders listen to us. So that they know we do not support individuals - but that what we want is the birth of a larger system of democracy and justice for all Malaysians. If we have detractors and their voices are louder than ours - so be it. Every struggle has to start somewhere. And if we stick to our principles and our vision, if we continue to be hopeful in the face of the most daunting challenges, then this hope will become contagious, and it will inevitably inspire action and meaningful change.