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| Cathrine Mountain |
By Cathrine Mountain, Class of 2015
Although I have never had much interest in political cartoons, attending the “Annual Lecture and Exhibition of Political Cartoons Banned in Malaysia”, made me see the art in a new light. The lecture was hosted by the University of Louisville’s Center for Asian Democracy and featured Zulkiflee Anwar Haque, otherwise known as Zunar, as their guest of honor. Zunar spoke with us about the situation of political affairs in Malaysia and put the level of political corruption into context. In the Global Financial Integrity report of 2013, Malaysia ranked second among 150 countries in terms of the amount of tax payers’ money lost through bribery and political corruption. Among the issues discussed were Zunar’s personal experiences with the government banning his books of cartoons, his commentary on the Prime Minister and his wife’s excessive use of public tax money, and a few well-known scandals throughout Malaysia.
While the lecture was very informative and entertaining, it was even more insightful to see Zunar’s social media activity and to find his most recent cartoon entitled, “Lecturing at University of Louisville, Kentucky”. In this cartoon, Zunar depicts the audience laughing at his joke on Prime Minister Najib about his comment on the “Kangkung”. The kangkung is a type of kale referred to as water spinach. It has become a topic of humor in Malaysia because Prime Minister Najib made a statement that “the people are not thankful even though the price of kangkung has gone down.” Meanwhile, there are huge issues affecting the citizens that the Prime Minister refuses to address. As Zunar addressed the issue there was certainly some laughter about the absurdity of the statement, but I think that he used it as more of a message concerning our newly received education on the level of political corruption and social discontent in Malaysia.
Cathrine Mountain, of Frankfort, Ky., is a junior McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. She is studying political science and anthropology.