C Q #8 | AN INDIE POWERED PUBLICATION
TROUBLE IN THAILAND Considering Thai cyber freedoms
THE COMEBACK KID An exclusive interview with Mahadi J. Murat
A KOREAN’S CAREER A South Korean making a film about North Koreans
JEWS IN AFGHANISTAN What history has to say about the present
YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE Travelling with Marco Yolo
PEACE IN THEIR TIME Imelda Deinla takes us to school on Mindanao
SHORTS LIST Featuring Nadilla Sakinah, Fruhail T. Ripana and more
A PAPUAN’S PERSPECTIVE A special look at a special place
THE ASIAN EDITION NARRATIVES FROM THE GRANDEST CONTINENT
EDITORIAL NOTE Greetings friends,
Crossing borders is a blessing. In my travels, I have done this quite a number of times. In so many ways, I failed to keep count, precisely because it has become somewhat mundane. This is a fortunate thing, and I am lucky to be in such a position. However, to even consider this as mundane is a reflection of one thing: that the wonders of travel no longer held the delight and mystery it once did for me. This is something of a concern. Idler thoughts in idler times led me to wonder whether such a lifestyle is particularly healthy, not necessarily from a physiological perspective, but an emotional and spiritual one. The miracles of everyday life is that we in this part of the world are constantly connected to many and perhaps every around us, even without knowing it. This is particularly so on an intercontinental basis. Asia is, by many metrics, the largest continent on this planet. Its breadth and depth of many peoples and cultures contribute to a potpourri of challenging perspectives, one that may not be all that comfortable to consider, but it is a reality we are surrounded by. Malaysia, Southeast Asia, this continent and the world is the result of a long-term, bigger picture narrative of trials, travels and tribulations; if variety is indeed the spice of life, then life in this part of the world can be wonderfully spicy. This issue takes a closer look at that. Aldi Jeferson Airori takes us to Papua, enlightening on why one of the world’s most resource-rich areas is also incredibly poor. The same goes for the Philippines, where Imelda Deinla explains why education is important to longer-term peace in Mindanao.
development in Vietnamese football, and how it is influenced by outside forces, even from within their own country, driving out the one outsider who came in. Elsewhere, Samuel Thorpe considers the importance of discovering historical artefacts in Afghanistan, and how it could play a key role in reframing history itself. Nurul Ismawi may not have gotten as far as Central Asia, but Marco Yolo certainly did, and she talks about reading up on Marco Ferrarese’s latest travel tome. Further away in another corner of (Austral)asia, Amanda Ho Sze Yin’s photography reminds us of Melbourne’s multicultural makeup. Filmmakers Mahadi J. Murat and Minji Kang have never met, yet both discuss identity and gender in their films as if it’s from the same playbook. Therein lies the overarching theme of this issue. Without planning for it, there is an idea that all this is connected to us. Papua’s environmental woes, for instance, could perhaps be similarly related to the Chinese discourse. Political discontent in Thailand and the Philippines could be unpacked in an identical fashion in Indonesia; speak long enough to any football fans in Malaysia, and you’ll definitely hear the sighs of exasperation of literal football being used as a form of political football at the highest levels. This issue of CQ is a chance for us to know more about ourselves. The more you read, the more you realise that we’re not (all that) different. The variety, as it turns out, is more uniform than ever, for the uniform is more varied than ever. If this is something that we should acknowledge, then by that same token, it is time to bless the ordinary as extraordinary once again.
Editorial Board EDITORS IN CHIEF FIKRI JERMADI WANI ARDY EDITOR AT LARGE EZZAH MAHMUD SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER ZAIDAH Z SUB EDITORS ABAH JAZELIA JASMENE NURUL ISMAWI SHEMSI ELSANI CONTRIBUTORS AD SHAF ALDI JEFERSON AIRORI AMANDA HO SZE YIN ANNE ARIS ASINNA SAYA CYNTHIA LUCYANA HARIMAN FIKRI JERMADI FRUHAIL T. RIPANA GISELLA LIVIA IMELDA DEINLA JAZELIA JASMENE JANJIRA SOMBATPOONSIRI MAHADI J. MURAT MINJI KANG NADILLA SAKINAH NURUL ISMAWI SAMUEL THORPE
As it truly is. FIKRI JERMADI EDITOR IN CHIEF
FRONT COVER MASASHI WAKU / PIXABAY
I myself take a closer look at a
CQ Magazine is an indie powered e-publication for creative explorations adhering to a high standard of professional writing and journalism. The opinions of contributors do not necessarily represent the views of CQ Magazine. Design inspired by Swedish Film magazine. Licensed under Creative Commons.
cqmalaysia.com cqmalaysia hello@cqmalaysia.com #7 | CQ MAGAZINE | 1
CONTENTS
22 A TANTALISING FIND FROM THE JEWS OF MEDIEVAL AFGHANISTAN SAMUEL THORPE 25 WITH WHAT WILL FRUHAIL T. RIPANA 26 REBUILDING EDUCATION AND PEACE IN MINDANAO IMELDA DEINLA 29 THE DARK BEFORE THE DAWN ALDI JEFERSON AIRORI
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31 TIKET DRAMA AD SHAF 32 I WENT ON AN ADVENTURE WITH MARCO YOLO… AND YOU SHOULD BE JEALOUS NURUL ISMAWI 35 MUNICH BECKONED ANNE ARIS 36 SNAPSHOT AMANDA HO SZE YIN 38 HOME AND AWAY MINJI KANG
IMAGE: ROBERT HICKERSON / UNSPLASH
12 THEN AND NOW MAHADI J. MURAT 17 DIA SEKARANG ASINNA SAYA 18 SILK AND STEEL FIKRI JERMADI
IMAGE: TAKEAWAY / WIKIMEDIA
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3 28 JAZELIA JASMENE 4 WIDENING THE NET JANJIRA SOMBATPOONSIRI 7 INDONESIA IS… CYNTHIA LUCYANA HARIMAN 9 SURF’S UP! GISELLA LIVIA
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IMAGE: JARMOLUK / PIXABAY
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IMAGE: NATIONAL LIBRARY OF ISRAEL
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IMAGE: Шухрат Саъдиев / WIKIMEDIA
46 WELCOME TO THE MADHOUSE NADILLA SAKINAH
CATALYST JAZELIA JASMENE
28 TEXT: JAZELIA JASMENE IMAGE: VOLKAN OLMEZ / UNSPLASH
I feel like I'm caught at a crossroad. Where am I going? What are my senses telling me? Should I be afraid of what I'm going to do next? How can that be? I don't even know what I want to do next. Ripples and ripples. Ripples of thoughts lingering. Like a fish swimming in a pond so still – so close to something lurking, aching to devour it whole. Devour. I want all of you. I want you inside me. Thinking... what do I see? What can I sense through my fingertips? Do I smell fear? Courage? Pumping through and through, warmth runs through me. Thinking about that warm tingling feeling – what do I make of it? Can it sense my fear? Can it hear my thoughts? Time begins to slow down. Crawling... then, trickling. Into nothing. Darkness, even when there is light. It almost feels like I can't see. What am I looking at? Where do I go? Why do I know what I know?
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FEATURE JANJIRA SOMBATPOONSIRI
Widening the Net Janjira Sombatpoonsiri explores how cyber activists work within ever smaller spaces in Thailand. IMAGE: SURIAN SOOSAY / FLICKR
On 9th June 2017, a Thai man was sentenced to 35 years in jail for sharing Facebook posts. The crime: he allegedly defamed the king. This harsh sentence is just one example of Thailand’s increasing repression in the digital sphere. Since the 2014 coup, the Thai military junta has taken a hard stance toward online critics and dissidence. In May, authorities threatened to shut down Facebook if the company failed to remove content deemed “inappropriate”. Facebook, which did not comply, has not been shut down. At least, not yet. Cyber repression in Thailand Thailand’s cyber repression seems to be linked to its troubled history of military coups.
May 2014 alone, and working groups were set up to monitor and analyse internet content. This heightened control was accompanied by a dramatic increase in lèse majesté (violating majesty) charges against critics, dissidents and ordinary citizens. Non-criminal acts such as sharing or “liking” a Facebook post or chat message that insulted the monarchy became punishable by long jail sentences. And in 2015, the Single Gateway proposal sought to monitor internet content by reducing the existing 12 internet gateways to a single, state-controlled portal. The Single Gateway policy under attack Against these continuing encroachments on digital privacy, Thai pro-democracy activists and civic groups have waged a courageous battle.
At the advent of the 2006 military coup, the Computer Crime Act was passed, authorising state agencies to block internet content deemed a threat to national security. It encouraged “netizens” (web users, many of them young) to monitor and report transgressive internet behaviours.
Opposition to the Single Gateway plan cleverly centred not on digital rights and freedom of expression (though those concerns were evident in the debate), but on more universal issues, such as ecommerce and the economy.
This early effort emerged from alarm about the fact that the country’s two main factions, the red shirts and the yellow shirts, had taken their fight to cyberspace, with the red shirts vocally opposing the coup and questioning the country’s monarchy.
Some business groups, concerned that the proposal would slow internet connectivity in Thailand, raised alarm that the Single Gateway would discourage foreign investment in the country. Ordinary people, too, resented the attempt to limit internet access.
Internet control increased tremendously after the May 2014 coup, staged to facilitate royal secession and preserve elite status quo in Thailand. Hundreds of websites were blocked during
Thailand’s internet-penetration rate is 42%, and over 29 million citizens go online for entertainment, communication, public transport and food delivery.
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Online game players and techies were worried that the policy would affect the speed of online games and expose their personal data. Amid these diverse concerns, three forms of activism emerged. The Internet Foundation for the Development of Thailand and the Thai Netizen Network created a Change.org petition online to gather signatures against Single Gateway, providing information to citizens about the effects of the proposed legislation. Alternative discussion forums also cropped up on Facebook and elsewhere. In groups like The Single Gateway: Thailand Internet Firewall, Anti Single Gateway, and OpSingleGatway, people from across Thai society braved criminalisation to join the debate on internet control. An anonymous group calling itself the Thailand F5 Cyber Army utilised a socalled “distributed denial of services” (DDoS) system to wage cyber war on the Thai government. It demanded that the junta completely cancel its Single Gateway policy. They encouraged netizens to visit official websites (among them the Ministry of Defense, the National Legislative Assembly and the Internal Security Operation Centre) and to repeatedly press the F5 key, which causes the webpage to refresh constantly, overwhelming servers. The attacks caused many government web pages to shut down temporarily, in part Because the sites were technologically
This time, given the law-and-order frame of the proposed amendment, public criticism of it took a different shape
FEATURE JANJIRA SOMBATPOONSIRI
Coupled with other forms of resistance, this virtual civil disobedience worked. On October 15 2015, the junta announced that it had scrapped the plan. The Computer Crime Act campaign But the victory was short-lived. In April 2016, the junta proposed to modify the 2007 Computer Crime Act to better tackle cyber threats to national security, claiming it would help develop Thailand’s digital economy. Activists again geared up for a fight. This time, given the law-and-order frame of the proposed amendment, public criticism of it took a different shape. The business sector abandoned its concern over the economic effects of internet control to focus on the proposed law’s broad threat of legal sanction against violators, anticipating that fear would lead to self-censorship online. Netizens used online forums to discuss the impacts of the cyber law, including the fact that it was gearing toward increasing sentences against loosely-defined cyber law “offenders”, whose crimes could merely be sharing a Facebook post deemed a threat to the nation’s moral integrity or considered distorted information.
