Of Siti, Mawi and black metal
Malaysian popular culture has seen a very interesting time since the last couple of years, with the emergence of Mawi-mania and most recently the spectacular Siti Nurhaliza-Datuk K wedding.
These two spectacles has also shown the tremendous power of popular culture, confirmed partly by the droves of politicians trying to cozy up to them in attempts to gain more visibility and consequently win more votes.
Before Siti and Mawi, Malaysia has never really seen the inter-mingling of politics and popular culture. For many, popular culture is merely entertainment, a domain far removed from the complicated world of politics, the business of the state.
But during the reign of Siti and later Mawi, it appears that no politician would end his speech without mentioning these two pop stars. And it is also a time when the country witnesses a new political game between the two largest political parties, Umno and PAS.
With this change, the world of Malaysian popular culture has never been the same. From Puteri Umno to the PAS government of Kelantan, politicians cuddling up to pop culture icons have become the norm. Everyone now wants to link themselves to the success and popularity of stars.
But unfortunately, that is as far as it goes. It appears that very few politicians actually address popular culture and even culture seriously, including in the Mawi-friendly PAS.
Culture is something that should be taken seriously. It should be the topic that is addressed in PAS discourses regularly. Culture is becoming more and more important in today's world of global monoculture. Still, that could be an understatement.
You don't get tons of votes by out of a blue organizing a Mawi concert and praising him as a model teenager - which anyway refers to the pre-Diana Rafar Mawi. After all, by the next general elections, the concert would be just a little footnote in Malaysian pop culture history.
In fact, the concert does little to help improve PAS's image, in light of recent Mawi events. It did, however, expose the naivete of PAS in dealing with pop culture, especially if some PAS leaders' statements around that time were taken seriously.
It is problematic for PAS, a party that has been known for its critical views of popular culture to suddenly appear with a new friendly face. It just does not work that way.
PAS should take culture seriously, and not suddenly start organizing concerts when there is a shortage in the young generations vote bank. It is a mistake to see culture through a narrow perspective, reducing it to entertainment and other things that usually are the concerns of Rais Yatim's ministry.
It is exactly due to this misperception that PAS seems ill equipped to deal with issues like black metal, culture wars and other authority-defined "social ills."
It is irresponsible and misleading for PAS to address various problems - whether real or imaginary - by reducing them to symptoms of a secular country governed by a secular government. Islam Hadhari does not give birth to such social phenomena.
And it is also due to this misperception that PAS is often mislead into addressing issues - like black metal - in the way it is framed by the mainstream media. The mislead PAS join hands with the powers that be in constructing a monster that in turn would distract the whole country from real concerns of the people.
In the end, such problems appear as genuine social problems, and the authority of the powers that be is strengthened.
Black metal, mat rempit and numerous other social phenomena do not need a secular government to exist.
What then would be PAS's arguments when these problems still exists in PAS-governed Malaysia? Social ills would still be around irregardless of the government of the day and the government's ideology. People who enjoy motorcycle racing in the middle of the night would still be racing in the middle of the night under a different government.
It is indeed time for PAS to address culture seriously, to avoid past mistakes and formulate new ways to deal with the various, complex cultural issues.