cfp:

FWSA Student Essay Competition

Posted on September 18, 2012 by feministmemory

Student Essay Competition

Dear Students, Colleagues and Members,

The FWSA is delighted to announce that we are now accepting submissions for our 2012 competition.

To encourage a new generation of feminist scholars, the FWSA sponsors an annual student essay competition for work which is innovative, interdisciplinary and grounded in feminist theory and practice. The top six entries will be published in the Journal of International Women’s Studies and the winner will, in addition, receive a year’s free FWSA membership. Students at any stage of their studies at a British or Irish university are encouraged to submit work which has not previously been published and is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere or under consideration under competitions elsewhere which result in *any* form of publication.

Entries should be 6,000 to 7,000 words (including footnotes, excluding bibliography) and must be submitted electronically, including a completed competition coversheet. The essay must be submitted as a single MS Word document attachment, including bibliography and cover sheet. Please use your surname as the file name (e.g. ‘ROY’). Please note that entries without this coversheet will not be considered.

The deadline for this year’s competition is 1st November 2012.

Please submit the essays electronically to administrator@fwsa.org.uk

Click here to download a cover sheet.

For further queries and joining options please email administrator@fwsa.org.uk

We look forward to receiving your entries!

Read the winning essays from 2010′s FWSA Student Essay Competition in the Journal of International Women’s Studies online:

Barbara Jordan

Historical Essay Competition:

African Americans in Texas

Deadline: 1 March 2013

Founded in 1995 as an event sponsored by The University of Texas at Austin, the Barbara Jordan Historical Essay Competition moved to its new home with UIL Academics in 2011-2012. The competition provides students an opportunity to explore the contributions of African Americans to Texas history, as well as honoring the legacy of its namesake, Barbara Jordan.

COMPETITION THEME: 'African Americans in Texas: Past and Present'

Essays should focus on individuals or groups who are not well-known figures but who have made significant contributions to African American history or culture in Texas. Students should look first to their local communities for possible essay topics.

Entries will be submitted electronically. All essays received on or before March 1, 2013, that meet the basic requirements of the competition will be entered for judging.

GENERAL GUIDELINES:

• Essay with a word count between 1,500 and 2,500 words.

• Research paper format - MLA format or APA format recommended

• Source citations and bibliography required

• Essays should display original research; use of primary sources and interviews strongly encouraged

COMPETITION STRUCTURE AND AWARDS:

• Any student in grades 9-12 who attends a UIL member high school is eligible to enter

• Open division structure - all entries that meet basic requirements will be included in essay judging

• Judges will evaluate each entry and provide comments that will be returned to contestants

• Judges will nominate essays to be considered as state finalists

• A selection committee will determine state finalists from among the nominees

• All state finalists will be invited to attend Academic State Meet in May, where state awards will be presented

• All state finalists will become eligible to apply for Texas Interscholastic League Foundation scholarships 

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For queries: dtrussell@uiltexas.org

For submissions: via the interactive competition entry form

Website: http://www.uiltexas.org

 

cfp:

Music, Gender & Difference Conference

(Vienna, October 2013)

Posted on October 15, 2012 by feministmemory

C a l l   f o r   P a p e r s

Music, Gender & Difference

Intersectional and postcolonial perspectives on musical fields

Date: Thursday, 10 October 2013 to Saturday, 12 October 2013

Venue: University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria

Call for Papers in English: http://www.mdw.ac.at/upload/MDWeb/ims/pdf/CfP_en_Music,_Gender,_Difference.pdf

Call for Papers in German: http://www.mdw.ac.at/upload/MDWeb/ims/pdf/CfP_dt_Musik,_Gender,_Differenz.pdf

Feminist research on music has revealed the gender-specific conditions for the production, distribution, assessment, appropriation and experience of music, and has explored the participation and representation of women in various music genres. However, far less attention has been paid to the construction of exoticism, the processes of “othering” and the production and circulation of representations of difference.

This conference addresses the relevance of gender and gender constructions in the field of music in local and national contexts as well as on a global scale. Feminist, intersectional and postcolonial perspectives on classical music, experimental music, jazz and popular music in particular will be presented and discussed.

