Zunar rocks London with philosophy of laughter

I have been laughing with cartoons from Zulkiflee Anwar Haque, better known as Zunar, since way back. Reading “Gila-Gila” was my guilty pleasure back in the day.

My grandfather, who insisted on buying only English newspapers along with Time Magazine and Reader’s Digest once caught with me with Gila-Gila and chided me unmercifully.

So I read it in secret although, in the interest of being candid, I did not think Zunar’s,  work was much different from other cartoonists back then.

Looking back, his work seems to blend in with those of Imuda, Jaafar Taib, Rejabhad (yes, I am that old) and Ujang who would go on to establish his own comic by the same name and overtake Gila-Gila later.

Fast forward 30 years and Gila-Gila has faded a lot, at least the last time I read it back in 2012. All except for Zunar of course who is now a one man industry of political blasphemy.

Last weekend was my Zunar-filled weekend. On Saturday, I attended a rather sobering evening at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) where Zunar recounted his situation to a very sympathetic audience.

Zunar, who had been “adopted” by Amnesty International, was supported by an officer from Amnesty who recounted Malaysia’s human rights violations. It was true that Malaysia does not lash people for blasphemy or opposing the government, let alone execute them.

However, imprisoning someone who drew cartoons for potentially forty-three years does not make us the shining beacon of democracy and freedom either. On the contrary, we’re not far away from the brutal Saudi regime. The only difference is, we actually voted our dictators into power.

Next came Martin Rowson, a famous cartoonist for the Guardian. I had been a fan of Martin’s work for a long time but had never known what he looked like although I could easily identify his style and work.

I had never known the man’s philosophical motivation either. He spoke about the power of laughter against oppressive politics. That rang quite true with the phrase “laughing in the face of advertisity”.

This was essentially was drawing political cartoons was all about. While we do not have the brute force to defeat oppression, we can bring the people to our side by showing them the shenanigans of the politicians.

Rowson had a particular knack of exposing the hypocrisy of British elitist politicians and I finally understood what his end game was. By robbing politicians of their paper thin delusions of dignity, we may thereby disempower them and restore the power to the people.

Then came the star of the show, Zunar himself. This was the first time I had actually heard him speak about his own cartoons. It had not, to my discredit, occurred to me how much thought he put into his work.

Zunar was more than passionate about his work. He believed that it was not only his right but his uncompromisable duty to highlight the injustices going on in Malaysia.

One particular cartoon showed the prime minister, morphed into a gigantic stream roller, flattening the rakyat and the activists. I laughed for a few seconds before the sobering thought hit me – it was funny only because of its truth.

The next day, on Sunday the November 1, I found myself at speaker’s corner in Hyde Park. The beauty about this place is that one can truly express oneself with a great level of uninhibitedness.

For Malaysians who have never ventured to this place, seeing people cuss at various people and institutions can be a culture shock. It certainly was for me when I was new here.

By 11ish, I was able to spot a few Malaysians turning up for the Zunar event. Today, Zunar and his friends would be walking to Downing St to protest against the charges levelled against him.

He could be in cuffs as a sign of the oppression the Malaysian government is practising against the activists. The new Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma), for example, can even be used to detain people without trial for life!

Instead of being used for people who are genuine security threats, it is being used for critics of the government. So instead of moving towards a true democracy, we are instead going the other way towards a total dictatorship.

The crowd supporting Zunar was amazing. They watched him draw. They cheered him on. Naturally they took lots of pictures as well! We all had lunch together. And of course Zunar delivered his speech to a cheering crowd.

I could not help feeling a little sad as I was leaving. Sad because despite all this empowering support, it is possible that we may not see Zunar again for a long, long time.

Zunar ironically was not feeling sad at all. He had this “berserah” attitude, perhaps best translated as “come what may”. He despised injustice and he simply cannot tolerate it happening in Malaysia.

The love he has for the nation was real, unlike the fake pretend love shown by some politicians. It was truly endearing. He felt that life without principle was meaningless. As his motto goes, “even my Pen has a stand”. – November 4, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.