This "activism" of upper-class westerners just shows how present saviourist and colonialist ideas still are. I am glad the press coverage of such things is becoming progressively more critical, but it is a shame that more local and systemic efforts do not receive the same amount of recognition
even if you spend every waking moment doing awareness activism, you supporting all the places and people that cause all the problems through their businesses is making it worse for everyone. you are basically just telling people exactly how much you are harming them while you are doing it lol. we're all a bit guilty of that tho because the vast majority think that somehow our species will ever find peace and prosperity by dividing ourselves into groups of people owned by monarchs and oligarchs aka "countries"
You should support people who are in the position to make a difference. Hyper-individualistic ideas of supporting specific businesses makes zero difference to wider society
As an LGBTQ+ activist from the Philippines, I can say you did a great job shedding some light into the problems Western activism does cause in Southeast Asia and the Global South. What people in the West don't realize with what Matty did was him kissing a man on stage was in itself a privilege. Any LGBTQ+ Malaysian could not have gotten away with that safely. But rather than recognizing the privilege that came with his white background and celebrity status in comparison to the local LGBTQ+ community, he provoked the authorities even more into repressing LGBTQ+ Malaysians. In the end, the local LGBTQ+ community suffered worse, while he got away scot-free to his home country. No matter the country, the activist struggle has to be organized and led by those who are most oppressed by the status quo. If I may add to your commentary, I think the problem with Western activism is a lack of understanding on who should lead the activism. The fight to defend the retirement age or raise wages should be led by the working class, the fight against domestic and sexual violence should be led by women, etc. Leadership doesn't mean blind obedience to what these people have to say, it means we recognize that they have a higher stake in this issue, they are the marginalized and so they should be our priority in political discussions. They are the ones with the greatest potential to overthrow the system. Although we in intellectual spaces may have the most advanced ideas, our role should be to introduce those ideas to the oppressed, to mobilize them and give them the ability to turn their rage into revolution. We won't succeed if we only keep the megaphone to ourselves.
"Although we in intellectual spaces may have the most advanced ideas," mmm... problematic. I think the statement is also part of the problem. The assumption that we know best and we need to find a way to inject it into another society / culture is sort of the issue, at least the idea that is being challenged. Should progression always come from western intellectualism?
@@SuperALBSURE Depends on what sort of progress it is, and wither or not it applies the basic principles of intellectualism in order to either solve an issue or advance a particular factor of either an idea or item.
During my Master I used to have many clashes with some of my professors due to their approach to problems outside their bubble, the posh EU bubble. At the end I told many of them that First World people need to understand that Third World problems cannot be addressed with First World optics and solutions.
The unfortunate reality is, even within much of the global south, colonization has made it so that the vast majority of people who have a shallow understanding of activism and history put EU values on a pedestal without understanding how that’s how much of the backwardness started in the first place. Youth activism is far too focused on aesthetics built around western social media movements which are only effective online.
@@ThomasMullaly-do9lzThe only world that matters to rich wrsterners. Their world. Poor westerners are not their concern either. They only care about themselves. Like how most of them never speak up for the LGBT in muslim majority countries. In Canada, we had anti-lgbt marches held by the extremist members of the ProtectedCommunity before some of our government officials even remotely acknowledge the existence of LGBT kids in muslim Canadian households. That acknowledgement was done softly and with almost zero publicity because they still don't actually care. They're just pretend for the optics. Less than half a dozen euro descent trans kids in Alberta, Canada are at the risk of being forbidden to compete against real girls. But it's at the forefront of every Left leaning politician's agenda. 5 euro-Canadian kids matter more than all the LGBT Canadian kids that just happen to be born in muslim Canadian families. The whole progressivism is just a business and a huge scam. Just like what feminism has become.
I will like to stress this : what he did was NOT an activism. He got pissed that people on Tiktok keep calling him a pedo, got drunk, and basically threw a temper tantrum on the stage. People tried to say he did a shit activism, NO : he did not do anything activism, he just got mad on stage.
That Vogue cover was hilarious when it first came out 😂 I remember how everyone here in Arabia reacted with laughter, on how unbelievably stupid the people at Vogue were. Let’s slap a photoshoot of a Saudi princess on the cover, that belongs to the very same family, that has supported the ban on driving for almost 100 years, and imprisoned dissenters. Not to mention funding the religious police for decades. A religious police that would stop and jail a woman for not wearing her headscarf 🧕🏼 correctly, just like her ROYAL HIGHNESS in that very cover 😂
This topic reminds me of a talk I was at, where a former union-member from Iran (sadly forget his name) was speaking about the recent demonstrations against wearing a hijab. He was mainly talking about how the feminist fight in Iran was very much connected to efforts of labor-parties rebelling against the government. He also answered questions from the audience and so I asked: How can we strengthen the global feminist fight? To which he answered: There is no global solution to any local injustice. In Iran women are fighting for the right and autonomy to not wear a headscarf, while in Germany (where the talk took place) most Muslim women face daily discrimination because of their own choice to wear the hijab.
Yes this is why the Allie’s (Great Britain and France) shouldn’t have invaded Germany for invading Poland, they just didn’t have German moral standard so they didn’t understand it, just like how all of the other major Allie’s shouldn’t have invaded mainland Germany and stopped the holocaust because that was the German homeland and nazism had become part of their culture in many ways. And moral standards aren’t consisten globally because of traditionalism and culture this means we should only care about our own nationalist affairs and never support any global progressive movements because that would be colonial. /s -what you culture/religion/region over human rights defenders sound like.
