Rites of Change: Artistic Responses to Recent Street Protests in Kuala Lumpur

The past decade has witnessed the revival of street protest culture in Malaysia. This new wave of demonstrations arguably began in 2007, when the Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF) mobilised an estimated 30,000 people to march for the rights of a religious—and racialised—minority against government policies that favour bumiputera Malays.1 Since then, street protests have been organised by a wide variety of groups and have become an increasingly common feature in Malaysia’s political landscape. The most prominent of them are the Bersih [Clean] marches organised by a coalition of nongovernment organisations calling for ballot reform to ensure fair elections; to date, there have been five such rallies, each of which mobilised tens of thousands of participants. Coinciding with the early years of this new wave of protests were the general elections of 2008 and 2013, which saw record voter turnout and an unprecedented number of seats won by the opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat, breaking the political stronghold held by the ruling ethno-nationalist party, United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), since independence. Along with these political developments, the resurgence of protest culture was seen as signalling a rise in civic participation and an indication of Malaysia’s maturing democracy.