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Rights groups such as iLaw and Thai Network of Netizens took to Twitter and engaged with progressive online magazines to raise public awareness of the issue. They also worked with environmental activists who had already experienced local authorities’ abuse of the Computer Crime Act. Meanwhile, the F5 Cyber Army continued its attacks on government websites, providing manuals so ordinary citizens could wage cyberwar. And an online petition, which received more than 300,000 signatures, was submitted to members of the National Legislative Assembly. This time, though, popular discontent went unheeded. On December 16 2016, the revised Computer Crime Act passed in the Assembly. Cyber activism and political messages There are lessons to be learned from the very different outcomes of these two similar campaigns against internet regulation. Opposition to the Single Gateway plan concentrated on its likelihood to slow internet speed. The consequences for the economy and everyday conveniences were obvious, even to apolitical citizens and junta sympathisers. This was a critical breakthrough, because
these are vulnerable policy areas for the junta. Thailand’s military leadership derives its legitimacy partly from Bangkok’s middle class, whose livelihood and everyday convenience depends on the country’s continued economic growth and global connection. The junta had more success in its second attempt to limit internet freedom by changing its framing of the issue. By invoking a law-and-order rationale, which has constituted the junta’s source of legitimacy since its seizure of power, the government could argue that the impact of the proposed law would be finely honed: only “wrongdoers”, not regular netizens, would be punished. This sleight of hand ultimately enabled the government to criminalise an array of online activities, handing privacy-rights advocates a major defeat. Next time the junta seeks to obfuscate its agenda with a law-and-order rhetoric, Thai activists will be better prepared. Janjira Sombatpoonsiri is an assistant professor at Thammasat University. This article was first published as ‘As Thailand restricts internet freedom, cyber activists work to keep an open web’ in July 2017 on The Conversation, an independent source of news and views delivered with academic rigour and journalistic flair.
IMAGE: TAKEAWAY / WIKIMEDIA
outdated.
CATALYST CYNTHIA LUCYANA HARIMAN
Indonesia is… TEXT: CYNTHIA LUCYANA HARIMAN IMAGE: SBAMUELLER / FLICKR
Indonesia is courageous and fearless. Groups of soldiers are unified to win the battle of victory. Blood and tears were spilled As chaos around the country turned the world upside down 1945 was the year we will never forget. Today I stand up in the land of success, For walking around the city without fighting every battle is freedom. Freedom is what we want, People are overjoyed with the freedom we gain. We are united. United with the diversity of people, of cultures. We are filled with human blood and spirit. I am proud to call Indonesia as my homeland, Red and white is who we are
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FEATURE GISELLA LIVIA
Surf’s Up! Gisella Livia rides the waves and tells us what it’s like. IMAGE: BRADLEY HOOK / PEXELS
“Surfing. It’s like the mafia. Once you’re in, you’re in. There’s no getting out.” – Kelly Slater
the perfect time, and most importantly, how to enjoy every single moment of the incredible ride.
A couple of years ago, I challenged myself to get on a surfboard and literally went with the flow. As it turned out, that was one of the decisions that has made my present self (and would forever make my future self) feel thankful for. This is because, I have madly and deeply fallen in love with surfing, even from the very first time I learned how to ride the waves with it.
Due to the advancing skills, I then started to shift from one board to another. With the increasing difficulty possessed by each board, I can feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins every single time I meet a new one. This is because, apart from the uncontainable excitement, I know that at one point of the day I will have to fall before I succeed. That is one of the many many things I love about surfing: its unexpectedness.
Our journeys, however, do not always roll so smoothly. We have been harshly tossed by the waves so many times, that I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid of drowning. In fact, it has led me to discover and understand the art of drowning. For it is a brief moment of utter darkness and silence that might force you to reflect on the importance and meaning of life that worth the battle against the tide. Surfing has also made the pungent taste of seawater no longer foreign, as I have consumed gallons of it when I get hurled into the water. My skin is often marbled with puce bruises and my days are also filled with stings resulted by the muscle fever. However, when most people consider these things as misfortunes, I decide to regard them as evidence of my endurance and endeavour. My hard work has finally paid off as I begin to see improvements in my surfing skills. It appears that all of my failures have taught me how to correctly examine the tides, choose the right wave, paddle with the proper technique, ride the wave based on its distinct characteristics, keep the balance, get off the surfboard at
I love every single thing surfing has to offer. I love it when my coach and I pretend that we can predict how the unexpected tides will go for the rest of the day. I love how the chilliness of the seawater early in the morning gets under my skin as I carry my surfboard. I love the tiny currents of my little own sea I create as I paddle. I love the splashes of water I get on my face as I move pass the breaking waves. I love wondering about the vast and endless body of water with so many secrets untold. I love the breathtaking view I get when I sit on top of my surfboard; it is God’s painting of how the sea meets the horizon and creates such beautiful shades of blue. I love the peaceful feeling that I get when I lay still on my surfboard and the sea rocks us gently with a lullaby sang by the flocks of colourful birds that feel too overjoyed to keep the happiness all to themselves. I love the silent song continuously played by the sea for those who listen. I love the sound created when the waves greet the shore. I love hearing people’s chatter and laughter from afar as I close my eyes, it is #8 | CQ MAGAZINE | 9
FEATURE GISELLA LIVIA like for a moment we all forget about our fears and mistakes, and focus on the most fundamental aspect of life: happiness. I love the sparkly crystals of salt that form on the glossy surface of my surfboard because I have spent too much time under the sun that the water molecules have even evaporated. I love how the water acts like a glass prism in science laboratories, that disperse the rays of sunlight into different colours of the rainbow. I love it when the sea breeze blows through my hair and creates small tangles in it, as I and other surfers wait for the perfect wave. I love the adrenaline rush I feel when I see my wave is coming and know that I only have limited time to turn my surfboard, get prepared, and gather myself together. I love the burning spirit inside my soul as I paddle hard and try to catch the wave. I really do love it when I succeed to stand on my own two feet and ride the waves. It surely is one of the greatest, most majestic
feelings on Earth. It feels like you were King Midas who was walking on a red carpet to the Grammys with 7 nominations you know you were going to win, with a shiny golden tuxedo. People say nothing is perfect, but trust me, every single thing in this moment is perfect. I love it when I am getting along very well with the wave that it allows me to do the cool moves and techniques. I love the different sensations I feel as the wave slowly breaks and turns its form. I love the end of the runaway when I jump into the water, knowing that I totally nailed it. I love it when I am eager to get back to the surface of the seawater to find the immense, white bubbly sea foam, as if a gigantic bath bomb was dropped into the sea. I love repeating this amazing experience of mine as I paddle back to the middle of the sea. I love it when I get to finish what I have started by watching the radiant, marigold sun slowly express its
farewell to me and starts setting to the bottom of the Aegean Sea. Surfing is one of the best things that has ever happened to me, and it will always be. I truly believe that this is only the beginning of my surfing adventure, with more exciting things await. In the future, I wish that I can go to the sea more often to further develop my surfing skills and techniques, as I live in a landlocked city. I also hope that I can get my own customised surfboard with my initials on her, soon. She is going to be my traveling best friend and together, we will tramp a perpetual journey of exploring all breathtaking beaches we have never been to. Listen to Gisella Livia at www.soundcloud.com/gisella-livia.
IMAGE: JEREMY BISHOP / UNSPLASH
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Everyone was thinking about how we can produce something meaningful for the industry and country
INNER VIEW MAHADI J. MURAT
Then and Now Releasing his first film in over two decades, CQ Magazine sits down with Mahadi J. Murat to discuss LuQman, the issue of identity and the representation of women in his films. IMAGE: SEMESTA
Greetings Dr Mahadi! For those who don’t know, can you help to introduce your latest film, LuQman? LuQman is actually a small film that tries to stand on its own two feet, to bring a big question about an important issue for Malaysians, with an especial focus for the Malay community. It can be said to represent three different groups. One is a woman who wants to be a dancer, and another, her husband, is a renowned literary figure. There is another, a young man who is just taking his first tentative steps into adulthood. Their meeting touches on questions related to culture, as well as providing the backdrop that moves the plot of this film, which is about their relationships. It can be said that the foundation is a love triangle. It’s been over 20 years since your last film, Sayang Salmah, was produced and exhibited in Malaysia. What was it about this film or story that you feel is suitable and should be shown to Malaysian audiences? I think the time is right, because Malaysian society is faced with a big question, related to the presentation of the Malaysian image, or the meaning of what it means to be a Malaysian. This is particularly in the context of national unity, where there are components of society vying to have a bigger piece for themselves. For instance, the Malays want culture and language to become the central issue in this discussion of the national image. At the same time, there are also those who want the cultures and languages that are nonMalay in nature to be a part of Malaysia’s basic foundation. We understand that this
is an opinion that got going from the status of those who are from these communities. It goes without saying that everyone wants their own space, right? Yes, that’s right. The question here is: is it reasonable for this group to become dominant at the expense of the rest? The overall importance for a country is the building of a national identity. This construction has to start from a certain value. We cannot have differing values that are equally strong, to the extent that they clash with one another. Becoming a conflict. Yes, a conflict. We actually don’t have any problems with one another, certainly not in the context of human relations with those that are different, but because the bigger Malaysian society is differentiated on religion, race and other compartmentalising social factors, therefore there is a difference in the agreement of these components, one which leads to a clash that can destroy the unity that should actually make us stronger. That is my analysis. With this in mind, what is it about this film that you feel will make a constructive contribution? I want to create a framework that allows for people to think, and to look for more than what I had intended. I don’t wish to direct the proceedings; I only wish to provide a sampling that can be referred to for us to consider the alternatives. A perspective.... A perspective that will hopefully come about. It’s like this. This country has a lot of ingredients. We already have an education
system that has multiple set-ups: the national school system, schools that began as a national school before transitioning to using dual languages, dual choices and such. This is a sign that we are indecisive, unsure of whether to hold on to something that we believe in, something based on research, based on the value system we used to uphold our values. However, because of that, it seems like we are conducting a never-ending experiment. Our role, and the role of this film, is to widen the perspective in the hope that we can raise an awareness that will eventually create a mature understanding that pays equal attention to all of this. When safety is something that must be prioritised, above and beyond everything else, only then can we move forward. To widen further this discussion, if we look at our neighbours like Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, can we see anything that we can relate to us here in Malaysia? It is interesting to consider Indonesia. For instance, Indonesia has a lot of citizens... Some would say too many. Too many... perhaps. They have a wide range of people, and a big country with many cultures, languages and such. Yet they are united by one language named Bahasa Indonesia. And this language becomes a tool that allows them to acknowledge that they are Indonesians. Without this language, for communities that are spread far apart from one another, from Sulawesi to Padang, or in West Sumatera, for instance, this will change. Now, they are #8 | CQ MAGAZINE | 13
INNER VIEW MAHADI J. MURAT still far apart, but they feel, “We are Indonesians. We are one people.” This language unites them, and unites their culture. That is a strength of Indonesia. Well, at the same time, they still do have their own issues... And I am not saying that Indonesia is complete, that it has done enough and is perfect, but the starting point still begins from that point of unity. If there is a disagreement, if there is conflict, it is still carried out within this framework of unity. The same goes for Thailand; they use the Thai language. The Chinese, the Malays, anyone who is of Thai descent, they use the language. Many even use Thai names. It is a strength of Thailand.