@@RevolutionaryGuitar i think the equivalent analogy is more like “before going scorched earth and blowing things up, lets help the everyday Polish people in their resistance, allowing them to liberate and strengthen themselves.” you know, instead of a bunch of external powers using Poland as their geopolitical murder-sandbox & bombing their lands to hell. the answer to complex problems is rarely some single grand gesture, like an invasion or a celebrity on-stage kiss. it’s everyday people, working together towards a common goal. from the outside, you can still support change without necessarily taking over the movement. you can get involved without drowning out local voices. that is the point. not cultural relativism, but support for the autonomy and decisions of the people actually being effected.
@@RevolutionaryGuitar you got it wrong fam the OP isn't talking about cultural relativism they're talking about the ground realities of liberation movements being unique to each particular struggle despite the underlying emancipatory principle being the same
@@manofgray5239 I don’t think you know how anything works, resistance movements in Poland even with outside help could never stand up to the extremely professional most powerful military in the world at the time, the German military. Also those polish people would need guns and bombs to help them, scorching their own earth anyway. You can’t just “incrementally reform” literal fascism. Not to mention that like progressives having an obligation to progress society, the Brits and French had an obligation to defend Poland from nazis. Resistance movements, revolutionary movements, and insurgencies literally have zero chances against professionally trained militaries/militias. In the American revolution untrained militias were very ineffective and the professionally trained and armed continental army was the most effective. In Afghanistan the Taliban as an insurgency lost against the US in nearly every engagement, the US could’ve easily kept Afghanistan if they wanted to waste more money and lives which is why they didn’t. The French resistance in occupied france also did absolutely nothing of massive importance, it was the professional British, American, and Canadian militaries that saved them from Nazi rule. I may have misinterpreted this comment but so many of you are just spouting cultural relativism BS that I maybe just interpreted it that way. The point is that what she did and what you are doing is blaming this western band guy for the Malaysian peoples own ignorance. It’s been a multitude of decades that Malaysia has been free of colonial influence over the government. They are mainly bigots because they take their made up religion too seriously. Blaming a gay white dude for kissing a guy which is a human right, while you could be blaming the real issues which are social conservatism, ignorance, and religious fundamentalism.
I'm a Malaysian and i was there in the festival, I brought the tickets to see The Strokes on day 3 and unfortunately 1975 perform on day 1 and it immediately got cancel because of what he done. Most of us going to the festival just to have a good time, and it all ruined. Imagine seeing other small artist pouring their heart and soul to perform that day but then u saw Matty saying things like "its a mistake" for them to perform here and how he's not "in the mood" after you saw other artists gave their best to performance. This festival is the only festival that we can attend and dress what we like, be ourself and have a good time, and now, the festival got cancel just because someone's imature arrogant behavior and broke the agreement of law. Also, when you see Kid Laroi who supposed to perform on day 2 performing in the hotel lobby for the fans, The strokes added a day in Singapore just to let us Malaysian to go to see them, and have their merch discounted for us...then you look back to 1975, what have they done? nothing for the fans! and i still cant believe this band still have their fans. They thought they did the right thing and never apologise, everyone got hurt from this situation, and why? just because "he is not in the mood"
remember that artists are inherently subversive individuals who wish to tear down society, whatever is taboo they will do it. it is important to regulate and control artists or they will destroy society
Great comment. Thank you for sharing this. It definitely shows how these 'stunts' or performative actions can have the opposite effect. Plus, it does put the band in a less generous light compared to The Strokes, etc and makes their privileged status even more obvious. I would have been angry, too!
Didn’t expect to comment this here of all places, sorry for you not being able to see The Strokes. I hope you get a chance to see them in the near future, they seem to like touring again
Great video, Alice! It's quite telling that Matty didn't ask himself how he could have supported LGBTQ+ activists in the country. Instead he centered himself and did something he knew he wouldn't have to face consequences for. And the thing is, celebrities like him could actually do something more productive in the West, because it's not like we're short on hate for minorities over here.
As someone who comes from India i understand what you are saying but i am tired of people criticising someone like Matt Healy and placing their energy on that more than actually criticising the conservative sections of society who are trying to uphold. At this point it seems like an easier target to talk about white activists than actually vocally criticising the actual oppressors. As a feminist in India I don’t care about white activists i am fine with them what i do have a problem with is other white activists criticising white activists for talking about other cultures and countries and thus completely shutting down what the people on ground are talking about and instead we have 2 white people trying to convince who is more “understanding” of non-white culture. We need support and more focus on the issue than how other activists chose to perform their activism.
That's a very interesting point. Maybe there's truth in the middle there somewhere? I don't think it's mutually exclusive. It's important to try and move things forward, but it's also important to discuss HOW to move things forward. Some level of organization is necessary to achieve anything consistently, it's no different with activism. I don't think there's anything wrong with "outsider" activists engaging in a more supporting relationship with local activists. It might lead to better results. Activism is a means to an end, not an end in itself. From personal experience, the main point Alice tried to make tracks very well. There is a perception on all western countries I've lived in that basically ignores local activism outside the west, like it doesn't exist. This colonial mindset of "we know better". That's definitely not helping anyone.
@@edumazieri I agree we need to have a middle ground but i am too frustrated unfortunately with people placing so much importance on how white people choose to do their activism vs what actually happens on ground.
What you describe here is a big contributor of why left-leaning people are by far the majority on the planet, yet it doesn`t often feel that way. They put a lot of energy towards each other, rather than all going where there is more ground to be covered.
