MALAYSIANS KINI Those up to speed with political affairs would be no stranger to rebel graphic designer and rights activist Fahmi Reza, or at least would have seen his infamous caricatures depicting Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak as a clown.

Some may have also seen his colouring book 'ABC Politikus Malaysia', making the rounds on Facebook since last year, featuring unflattering depictions of local politicians on both sides of the divide.

Though few would have guessed, the in-your-face 39-year-old's educational background was not in design; the degree which he studied for in the US between 1995 to 1999, was in electrical engineering.

But instead of moulding him into an electrical engineer, his time in the US turned out to be the foundation for his radicalisation, so to speak, thanks to punk music .

 

 
 

 

Kita Semua Penghasut

Posted by Fahmi Reza on Wednesday, 16 March 2016

 

“I started listening to punk rock when I was about 15,” he told Malaysiakini in an interview early this month, though he said that it was only during the time he was in the US that the finer points of the subculture truly seeped in.

"Punk music is basically protest music, you see, so I started listening to the music and immersing in the lyrics,” he said, adding that the punk subculture continues to influence him to this day. And it was his immersion in the punk subculture that inculcated in Fahmi the inclination to always question authority.

He also adopted the subculture's do-it-yourself (DIY) spirit, which includes drawing their own concert posters and protest paraphernalia, instead of hiring out the work.

Missed out on Reformasi

Fahmi's activism in those days was mainly in the anti-globalisation movement in the US.

When he finally returned to Malaysia in 2000 however, the then 23-year-old found himself to have missed the boat on the 1998/1999 Reformasi movement and wanted to catch up and learn more about the country.

To do this, he volunteered to work with several NGOs such as human rights group Suaram and Amnesty International Malaysia, but quickly realised a problem in their campaigning.

“All these NGOs have important messages to deliver to the public, but they don't have the budget to design their campaign materials. If people get their pamphlets and as it is usually not very attractive, people might just throw them away.

 

 
 

 

Guess who's back in Malaysia?Let's dance... ✊#KitaSemuaPenghasut

Posted by Fahmi Reza on Saturday, 27 February 2016

 

“I thought we can do better,” he said, and went to work, and his designs were well-received by the groups which later started paying him for his services.

Activism by design

The self-taught designer is sparing when it comes to using colours for these non-commercial projects. Instead, his designs rely heavily on clean black outlines on white background. Over the years, he has developed a distinctive style, much like his signature all-black outfit - from beret right down to the mod skinny jeans.

Whatever the political event - whether it is Occupy Dataran in July 2011, where youths claim the public space that is Dataran Merdeka, in which he is one of the key actors; or the annual May Day workers’ day march; or any of the countless political rallies held in the capital in the last decade - you can count on Fahmi to show up, with a poster or two in tow.

Throughout the years, he has made enough posters to warrant a retrospective exhibition, ‘12 Years of Visual Disobedience’, held in conjunction with arts collective Five Arts Centre’s 30th anniversary celebration in 2014.

Fahmi boasts that to this day, his only source of income comes from freelancing for NGOs, though only those that champion causes that he believes in.

He urged other designers to lend their skills as well to social causes. Their talents should not only be used for marketing products and services to people but also to help the rakyat pursue change and reform as well.

“As graphic designers, we should start questioning our work. I would like to challenge graphic designers to start using theirs skills to communicate important ideas to the rest of society, instead of just selling them more stuff they don't need,” he said.

Self-taught docu-maker

Life-long student Fahmi is not just a self-taught designer, he is also a self-taught documentary-maker.

In 2007, he directed the critically-acclaimed historical documentary 'Ten Years Before Merdeka', which won the Most Outstanding Human Rights Documentary at Pusat Komas’ 2007 Freedom Film Fest.

And while it seems like he could be ‘old school’, he is actually a pro on social media, and uses the platform as a means for meaningful political conversations.

His Facebook account has more than 33,000 followers, and he engages with them often, asking questions, telling stories, and getting them to vote on some decision or other about which ‘seditious’ action he should do next. His posts often garner more than 1,000 likes and hundreds of comments.

And while Fahmi graduated more than 15 years ago, his choice for Twitter handle - @kuasasiswa - is evocative of the student who never left college and the punk scene behind.

His tweets encourage ‘dissent’, using the hashtag #kitasemuapenghasut (#weareallseditious), often irking @kbab51 (the inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar), and @OfficialPcirc (Malaysia’s Twitter police).

Of late, he has been agitating his followers to put up their DIY posters or stickers of the clown-faced Najib in public places - in car parks, at toll gates, on pillars all over the city. This call has even been taken up, presumably by Malaysians, at the Malaysia Hall in Perth, Australia (photo) .

His fearlessness could be traced back to 2004, when Suaram held a protest outside Bukit Aman to rally against police brutality.

Fahmi was the first to turn up at the scene. His hands were full of protest paraphernalia that he had prepared.

He became the first of 17 people arrested for illegal assembly that day.

He was also the last to be released, owing to the fact that he was in possession of a pen knife that he used for his artwork at the time of the arrest.

The first-hand experience in police custody however taught him there is no need for him to fear police detention, nor prison.

“It's not a pleasant experience, but it was a maturing experience for me.

“After this thing with the clown cartoons, people kept coming to me asking, “Hey, aren't you afraid of being arrested?'.

“But I am not afraid. I already know what would happen once I'm inside.

“That is the most dangerous thing – when the people are no longer afraid,” he said.

 

 

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