LuQman is a small film that tries to stand independently on its own two feet In Singapore’s case, it is a small nation that positioned itself as an international business and financial hub. Therefore, they cannot really be seen as a small country... They are in a different context altogether. Yes, absolutely. Instead, it is a centre for global trade and financial activity. A lot of these activities in Singapore are is influenced by the international interactive identity. Therefore, it did not need to ‘seek’ its identity, and maybe is dependent on the culture of English. Perhaps this is the way forward for us as well? For some, we should be like Singapore. For others, we should follow the lead of the Thais and the Indonesians. This is the issue I mentioned earlier; we are constantly indecisive, from the three approaches that surround Malaysia. Approaches that are strong with their own identities. We cannot copy wholesale, or follow blindly, without thinking. We don’t need to be like Singapore, or like Thailand and Indonesia, we need to be like Malaysia. The key part of this effort is, for us to build ourselves based on what we have, and to diversity as well. As mentioned earlier, there is the approach known as the dual language, one that is proposed by the government not long ago, whereby Malay is the primary language, to be followed by English. However, this did not sit well with those who want to raise 14 | CQ MAGAZINE | #8
the status of Mandarin in the country as a main language in its own right. This is an issue that could become a problem for us. If we want Malay as the main language, and English as the secondary one, that can help to make us better. Compared to Singapore, they prioritise the use of English. Other languages are seen as additional, largely used only by certain groups. But Malaysia wants to make Malay as the main language, with English as the secondary one, to be used as like the main language, but this may not be enough for everyone, as there is also Mandarin to be considered. This came about because the government has approved qualifications from China, and branches of Chinese higher education institutions have been opened or launched here. If this issue can be combined with the importance of the economy, therefore this development, indirectly or otherwise, disrupts the development of Malay, the primary language, and English, the secondary language, that we want to make us better. With regards to LuQman, you said earlier that this is a small film. Perhaps you can help to explain the process of making this film in greater detail? What was the biggest challenged you faced in producing this film? The process of making this film is the same with the process others went through in making their own films. We have the preproduction, production and postproduction, for instance. The difference here is that this process is powered and supported largely by those who are or were not yet involved in the industry in a direct fashion, certainly not in producing a film meant for mainstream cinematic distribution and exhibition. The challenge, if I can describe it as such, is that we used crew members who are fresh from the university. They studied in university for however many years, and they become involved in the production of this film as its crew members. What are the pros and cons of this approach? There are a number of advantages and disadvantages that we can see. One is that because of the level of experience brought into this production, what they contributed in the beginning is something that was largely theoretical in nature, prior to the start of making this film itself. It’s only something they read about in books and such. Yes, reading and through a number of specific exercises. However, because they are quite smart in this area itself, and it just so happens that they were all my students, I was happy that they were able to drive
IMAGE: SEMESTA
this film forward by becoming some of its most committed supporters and activists. That is a challenge, in a way. The most interesting thing is that because they were so committed, I was able to parlay this into this film’s greatest strength. They did not work for money. They worked because they wanted to see something come out from what they know, so this process is important not just because they were able to apply what they learned in the classroom, but also because they were able to measure their level of performance based on their interactions with me. An advantage here is that we used professional actors.
INNER VIEW MAHADI J. MURAT project. So the commitment from the actors were also very high. For your information, throughout the shooting of this film, none of the actors left the location, even when they didn’t have any scenes scheduled. So even though they weren’t involved, they were still... They were still on set, yes. This is interesting, and different from other productions before this. I know of actors who come only for their scenes, do you know what I mean? With LuQman, however, they camped with us, day and night, not leaving the set. This made it strong, and I believe this strength can be seen through the hard work of all of us, which we will present shortly. You connected your experience in this film to your previous films in the past. How long have you been in the industry? In terms of involvement, I’ve been around for a while. Maybe more than 30 years. In this context, what’s the biggest different that you see in using newer equipment or using newer methods of filmmaking? Have they affected how you produced and directed this film? Yes, I can say that this is a very interesting factor. I was trained primarily and technically as a cinematographer. It started from photography. After that, I became a cinematographer, and studied film editing at the BBC Film Studio in London, where we learned to edit celluloid film, film negatives, in a physical sense.
Yes, this film featured Wan Hanafi Su, Raja Ilya and Josiah Hogan. What was their reaction when the find out that they will be working with students in the production of this film? I did not see any problems, because they trusted me. They believed in me and Wan Hanafi Su, who is a friend of mine back from when we studied acting at Universiti Sains Malaysia many years ago, so we already have an understanding and a respect that is built from this. The working culture already has this understanding. The rest is not a problem, and this is something that made it good because people believed in the director they trust. They trust the director, and they just follow what the
director said, because they believe this director can lead them toward somewhere, to achieve a level they hope to reach. I believe they also want this film to be a sign of commitment from us all. Everyone involved weren’t thinking about money, but about how we can all unite to produce something meaningful for the industry and also for the country. This issue is not in question, and there were no issues with the actors, with everyone involved: the crew, production members and also the actors. None at all. They gave completely their time and their focus, their mental energies, for this
Film as what people understand film to be. Correct. So a film is connected using a form of cement. The film was literally cut using a cutter, and then the film that was cut was put together using cement or glue, if you will. Therefore, it is combined and then exhibited as a film through the quick motion of shot-by-shot. This is very different from the technology today, where we would use computers. Visual tools or images would be combined virtually, digitally. It’s very different. We can’t hold the film, at least not like we did before. If we want to hold our film today, the hard disk might be spoiled! Yes, that’s right! The interesting thing of working with the era of celluloid technology, of film negatives, we can hold it and such, but every was done physically. Today, we can’t hold it, but the interesting thing is that today’s technology has given us more than what film technology gave us previously. For example, we made this film with a simple approach, but when we went #8 | CQ MAGAZINE | 15
INNER VIEW MAHADI J. MURAT
Such as? For example, we can move the picture as if we’re zooming in or out, or pan or crop the picture, or we can move the frames in slow motion. This depends on the size of the original image, of course. Previously, if we want to shoot in slow motion, we have to crank the camera speeds to maybe 64 frames or 120 frames per second. We had to do that, but now we can record everything normally and then make the slow motion using computers. It’s not the best or complete solution, but it is a solution nonetheless.
involved remained the same. The only thing is that our knowledge, their knowledge in understanding what technology can give us makes things easier. For example, if we want to shoot on the beach, in the image we want to mate that with another picture. We speak, they understand, or they speak, we understand, because this understanding is very important, so directing has to bear in mind the question of what can be done in post-production. This is important, and I am lucky because of the students of this younger generation involved in this production. Because they have a high level of interest, they can give a viewpoint and contribution from all sorts of technical aspect. Even if I know about something, they know about it in greater detail as well, because they are up-to-date with technological developments.
This makes things easy, and we can do nearly everything. Static images can be put into motion, we can do colour grading, we can also use dissolve. All optical effects previously had to be sent to the laboratory, but nowadays they can be done in the computer. If we want to slowly dissolve, fast forward, create the bokeh effect, colour effect, nearly everything can be done on the computer. I know this might be common knowledge to many, but I still wish to emphasise that this is what I see, if we are to compare the present with the past.
It’s one advantage of working with young people! That’s true. This advantage that we can get from digital technology allows us to make a better film. One thing that is simple but important is, if our camera is not stable, we can go to the computer and stabilise it. That’s the advantage. We can make our film even better. For sure, there are problems in camera handling in the making of this film, but when it is put through the computer, went it is processed in postproduction, everything appears to be more professional. The images prepared are of a professional quality.
With this changing technology, does this affect your directing style? For me, the communication with all those
I don’t know why, but your films have a strong representation of women in different contexts. How deliberate is
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this? I cannot run away from the factor of depending on women, because women have a strong source. They are a big source of emotions, which we can use to deliver a dramatic objective, a feeling or creating a conflict. It is easier to do this with women. Women can also be a source of emotions to further strengthen our film. If we cannot capitalise or use the emotions of women to make the film effective, we lose a chance to deliver an interesting story. I say this because women have a high degree of sentimentality, of big emotions, and also a high level of desire to achieve what she wants. This is a strong source of conflict that is effective in constructing drama. In a creative sense. Yes, we can use this cleverly, on the condition that we know the character. Who is she? What does she want? What are the obstacles she faces, and how does she overcome them? This is an important challenge. Though you mention other films like Sayang Salmah, Wanita Bertudung Hitam and LuQman earlier, to determine this form of characterisation is not easy. In LuQman, for instance, we side with Ayu who has to make a stand with a certain dilemma, or when she is in a desperate situation, to choose between A and B. To create a mental framework for Ayu is a difficult job for me. Who do I want her to be? I need to understand this woman completely to express her way of thought, to eventually contribute to the construction of this drama. As much as possible, I hope this can be accepted by the audiences.
IMAGE: SEMESTA
post-production, we used digital technology to make all sorts of improvement. If we are limited on location, with issues related to camerawork and lighting and such, we can use the computer to make our visuals more convincing.
POETRY ASINNA SAYA
Dia Sekarang TEXT: ASINNA SAYA IMAGE: ADAM BIRKETT / UNSPLASH
Dia sekarang. Kau nampak dia berani, Kau nampak senyum di bibir, Kau nampak dia ceria, Kau nampak dia bahagia, Kau nampak dia tak takut sendiri. Kau memang nampak dia. Tapi bukan mudah untuk dia menjadi dia. Dia pernah jatuh. Dia pernah tewas. Dia pernah dimain. Dia pernah kecewa. Dia pernah hampa. Dia pernah lemah. Dan sebab itu dia menjadi dia. Dia. Sekarang.