It's not our place to criticise the conservative sections of society shaped by completely different historical experiences and conditions than to our own. Though that common part is shared, it's opportunistic to intervene in such a way to the dismay of the actual LGBTQ activists of the country who share all your views and criticisms of those conservative sections of society
as an LGBTQ ex muslim from malaysia i wanna thank you for this video. what matty healy did set our activism back so much. not only was his shit show done weeks before election, the government used that as an opportunity to pander to the conservatives and has been more and more anti-LGBTQ. the crazy part is western LGBTQ folk are ignoring our voices when we say matt healy did more damage than good. so thank u for advocating on our behalf its gotten worse after what hes done 😭 im visibly queer and i've been dressing down in fear of being arrested. i do not feel safe. its really sad tbh. so many events have been cancelled just in case the authorities show up and start jailing us. me and my friends were looking forward to this LGBTQ ballroom event and guess what ? cancelled. i was supposed to walk for KL fashion week too but the designer had to lay some models off for looking too queer. honestly i can just go on but bottom line is the situation for queer folk was already not great but matty healy was THE catalyst for things getting worse. he hasnt even apologized to the queer community here. ZERO accountability and western LGBTQ spaces online are dismissing our voices
claiming to be "ex-muslim", here my message to you. If you are not afraid about hellfire think about this. The ending of human life is death. Wheter Muslim or Non Muslim. You should responsible for your action in the hereafter. Not even Hitler or Mao Zedong can run away from their actions. What is your purpose of life if you follow your desires? It will be end after your died. Surely Allah made life as temporary to test us not to follow your desires but follow the will of Allah.
if this group's performance was going to cause a problem why were they invited to perform? if there were local standards of behavior to be met, why didn't concert organizers tell the foreigners about them as part of deciding whether they should be hired or not? artists are not known for being sensitive to conservative ideas, and this has been true for all time, so why are people surprised here?
I have been watching videos on Zoological Institutions and the inefficacy of their conservation of endagered species, and their strong focus on entertainment. Its eaqually suprising and concerning to see parralels here. Activism as a self serving performance in complete disregard to it's outcomes, more a show that a cause and goal. Thanks for the great video!
can you tell me the titles of these videos (i'm aware of park services shilling for unsustainable forestry - but i want to learn more about what you watched)
its an old strategy first invented by the rich. except they called it "charity" and "philanthropy" but either way its just pr tactic basically. a way to get above getting criticized and something to point at to try to shame anyone who might criticize. "who cares if my business is starving 50k people to death a year! i just built a soup kitchen in a homeless area thats not even where that business is operating"
Western activism will never work. The whole point of Western activism is to elevate the activist and/or their brand rather than serve the subject of their activism, and the conversation always devolves into "did you see what [X] is doing to help [Y] community" rather than asking what can be done to help [Y] community, and does that community even want help if offered?" It fits into the same bucket as billionaire philanthropy. Billionaire's use philanthropy as a weapon to further enrich their estates and control how systems of want and need are built rather than actually contributing to meaningful, lasting change.
Thanks for validating my approach to organizing and activism. We can't throw up every progressive cause (even if we'd like to) and expect a conservative population to roll with it with zero blowback. We need to measure our tack right up to that line where we can see the most effective change without recieving massive blowback. Easier said than done.
Alice, as an Azerbaijani, I thank you so much. As you may know, France's main political groups are known for their racism against Azerbaijanis. You are a content creator I adore very much as a feminist, queer Azeri guy. For a moment when you came to Azerbaijan, I thought, "Oh God, I hope she won't be racist." Thank you for not being so. Actually, this is about a small detail. The problem is not with the people of Azerbaijan but with the ruling group. The people of Azerbaijan are also one of the groups oppressed under autocratic rule, like the majority of the world. Merci beaucoup/Çox Sağol💜
We should be listening to those local activisits. I don't think its wrong to make these kinda gestures but theres a massive level of ignorance being shown by thinking you know more about that country that anyone else. We can't assume to know better than the people living it right now.
@@LGrian I still think the point stands tho. He made a decision carelessly without considering the potential ramifications. Yes there are people in support but quite a lot of activists in the region felt his actions were performative. These people are the ones out there canvassing and trying to sway the public in favour. It bullshit that they have to but that the unfortunate truth. He gets to leave that country with some brownie points but he leaves the real people struggling to pick up the pieces.
nope. these gestures does harm to queer and trans people in Malaysia and functions as nothing more than a white savior's ego stroking. these kinds of gestures are fundamentally wrong in this context. I'm Malaysian, btw.
Omg thank you for covering this, as a SOGIESC activist in Malaysia, the 1975 concert was a huge headache for our local activism scene. We just had the results of our state elections and the Islamic Conservatives (we call them PAS) and their coalition has swept between 90% to 100% of the seats of 3 state assemblies out of the 6 states that are up for election, and had gained a large minority of the other 3. They rode heavily on anti-LGBTQ moral panic. One of the most provoking events was just that one kiss by a foreigner who had the privilege of leaving behind the hellfire he caused for us. It only lend credit to the local conservative narrative of "Budaya LGBT bukan budaya kita" or "LGBT culture is not our culture". I know his heart was in the right place but it would've been more appreciated if local activists were consulted on it. Thus far his actions benefitted no one but himself and has only thrown the local SOGIESC community unwillingly into the spotlight. The spectacle was only seen by conservatives as imposing the foreign culture of our former colonisers onto our culture. Malaysian activism work still hinges a lot on changing hearts and minds of communities by communities, demographics by demographics, to which his actions, without any inherent messages other than to signal an opposition to oppressive laws, only brought unwanted attention to us. I really hope that with this event in mind it can be a useful reminder to the importance of local community actions instead of these spectacles-based approach to only bring attention. There definitely are many things to learn from Western activist actions, but it must be up to local actors to bring it back to their own communities and decide how to implement them. Because, at the end of the day a bourgeois led revolution in the name of the proletariat is still a bourgeois revolution, cuz only the proletariat can lead a proletariat revolution.