The conference welcomes theoretical approaches and empirical studies that explore the meaning of gender, sexuality and the body as well as race, ethnicity and class in the field of music, and analyse how essentialist notions of gender, race and ethnicity are challenged or reproduced in the context of global transformations.

Abstracts are invited on the following topics:

Music and Labour markets

·   Educational and occupational careers of musicians, music journalists, music teachers, etc.

·   Importance of local, translocal and virtual networks

·   Musicians’ recognition practices and musical assessment criteria

·   Horizontal and vertical mechanisms of segregation in music labour markets

·   Identity construction at the intersection of gender, ethnicity and nationality

Representations in song lyrics, media and organisations

·   Historical and contemporary representations of all-women orchestras and bands

·   Queer practices dissolving the boundaries between masculinity and femininity

·   Representations of hybrid identities and ethnic-musical diversity

·   Sexualisation and pornographisation of musicians

·   Racism, homophobia and transphobia in song lyrics, music videos and music magazines

·   Construction of musician’s biographies and careers in magazines and books

Youth cultures and popular music

·   Music and (post-)migration in the context of multicultural living environments

·   Music scenes as spaces for queer and anti-racist politics

·   Post, Pop and Third Wave Feminism in music-oriented youth cultures

·   Music-oriented youth cultures, age and gender

·   Musical-cultural heritage, gender and ethnicity

Musicians are welcomed to present and comment on documentary material, films, videos, etc. relevant to the conference topics within the usual presentation time (max. 20 minutes).

Abstracts in German or English of no more than 300 words should be sent by email to  Rosa Reitsamer (reitsamer@mdw.ac.at) no later than 31 January 2013. Responses will be sent by mid-March 2013.

Conference fee

50 Euros / 30 Euros for students, musicians and artists.

The conference fee covers the opening evening with concerts and refreshments, coffee breaks during the conference and the book of abstracts.

Organisation

The conference is organised by the Department of Music Sociology at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria, in cooperation with:

The Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section of the Austrian Society of Sociology (www.oegs.ac.at/fthg)

The Women and Gender Studies Section of the German Society of Sociology (www.frauen-undgeschlechterforschung.de)

The Gender Studies Committee of the Swiss Society of Sociology (www.sgs-sss.ch/de-geschlechterforschung)

Illustration by Mr. Fish

Colonized by Corporations

 

By Chris Hedges

In Robert E. Gamer’s book “The Developing Nations” is a chapter called “Why Men Do Not Revolt.” In it Gamer notes that although the oppressed often do revolt, the object of their hostility is misplaced. They vent their fury on a political puppet, someone who masks colonial power, a despised racial or ethnic group or an apostate within their own political class. The useless battles serve as an effective mask for what Gamer calls the “patron-client” networks that are responsible for the continuity of colonial oppression. The squabbles among the oppressed, the political campaigns between candidates who each are servants of colonial power, Gamer writes, absolve the actual centers of power from addressing the conditions that cause the frustrations of the people. Inequities, political disenfranchisement and injustices are never seriously addressed. “The government merely does the minimum necessary to prevent those few who are prone toward political action from organizing into politically effective groups,” he writes.

Gamer and many others who study the nature of colonial rule offer the best insights into the functioning of our corporate state. We have been, like nations on the periphery of empire, colonized. We are controlled by tiny corporate entities that have no loyalty to the nation and indeed in the language of traditional patriotism are traitors. They strip us of our resources, keep us politically passive and enrich themselves at our expense. The mechanisms of control are familiar to those whom the Martinique-born French psychiatrist and writer Frantz Fanon called “the wretched of the earth,” including African-Americans. The colonized are denied job security. Incomes are reduced to subsistence level. The poor are plunged into desperation. Mass movements, such as labor unions, are dismantled. The school system is degraded so only the elites have access to a superior education. Laws are written to legalize corporate plunder and abuse, as well as criminalize dissent. And the ensuing fear and instability—keenly felt this past weekend by the more than 200,000 Americans who lost their unemployment benefits—ensure political passivity by diverting all personal energy toward survival. It is an old, old game.

A change of power does not require the election of a Mitt Romney or a Barack Obama or a Democratic majority in Congress, or an attempt to reform the system or electing progressive candidates, but rather a destruction of corporate domination of the political process—Gamer’s “patron-client” networks. It requires the establishment of new mechanisms of governance to distribute wealth and protect resources, to curtail corporate power, to cope with the destruction of the ecosystem and to foster the common good. But we must first recognize ourselves as colonial subjects. We must accept that we have no effective voice in the way we are governed. We must accept the hollowness of electoral politics, the futility of our political theater, and we must destroy the corporate structure itself.