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FEATURE FIKRI JERMADI
Silk and Steel Fikri Jermadi reconsiders Toshiya Miura’s tenure of Vietnam IMAGE: NEVILLE WOOTTON / FLICKR
11th December, 2014. As Toshiya Miura leans back in his seat on his flight back to Tokyo, he may well remember this as the date when it all went wrong. Yet it was an adventure that had started so brightly, with its days in the rising sun, for it was that past May when he was appointed as the manager of the Vietnamese football national team. While the passion of their supporters is not in question – it rarely is when it comes to Southeast Asia’s fervent fans – on the pitch, the ‘Golden Stars’ have been anything but; the last tournament they won was the AFF Suzuki Cup in 2006. Since then, a number of semi-finals and bronze medals are not enough for Vietnam. FIFA’s rankings may portray them as one of the regional leaders (the Philippines currently lead this way), but in reality (and in the trophy cabinet) they have little to show for it. It’s often said that it’s the hope that kills you. A grouping with Thailand, the Philippines and Myanmar in the 2012 AFF Suzuki Cup brought some optimism, but instead they were sucker punched into the worst case scenario, as late goals against the Philippines and Thailand put paid to their own hopes. Their only point came against Myanmar. The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) swept out the old, changing the coach and captain for the 2013 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games. The new set-up initially sparked an improvement in form, with the Vietnamese destroying Brunei by seven unanswered strikes. Another game against Laos brought five more goals; at the very least the attackers knew where the goal
was. Yet the team still contrived to lose their other games, leading to the tournament top scorers heading home before the business end even got going. The VFF tore up the playbook again, fired coach Hoang Van Phuc, and went foreign. Enter Miura. Having never coached outside of his native Japan, Miura was regarded as something of a left-field appointment by some. Even the federation did not appear to have made an informed decision, relying instead on the wisdom of others, as Le Hung Dung, chairman of the VFF alluded to. “We trusted him, as he was introduced by the Japan Football Association,” he said. “He was not well-known, but it was not a problem.” The man himself did not know much about the country nor its surroundings. Neither was international football his forte, having spent more of his time working in the background with youth players. It is the development of its youngsters that the VFF had in mind; Japan has a lauded programme in its own right, and perhaps what was needed was some Japanese steel to be woven with Vietnamese silk. Maybe, just maybe, they could finally have something to be displayed in the trophy cabinet. The new coach quickly instituted a more direct and physical style for the team, and strong results followed. At the 2014 Asian Games in Korea, they marched unbeaten through their group games, scalping continental giants Iran along the way with a stunning 4-1 victory. A subsequent loss to the United Arab Emirates in the knockout #8 | CQ MAGAZINE | 19
FEATURE FIKRI JERMADI
IMAGE: USODESITA / FLICKR
stages was disappointing, but certainly not discouraging. The Japanese coach was still feted when the 2014 AFF Suzuki Cup began at the tail end of the year. This time, Vietnam made no mistakes as they powered through to the semi-finals, dispatching the Philippines along the way with strength and style. Roy Moore of GMA had his own take on the Vietnamese set-up: “Japanese coach Toshiya Miura has done a very good job of blending his young players into the team and developing a high tempo few teams can match.” One match before the final, they met Malayan Tigers in Malaysia. The hosts took the lead through a penalty, but their roar was silenced as Vo Huy Toan and Nguyen Quyet scored two breathtaking goals to demonstrate this combination of silk and steel the Vietnamese had been craving for. Fans were spell-bound by the incisive football, and dubbed Miura the ‘soccer sorcerer’. It made the Malaysian fans jealous and the Vietnamese supporters jubilant of such smooth flowing football, as an expectant nation awaits for the gold from afar. Then, on 11th December 2014, the sun started to set on Miura’s magic. 20 | CQ MAGAZINE | #8
Malaysia won 4-2 in Hanoi, scoring all four goals in the first half. This was an average Malaysian team, a year away from a record 0-10 defeat against the United Arab Emirates. The Vietnamese, however, had no answer to their rapid counter attacks, and neither did the fans; rarely have 40,000 people been so quickly silenced into submission. The abysmal performance provoked loud whispers of match-fixing, an unfortunate spectre never far away in this region. A voice close to the team said it out loud. “The team’s defeat on the night was very suspicious,” lamented Le Hung Dung. “I will ask the police to investigate.” Nothing eventually came of it, which was unsurprising, for reality was stark: they had lost purely out of ineptitude.
Championships became his last chance saloon. If he had hoped to at least go out in a blaze of glory, his defenders did not read the script. They were not even on the same page in the first match against Jordan, Baha’ Faisal springing their offside trap to slot home a training ground goal. Faisal helped himself to another near the end of the match, before Do Duy Manh side footed a consolation goal in the 87th minute. However, it was Jordan’s second goal in the 68th minute that set tongues wagging. Omar Al Manasrah’s right-footed rocket was a wonder goal indeed, but Miura must have been asking why the opposition’s left back was given all the time in the world on the edge of their penalty area to curl one in.
Now against the ropes, Miura had to bounce back in a difficult qualifying group for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, as well as the SEA Games of 2015 in Singapore. A roughshod defeat against Thailand in the former didn’t bat back criticism of his aggressive style of play, while a semi-final loss to Myanmar – a team Miura demolished 6-0 in his first match in charge – in the latter meant the beleaguered coach was on his last legs.
If he did, it wasn’t answered properly in the second match; barely two minutes were on the clock when Australian centre back James Donachie found room in their sixyard box to slam home the opener. Jamie Maclaren’s goal later in the match sealed their fate, and nailed the coffin shut on Vietnamese hopes.
It’s funny, then, that the fountain of youth that is the 2016 AFC Under-23
Rock bottom, and with no chance of qualifying for the knockout stages, there was only pride left to be fought for in the final match. Perhaps it was this that drove the Golden Stars to take the lead against
FEATURE FIKRI JERMADI the United Arab Emirates. Some bright play on the left wing won them a penalty, and up steps Nguyen Cong Phuong. Obligatorily nicknamed the ‘Vietnamese Messi’, he at least lived up to it momentarily as he smashed them into the lead. Unfortunately, the defender Pham Hoang Lam then did a good impression of Iain Dowie in the late 1990s, scoring at the wrong end with a powerful header. That didn’t dampen their spirits though, with Nguyen Truon Ang’s fancy footwork put them ahead three minutes later. Vietnam being 2-1 up with 20 minutes to go, the match should have been seen out in comfort, what with all the vaunted physical conditioning their Japanese coach had been brought in for. Instead, it did not help to sustain their mental strength. Miura’s men capitulated under pressure, and ended up conceding two goals within four minutes.
On the twelfth month’s eleventh day of 2014, the sun started to set on Miura’s magic
The fans are desperate to win, but wish for it to be achieved on their own terms. Perhaps blinded by this myopic passion, theirs is a vision of Spanish-inspired tikitaka success, and for a while Miura and his players kept it alive and well. They had their moment in the sun, but eventually his players were unable to execute his game plan effectively beyond an extended honeymoon period. Within days, he was fired from the job, removed, according to the VFF official statement, because of the very same qualities he was brought in to instill: “After further discussion and analysis, we find the national and under-23 tactics adopted to be unsuitable for the size and physical condition of Vietnamese players.” Not that life is any better after his departure. Under Nguyen Huu Thang, they matched Miura in the 2016 AFF Suzuki Cup, though their semi-final appearance was achieved with less verve, scoring only eight goals in five matches compared to
the 12 achieved in 2014. At the recentlyconcluded SEA Games in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, the Golden Stars didn’t even qualify from their group. Currently coachless at the time of writing, rumours are rife that the former Thai national team manager, Kiatisuk ‘Zico’ Senumuang, will be tasked with at least replicating some of Miura’s early magic. As Miura reclines his seat and shuts his eyes, he may well have considered how he did things his own way, doing what he was brought in to do. A smile may form at the thought of how he had not really lost the job; rather, the goalposts shifted and it was taken away from him simply because he did it too well, too quickly, albeit with nothing to show for it. Originally published in February 2016 on Backpage Football, a celebrated platform for upcoming writers and high quality football writing. IMAGE: JARMOLUK / PIXABAY
The team arrived in Hanoi in a firestorm of negativity. The man brought in to ring the changes now had to dance to a different tune, with criticism raining in on the same tactics that made them such an irresistible force just a year earlier. Without a trophy to show for it, whatever goodwill earned from his first year in charge went up in smoke. It doesn’t help that the local infrastructure is not equipped for the new, with sports federations treated as more as political favours rather than advancements of a cause. As mentioned above, allegations of bribery and corruption are also never that far away, making you wonder how serious promises of reform should be taken. Miura may be bemused by losing his senior job due to failures in an under-age category. Many in Southeast Asia are conditioned to be proud of their teams, but for those consistently disappointed in the present, a keen eye is kept in the future. That’s why the SEA Games, another underage tournament, is so celebrated in the region. It is when this hope promised by such youth fails to materialise that a scapegoat had to be found.
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FEATURE SAMUEL THORPE
A Tantalising Find from the Jews of Medieval Afghanistan Samuel Thorpe considers the Afghan Geniza’s importance IMAGE: NATIONAL LIBRARY OF ISRAEL
In 1946, the French philologist André Dupont-Sommer published the first Jewish tombstone inscription from Firozkoh in Afghanistan. Dated between the 11th and 13th centuries, when the city was destroyed by the invading Mongols, the tombstone inscriptions follow a standard pattern. Chiselled into the rock with unadorned lines and no decoration, they mention the name of the deceased, the date, conventional tributes such as ‘blessed in the Garden of Eden’ and ‘God fearing’, and an appropriate biblical quote. For all their simplicity, until recently these epitaphs were one of the few sources for Jewish history in medieval Afghanistan. Scholars studied the mixed Hebrew and Persian names, the aesthetics and, most importantly, the language. Like Jewish communities throughout today’s Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia and western China, Jews in Firozkoh spoke and wrote Judeo-Persian, a Jewish language, like Yiddish, that is intelligible to standard Persian speakers but incorporates Hebrew vocabulary and is written in the Hebrew script.
quickly picked up by the world media and described how, a few months earlier, foxes scratching in the dirt revealed a hidden cave, somewhere in the Afghan province of Samangan. Inside the cave, so the story goes, local villagers found a trove of Jewish documents nearly a millennium old. The find is now known as the Afghan Geniza. The truth is that we will likely never know where or how the find came to light, though other manuscripts have been found in the same arid region. Smuggled out of Afghanistan and held by a shadowy network of antiquities dealers, the vast majority of the corpus’s hundreds of pages remain unpublished and unavailable for research. However, 29 manuscripts, bought by the National Library of Israel in 2013, shed new light on this discovery (full disclosure: I work at the library, but in a different department).
The graves offer a tantalising glimpse into a largely unknown Jewish community. They raise many questions. How did Jews live on the eastern boundaries of the Islamic world? What did they do? Where did they come from? The short epitaphs, along with a few other inscriptions and scattered references in histories and literary sources, could only tell so much.
Like its namesake the Cairo Geniza – the trove of discarded books and papers kept in the ‘genizah’ (Hebrew for storeroom) of the Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo – the manuscripts from Afghanistan are a grabbag of texts. There are legal documents in standard Persian, written in Arabic script; personal and business letters in standard Persian, and more in Judeo-Persian; fragments of Persian poetry; a commercial document in Arabic; and, most spectacularly so far, a page from a commentary on the biblical book of Isaiah by Saadia Gaon, the 10th-century Jewish philosopher.
Such questions about the history of Afghan Jews were the reason a 2011 television report on Israel’s Channel 2 news set the scholarly community abuzz. The report was
The manuscripts are likely part of a family archive belonging to Jewish merchants from Bamiyan, an important trading city on the medieval Silk Road. Most of the legal
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FEATURE SAMUEL THORPE The Judeo-Persian of these letters is not only important because it was spoken by the region’s Jews. Judeo-Persian also preserves antiquated vocabulary and grammatical forms lost from standard Persian. The Afghan Geniza’s medieval Judeo-Persian will help scholars understand the development of Persian as a whole. Previously, the corpus of JudeoPersian texts from the eastern reaches of the Iranian world consisted of two letters and a handful of literary and religious works.
The graves offer a glimpse into the unknown While Arabic continued to be the predominant legal language in the region, the inclusion of Gaon’s Judeo-Arabic commentary implies that Abu Nassar’s family had a deeper knowledge of the language. It might indicate that the family – and, perhaps, other Jews – had emigrated from Baghdad or other Arabic-speaking regions to the west of Bamiyan. Such movement was common; Judeo-Persian documents found in the Cairo Geniza show that Persian-speaking traders had moved there from points east.