As a north african woman aching for reform, i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. you've managed to say everything i've been saying for the past few years in one single video - your best i would argue - et je t'adore du fin fond de mon coeur alice
I live in a Muslim Southeast Asian country. To be fair, given the levels of hyperpolarization, the Islamic fundamentalists are easily triggered by everything and western social media companies have zero interest in regulating their hate speech. The tech companies profit off this type of radical engagement. It is only inevitable that social conflicts are destined to happen. It's no longer possible to tiptoe around these issues and these countries are mature enough to take responsibility for their own politics. There are no victims, everyone is playing a game. Humans are the same everywhere. As much as I enjoy egging the occasional entitled and ignorant fool. You'd be terrified to stand with this mob. Westerners who aren't on the ground in these countries don't really have an accurate read on the situation. The 1958 novel, The Ugly American, might seem outdated but it encapsulates the hubris of intellectualizing a conflict without first experiencing it.
I agree with most of your points. But if Western companies try to regulate hate speech, maybe Islamic fundamentalists might take it as a colonialism action? In order to against colonialism, more and more ppl will become fundamentalist?
"It's no longer possible to tiptoe around these issues". Yes, that's my reaction, on this occasion against Alice's view. You start by discouraging some random gay kissing at a concert, very soon you are playing the game of the laughable hypocrites (the gay Iranian mullahs and Taliban, etc.).
Accusing the West of causing the conservative backlash is a bit exaggerated. It is also the fault of radical Islam, which is spreading across the globe. Wahhabism which is also funded by Saudi Arabia and is popular across multiple countries there. Sure, the West used to be religious, but they thankfully got rid of it after Enlightenment values started to spread to the whole populace, and Capitalism, Socialism and Science broke free of the mold and container in which it had been born. There are similar Christian movements in the West now threatening minorities. So the subject should not be seen solely through colonial - anti-colonial lense. There are former colonies that are very liberal and anti-religious too. In general any religious movements are harmful for their community, especially Christianity and Islam. Western values are internally incoherent because you're supposed to simultaneously believe in science and truth, yet due to "toleration" and "freedom of speech" religions and misinformation is supported
Well, sort of? The problem whith this kind of activism is not that "people" do it. Its that "westerners" do it in other countries, in wich the conservatives use the anti western feeling present in most 2nd and 3rd world nations to get elected. It wouldn t be an issue if it was natives doing it, hell they do it here every July. The problem is when westerners come in to do it. It also doesen t help that the super conservatives and facists get funding from western billionaires and governments either.
Such an awesome coincidence you bring this topic up about localism and being more active in our surrounding communities. It was something I have been increasingly thinking about more throughout this past week. Thank you!
Another great and thoughtful commentary by Alice... When I saw the title though,, I thought it was gonna be about how even (or especially?) in the West, activism is NOT working due to ongoing state efforts to undermine/criminalize activists and their local causes!
Me too, though I think the greater obstacle is not so much the state's predictable resistance as a profound lack of social imagination. Everyone knows that the system is designed to prevent the kinds of changes we most desperately need, yet many people continue to invest all of their time and effort into political change rather than considering what could be accomplished outside of government by developing our own networks of mutual aid. Of course, it's necessary that we continue to fight for political change, but when we focus exclusively on this we're denying ourselves the greater part of our power.
This is a topic that ive been talking about frequently in the last while, im glad im watching more input about it… while the goals of progressiveness can have a global application, the methods those goals are achieved can vary drastically, as power structures across nations are built quite differently. An example i used to take is how actors in the progressive movement has outlined homosexuality as a gender with specific aesthetics and behaviors. While homosexuality is merely a sexual orientation and can be associated with any social role, conservatives in developing countries use the exotic gender portrayed for homosexuality and feed on the emotions triggered by the unfamiliarity of that gender, and use them as an argument to convey that homosexuality is the sickness that lead to those weird portrayels.
Something that took me awhile to learn: let the others take the lead and follow what they do. They know what they need better than I do. Great discussion as always, Alice! I hope you are well!
i think the main thing i’m not sure about is if it’s right to say that healy was engaging in activism at all - he clearly felt badly about having come to Malaysia to play despite moral objections to their laws, so he did what would make him feel better, he transgressed. it wasn’t any play at activism, I can’t see how we could interpret him as trying to change anything there. i don’t think sharing an opinion can count as activism, at least not in this case. of course it was careless given what kind of problems it produced for the people in Malaysia, but he never was out to help them in the first place. he can’t be a white savior if his intention was always to act only for himself.
You have a good point. It's not like musicians are booking their own venues. That action on stage was most likely an attempt to stop his label booking shows in similar countries. He said, he didn't even want to play there. The band is being sued for 2million pounds, which really solidifies "Its only illegal, if you don't have the money to pay the fine." With the backlash and the fine, I doubt he'll be pulling a stupid stunt like this in the future.
Yeah I don't think he really fits the concept of white savior. More like privileged white person doing what he wants and in some areas that can be so transgressive it might appear to be activist - but there's no real intent behind it. Just "I do what I want, what are you gonna do to stop me?"