The danger the corporate state faces does not come from the poor. The poor, those Karl Marx dismissed as the Lumpenproletariat, do not mount revolutions, although they join them and often become cannon fodder. The real danger to the elite comes from déclassé intellectuals, those educated middle-class men and women who are barred by a calcified system from advancement. Artists without studios or theaters, teachers without classrooms, lawyers without clients, doctors without patients and journalists without newspapers descend economically. They become, as they mingle with the underclass, a bridge between the worlds of the elite and the oppressed. And they are the dynamite that triggers revolt.

This is why the Occupy movement frightens the corporate elite. What fosters revolution is not misery, but the gap between what people expect from their lives and what is offered. This is especially acute among the educated and the talented. They feel, with much justification, that they have been denied what they deserve. They set out to rectify this injustice. And the longer the injustice festers, the more radical they become.

The response of a dying regime—and our corporate regime is dying—is to employ increasing levels of force, and to foolishly refuse to ameliorate the chronic joblessness, foreclosures, mounting student debt, lack of medical insurance and exclusion from the centers of power. Revolutions are fueled by an inept and distant ruling class that perpetuates political paralysis. This ensures its eventual death.

Chris Hedges

In every revolutionary movement I covered in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, the leadership emerged from déclassé intellectuals. The leaders were usually young or middle-aged, educated and always unable to meet their professional and personal aspirations. They were never part of the power elite, although often their parents had been. They were conversant in the language of power as well as the language of oppression. It is the presence of large numbers of déclassé intellectuals that makes the uprisings in Spain, Egypt, Greece and finally the United States threatening to the overlords at Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil and JPMorgan Chase. They must face down opponents who understand, in a way the uneducated often do not, the lies disseminated on behalf of corporations by the public relations industry. These déclassé intellectuals, because they are conversant in economics and political theory, grasp that those who hold power, real power, are not the elected mandarins in Washington but the criminal class on Wall Street.

 

This is what made Malcolm X so threatening to the white power structure. He refused to countenance Martin Luther King’s fiction that white power and white liberals would ever lift black people out of economic squalor. King belatedly came to share Malcolm’s view. Malcolm X named the enemy. He exposed the lies. And until we see the corporate state, and the games it is playing with us, with the same kind of clarity, we will be nothing more than useful idiots.

“This is an era of hypocrisy,” Malcolm X said. “When white folks pretend that they want Negroes to be free, and Negroes pretend to white folks that they really believe that white folks want ’em to be free, it’s an era of hypocrisy, brother. You fool me and I fool you. You pretend that you’re my brother and I pretend that I really believe you believe you’re my brother.”

Those within a demoralized ruling elite, like characters in a Chekhov play, increasingly understand that the system that enriches and empowers them is corrupt and decayed. They become cynical. They do not govern effectively. They retreat into hedonism. They no longer believe their own rhetoric. They devote their energies to stealing and exploiting as much, as fast, as possible. They pillage their own institutions, as we have seen with the newly disclosed loss of $2 billion within JPMorgan Chase, the meltdown of Chesapeake Energy Corp. or the collapse of Enron and Lehman Brothers. The elites become cannibals. They consume each other. This is what happens in the latter stages of all dying regimes. Louis XIV pillaged his own nobility by revoking patents of nobility and reselling them. It is what most corporations do to their shareholders. A dying ruling class, in short, no longer acts to preserve its own longevity. It becomes fashionable, even in the rarefied circles of the elite, to ridicule and laugh at the political puppets that are the public face of the corporate state.

“Ideas that have outlived their day may hobble about the world for years,”Alexander Herzen wrote, “but it is hard for them ever to lead and dominate life. Such ideas never gain complete possession of a man, or they gain possession only of incomplete people.”

This loss of faith means that when it comes time to use force, the elites employ it haphazardly and inefficiently, in large part because they are unsure of the loyalty of the foot soldiers on the streets charged with carrying out repression.

