Malaysia arts community paints hopeful picture of coming age of creativity, despite Mahathir’s role in regime change
New mood of optimism in the country as conservative, traditionally oppressive government is finally brushed aside, making space for creativity to flourish
On the streets and on social media, Malaysians are basking in the afterglow of a peaceful, democratic and totally unexpected regime change. On May 9, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), the scandal-tainted party that had ruled Malaysia in coalition since independence, in 1957, was voted out.
For some, however, the jubilation is tempered by shadows from the past, particularly those cast by 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad, who donned the mantle of a benign leader, stepped back into the ring and won.
“I am extremely sad that we had to do this with Mahathir,” says Marion D’Cruz, co-founder of Five Arts Centre, a bastion of Kuala Lumpur’s independent arts scene since 1984. “Some of us remember the lives he destroyed when he was prime minister before.”
Before he quit Umno in 2016, and before he formed an alliance with reform-minded Anwar Ibrahim (the erstwhile protégé he had thrown into jail in 1998) in May, Mahathir was remembered as a ruthless, authoritarian prime minister under whose 1981 to 2003 rule opponents were jailed and tortured. Now, however, he is seen as the lesser of two evils, D’Cruz having preferred Mahathir to the incumbent, Najib Razak, going into the election.
“This particular vote is about what’s happened in the past four to five years: the stealing, the corruption, the murders, the police custodies. All that had to end,” she says, referring to the theft of at least US$3.5 billion from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MBD) state investment fund, the 2006 conspiratorial murder of a Mongolian model linked to a former associate of Najib, the frequent use of anti-sedition laws to silence critics, and widespread cronyism.
Malaysian artists used to be among Mahathir’s fiercest critics. In the performance art piece Lalang (1994), for example, artist and activist Wong Hoy Cheong put on a gas mask and sprayed weedkiller on a patch of a native grass of that name. It was a reminder of Operation Lalang and the brutal police suppression of opponents of the government in 1987, during Mahathir’s first tenure.