Agreed with this sentiment - what’s interesting is western media tending to frame it as it is, focusing only on the kiss and none of the additional context around it which further leads to that activism angle (Eg. how his application to perform was initially rejected by the govt but then overturned after an appeal by the organizers, then on stage being drunk, destroying the organizers’ drone, and just being plain rude. Yes, he’s “speaking up” for the LGBTQ community but I’m not sure if the local LGBTQ community appreciated that kind of a brash voice ‘representing’ them)
Let’s not forget that generally kissing in public, let alone on stage, regardless of sexual orientation, is uncommon in Malaysia Sexual policing is also not restricted to the LGBT+ community either
For a couple of years I've wanted to start an animal rights / veganism (abolitionist) philosophy course for beginners. Its not really a popular position in Mexico (my country). Perhaps I'll give the course every six months or so during the weekends. A lot of vegans support bullshit welfare reforms or bans on certain products, but actually refuse to just speak about veganism because they don't think they can convince anyone. I think it's possible if we just take the time to read, write and speak in a friendly tone about our ideas. Anyway, this video gave me further confirmation about the need for local or small initiatives. We don't need freaking PETA or Mercy for Animals to make progress. Also, I love Kristin Ross book. Yet, I don't think I got how it relates to the video. Perhaps it has do to with the way the French state crushes creative and radical alternatives? Perhaps it has to do with the necessity of rethinking our ecology and how it combines with a luxurious life? Maybe I'm just overthinking it, and it's just a really good recommendation to think about political alternatives.
Abolitionist veganism is one such example of ineffective activism, even if you're doing it sincerely as opposed to performatively. Convincing people to eat less meat for moral, health, and environmental reasons is far more effective.
@@synchronium24 I disagree. My guess is that you already are familiar with what I'm about to say, but it's worth repeating it. The aim of veganism should not be to reduce meat consumption, but to achieve a greater moral conscience on the moral value of animals. If you promote reducetarianism, you are saying that there's really no problem with using animals as objects, because a sentient being either has moral value or it doesn't: If a being has moral value, then we shouldn't treat it as a property at all (for this reason, we don't think that it's ok to eat humans once in a while); if a being doesn't have moral value, then it's an object and there's really not problem in treating it as a property. From this position, it follows that reducetarianism is irrational, because it doesn't really affirm that animals have value, yet it asks us to somewhat behave as they did: it's like asking parents to beat their kids less often when, for starters, we should be sayin that kids should't be beaten at all. This is a perfectly reasonable starting point for human affairs, but some reason many animal orgs think it isn't for animal issues. I think the position that abolitionism and straight vegan advocacy are ineffective is a self-fulfilling prophecy: most animals orgs refuse to promote veganism because they think is ineffective, so they convince people that they don't have to be vegans to "help" animals or support the cause (usually, they just ask for donations). This way, the number of vegans remains low, so the animal orgs further convince themselves that there'll never be a significant amount of vegans. I think we have to trust people's intelligence and just speak up about veganism. It's really nothing extremist.
From my point of view (and I get the feeling we won't come to an agreement) is that the big animal orgs are the examples of the sort of self-congratulatory activism that this video criticizes. Now, we can spend a lot of time accusing the other's position of being ineffective, but I don't think we'll really get anywhere. My intention is not to drag this discussion. Still I will answer to you for the sake of dialogue, always in a respectful manner.
@@germenmalvado Let's start from the beginning of human beings. When we were hunting animals in forest, we didn't do much harm to animals even though we ate them. But when we started agriculture, we made many species distinct. You might say hunters also wiped out some species, it's true, but much less than in agricultural people. Every plant product you eat is based on intrusion and occupation of animals' habitat. In this case, if you want to be consistent, veganism isn't much better for animals' rights.
The point you made about the difference between value and aesthetic was quite interesting. Probably a really important topic to discuss, because differentiating between aesthetic and activism becomes quite hard in germany
I really liked this video!! I appreciate the analysis of activism from a more holistic and international lense. I think international issues are a huge blind spot for me, and I wish to expand my knowledge of progressive issues beyond the American lense.
This channel is fantastic I think. It’s informative without being agitative. A lot of leftist UA-camrs focus on agitative propaganda, and it’s nice to have an alternative in your content :)
@@serdirtbagoftheleft4045 a certain style of conveying information. Google can explain better than I. I believe Stalin coined the phrase but I could be entirely wrong.
As a Malaysian, I can wholly say that the timing was far from perfect given it was near to the state elections in 6 states, where it is a battle ground between progressive and traditional Muslims. The regular mistake done by non-traditionalists is they get sucked into the race and religion game. Also, the sad reality is LGBT is very rejected in Malaysia's current socio-cultural climate. Things got worse for the community, where even the so-called "fence sitters" are calling for performers to keep their "liberal" agenda and politics out of music, which is a tall order for some international acts. I'm still fucking pissed that I didn't get to see The Strokes, though. Fuck everyone involved in the cancellation.
