The Valley Girl: Raving About Identity

So, we’re under fire again.

It isn’t the first time too. The last time we got all riled up over baseless accusations against Malaysian youth was during the “death metal phenomenon” plaguing our nation. Reports of animal sacrifice and devil worshipping grew like wildfire and many local tabloids helped spread it. A bunch of kids listening to Napalm Death and wearing black were clearly a lot more interesting than the usual news flashes. E.g. “Isteri saya dirogol jin.”

Now, they’ve picked up on a certain sub-culture that many of our Malaysian youths seem to actually enjoy doing - raving, and are irked at our having fun at in and out of KL venues, listening to music, hanging out with our friends and indulging in some legalized alcohol consumption.

I picked up on the furor about the rave and the misplaced self-righteous anger of our moral stewards when Sarah Chan posted an entry on the KLUE website after 02 Days of Freedom. At the time of writing this piece, the posting has received 40 unanimous comments, all critical about the overreaction of all the parties mentioned in the newspapers.

To summarize the reports from the various news reports both in Malay and English dailies, our youths were dressed in skimpy clothes, partied until the wee hours of the morning, were drunk – and worse still, foreigners were there too corrupting our youth with this ‘budaya luar,’ while approximately 30-40 were picked up for substance abuse on the ‘celebrated’ beach that is Port Dickson.

Clearly, there was and is a great divide in the views of the youths that attended (we can see this in the comments on the web, let alone the KLUE posting) and the reports presented in the papers. The divide on the information presented is hardly a new occurrence, but I shall address that at another time.

But, this got me thinking. Why does this divide in opinions even exist? Of course, the biased news reports fuel these largely negative opinions of Malaysian youth, but there is a great deal of opposing views occurring on each side. The older generation obviously thinks we’re a bunch of weird hedonists, and we think we’re just out to have a well-deserved weekend off from work and school.

So I looked at the one thing that kept on being repeated, which was the fact that these occurrences of skimpy clothing, drinking, passing out, music, and raving is not “our culture.” Well, this then begs the very obvious question then, what is our culture? Is there such a thing as a Malaysian culture, if you will?

Is it our common (but shallow), love for food? Is it that we mostly can never go beyond constantly and consistently harping on this common love for food and nothing else, especially during Merdeka day voxpops? Is it our undercurrent of fear and hatred for one another? Is it our conditional love for Malaysia, where we all secretly want to leave, but do not (I suspect it’s the food)? Is it a culture of dehumanizing the other? Is it a culture of moral guardianship, especially for those we think are deviant or different than us? Is it the culture of majoritarianism? Is it the culture of corruption and ‘gift-giving?’

In a world constantly growing flatter, and closer to distances beyond our reach, how do we fit in? It may come as a surprise to some, but Malaysia does not exist in a microcosm anymore, not that it has ever. Global events and global movements to a certain degree affect us all, be it for the better or worse. Think about the global food crisis and the possibility of not eating rice (ZOMG!).

So where do we stand? Do we sit back and blame other nations, other cultures for the ‘wrong’ that happens in ours? Or, do we seek a resolution from the good we have as a collective and try to work from there – toward a truly Malaysian way of life.

In this exercise, I’d start first with the acceptance that we are all grappling with the idea of a collective identity. It is obvious we don’t have one that is all-inclusive, thus the enourmous divide on race, religion, and now even fun, diverse groups that make up part of the Malaysian youths’ psyche.

The optimist I am, I see us forging ahead and carving our very own Malaysian-ness in time to come. In fact, I think with our generation, the forging has already begun.

After all, it would be hard for any of us to imagine a KL without the interesting sub-cultures we have now. Our diversity, after all, is our best feature. Think of the activist types with their constant and tireless passion, the punks and their music, the hipsters and their fabulous clothes and love for indie music, the ravers and their creative dance moves, the death metal fans and their dark, arty t-shirts.

A collection of various scenes, from various times, forged in a melting pot with various young Malaysians that embrace everyone from all backgrounds. Personally, I’d say we’re off to a great start.

TEXT Michelle Gunaselan