Producing an insight to Malaysian

society

March 2012

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A new school publ icat ion.

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affa i rs.

Our issues contain one global and one

Malaysian matter. Also, a

sect ion purely dedicated to

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THE

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THE GLOBAL ISSUEKony 2012 transfixed social and mainstream media - an infectious idea. Kony 2012 was a YouTube video that had been spreading at an astonishing rate, now seen by over 80 million people worldwide. Entitled Kony 2012, it is a 30-min-ute film made by a campaigning organisation called Invisible Children.

Its goal was to raise awareness of the activities of Joseph Kony, a Ugandan warlord who leads the Lord’s Resistance Army, in the hope of bringing him to justice. Kony and his LRA are distinguished by their violence and brutality, their weird ideology and – crucially for the purposes of the video – their prac-tice of abducting children and turning them into child soldiers.

Invisible Children is a US-based campaigning group, founded in 2004 by film-makers, which has been working in Uganda – building radio networks, moni-toring LRA movements and helping displaced children and families.It has focused on raising awareness of the LRA and on influencing US govern-ment policy towards the region. It is believed that its campaigning was at least partly responsible for Barack Obama’s decision in 2010 to send 100 military advisers to the Ugandan military to assist in capturing Kony.

T H E MALAYSIANI S S U E

Malaysia, ranked third place amongst the safest countries in the world (according to a survey carried out by a inter-national research institute on peace and security) and yet, currently under serious threat? There is only one term that answers the question to the supposed ‘radiation’ and it is also the same word that has been distressing the minds of an entire small-town demographic: Lynas.

L Y N A S A t h r e a t o r j u s t h y p e ?

A protest staged by the inhab-itants of Sungai Lembing near Kuantan, Pahang, expressed their outrage against the scheme to unload and dump radioactive waste in a idle mine shaft in their town.

At 8AM and enduring the morning drizzle, an estimate of 300 and also supported by the members of the “Save Malaysia Stop Lynas” (SMSL) group had gathered at the town’s morning market. With placards in hand, they vociferated slogans such as ‘Destroy Lynas, Long Live the People’, ‘Stop Lynas, save Malaysia’.

The former mining town, lo-cated some 40km northwest of Kuantan had deteriorated into decline since the mining activities had been terminated in the 1980s. Thus, SMSL re-ported that locals fear the pro-posal would ruin the financial system of the town and newly-established tourism industry. Their situation has recently only improved through week-end tourism.

(March 2, 2012)Prime Minister Najib

further added the plant would not have received an operating license if the

government was not convinced it was safe.

Future Entertainment’s tour director, Brett Robinson remarks:

'Our vision for Future Music Festival was for it to become something that is respected and cel-ebrated globally. With Asia on our doorstep and the wealth of talent we now tour from one side of the globe to the other it makes perfect sense for artists to do as much as possible whilst in this re-gion. We are excited to be announcing what we hope will be embraced as one of Asia's biggest music festivals in coming years. '

Future Music Festival encountered an immense and overwhelm-ing response to the announcement of their inaugural escapade into Asia. After much speculation of the show’s potential site that took social media by storm and long anticipation, the first edition of Future Music Festival Asia transpired at the Sepang International Circuit on the 17th of March 2012.

The debut of the award-winning festival in Kuala Lumpur was undoubtedly a significant stage of a potential relationship between Malaysian entertainment magnate Livescape and one of Australia’s most innovative music companies, Future Enter-tainment. The premiere of the Future Music Festival brand in Malaysia also symbolises a milestone in the development of the country’s already flourishing entertainment industry.

With names like The Chemical Brothers, Pendulum and The Wombats in the Malaysian lineup, it was only natural to expect a big big party. With four stages, crowds constantly travelling from one venue to another, the open airspace in a remote area far from the city turned from festival to a cosmopolitan fiesta.

Perhaps this could even be an invite to other music festivals around the world. Sundance? Coachella, even? With Malaysia’s burgeoning en-tertainment industry, only time will tell .

ARTS/CULTURE

THE GARDEN POSTBy Juliana Norza and Shazril Bakti