Omg yes. Malaysia just reversed a secret coup by the ultra-nationalist conservative political bloc and appointed the mainly progressive political coalition. Then this bullshit happened. Now the progressive coalition has to make concessions to the conservative Malays so they won't lose the next election. I read last week that the Parliament is reconsidering to not overturn the sodomy laws after months of debates and in fact legislating stricter laws specifically concerning LGBTQ. Wonder what happened... 😤
Matt Healy made a rebuttal to some of these general accusations. Here's a small excerpt: “The 1975 did not waltz into Malaysia unannounced, they were invited to headline the festival by a government that had full knowledge of the band, its well-publicized political views, and its routine stage shows. The Malaysian festival organizers’ familiarity with the band was the basis of their invitation. Me kissing Ross was not a stunt suddenly invented to provoke the government, it was an ongoing part of The 1975 stage show which has been performed many times prior. We chose to not change our set that night (to play pro freedom of speech and pro gay songs) To eliminate any routine part of the show in an effort to appease the Malaysian authorities’ bigoted views of LGBTQ people would be a passive endorsement of those politics. As liberals are so fond of saying: ‘Silence equals violence:’ use your platform. So we did, and that’s where things got complicated. Naturally, the Malaysian authorities were irate since homosexuality is criminalized by death in their authoritarian theocracy. That is the violence: reality obscured by the more friendly term ‘cultural customs.’ But it was the liberal outrage against our band for remaining consistent with our pro-LGBTQ stage show that was the most puzzling thing. Lots of people who appeared to be liberal people contended that the performance was an insensitive display of hostility against the cultural customs of the Malaysian people and that the kiss was a performative gesture of allyship. To start, the idea of calling out a performer for being performative is mind-numbingly redundant as an exercise. Performing is the performer’s job. The stage is a place for creative artistic expressions that are inherently dramatized. That’s why audiences go to fucking shows. Other apparently liberal people contend that the kiss was itself a form of colonialism, that The 1975, in the rich tradition of evil white men forcing their western beliefs on the eastern world. My, how the west has fallen, ladies and gentlemen. The Dutch East India Company could have saved a fortune on weaponry if they knew that all they had to do was make out with each other to forcibly subjugate the people they were exploiting. To call The 1975’s performance “colonialism” is a complete inversion of the word’s meaning. Colonialism is the practice of forcible occupation and economic exploitation. Once again, The 1975 was INVITED into the country to headline Malaysia’s music festival in an effort to capitalize on our popularity so that they could make money… There's a contradiction at the heart of the liberal outrage over our supposed cultural insensitivity. Their unconditional belief in inclusivity and religious tolerance has led them to indirectly support a government that is intolerant of their own existence. What responsibility do liberals have to be ideologically chivalrous to those who wish them death?"
You’re right that local specificities have to be taken into account, and in the case of the non-Western countries you mention, the best thing western activism can do is to help open up debates and not provoke and participate in cultural wars. The majority of these countries are recent, fragile, generally poor, and try to build an identity after a colonial period, and under the pressure of capitalist neocolonialism What you say reminded me of an article written by Arab feminists complaining about the lack of support for feminism from Arab women, and although much of what they list as discrimination against women is real , they did not realize that a large part of their discourse is an import of "struggle" that are specific to the Western context (rich, developed countries, with an economy that can integrate women etc.), that the gender roles and local traditions and the family structure, although inequitable towards women, ensure them a certain protection in a context of poverty sometimes extreme, in which there is so much pressure on men to provide for their families, that they feel obliged to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean in rudimentary boats, to try to find a job in Europe to send money to their families. In these conditions call for "liberation from men's domination" more like a call for betrayal, so the backlash against them comes from the women themselves.
@@samyd5410 I know that decolonial or postcolonial feminism exists and basically what they argue but I didn't know about this specific example of Muslim women not wanting to betray their male family members.
@@phoebeel Hey sorry I didn't see your message Yes, a few years ago there was a big trend on Arab social media "I will never let down my father" or something like that, initiated by many women in some muslim countries against the discourse and proposals of activists who called for the reduction of the authority of fathers within families. Some activist speeches, feminist among others, don't work or are very badly received because these are not individualistic societies, and it's not only because of conservative traditionalism, in many societies the family and the community protect against very harsh living conditions. But I don't think it's specific to muslim woment ; I've seen many conservative American and other Western women saying similar things.
I don't know anything about Healy and his own motivations and education on the subject, but it's a tricky line between demonstrably showing support for certain causes and doing nothing at all. An outspoken boycott could just as similarly be weaponised by local parties as a demonstration of westerners needlessly involving themselves. Also, I feel it sort of needed to be said - it's mentioned in the text of some of the articles and Alice flirts with it by only saying "conservatives" but religion, in this case Islam, has a far larger part to play in this specific scenario than colonialism, as trendy as it is to blame the latter for all the evils of ex-colonial countries.
@@LGrianIslam is a colonial force? You don't see Muslims going around invading countries and trying to force our views onto people with different beliefs then trying to force that on them. I do see that liberals go around trying to force us to accept their degeneracy all the time.
Never thought I would ever see a Western UA-camr talk about the whole Good Vibes Festival debacle in Malaysia. Glad to see Malaysia's issues getting more global attention.
Definitely agreed with the title before I started but I think the quote about support being readily available when you can score political points pretty much sums up everyone involved in this scenario and could be applied to those who come up in a similar conversation. Healy was clearly trying to get back to a point of being loved for expressing a poorly placed liberal sentiment after the whole podcast thing. Rina Samawaya trying to stir up controversy about a joke mocking the axis powers fits so funnily in this whole situation too. The comms side of the music industry at present really highlights the lack of context they’ve been operating with forever, ie. Lizzo. Also if Harry Styles did what Healy did he’d probably get a knighthood and pretend like he’d turn it down. Absolutely love your videos you deserve a huge audience btw!
As a queer Malaysian, I'm so happy you made this video. Some of the comments under this video are absolutely rancid. In regards to musicians who don't want to play in a homophobic country, you could just simply not go. Seriously... if you're an out queer person and you don't wanna come to Malaysia (or other anti-lgbt countries), please don't come for your own sakes. /gen I do agree with a few other comments stating that colonialism isn't the exclusive reason for the anti-lgbt laws in Malaysia right now (the rise in Islamic conservatism for the past 2 decades is a major cause too). Idk if Healy was doing it for "activism", but it still resulted in QUEER MALAYSIANS (the community) that were negatively impacted. Because you know who knows intimately about the homophobia in Malaysia, Gay Malaysians.