This painstaking work on the Cairo Geniza proved crucial to understanding medieval Islamic society at large, and not only its Jewish component. This was possible because Jews were so thoroughly integrated into the commercial structure of the Muslim-majority society. The insights gained from the geniza documents about Jews’ involvement in trade, industry, finance, and the legal system, could, on those grounds, be applied to the general population, too. The same observation no doubt holds true for the Afghan Geniza; the documents show Abu Nassar’s close contacts with local Muslim communities. But as Shaul Shaked, professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, cautions, 29 manuscripts lack the context and volume of data that hundreds could provide. As he put it, until the entire find is available for research, the Afghan Geniza ‘offers more questions than answers’. Samuel Thorpe is an American writer and translator based in Jerusalem. This article was originally published at Aeon, a unique digital magazine publishing some of the most profound and provicative thinking on the web, on 7th January 2016, and has been republished under Creative Commons.
But language is not the only historical clue that the Afghan Geniza provides. The documents include a wealth of details, including names, occupations, prices, weights and measures, foodstuffs, and more. Historians have used such information from the Cairo Geniza to reconstruct the economic and social history of a network of Jewish traders that stretched from Morocco to the Malabar Coast in India. IMAGE: KYSELAK / WIKIMEDIA
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POETRY ADNIN EZRA
With what will Will I name this raging solitude With what will Will I name this freedom frost With what will Will I name this phantom of ferocity of fickle-fast, and fabricate-last Will I free my kingdom-asylum Shall I fake a final fantasy? With what will, why, With my will, which I Will well upon myself With god's name, whose Will without Won't we witness animals, land lakes aplenty, hallowed be Thy name, Thy will be done.
TEXT: FRUHAIL T. RIPANA IMAGE: SKEEZE / PIXABAY
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FEATURE IMELDA DEINLA
Rebuilding Education and Peace in Mindanao Imelda Deinla delves deeper into the relationship between peace and education in Mindanao, the Philippines. IMAGE: TORBEN VENNING / FLICKR
“Ella, not her real name, was allegedly caught as an ‘amazon’ or woman fighter for the MNLF [Moro National Liberation Front] during the Zamboanga siege in September 2013. Her family is poor and she supported herself through vocational school by selling in the market. She was ‘forced’ to leave her studies to help raise funds for a big amount of dowry that her brother needs to pay for his bride’s family. To prevent rido, or clan feuding, the brother had to get married even if they were too young to settle down. Ella and her younger siblings stopped going to school to help in paying for the family’s debts and in earning a living for the family.” The education sector in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) exists within a complex and multi-layered social, political, economic and conflict environment. There are an estimated more than 10,000 displaced children from the recent Marawi conflict who will be unable to attend school this year. Both government troops and local residents have reported that child soldiers are fighting for the Maute/ISIS group in Marawi City. There is genuine fear that out-ofschool children are vulnerable and at risk of being recruited by extremist groups. According to a joint Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and World Bank study in 2014, the education deficit in ARMM is so serious that only one in ten students will complete high school. Ella’s story, and what has happened in Marawi, illustrate how education poverty perpetuates conflict and the ‘poverty trap’ in Mindanao. Thus, education is a vital component of peacebuilding in Mindanao. Our own research, based on a Justice User Survey with 540 respondents administered 26 | CQ MAGAZINE | #8
over six areas in ARMM in June-July 2016, confirms that next to health services, education is the Philippine government service most desired by people in ARMM. Peace and security, employment, and basic utilities are also urgently needed in the region. Yet, past peace settlement efforts have glossed over this critical dimension of addressing the cycle of conflict and poverty. Most initiatives were geared towards showcasing immediate and shortterm peace dividends, rather than cultivating gradual and long-term solutions to structural drivers of conflict. The poor state of education in the ARMM reflects a long history of funding neglect from government, poor institutional arrangements and coordination, lack of accountability and transparency of public funds, and absence of reliable data. In 2015, it was revealed that there were many villages with no schools, existence of ‘ghost teachers’, selection of unqualified teachers, and non-payment of salaries. It was also reported that the Department of Education in ARMM is touted as the most corrupt regional agency in the autonomous region. Both the experiences and perceptions of injustice have contributed to the endurance of the Mindanao conflict. Inability to access effective basic services from state institutions has furthered feelings of helplessness and exclusion, resort to selfhelp and diminished trust in institutions outside of families, clans and immediate community. Mindanao is largely seen as an ‘ungovernable’ space where clans and families rule. But neither has there been sustained efforts to build and strengthen
institutions that can deliver needed services and gain community trust. Given the state of education in Mindanao, from the Justice User Survey in 2016 we found that even schools are not as trusted as family and community-based institutions. What does this mean for peacebuilding and development interventions in conflict and post-conflict areas such as the ARMM? The modest research we have undertaken suggests that building peace at the community level is as critical as forging political settlement with the insurgent groups. Provision of effective and relevant services to the community can generate both short-term and far-reaching benefits for all stakeholders. It builds community resilience in the face of bigger crisis and is an important means of generating the confidence that is essential in creating a community of peace-makers and advocates. Pockets of space in the communities also exist where peace can be forged – whether at the formal or informal level – that need to be tapped in pursuing big-ticket peacebuilding programmes. Schools, in view of their importance to the community, are an avenue for peacebuilding – and where capacities and opportunities can be developed for individuals and their families. They are a site not only for gaining new knowledge and skills, but also to showcase and understand the diversity of cultures, religions and values held deeply by different groups. Schools also offer venues to engage the young into open and robust discussion of ideas and issues that affect their future.
There were many villages with no schools and the existence of ‘ghost teachers’
More than ever, there is an urgency to rebuild schools and learning institutions in Mindanao that were either ravaged by war or left to dissolve because of neglect or lack of resources. The quality of basic education in ARMM is still much lower than the national average, while the cost of producing a high school graduate in the region is more costly than anywhere in the country. This demonstrates the need for sustained investments to develop the quality of learning and teaching in schools, as well as to tackle head-on the sticky governance issues that have plagued the educational infrastructure in Mindanao. Australia has been at the forefront of providing long-term and sustainable development aid in Mindanao, such as its education programme that aims to provide primary education to the most vulnerable and marginalised. The Australian government recently announced it will give an additional $20 million dollars in aid for Marawi rehabilitation that is focused on the most urgent needs of the people and for 28 | CQ MAGAZINE | #8
the protection of children. This additional funding should give the highest priority to putting children evacuees back to school, help them overcome the trauma of experiencing war, and shield them from being recruited as child soldiers. It is also essential that families are given immediate means of livelihood and to rebuild their homes. Family and community institutions are the most trusted and crucial pillars of support for the individuals and their families in ARMM. Community engagement and participation are important to gain the trust and support of the community for any development programme, and to ensure that services are delivered effectively and received by those who need them the most. Working in a complex development landscape in ARMM requires being attuned to the particularities in each area, the relationship between formal and informal authorities, respectful of culture and traditional values, and flexible with strategies where necessary. Developing trust in and a
culture for accountable and responsive institutions among the community members and leaders are essential to efforts at establishing mechanisms of accountability and transparency. As one resident bemoaned the tragic effect of the conflict on Marawi children: “We want to see our children guided in schools rather than to see them in the battlefields.� Imelda Deinla is a Fellow in the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet) and Director of the Philippines Project at Australian National University. This article was originally published in September 2017 on Devpolicy Blog, a platform for the best in aid and development analysis, research and policy comment, with global coverage and a focus on Australia, the Pacific and Papua New Guinea.
IMAGE: ROLAND A. FRANKLIN / FLICKR
FEATURE IMELDA DEINLA
FEATURE ALDI JEFERSON AIRORI
The Dark before the Dawn As tensions heat up, Aldi Jeferson Airori shares his thoughts on Papua’s environment and its future.
Papua is the largest eastern island of Indonesia, divided into the Province of Papua and West Papua. It is bordered by the nation of Papua New Guinea to the east, and it is also one of the most underdeveloped island in Indonesia. Both provinces are lagging behind the rest of the country. Poor infrastructure, enormous distances, weak institutions, uneven development planning, low population density and difficulties in attracting qualified health and education workers are just some of the significant challenges facing the region. These challenges are compounded by ethnic and communal frictions, and the limited capacity of indigenous Papuans to compete with other communities for access to services and economic opportunities. It doesn’t help that high levels of poverty and malnutrition are common in Papua. Economic growth in Papua and West Papua so far has been concentrated in a few places that interact relatively little with one another. Most of these are on or very near the coast; in the interior, the mountainous highlands mostly contain scattered, small economic units centered on public administration and subsistence farming. Papua and West Papua today stand at the threshold of enormous change. As in other parts of the world, being richly endowed with non-renewable resources means that there is great pressure to convert these assets to cash. Every tree, every ounce of gold and tonne of coal, represents new houses, automobiles, and aircraft, when it is removed and sold.
Since the discovery of gold and minerals in Papua by a Dutch geologist in 1936, a lot of illegal mining have taken place, causing a fair amount of environmental issues. Moving into the now, the mining industry in Papua is largely monopolised by the Freeport-McMoRan Inc., through its Indonesian arm, PT Freeport Indonesia. Although this multinational have strict rules and regulations with regards to waste management and the environment, the fact that they had dug deep into the group, making many tunnels which may affect the environment in the future, did not help. The mine is located within what used to be a small equatorial mountain glacier. The steepening of slopes related to mining activities, as well as earthquakes and frequent heavy rainfall, have resulted in landslides within the open pit mine and the surrounding areas.
The issue of illegal mining are gravely affecting the environment, because those responsible for these activities did not have any clear procedures and regulations on how they treat the waste of their mining activity. From what I can see, the people and the local tribes who still live and depend on the river and nature are the ones who directly feel the worst impact of this ongoing environmental damage.
A landscape reclamation project has begun at the mine in recent years. Environmental groups and local citizens are concerned with the potential for copper contamination and acid mine drainage from the mine tailings into the surrounding river systems, land surfaces and groundwater. Freeport argues that their actions meet industry standards, and have been approved by the requisite authorities and the government. At the same time, both Freeport and its partner Rio Tinto, an Australian-British multinational, have been excluded from the investment portfolio of the Government Pension Fund of Norway, the world's second-largest pension fund, due to criticism over the environmental damages caused by the Grasberg mine. Stocks at a value of US$870 million were divested from the fund as a result of the decisions.
The ongoing environmental damage in Papua is not only contributed by the mining activity, but also caused by illegal logging and deforestation. Greenpeace, the international environmental organisation, stated earlier this year that the damage rate of deforestation in Papua reached 300,000 hectares every year, with Merauke, in the southern part of Papua, suffering the most from this. This can be attributed to the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) and logging activity by local corporations.
The local government have tried to prevent this, and do their best to protect the environment and the locals, but the issue here is that there are many parts of Papua that are still underdeveloped and far from modern civilisation. The illegal mining comes about because this activity is not supervised by the local government, due to the aforementioned factor of geographical impracticality.