Revolutions take time. The American Revolution began with protests against the Stamp Act of 1765 but did not erupt until a decade later. The 1917 revolution in Russia started with a dress rehearsal in 1905. The most effective revolutions, including the Russian Revolution, have been largely nonviolent. There are always violent radicals who carry out bombings and assassinations, but they hinder, especially in the early stages, more than help revolutions. The anarchistPeter Kropotkin during the Russian Revolution condemned the radical terrorists, asserting that they only demoralized and frightened away the movement’s followers and discredited authentic anarchism.

Radical violent groups cling like parasites to popular protests. The Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, the Weather Underground, the Red Brigades and the Symbionese Liberation Army arose in the ferment of the 1960s. Violent radicals are used by the state to justify harsh repression. They scare the mainstream from the movement. They thwart the goal of all revolutions, which is to turn the majority against an isolated and discredited ruling class. These violent fringe groups are seductive to those who yearn for personal empowerment through hyper-masculinity and violence, but they do little to advance the cause. The primary role of radical extremists, such as Maximilien Robespierre and Vladimir Lenin, is to hijack successful revolutions. They unleash a reign of terror, primarily against fellow revolutionaries, which often outdoes the repression of the old regime. They often do not play much of a role in building a revolution.

The power of the Occupy movement is that it expresses the widespread disgust with the elites, and the deep desire for justice and fairness that is essential to all successful revolutionary movements. The Occupy movement will change and mutate, but it will not go away. It may appear to make little headway, but this is less because of the movement’s ineffectiveness and more because decayed systems of power have an amazing ability to perpetuate themselves through habit, routine and inertia. The press and organs of communication, along with the anointed experts and academics, tied by money and ideology to the elites, are useless in dissecting what is happening within these movements. They view reality through the lens of their corporate sponsors. They have no idea what is happening.

Dying regimes are chipped away slowly and imperceptibly. The assumptions and daily formalities of the old system are difficult for citizens to abandon, even when the old system is increasingly hostile to their dignity, well-being and survival. Supplanting an old faith with a new one is the silent, unseen battle of all revolutionary movements. And during the slow transition it is almost impossible to measure progress.

“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong,” Fanon wrote in “Black Skin, White Masks.” “When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.”

The end of these regimes comes when old beliefs die and the organs of security, especially the police and military, abandon the elites and join the revolutionaries. This is true in every successful revolution. It does not matter how sophisticated the repressive apparatus. Once those who handle the tools of repression become demoralized, the security and surveillance state is impotent. Regimes, when they die, are like a great ocean liner sinking in minutes on the horizon. And no one, including the purported leaders of the opposition, can predict the moment of death. Revolutions have an innate, mysterious life force that defies comprehension. They are living entities.

The defection of the security apparatus is often done with little or no violence, as I witnessed in Eastern Europe in 1989 and as was also true in 1979 in Iran and in 1917 in Russia. At other times, when it has enough residual force to fight back, the dying regime triggers a violent clash as it did in the American Revolution when soldiers and officers in the British army, including George Washington, rebelled to raise the Continental Army. Violence also characterized the 1949 Chinese revolution led by Mao Zedong. But even revolutions that turn violent succeed, as Mao conceded, because they enjoy popular support and can mount widespread protests, strikes, agitation, revolutionary propaganda and acts of civil disobedience. The object is to try to get there without violence. Armed revolutions, despite what the history books often tell us, are tragic, ugly, frightening and sordid affairs. Those who storm Bastilles, as the Polish dissident Adam Michnik wrote, “unwittingly build new ones.” And once revolutions turn violent it becomes hard to speak of victors and losers.

A revolution has been unleashed across the globe. This revolution, a popular repudiation of the old order, is where we should direct all our energy and commitment.  If we do not topple the corporate elites the ecosystem will be destroyed and massive numbers of human beings along with it. The struggle will be long. There will be times when it will seem we are going nowhere. Victory is not inevitable. But this is our best and only hope. The response of the corporate state will ultimately determine the parameters and composition of rebellion. I pray we replicate the 1989 nonviolent revolutions that overthrew the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. But this is not in my hands or yours. Go ahead and vote this November. But don’t waste any more time or energy on the presidential election than it takes to get to your polling station and pull a lever for a third-party candidate—just enough to register your obstruction and defiance—and then get back out onto the street. That is where the question of real power is being decided.