Colonialism is the core reason why we have that law in the first place, which is the seed that worsen the hatered against the lgbtq+ in our country. When you plant a weed it will grow and it's hard to get rid of. Reactionaries will be reactionaries because they never sit down and think. Look our country is never the bastion of lgbtq+ before the british, but toleration is better than eradication but of course acceptance is the best.
A lot of political performances in the pop genre are highly praised. I think, the Healy kiss was less of a political statement and more of an action to stop his record label booking similar venues in the future. The kiss reaction might show a big shift in the overall public opinion of such political messages in music. It makes me wonder how this will play out in the future?
It's worth mentioning that the Swatch & The 1975 incidents respectively came around the bad time since it's during the state elections here in Malaysia. A lot of us are trying to stave off the "Green Wave" led by a very hardline conservative party. The Swatch thing is just to discriminate against the local LGBTQ; but also to draw in more conservative votes away from the opposition party, which frankly, didn't work. Matt Healy's is really bad timing and further worsens the precarious situation during our state elections. Anyway, we've hold on to our seats, but barely, since the opposition conservative party have now hold more territories than the current federal govt. The question now is what can we do to help the local LGBTQ here, rebuild our country while trying to stave off the fundamentalist party from encroaching onto our territory?
Why is it any of your business who he kisses? Just because your politicians are awful doesn't mean it's everyone else's responsibility to not do gay things while visiting your country. Blame the politicians
@@intrusive-th0tmost of us Malaysians would agree with you that our politicians are awful. The struggle is how to change that given the corruption in the country. It’s not like the west where there are relatively stronger institutions to keep our politicians in check, so sociopolitical change is going to be less straightforward than an awareness campaign and an election. On Matty Healy specifically, much of the media focuses on the kiss but not much else on the context that The 1975's application to perform was initially denied. Organisers appealed on 13 July, vouched for The 1975 in writing that the band will not act out & will take full responsibility should there be any non-compliance of the rules. He violated that contract with his drunken tirade, blatant insults of the government, and ofc the kiss. Again, Malaysians might agree with that sentiment but it’s not something you’re free to tell to the govt’s face. Where many have been upset is the blatant disrespect of the ministry’s goodwill faith he wouldn’t act out, pushing the message far too aggressively, and causing the entire festival cancelled - cue losses for all the other artists and vendors involved and sabotaging another creative platform. Creative spaces where lgbtq communities thrive are already under threat as it is. A loud brash act of performative activism just puts a further unnecessary target on their back. Matty Healy’s awful reputation also makes whatever he says or does easier to discredit and disregard. If he truly did it for the benefit of our local lgbtq community, he could’ve uplifted them in other ways like donating to local causes or highlighting the activist work that’s already being done on the ground. Instead the guy took the money and ran
^^^This video doesn’t feel sufficiently researched, which is unusual. Hope she considers reuploading with that correction and some additional perspectives.
@@LGrian Yeah, the new life movement part skipped over the fact that it was done in response to the May 4th movement which talked abt ideas of female emancipation, anarchism and anti-imperialism.
I usually like these videos but i dont know why it went off on a chinese history tangent? It feels a bit like 'malaysia is just a part of all that same area' without realising malaysia and china are entirely different.
Great video! It has been said that war is politics by other means. The truth is, politics is war by other means. If you do not utilize local guides on enemy territory, you are likely to lose. 1. Take power 2. Leverage that power to gain more power 3. Give power to the worst-off. 4. Repeat
@@zeusmultirotor8479 revolutions that work as intended are few and far between, that's why people cherish them... Its why plenty of Americans treat their founding fathers more like religious deities spreading the word of God. Because its so rare for revolutionaries to legitimately put their ideals above their political interests (like George Washington not even wanting to be president, but when his country asked him to be one, he did the best a man could do).
@@zeusmultirotor8479 NGL, step 3 is usually whitewashed as a convenient excuse to seize power. But there is change in the air. The Age of Simony is coming to a close and the Age of Pluralism is dawning. Money talked itself into a trap. Much love!
@@freddy4603 speaking of whitewashing. Lol. And yes, cannot disagree. That revolution worked as intended. Just not sure you are aware of what their intent was. I appreciate your time and effort commenting. Much love!
@@rkmh9342 their intent was to keep expanding west. Thats what both the elites and the people wanted, and the only ones really standing in their way were the crown across the sea that had just decided to start taxing them more. Certainly a controversial desire by todays standards, but aside that, its one of the greatest successes of the Western world.
To many countries hide behind “but colonialism gave us these laws we still happily use. It’s not our fault”. Malaysia has had well over a century to remove theses laws but they don’t because they agree with them. It’s a pretty conservative place. A good 60% is Muslim and most would happily tell you LGBT people shouldn’t exist.
yeah it was pretty horrible to sit in the back of the car listening to my parents talk about the "degenerates of the west" and their "gay agenda". i don't know when i'll ever be out to my family at this point. infinite gratitude towards matty.
In California some schools are now required to tell the parents if their child is expressing any LGBTQ interests in school. It's the "tell them that their gay" law.
Well when you see what the schools in the West are teaching kids, then you would agree with them. Children have NO business learning anything about LGBTQ+. And yes, the West IS degenerate and becoming more degenerate.
@@SaintGBar22it's not safe for them to come out, both legally and socially. you can't force someone to come out in the name of shattering mindsets. courage to you OP, as a fellow queer Malaysian i hope things will get better for us soon. you're not alone.