Government data shows that during between 2005 and 2009, the range of forest in Papua was 42 million hectares. However, three years later, this was reduced to 30.7 million. The reason for this deforestation, aside from gathering wood, is to create an open space for farming and #8 | CQ MAGAZINE | 29
FEATURE ALDI JEFERSON AIRORI space for road and civilians to build their houses. The social impact of this massive deforestation for the local indigenous tribes is that they are forced to move out from their territory within the jungle to another place. The problem here is that these indigenous tribes usually do not yet adapt well to modernisation, and they end up living in poverty. The deforestation also affect native plants like sagu and varieties of cassava that indigenous tribes usually harvest as their main food. This contributed to the high rate of malnutrition and starvation of the indigenous tribes who rely on nature. Even though Papua is really rich in natural resources, the development of the provinces are really slow, and the citizen of Papua only get a small benefit on their gold and minerals, because most of it are going out of Papua and processed somewhere else. The poor human resources and education also contribute to the poverty and ignorance of the environment; many older generations of Papuans believe that they still have a massive amount of forest and other natural resources that they becomes dependent on agriculture and fish farming.
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IMAGE: RICHARD FARBELINI / WIKIMEDIA
Luckily for the younger generation of Papuans, Papua and West Papua government are providing scholarships annually for native Papuan students. Many of them are spread across the globe, ranging from local institutions in Indonesia to internationally-renowned universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Japan and many other countries around the world. With this scholarship programme, the government hopes that the future generation of Papua will be more independent and educated, so that they can come back and build their homeland. This can contribute to the economic, social and environmental development of Papua in the future.
SHORT STORY AD SHAF
Tiket Drama TEXT: AD SHAF IMAGE: TORSTEN DETTLAFF / PEXELS
Kalau kau rasa engkau lah yang paling paling baik, Yang paling paling bagus, Yang paling paling hebat, Hingga kau perlekeh orang lain. Hingga kau merendah-rendahkan orang lain. Hingga kau pandang jijik hina keji orang lain. Simpan saja bongkak-takbur-sombong-ujub kau itu dalam poket. Mual aku mahu dipertontonkan segala hipokrasi dan drama hodoh itu. Diberi tiket percuma pun, aku chiao.
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REVIEW NURUL ISMAWI
“Would you like to do a review on Marco’s latest book?” Truth is, the editor never had to ask me that question. Based on past experience that I had with Marco Ferrarese’s Nazi Goreng and Banana Punk Rawk Trails, I will say ‘yes’ to each one of his books in the future. “Is it too late to say ‘yes’?” I had to ask, since I replied to his question with a question three weeks after he sent it to me. (Blame it on the technical problem I had with my email, technology isn't perfect). And when I received a green light, I called my friend who works at a bookstore, and asked her to save me a copy; though I was provided with a soft copy of the book, it does not beat the same feeling you get when you actually have the physical copy in your hands. It is a whole different experience altogether. Also, I have to have a copy on my bookshelf. And so, I took a leap of faith and stepped outside of the reality that I was in, and let Ferrarese take me to some of the more peculiar places on Earth. The Travels of Marco Yolo: Blazing Trails Where Marco Polo Feared To Go collects Ferrarese’s best travel stories. 28 articles are tucked between the covers, accompanied by black and white pictures by Kit Yeng Chan, along with woodcut art provided by the skillful hands of Rizo Leong. A map of his trails is slipped inside the book, which reminds me of that one copy of Dante’s Inferno that I had read, where the reader is provided with a map of hell. For a minute there I thought Ferrarese was going to take me to hell. Thank you, GerakBudaya, for publishing yet another book that fulfills the lust of the readers that 32 | CQ MAGAZINE | #8
I Went on an Adventure with Marco Yolo…
If reading a book is like going on an adventure, Nurul Ismawi went the whole hog with The Travels of Marco Yolo by Marco Ferrarese. IMAGE: TORBEN VENNING / FLICKR
REVIEW NURUL ISMAWI
Ferrarese and Kit have set a par on what we citizens of social media call the #RelationshipGoals for the journeys that they have embarked on together. Kit’s pictures are what makes the book whole, for they complete the soul of the book. If the book itself was a person, Rizo Leong’s woodcut arts were the earrings dangling on its ears. Was that metaphor too weird to take in? You should read what Ferrarese have used to describe the strange occurrences that he had come across during his travels. They are metaphors that are of a different level. He is the poet in the sphere of travel writing… without beating around the bush just to prove one point, like some of us do. This is not another of those books where the writer claimed that the aimless wandering that he or she was on have changed them, or fulfilled his or her spiritual needs. It is not another travelogue
that inspired the writer to write a poem, or come up with a song. No, Mr. Yolo does not provide you with all of the clichés that make you feel sorry for the writer. The effect that it had on me was the ‘ooohhh…’ and the ‘aaahhh…’ amidst all of the expressions we usually use to show impressions, fear and curiosity. Instead of being inspired by the journeys himself, he inspires the readers to book one-way tickets to wherever their hearts desire. However, this is not Lonely Planet. Even when he does not leave his readers wondering about the places that he had set his foot on, his stories do not serve as the travel guide for the wanderlusters. These are true tales, if you had experienced them yourself, that you would want to tell your grandkid when you tuck her in at night. Marco Ferrarese has humbled me into changing my cocky perceptions towards travellers. Why leave the comforts of home? Why go through the troubles of getting familiar with new places, and new
people? Whatever the reasons may be, these souls must have earned something from each travel. They leave home for good reasons, and wherever the road may lead will teach them something that we cannot learn in a classroom. From getting lost in translation to getting literally lost contributed by a weak skill in reading maps, the experience they get from travelling teach them patience and bravery. This has been proven by Ferrarese when he looked at death in the eye during his trip in Mongolia (hint: it involved horses). The places that he had written on are not the usual sites where you can find travellers sipping their cheap beer. They are not cities filled with bright lights and skyscrapers. The places that he had gone to are filled with dusts, if not the perfect view of the evening stars. He rode on roads where cars dare not to go. He walked on trails that are not worn out by the footsteps of those who roam outside of their own realms. His
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IMAGE: OCTAGON / WIKIMEDIA
are hungry for writings that do not sound ‘tangkap muat’.
REVIEW NURUL ISMAWI (sometimes) unplanned walking had led him to new discoveries that are strange to foreigners, but are familiar secrets that only the locals know. He found the essence of what makes the place what it is. Ferrarese has helped me to see through a different spectrum. So is it a hit or a miss? You know my answer. Unless you are a fan of everything glamorous, this may not be the book for you. But if curiosity gets the best of you, and you want to dive with both feet into the unknown, discover the wisdoms and secrets of the locals, or simply hang out with probably the smartest punk rocker I have ever known, please, do yourself a favour, and get a copy of this. Do not worry about not having the background knowledge on what is written; Ferrarese never leaves his readers hanging. He’ll lead you back home in one piece. After I closed the back cover of the book, the first thought that popped out of my head was “Marco Ferrarese would die content and happy”. P.S. He’s not dying.
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IMAGE: Шухрат Саъдиев / WIKIMEDIA
The Travels of Marco Yolo: Blazing Trails Where Marco Polo Feared To Go is available online from Gerak Budaya. You can find out more about the book at bananapunkrawktrails.com. Follow Marco on Twitter at @monkeyrockworld.
SHORT STORY ANNE ARIS
TEXT: ANNE ARIS IMAGE: ANDREAS160578 / PIXABAY
Munich Beckoned Penang, 1975.
Penang, 1979
Munich, 2016
Lisa wandered her way through Campbell Street. Vendors and pseudo-neon lights intimidated her like fireflies. She was musing at an ‘All That Jazz’ poster in front of the Cathay Cinema when someone bumped into her. Strings of apology by the boy were muffled, as Lisa takes in the beauty in front of her.
Munchen, Germany. Her father stresses they’re moving in July. No ‘buts’. Lisa cried to Eric on the trishaw. The empathised cycler offered to take photos of them at a nearby stall. The bloodshot eyes and crying smiles of 18 year-olds were engraved.
“It was a nice bedtime story, Nanna. I like it.” Lisa smiles, putting the polaroid back in her pocket, “It’s one I’ll never forget.”
Months after, the two would meet always, either just to talk or amuse themselves with rogue Hollywood movies. The boy’s called Wei Keong, but prefers Eric.
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SNAPSHOT AMANDA HO SZE YIN
At the Summer Night Market Festival in Melbourne, I was shocked by the cleanliness and dryness of the floors, which is very different from Malaysian markets. An amazing atmosphere was topped by the wide variety of foods, from Italian cuisines to Greek offerings. It was a night full of life, food and more food. As I was browsing the stalls, I came across two chefs who were busy preparing and barbequeing skewers to serve their customers. Like a good tourist, I took shots of them as they work, and started to queue‌ until I realise there were too many customers! It was a shame, but at least I managed to capture them at their most focused and professional moment. Amanda Ho Sze Yin Monash Malaysia Photography Society January 2017
INNER VIEW MINJI KANG
Home and Away Thoughts on Films speaks to Minji Kang about her experiences as a female filmmaker, and what it was like being a South Korean making a film about North Koreans. IMAGE: DON Q HANNAH
Hi Minji! Thanks for taking the time to speak with us. Let’s start from the start. What inspired you to become a filmmaker? I’ve always been exposed to the world of art and music from a young age. However, in the last seven months of high school, I was recovering from health problems. Everyday felt like a battle, and I found myself falling easily into a great pool of depression. I was young, but I was put into a situation where I had to search for the meaning of life, and I had to find it. How did film help you out? I spent most of my days painting and playing music, trying to express what I have locked inside me. My passion for art, music, and storytelling brought me back to life. I realised how important it is to express my voice and vision freely. It was a sensational realisation and an awakening moment for me. Soon after that, I found a perfect art form to combine all my interests: symbols, colors, music, philosophy, psychology, religion, myth and fairy tales – it was cinema. It certainly is that amalgamation of styles. Which figures in cinema have inspired you the most? There are two European directors who have greatly inspired me: Ingmar Bergman and Krzysztof Kieslowski. They have unique cinematic styles, and their films are a constant quest to search for and within human connections and the human condition. We agree wholeheartedly! Take us through this moment of realisation. In my early twenties, while I was studying at the School of the Art Institute of 38 | CQ MAGAZINE | #8
Chicago, I spent a lot of time looking into their works and studying Carl Jung’s psychology. Interestingly, the more I learned about Jung’s Collective Unconscious and his interpretation of the human psyche, the more I discovered and felt connected to the work of Bergman and Kieslowski. I was drawn to their interpretations of time, death and eternity, most notably in Kieslowski’s The Double Life of Veronique, the Three Colors Trilogy, and No End, and Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, Cries and Whispers, The Seventh Seal, and The Silence. To me, Bergman and Kieslowski’s deeply sensational, thought-provoking films express a distinctive depiction of the mysterious mind. I’m also most fascinated by these filmmaker’s persistent need and desire to find the meaning of life and human nature. Their use of symbolism in terms of faith and spirituality is something that I have always felt connected to – the interpretation of time, death and eternity. I wonder how your family took to all these discoveries of yours. South Korea is regarded as a country with strong Asian traditions, which might look at such a career suspiciously, but then again, Korean cinema also has a strong reputation at home and abroad. Interestingly, the reaction from my family changes very subtly even to this day. Although their reaction does nothing or very little to my decisions, perhaps I’m too stubborn when it comes to protecting what I love and am passionate about. You’re now based in the United States of America. How did this come about? I came to America when I was fifteen years
old to attend a highly competitive preparatory boarding school. It was my deliberate decision to leave home and study abroad. However, my decision to go to an art school instead of an Ivy League university brought my family great disappointment, I think. Why is that? I definitely felt the unspoken words that brought great distance and caused a great sadness in me. However, I enjoyed my days in art school tremendously, where I studied film and film aesthetics. Every day was inspirational, and I was truly doing and learning what I desire and am passionate about. I also enjoyed the six years in graduate school studying film directing. You’ve certainly done well in creating well-received films. Wouldn’t that come into the equation here? I think my family has always had an expectation that I would teach after my graduate studies. In Korea, teaching is traditionally regarded as a respected profession, particularly for women. I have a very little desire to do so, especially in my 30s. Perhaps in my 60s I’ll feel that I have something to pass on to the next generation, but right now, I want to pursue making films, one project after another. I always find family dynamics fascinating, as we don’t get to choose our family, at least after we’re born. We are all put into a group of people, and we try to understand each other throughout our lifetime, and we try to learn from each other. No one is perfect, either. To this day, I try to find a balance, between following my passion and also not drifting too far away from my roots and family. It’s a great challenge.
