Victor Chin

Ahmad A Khairuddin’s ‘ Cityscape’

A group of artists — all autistic — got together and held an exhibition recently to celebrate United Voice’s own building.

A self-advocacy society for people with learning disabilities in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya, United Voice (UV) has been around since 1995.

After successfully raising more than RM1 million through various fund-raising events and donations, UV finally managed to purchase their own space this year.

The ground floor is their showroom and training centre where baking classes and craft making workshops are held while the first floor houses an art gallery.

It was in this gallery that the works of Nurul A. Rahman, Tan Seng Kit, Nadiah A. Jalil, Damiem Wong and Ahmad A. Khairuddin were shown.

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Syed Ahmad Jamal, Between Haven and Earth

Nature has always been an inspiration for artists throughout the ages. Mountains, in particular, have inspired many regional landscape painters.

From China there has been a long history of artists who painted the many outstanding geological features of their physical geography. Some of these artworks besides depicting the shapes and designs of mountain formations in great detail also conveyed clear information of the various geological compositions of their landscapes.

One of the most well-known Japanese artists, Hokusai, from the Edo period, made colour wood block prints of a series of 36 views of Mount Fuji. The Great Wave of Kenagawa done in 1831 is one of Hukusai’s signature compositions of this collection of early postcards of Japan.

Cezanne paid homage to his boyhood home in Provence by painting the Mont Sainte-Victoire in Aix at least 60 times from 1885 to 1906. His devotion to a single hillock slightly over 1,000m in his backyard set the modern standard of painting and looking at European landscapes since the Renaissance.

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For those of you who missed the event in Kuala Kubu Baru, this is my video take of the Sat. 17 April nomination day for the Ulu Selangor parliamentary by-election.

All these years, I had not taken an interest in getting to know a bit more about the Malaysian Constitution. It’s all my own mistake and ignorance.

I had always thought that being a Chinese, I am automatically a second-class citizen compared to the Malays who have been given preferential treatment in our country all these years.

As the Malays are the majority and are Muslims, I had also assumed  we had become an Islamic country and not a secular one, because of the  prominent mosques everywhere.

I have been mistaken and ignorant all along. In our Constitution, every Malaysian of any race has equal  rights and also, this is a secular country.

My new awareness of the Constitution and other civic liberty issues stems from what I had learnt at the Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia (SABM) roadshows and forums that I had attended. Here is the latest video of some of the highlights from  the SABM event in Melaka.

Hope this video (which I had put together) will throw some light on important issues affecting you.

This  month brings back the memories of the vote of dissent by 49% of  Malaysians in the last General Election against the ruling political party. In  West Malaysia there was a 51% opposition vote. For the first time  the Barisan National was denied its 2/3 majority in Parliament.

Many Malaysians had hoped to see a fairer, freer and  friendlier country since then. We wanted a clearer separation of powers between political party and government, religion and government,  race and government and law and government. This is our country and it does not belong to any political party (ruling or otherwise). Has there been much change?

We would like to see the government uphold the rule of law, to look after the welfare of its peoples and not use its system to just protect the ruling political party’s elite members and their abuse of powers. Has there been much change?

Our legitimate political dissent and opposition to the ruling party is our constitutional right. It  also plays a vital role of check and balance and must not  be misconstrued as our being enemies of the state which is what the ruling party has been doing in the last fifty years. Has there been much change?

Most of us do not cherish the idea of living under these extreme conditions  any longer. Do you?

There are more then 4.5 million Malaysians eligible to vote but they have not registered yet. Let’s get as many as possible to do so for the next election. Let’s vote our way to a fairer, freer and friendlier country. Can we make the changes ourselves and for our children?

Listen and watch Malaysians speak, sing and dance their hopes and aspirations for the future…