Why theatre? Theatre is irrelevant in Malaysia. That's what I am told, more often than not whenever someone discovers that I am a Theatre for Development practitioner. Yet, Malaysia saw what could be considered as one of her largest community theatre ‘performance’, in the form of a rally, that saw thousands of participants and reached a great many audience (local and international) recently - the Bersih 4 rally.
Bersih is translated to mean ‘clean’ in English, alluding to the demands of the Bersih organizers. Media captions such as “Carnival atmosphere during Bersih 4", “Dr Mahathir Mohamad takes centre-stage”, “impromptu performance”, poetry recital, costumes (the yellow T-shirts, the uniformed government personnel, the helmeted riot police), agit-prop, mass exercise and dancing, chanting, procession, rituals, and masks - all of which are hallmark of carnival/theatre performance and action.
It will take too long to explain the origin of carnival but suffice to say that it has been around all over the world since ancient times. For those who want to find out further with regard to theoretical considerations of the carnivals may want to refer to Mikhail Bakhtin’s ‘Rabelais and his World’.
Perhaps more recent writings on carnival and politics can be accessed by googling Notting Hill Carnival, UK as well as the Umbrella Revolution of Hong Kong (which saw the political awakening of the younger Hong Kong generation especially those below the age of 30), or the global protests such as the Arab Spring where carnival were utilised as a form of public address.
Why did the organisers of Bersih rallies choose ‘carnival’ (intentionally or otherwise) as a form of creating awareness on the five demands of Bersih? The five demands being:
1) Clean and fair elections 2) A transparent government 3) The right to demonstrate 4) Strengthening the parliamentary democratic system 5) Saving the national economy. Perhaps it is because a rally provides that relatively safe space to express concerns and demands in what deemed to be an increasingly suppressive and divisive Malaysian political climate.
It was a rally that simultaneously presented itself as a carnival feast of music, dance, costume, poetry recital, lectures, agit-prop, and exuberance (where calls for participation were by way of wearing yellow colour clothes, to sing, to dance, to be part of a procession).
Appearing as neither fully a political rally nor a carnival, the manifestation exploits the ambivalent position of rallies as poised between aesthetics and politics, between spectacle and threat, between festival and riot.
While the organisers characterised the rally as a people's festive parade with a purpose, the police, media and authorities coded it, on the basis of what they anticipate as potentially destructive actions of the participants. In doing so, the authorities attempt to legitimise their intervention in (through the presence of the riot police) and surveillance of the event as a whole.
This clampdown continues post-rally, by way of summoning the organisers for questioning, offering rewards for identities of those who were photographed stepping on photos of a PAS political party leader and the Malaysian prime minister, and hauling in for statement of the lady (which the authorities deemed as an instigator) who handed out yellow balloons (the colour yellow effectively being banned by the authorities even though no official ban was issued).
Why did people participate in the Bersih 4 rally? Estimates by the media and the organisers on the number of participants of the Bersih 4 rally varies between 10,000 to 300,000 or more. It was also reported that the crowd increased towards the later part of the first day of the rally; and on the second day of the rally more people turned up to participate.
There are perhaps many reasons for this. One of which may well be because the excitement felt through conversations, stories, photos, videos shared online and offline may have created that sense of 'festivities'/ courage/ wanting to be a part of a political/cultural action by those who were hesitant initially to participate in the rally.
Seeing the crowd on the rally ground and hearing their stories may have encouraged and motivated others to be more fearless and wanting to participate in the second day of the rally.
The second day saw more agit-prop and festive atmosphere - ladies with yellow brooms ‘performing’ a skit portraying the act of sweeping/cleaning; a lady in the Bersih 4 T-Shirt holding a yellow toilet brush, an ‘Arab Donor’ handing over a mock cheque with the amount of RM2.6 billion to rally participants (alluding to the reported ‘donation’ of RM2.6 billion in Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s personal bank account), a silent eerie lady in red dress and veil riding the Light Rail Transport with a dim portrait of a certain deceased Mongolian lady (presumably alluding to the Altantuya case) stuck on the window pane behind her.
The mask as a tool of resistance
The rally also saw many masked participants. Masks are a part of the traditional carnival disguise. Those in authority fear the mask for the authority’s power partly resides in identifying, stamping and cataloging, in knowing who the participants are. The mask becomes a tool of resistance.
Perhaps it is the expressive/theatrical nature rather than instrumental nature of carnival/theatre that attracted participants to the Bersih 4 rally. As opposed to an official parade such as the Merdeka (Independence) Parade, it is the spirit of carnival as theorised by Bakhtin, that pulled the crowd of participants: that simply by opposing officially sanctioned seriousness, a carnival bears the stamp of freedom.
There is no ranking as per Merdeka Parade. The people's rally marked the suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, norms, and prohibitions; thus entering the realm of community, freedom, equality and abundance. It epitomises a Utopian promise for human emancipation/collectiveness through the free expression of thought and creativity.