Learning music from a young age helped me trust my own instinct, rather than think logically and construct a story cerebrally
INNER VIEW MINJI KANG
But I don’t regret anything, because I have ardently followed my dreams, and will continue to walk my own path. It wasn’t a hard decision to make either, because I knew what I wanted, and I knew how hard this path would be, but at the end of the day, it was truly a path worth traveling on. In a lot of your films, there are always characters exploring interesting links to the idea of the family, home, their points of origin. How much do these mirror your own experiences? Many of my own experiences and the way I see and feel the world are probably reflected in my films. I’ve been away from home for quite some time now, and I’ve been travelling to many different parts of the world. Now, everywhere feels like home, but nowhere feels like home. “Home” is a constant and endless search for me. Often I see myself trying to find it through or in my works, if that makes any sense. Perhaps that’s why most of my characters yearn for an anchor and the points of origin in their own worlds. You mentioned something about gender earlier. Beyond your family, do you think your gender affects how others react to you and your works? Off the top of my head, I don’t recall a lot of very active female Korean filmmakers… I honestly don’t know how to answer this questions articulately, but you’re right. It’s not easy to be a South Korean woman director working in the United States. Often, the people I encounter in business or social gatherings, when I’m in a conversation and introduce myself, don’t seriously think I’m a film director. Even after they actually get to see some of my work, people don’t believe that I made the films, especially The Loyalist. They think I had established producers or production companies to make those films of mine. How do you feel about that? Whenever I have to walk though these experiences, I find myself becoming more persistent, and I try not to be affected because it’s pointless to get upset over it. All I need to do is to create; I must do the best work I’ve ever done. At the end of the day, it’s not about what other people think. 40 | CQ MAGAZINE | #8
It’s about my relationship with my own work, how it grows and transforms and ripens as I travel through my life. You mentioned European filmmakers as a point of inspiration. Are there any films or filmmakers from Korea who have also influenced you? You’re right, I’m more inspired and influenced by European masters and their films. At the same time, I’m sure influenced by Korean films without realising it. I read a lot of Korean folklore when I was growing up, and I’ve always been drawn to fairytales. These stories definitely influence my work. They’ve lasted for lasted for centuries, and they must have some profound lessons to be learned. In an interview with Viddsee, you speak of learning to read music before you learned to read Korean. How much did this aid your filmmaking efforts? In a way, both film and music are relatively universal languages, so was there any cross-pollination between the two? Yes, both film and music are relatively universal languages. Learning music from a young age always helped me trust my own instinct and follow what I truly feel, rather than think logically and try to construct a story in a cerebral way. Also, there are many ways to interpret musical notations and to form sounds, or written languages to the form of the visual. I don’t know exactly how, but somehow, I see the music as I visualise the film, and I see the film as I hear the music. It’s difficult to explain, but also I think it’s natural that you’d experience multiple sensations and visions when you are working with visuals, colours, music and so on. It’s all about expression, and what kindles the imagination and how they affect one another. After all, whether it’s music, film or language, it’s all about the means of communication. Whatever we create when we open a conversation with others and society. Speaking of communication, you created a different spoken language for Requiem for Herstory. How much fun was it, and what was that process like? I imagine it to be a lot of throwing stuff to the wall to see what sticks. Was it a collaborative effort with the actors as well? It was a lot of fun. When I was constructing the world of Requiem for Herstory I imagine those characters had been isolated for many years, centuries even, living under an oppressed, airless, chilling ceiling of the household. That’s one of the reasons why the place where they live is filled with dust; they refuse to change. They refuse to open up to the world outside. They want to keep their precious child prodigy Yuri in their own world, to feed off from her beaming talent as if it is their own flesh. It was IMAGE: MINJI KANG
It’s funny you mention that, because you’ve been in the United States now for over 15 years. When I think of it, I can’t still make sense of how all of this time has passed. Yes, I’ve been living away from home and family for 17 years. I’ve visited them throughout, but now, I definitely feel there is a distant gap created between myself and my family over time.
INNER VIEW MINJI KANG important that the way they communicate embraces some of the animal characteristics of human beings and also the characteristics of a lost language. Collaborating with the actors and the cinematographer was extremely delightful; everyone was excited by the idea of creating something unique and meaningful. During the process of working with the actors, Kathryn (who plays the mother) came up with a great idea – she suggested that the language could be an altered mixture of several existing languages. I really liked that idea, because it implied that the characters had lost their identities and their place of origin. Generally speaking, what is your thought process like in developing stories? Do you conceive of a bigger idea before cutting it down to size, or is there a different approach here? Usually, the story springs from the characters, and then I find worlds for them (location and production design). The Unpardonable Night is actually the only film that I did not write. My dear collaborator, Alvaro R. Valente, was the writer and the producer of the film. When he had the script, he asked me to direct the story. There were many elements that I was already familiar with, and I liked the world he created. I wanted to bring it to life. In an interview with Stage 5, you mentioned that The Loyalist was originally developed as a feature film. What was the reasoning behind the
decision to change it into a short film? I was writing a feature-length version of IMAGE: MINJI KANG
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The Loyalist in my second year at Columbia University when I decide to write something closer to me personally. I happened to come across an old essay that I wrote at Tabor Academy for the allschool speech meet. It was about my impression after visiting the Berlin Wall, expressing how one day, my country would be unified just like Germany. I wanted to write something closer to my origin, but in a more dramatic setting. I wanted to write a story about a woman who is tormented because she has one foot in the East and another in the West. I also wanted this to be a family story, so that the story can illuminate a universal theme. Then, by the time it was time to make a thesis film (Columbia only allows a short film to be a thesis), I wanted to make a short film version of the feature. The genre of the film was modified because the feature is a spythriller. I wanted the short version to be a character-driven, dramatic piece that studies the characters’ interior emotions and struggles. You also mentioned that finding actors capable of speaking with a convincing North Korean accent was difficult. Can you illuminate this casting process in more detail? We filmed The Loyalist in Upstate New York, which I used as a base, and where my collaborators were located. I looked for Korean actors in New York, but I was unable to find actors who were right for the daughter and father roles. However, because there have been some
Korean films portraying North Korean characters, some of the South Korean
actors were already trained or have learned to speak with a North Korean accent. So, I reached out to a casting director in South Korea, recommended by a close friend of mine who is also a film director. I flew out to South Korea six months before production and met Kwon Hyuk-poong for the father’s role. He’s really a renaissance man. He has such a broad knowledge base and so many experiences, and not to mention, he is a veteran actor who often works with the Korean director, Bong Joon-ho. Mastering a North Korean accent wasn’t a difficult process for him, and he prepared the role perfectly. His dedication and passion for film always amazes me. As for Jung Woorim, I actually met her at John F. Kennedy International Airport a few days before filming. Of course, by then we had been communicating details by phone for about a month. Around that time, the actress who was going to play Shilla had to drop out because of a schedule conflict, and I already had to be back to New York. But, the casting director, Noe Chi-Hyung, helped me find Jung Woorim within a day. Jung had just started university to study acting, and she definitely had a freshness on screen, and her performance was very subtle and organic, which I truly loved. I saw great potential in her, beyond words. Everything happens for a reason, and it would have been a very different film if it weren’t for Jung Woorim. Lastly, I got to know Kim Jongman, who played the role of the North Korean
INNER VIEW MINJI KANG driver/assassin, through a Korean actor friend of mine. At that time, Jongman was studying acting in New York. There’s a lot of Korean actors in New York… What a small world it is! After Jongman was casted, we found out that Jongman had acted with Hyuk-poong in the Korean feature film, Eye for an Eye. Making The Loyalist with this amazing trio was the most unforgettable, spectacular memory! Fantastic. What was it like, though, directing these actors? I mean, one was very new while the others have a lot of experience. Did you have to change your approach? We all loved talking about the film and the story for hours. I shared everything I imagined, felt, and knew about the characters. Through the process of profound conversation, our understanding of the world of The Loyalist ripened, and allowed us to challenge ourselves even further, and to try to achieve the most perfect results possible. They were incredibly gifted, sentient beings, and every second with them sharing our passion for The Loyalist was truly breathtaking, especially when the camera was rolling. I’m truly grateful for their hard work and love for the film. I was fortunate to work with such exceptional actors. Was this the “strong trust platform” you mentioned elsewhere? The Loyalist was a difficult production, but I’ve previously collaborated with some of the crew who took important roles. They already understood how I operate the production and communicate throughout the filming. They came back to collaborate with me because they trusted and believed in the vision I had for the film. I also wanted to collaborate with them again, because they surprised me with their strong passion. Even some of the new key members, they quickly adapted to the atmosphere on set. What I meant by “strong trust platform” was that the atmosphere was filled with the same, driven goal. It’s truly wonderful to walk with them through the moments of creation. Were there any extra sensibilities or issues you had to deal with as a South Korean filmmaker portraying North Korean characters? While making the film, in early 2014, the North Korean regime was changing and apprehension arose around the world through the media and news. The timing of making The Loyalist felt oddly flawed, especially when the film ‘The Interview’ with James Franco and Seth Rogen was released. Therefore, I tried to be careful not to touch any political issues that might
provoke further complications. However, I went into making it, because yes, the character’s social identity in The Loyalist is North Korean, which is an enormously important element of the film, but the story is really about a father and daughter who don’t have the choices and freedom that we have. History repeats itself. This situation has been witnessed in many countries over the course of history, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Perhaps that’s why the film was well received and awarded in film festivals in those regions, because they understand the tormented, heartfelt situation Shilla and her father have to go through in the film as the film unveils the complexity of patriarchy, tradition and horror in a family. Yes, again, that theme of tradition, family and such factors arise in this film. At the same time, I also detect a strong undertone related to the idea of the home and nationhood, almost equating one to the other. How deliberate is this? When I was making The Loyalist, I was about to turn 30 years old, and I realised I have spent half of my life in America. I questioned myself, who I have become, where I’m heading, and what “home” and “roots” mean to me. Also, my long academic journey was coming to an end, which meant my student visa would no longer be valid. Although I’ve spent half of my life in America, I’ve always been a legal alien. So more than before, I thought of and questioned “the idea of the home” and “nationhood”. Even though now I’m holding an artist green card that allows me to create films in Los Angeles, transitioning to this phase has not been uncomplicated emotionally. But, after all, I find myself much stronger, with clear perspective and purpose. It’s complex because my entire family still lives in Seoul, Korea, and I have all kinds of memories growing up there. No matter where I am, no matter how old I become, I’ll always have one foot in the East and the other in the West. Much like Shilla. Yes. I believe it is my weight to carry, whatever complex feelings may be evoked while I’m standing in between, perhaps it is one of the flames that kindles my creative mind and the new stories where I seek unity and peace, “home”. In an interview with Arpa Film Festival, you talk of correlating your own experience as an international student with that of the main characters in The Loyalist. How much of your good self is projected on the screen? The circumstances of main characters in The Loyalist are rather dramatic becausto #8 | CQ MAGAZINE | 43
INNER VIEW MINJI KANG of her social identity and the conflict that arises within. But yes, absolutely, a lot of myself is in her personality. Also, having gone through boarding school like Shilla in The Loyalist, the world she’s in is definitely closer to my heart. She has to make a choice if she should go back to her motherland or stay in the West. I also had to stand on that crossroads. But of course, where we come from is very different, even though we could be sisters. How so? Perhaps the character Shilla was incubated, whereas I desired to see myself in a more dramatic situation in order to vindicate my decision when I was standing at a turning point in my life. When it comes to expressing myself through art and film, I always stay honest and true to inspirations. Therefore, I think it’s natural that part of myself always breathes on the screen. Has any of your films been screened in South Korea? The only film screened in South Korea is The Unpardonable Night when it was invited to Pucheon Fantastic International Film Festival in 2012. Some of my family saw the film, but no one was interested in knowing anything further. None of this matters to me, because I’m not looking for anyone’s approval or permission to for what I should put on the screen. But again, I’m curious, and would very much like to talk about my films with them, whenever they’re ready. Let’s finish up with a quote of yours. “Art opens us up to new and exciting conversations. It elicits emotions and questions.” If you could pick one question that resonated the loudest with you through your discovery of art and your own arts, what would it be and why? Creating is an active transformation to make the invisible visible and yes, once it’s visible, it elicits emotions and questions as it invites us to exciting conversations. Lately I’m hearing the question “What differences can I bring?” the loudest, and it’s a question I’m still pondering. Perhaps, when I stop contemplating, I’ll get to find out why. Adapted from a two-part interview, conducted by Thoughts on Films, a platform for thinking about on films in Malaysia and beyond. You can read the full interview at thoughtsonfilms.com. Minji’s film, The Loyalist, is available to stream on Viddsee.