 

 

<p>Beautiful Africa:The Music Video from Watoto on Vimeo.</p>

Beautiful Africa:

The Music Video

from Watoto 

Welcome to BEAUTIFUL AFRICA!

Experience the sounds of Africa, and witness the joy and hope of our Watoto Villages.

Watoto is an holistic care programme that was initiated as a response to the overwhelming number of orphaned children and vulnerable women in Uganda, whose lives have been ravaged by war and disease.

Catch a glimpse of Watoto's vision to raise up a new generation of leaders for Africa.

For more information, watoto.com/choir

A SCREAMING MAN

A clip from Chadian filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s A Screaming Man (Un homme qui crie, 2010).

The film was awarded the Jury Prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

Watch a BBC interview with Mahamat-Saleh Haroun as he discusses the film in-depth.

(clip via keyframedaily)

(via blackfilm)

• October 15, 1938 Fela Anikulapo Kuti, multi-instrumentalist, composer and human rights activist, was born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti in Abeokuta, Nigeria. In 1958, Fela was sent to London, England to study medicine, but decided to study music instead at the Trinity College of Music. In 1963, he returned to Nigeria and formed a band. In 1969, Fela took the band to the United States where he discovered the Black Power Movement. After returning to Nigeria, his music became more politically motivated. His music was popular among the Nigerian public and Africans in general, but unpopular with the ruling government. In 1977, Fela released the album “Zombie” which was an attack on the Nigerian military. The album was a smash hit with the public, but resulted in an attack by Nigerian soldiers in which Fela was severely beaten and his mother killed. In 1979, Fela formed his own political party, Movement of the People, and put himself up for president in Nigeria’s first elections in more than a decade. His candidacy was refused by the government. In 1984, Fela was jailed by the government for 20 months. In 1989, he released the anti-apartheid album “Beasts of No Nation.” Fela died August 2, 1997 and more than a million people attended his funeral. A number of biographies have been written about Fela, including “Fela, Fela! This Bitch of a Life” (1982), “Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon” (1997), and “The Ikoyi Prison Narratives: The Spiritualism and Political Philosophy of Fela Kuti” (2009). Also in 2009, a production of his life titled “Fela” opened on Broadway and continues to tour around the world.

>via: http://thewright.org/explore/blog/entry/today-in-black-history-10152012

FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI

It’s a FELABRATION here at Dynamic Africa, currently watching Fela Anikulapo Kuti live in concert at Glastonbury in 1984 - including an interview.

Today, October 15th, would have been his 74th birthday.

__________________________

MUSIC IS THE WEAPON

Yuna on being "Malay Malay"

By Koh Lay Chin

 

| 29 November 2010 

Yuna in her shop IamJetfuel in Subang Jaya (all pics below courtesy of Yunalis Zarai)

 

SHE is a law graduate and co-owns a clothes boutique. But Yunalis Zarai, who is more popularly recognised as just Yuna, is better known as the current darling of Malaysia’s independent music scene.

The 24-year-old began writing her own songs when she was 14 and has not looked back since. After releasing her self-titled EP in 2008, the Subang Jaya lass launched her full-length album Decorate to much excitement in July this year.

Her songs are spun from beautiful lyrics and sophisticated music-writing. No surprise then that her music plus her unique dress sense of headscarf-cum-flamboyant-coloured clothing has made her a hit with her young fans.

The independent singer-songwriter will leave next year to tour Los Angeles and New York and promote her album. In an interview with The Nut Graph on 14 Oct 2010 at her shop IamJetfuel, Yuna tells us there is no incompatibility between tradition and culture on one hand and modern, progressive thinking on the other.

TNG: Where were you born?

Yunalis Zarai: I was born in Alor Setar, Kedah on 14 Nov 1986. My father was a government servant so we moved around a lot. We lived in Kelantan, Penang, Ampang and then we moved to Subang, where I grew up for seven years. We then went to Perlis for a while but we later moved back [to Subang Jaya] and I consider this home.

Do you know your ancestry or family history?

Yuna winning a competition at her school

Both my parents are from Perak. My mum is from Batu Gajah and my dad is from Sayong, Kuala Kangsar. My lineage comes from Raja Abdullah on my mother’s side. She is a direct descendant. (Sultan Abdul Samad conferred on Raja Abdullah the power and authority to rule Klang in the 1800s). So basically, we are Bugis.