Why is the theatre/carnival important in a country’s development? How can carnival/theatre provide a democratic space for cultural and political participation? Its virtue as a democratic space is in the experience in organising, of working in harmony and unity, of conversation and face to face interaction.
It is the most basic human instinct to express through their creativity, in their own way, in their own choosing of how to express - through dance, music, skit, poetry etc. - which are not dictated to them but through their own contribution. Creativity, imagination, participation are ways of expressing oneself and consequently in shaping one's identity.
Much like our Merdeka (Independence) Parades are touted by the dominant system as a uniting, identity affirming, nationalistic event, the Bersih rally and the Merdeka Parade are one of the same, albeit perhaps from the polar opposites of the political and cultural creation and participation platform.
This means, as much as a carnival/theatre can be a democratic space for political and cultural participation, when utilised by the authorities, it may ultimately sustain and is functional to the advantage of the dominant system. It might even reinforce dominant values/hegemony by contrasting them with their opposites. Thus, it can be presumed that carnival/theatre is effective and safe until it undermines certain authorities or power.
Those who criticised others who were not present physically in the Bersih 4 rally, or the Merdeka Parade, as unpatriotic or couldn’t care less perhaps need to cast their view to a wider perspective.
What constitute participation? As in any mass events, there are many participants: those who are in the procession, those who are spectators, the organisers, those who report and document the events, and yes, even those who share posts and photos and stories of the event in social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat, blogs, YouTube, etc - they, too, are participants.
In fact, those who shared posts, photos, videos, stories online and offline perhaps leave a more lasting impression, maybe even in some cases outlasting the euphoria of the actual rally/parade. The photos, stories, documents, video shared act as an effective reminder to the cause of the rally beyond the dates of the rally/parade.
Perhaps carnival/theatre is relevant in Malaysia after all, and that it plays a very significant role in the development and in directing the future of the country.
To paraphrase Baz Kershaw in ‘The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention’, carnival/theatre remains a potential counter-power in everyday life and activism, though it may be restricted in its potential by the repressive construction of spaces and boundaries by the authorities.
Adapting to context and needs of time
However, by its inherent nature, carnival/theatre can happen anytime, anywhere, adapting to the context and needs of the time, overcoming restrictions creatively and imaginatively in order to recreate democratic spaces where alternative points of views to hegemony and official rhetorics can be expressed and proliferate.
It is democratic by virtue that carnival undermines the distinction between observer and participant; it takes place outside existing social and cultural institutions, occupying real space-time in streets and open spaces; it is pluralistic, able to absorb contradictory practices within a single expressive domain; it is accessible and it is excessive, enjoying spectacle and grotesque exaggerations of the norm.
Above all, carnival inverts the everyday, workaday world of rules, regulations and laws, challenging the hierarchies of normality in a counter hegemonic, satirical and sartorial parody of power.
And, like other counter-culture actions, carnival appears to be totally anti-structural, opposed to all order, anarchic and liberating in its willful refusal of systematic governance.
Some critics may condemn carnival/theatre for providing a fantasy escape for the oppressed, thus dissipating the potential for real revolution - a way to let off steam - enabling prevailing dominant order to strengthened for at the end of the day the carnival participants return to a living whose rules are set by the dominant ideologies.
With energy dissipated and their sense of the liberality of the regime re-animated, hierarchical normality is reinforced in the long run. However, even though carnival/theatre may not change regimes overnight, it often act as a catalyst for symbolic and actual struggle of the peoples.
It functions to continuously restore the sense of a vital collectivity, the self-organisation of the community for political and cultural participation, in opposition to the hegemonic imposition of the pleasures of the mass media and cultural industries.
Experiential learning
As for the organisers, in this case Bersih 2.0, the months and years of organising, plotting, and planning behind the scenes act as an experiential learning in governance and administration where they hone their political skills at the grass-roots level.
For the people, carnival/theatre encourages them to develop their own creativity and participation in collective action, enabling cultural democracy that revolves around the notion of plurality and around equality of access to the means of cultural production and distribution.
It assumes that cultural production happens in the context of wider social discourses, where it will produce not only pleasure but knowledge which will accrue to the primary understanding of what constitute a community.
The dialectical interaction of celebration and criticism, give the community a voice - perhaps contributing to the community ideological development by prompting a crisis in its identity which may have to be resolved in its ‘real’ relations in the socio-political present.
It is perhaps precisely why in extremely oppressive systems creative and performative arts are curtailed/feared (for example, massacre of the intellectuals and creatives during the Pol Pot era of Cambodia; the Taliban regime’s banning certain dance, art, and music; and to a lesser extent banning of native rituals and performance by colonial administrators).
Is theatre relevant in Malaysia? What do you think? As a Theatre for Development practitioner, I certainly think that theatre is relevant in Malaysia.