IMAGE: DON Q HANNAH
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SHORT STORY NADILLA SAKINAH
Welcome to the Madhouse TEXT: NADILLA SAKINAH IMAGE: ROBERT HICKERSON / UNSPLASH
Iacon. A beautiful city which is also the main Autobot capital on Cybertron. Mechs and femmes live peacefully along with the sparklings. There are many places to visit, many buildings to admire and many stories to tell. Speaking of buildings, lights bright enough to make the sun frown shone from every corner and street. Though, far across the rusted sea, Iacon was separated from a small island. The island itself was isolated from the rest of the galaxy, or in this case Cybertron. There are some citizens living on the island. Living just the same as everyone else on Cybertron. Only difference is that once a mech goes in, he never comes out. A dark blue and yellow jet flew across the sea towards the island. If it weren't for the yellow streaks, the jet would have been camouflaged. This jet didn't land until it has reached its destination on the island. Inside the cockpit, a figure laid in with restraints on both pedes and servos. The figure had a horrifying face only a carrier could love. There were different scars of different origins on his silver-grey face, with what looked like a satellite disc in the middle of his forehelm, though the red colours and adorn mask covering his helm made him looked like a deranged, mechanical lion. His cyan blue eyes flickered online as he looked around, but not consciously. The jet flew until it could see the grimy sign on top of the only building: Iacon Asylum. The jet transformed to a bipedal Cybertronian with the same colour as the jet, but his face bore a grim expression which no one could tell under the mask, which is a shade of dark blue and black. Only the pair of ruby red optics were seen
in the dark. He dragged the tied up Cybertronian towards the building; giggles and chuckles were heard from the captured inmate. In the building, guards were already prepared for the arrival. Weapons and shields are on full charges, while the warden waited with impatience. The warden looked like someone who couldn't be taken seriously. No matter how many badges or honours he had received from the elites, the massive chin that hung on his faceplate makes him a little… comical. He glared at both the captured and the captor. The captured inmate giggled gleefully. “Hey, Senty,” he cooed. “Love what you've done with the place.” “That's Warden to you!" the big chinned mech snapped. “Cliffjumper, go get him." The horned red mech walked towards the deranged captor, who grinned. “Cliffy! How's your partner? Sinning that pleasure bot behind your back? Been tailgating back to-…" “Shut up, Sinner!” the red mech growled, grabbing him by the neck forcefully. Sinner continued to laugh. He was having too much fun for such a gloomy place. “A lot of mechs wanted to talk to you…” He escorted the inmate to a reclining bed, strapping him with two electrical chains at both torso and legs, servos cuffed behind his back. “Really now,” he pouted to the guard. “I don't really mind walking. Hey, not so tight, you'll dent the finish…" More giggles erupted from him. The warden looked at #8 | CQ MAGAZINE | 47
SHORT STORY NADILLA SAKINAH
him with disgust. “Get that piece of degenerative scrap out of here!” he ordered. How did he have this job in the first place? A lot of competition. All that needs to be told. Now, he is here with the captor, the dark mech himself. “Warden,” the dark mech's deep voice broke the tension. “Something's not right. I will go with him.” Without a word, he trailed behind the guards who were wheeling Sinner ahead to the elevator. The elevator will lead them to the floor downstairs for Category Nine patients. Now, Category Nine patients are those who are beyond redemption, no matter how many attempts were given to cure them. Before reaching the elevator, the guards and the silent mech walked through a scanner, hoping Sinner does not carry any weapons. Who knows, the mech is unpredictable! Cameras were set up everywhere, flash and no flash. Sinner covered his optics a bit before snapping 48 | CQ MAGAZINE | #8
back to his 'happy side'. “Senty sure loves his cameras,” he commented with a chuckle. “Hey Senty! Get my good side! We're all good, right?” Laughter erupted from within him as they walked through the doors of 'Intensive Treatment'.
the voice broke off again. “I want weapons on him at full charge!” It was one of the elite guards who has a cyan blue and red armour, with light blue eyes staring at the patient who was pushed out. One of his servos, the left, was replaced with a hook.
“Scan initialising,” the voice from one of the radio called to scan the whole area of where Sinner was guarded.
“I have rooms for you later, Magnus,” Sinner's voice became low, yet he giggles. “Speaking of you… tick tock. Tick tock. Is that a Dinobot I hear?” This made the elite guard a bit pale at the sound Sinner made. When they walked away from Magnus, a scene with the Warden was seen.
There was a warning beep. “We have a red light! Remove all prohibited items!” The guards tried to frisk the tied up inmate, but the voice broke out again. “Umm… it's not on the patient.” “Ooh!” Sinner squealed in delight. “Naughty, naughty, Batmech. Snuck in something? Come on, tell me. Tell me! Bombs? Batarangs? Bat-Snacks?” Batmech made no reply as he gazed at Sinner. “Open the gate! Get Sinner out of here,”
“Oh look!” Sinner smiled with a voice full of sarcasm. “It's my favourite show: I'm Warden Idiot. You Will Not Escape!” Again as they moved Sinner towards the elevator, chants were heard from other patients. “Sinner! Sinner! Sinner!” “Shut up!”
IMAGE: TOA HEFTIBA / UNSPLASH
SHORT STORY NADILLA SAKINAH
Batmech moved silently after the guards, thinking about how he caught Sinner in the first place. Usually, there will be traps. But none of those tonight. He must be planning something if he let his enemy capture him so easily. “All guards must be protected,” a voice from the public address system broke out. “Category Nine patient waiting for transition. Permission to kill it is accepted.” This would be baffling to some as to why would someone have permission to kill something that needs to be cured. For Batmech and the guards, this prisoner was nothing to be cured of. The heavy weight and growls were heard from the descending elevator. All the guards were aiming their guns and blasters towards the only bulk of an individual in the elevator. In fact, it was coming out. “No? Must be one of the guards then,” Sinner commented before he grinned. “Grimmy boy! Is that you?”
On cue, a hulking figure was breathing heavily before stepping out of the elevator. It was a Dinobot of grey and yellow finish, eyes red like the crimson rust of the victims that have been mauled by the beast's sword-like dentals. An electric blue collar was fastened around its neck, and the cuffs held its servos. The guards stepped in fear, and Sinner grinned while Batmech stared at the monster before him. Killer Grim was sniffing the air, before turning his head towards the winged crusader.
scheme. “Come on, lighten up, Batmech!”
“Me Killer Grim got your scent, Batmech,” he growled menacingly. “Me hunt you down…” Suddenly, the beast of a Dinobot roars in pain as the collar around his neck shocked him with a high voltage of electricity. The guards were shouting orders to move the lumbering beast away.
“The same,” Batmech replied. “It's good to see you again, Commissioner.”
“Collar won't stop me, Batmech,” he chuckled with a growl. “Me Killer Grim hunt you down, eat you like Beryllium Baloney…”
He was staggering. The guards tried to hoist him up, but Sinner used his cuffed servos to knock one of the guards and hit the main switch, causing the other inmates' cells to open. He cackled with glee.
“We have a red light! Remove all prohibited items!” After Killer Grim lumbers away with heavy escorts, Batmech turned his attention to Sinner. He was still tied up, but grinning like the maniac he is. “That reminds me! I really need to get some new pedes.” Batmech trailed behind the guards inside the elevator. He stepped forward, face to face with the strapped maniac. As the elevator descended lower to the ground, a shadow was cast over Sinner. The dark mech gazed at him.
When Sinner was wheeled out to the intensive treatment, a mech was waiting for them. He had a dark blue and red finish with a stern yet wise face. His light blue optics linger at the inmate, before meeting the winged crusader. Both mechs greet each other. “Had a rough night?” the younger mech ask.
Both of them watched the guards unstrap the inmate out of the bed and dragged him out. “Please,” Sinner cooed. “I don't mind walking. It's good to be home…”
“Prime, go get the warden!” Batmech ordered. He knew it! Sinner was planning something big. He stood his ground to face his crazy rival. “Sweetspark, I'm home!” the maniac called. “Welcome to the madhouse, Bats! And you're in for a treat. Ha ha ha!" This is the first chapter of a series originally published on FanFiction.Net in January 2017. You can read more of Nadilla’s work under the username nadillaandlaprasthefireandice, where you can also vote to continue this story.
“You let me capture you easily,” he said. “What are you planning?” “What do you mean?” “You usually set me traps,” Batmech explained. “Testing me. Tricking me. Why didn't you bother?” “I'm just tired,” Sinner drawled. “Can't a mech have a different method for a change? I mean, you'll go mad repeating the same thing over and over again!” Just then, the lights in the elevator flickered, and Sinner burst out in laughter. Guards are panicking as the light goes out, while Sinner's laughter echoed in the darkness. When the lights came back on, Sinner's neck was gripped in a chock held by no one but Batmech. He still is suspicious of Sinner's unpredictable #8 | CQ MAGAZINE | 49
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