My great-grandparents were from the royal family and I remember my family telling me stories, such as when my grandmother got married. There was a huge parade and she rode an elephant, which is quite a crazy thought! It is nice to know that [one's] family has that kind of history but right now we are normal people and live just like everyone else.

Are there any stories from your family that has stuck with you?

Well my parents are always telling me to go for my dreams when it comes to music. They tell me that both of them had many dreams but could not achieve them. My dad was a performer and he played the guitar in a band. Music was his passion but he could not really pursue it, so he ended up being a legal advisor.

My mum wanted to be a fashion designer. They both ended up doing something else, working 9 to 5. When I started on this journey, I told myself to be grateful for this opportunity, and to just go for it. I am their outlet. I am actually doing the things they wanted to do. They remind me about this and I tell myself that I am very lucky.

Yuna (second child from right) with her mother and aunts.

 

Based on your family history, how has that affected your identity as a Malaysian?

My parents are very “Malay Malay”. They are conservative, but also modern. I asked my parents before if I was mixed or anything like that, perhaps hoping that I had a bit of, say, exotic Spanish in me (laughs). But they said, “No, you are pure Malay” and that they really appreciate that we are culturally rich and berbudi bahasa.

But we are firm believers of being Malaysian; we appreciate [being Malaysian]. We are proud Malays but we are proud to be living with other cultures and races. We are proud Malays but we appreciate others as well, and we are very courteous people.

So being what you call “Malay Malay” is not incompatible with being a Malaysian. Recently, there has been all this talk about being Malay or Malaysian first, how does all of that register with you?

A much younger Yuna

Well, it is tricky because some people have the wrong idea. Am I supposed to feel or think in a certain way because I am Malay? We live with other people and they have the same rights. I believe that other races deserve the same privilege.

I studied in UiTM and I am proud to be a UiTM product. But there was one time [the Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim] wanted to open [10%] [of the university's] enrolment to other races. There were people against it, saying this is “hak Melayu”. I am a firm believer that education should be free for everyone. We are Malaysians in Malaysia. Why couldn’t we give this [10%]?

UiTM is such a great school with such a great music and law school, and I am proud of it, so why not give other races the opportunity to enjoy its good education? This was the way I was raised in my family; and from my grandparents to my parents to me, we all believe in this.

It is interesting that you are embraced by all Malaysians from different cultures and you represent this mix between the modern and traditional. Do you get a sense of your fans appreciating that?

Yuna with her parents

 

Yes, because I believe that I am not the only one like this. There are tonnes of other Malay [Malaysians] who wear the tudung, and they are just like me, girls who enjoy music. They go to gigs, they like fashion. You’d be surprised to see all these stylish girls.

And after I started playing music and going to all these shows, there were more of these stylish tudung girls around. They embrace their faith as Muslim girls and also want to do the things they like. It is nice how Malay [Muslim] girls are finding the right balance nowadays just wanting to be successful, educated and stylish.

What makes you happy about Malaysia, and what gets you down?

It sounds clichéd, but I was with my friend at this banana leaf restaurant and I thought, we are this Malay and Chinese [Malaysian] sitting down, eating from a banana leaf. How great is that? I think it is cool because we all relate to one thing, this glue that holds us together even if we are not really sure what it is.

But then there is also the other side that is keeping us apart — that negativity which brings out the horrible [side] in people. There was that time they carried the cow head in a demonstration in Shah Alam. That was very unnecessary. I was disgusted because firstly, that is an animal’s head, and secondly, it represents the mentality of some people. Not all Malay [Malaysians] are like that but they go in one group to say “We, the Malays” or “We, the Muslims feel this way”. It’s not like that at all. We really need to get rid of that mentality.

I started a simple career as a musician but hopefully in the future, I can encourage people to be more loving and caring, and more [interested in] peace.

Yuna performing (© Syimir Izaffy)

 

What do you hope for this country?

I hope Malaysia will always be peaceful. It just takes one stupid person to do one stupid thing which can affect everything. So, hopefully everyone can just keep it together. Keep calm, and focus on being better people. It is so simple.

When you do that, you will only find ways to benefit yourself, society and the country.