Recently this was a big topic in Mexico, because a feminist influencer went to an event in Rwanda and all her posts were about she becoming the white saviour. She was very criticized and the topic of social enterpreneurship came into. It has been a big thing how white saviours now are making money from social movements.
As a Chinese, I have to say before we had interaction with Westerners, women's status was very low. Both Soong Mey Ling and the woman in the movie New Woman who wanted to be a writer are women models from the West, one is a traditional model and one is a progressive model which is inspired by A Doll's House written by Ibsen from Norway.
@@anarchosyndicalist We don't share any cultural commonality. I've read history that before Islamization you people had the highest gender equality globally, but Chinese are not the same. But history isn't the most important we should look at. It's meanless if I say China was the greatest empire in 800 BC because we are not living in 800 BC.
That is not the entire story though. Foot binding is something that started in the imperial court and got spread into the society, in fact many women from ethnic minorities and distant villages did not do it. This was simply another example of elite women deciding the status of womens' rights in the country without hearing the voice of lower class women. And it was not just "western interaction" that was helping women's rights, it was western colonialism that weakened the monarchy and made Chinese people finally question the status quo and rose up and started the revolution. Western colonisers at the time had no interest to save Chinese women from their oppression and only wanted the money and resources. The Chinese history of modernisation is extremely complicated, I agreed that Alice probably didn't use the best examples here but I think her point is valid.
@@celeste654 Westerners weren't interested in helping women's rights but elite women could read from the West. "A doll's house" isn't within mainstream western value but a radical anti-patriarcal work. The concept of human right is a very new concept from Enlightenment, and it didn't exist in China or anywhere in the world. The same for some eastsouth Asian, they were not lgbtq friendly(since this is a concept derived from human rights) but just had different gender norms. Food binding might started from the court but it's Qing dynasty, the Manchu monarchs actually dislike and even opposed food binding but this practice was still popular.
Another British boy band pop group came to a former colony and disagreed with their laws and customs and they used their privilege to break those rules. It was the Beatles playing in the Southern USA and they refused to play to segregated audiences. Should they have agreed to segregate their audience because it wasn’t their place to intervene and they didn’t understand the political situation on the ground? No, and local activists cheered them on for what they did. The KKK got riled up but many more people realized that segregation was bullshit and many young black people stood with their white peers for the first time at a concert. I feel like the left spends so much time and energy fighting amongst ourselves instead of fighting injustice. Debating whether some else’s activism is good or bad instead of helping fight discrimination. Did Matt Healy help anything politically by kissing a man onstage? Eh probably not, but he did what rock and rollers have been doing for decades - sticking their middle finger up to authority. More people should be doing that and doing less debating the finer details or rebelling against oppressive regimes who don’t give a shit about decorum or debate.
I think it’s different because both UK and USA are majority white, very wealthy and both are/were colonizers, even tho the USA was once a colony to the UK. Both are western powers that always interfere with non-western countries. If the 1975 helped local activists in their fight it would be much more respectful to their LGBT Malaysian colleagues. People need to ask oppressed communities HOW they can help them or if they need help at all. Like respect their autonomy. The 1975 were giving ✨white saviour complex ✨ vibes
@@richelleangelaguerra5440 the southern US isn't majority white and never has been, though. It seems that way because of our particular expression of apartheid but don't get it twisted: white majorities are strange, alien things to the South, artifacts of black migration away the moment the folk that could escape that rule did, and the expulsion and genocide of indigenous peoples.
I feel like you're missing the point. It's not that there was anything wrong in what he did, it's just that he did it at the wrong place and at the wrong time, with no thought or care whatsoever for the people who are going to be affected because of his selfish actions. His white saviour antics just allowed the Muslim conservatives in Malaysia to win in their state elections and put the LGBTQ+ community of Malaysia in the spotlight. And what he did, doesn't affect him not a fucking thing.
You mentioned 'the local activists cheer them on for what they did' - That makes all the difference why the Matty Healy situation is harmful while the Beatles was not.
Every activism done in the face of performance and mediatic impact akins to woke-washing in my book. In many of the volunteer and activist activities I've partaken, the most important thing seemed to be "how it would look on the public eye" instead of what is actually beign achieved. Prove of that is that these actions are allways possitive, in the sense that, even when they intend to be very political and put on conservative people; they allways refrain from showing anger, bitterness, or the crude face of the misery they are fighting against. It's all toned down and glossed over, all fun and spectacle. These actions just seem like a good excuse for "compromised", very well-off savy mediators to suck up public funds that could be better invested in ways that don't imply shouting over the real activists, or gentrifying the diverse neighborhoods until achieving the expulsion of the very people they supossedly want to help, from a very patronizing christian possition. I don't use the term colonial, because to me that does not point the underlying messianic benefactor attitude, the elephant in the room over which colonialism rode upon; but the fact of the matter is that we don't speak of coloniasm when non-christian countries invade one another. Heck, sometimes we don't even make the connection between the two when talking about "patriarchy" We have contested colonialism, but we have not contested the notion of charity, or missionary work. IMHO this is one of the big reasons as to why these dynamics are alive and well, and still seen as a mark of virtue in our culture. Religion may have been divorced from law and rights; but still permeates the culture and tells people how to behave if not what to belive in. And we have absolutely no place telling other people to change their ways of behaving and thinking, if we are not willing to do just as much first.
6:15 Ruan is pronounced "Jouanne" (as you would pronouncit in French); you pronounced it as if it were "Huang". Excellent video. 7:05 Chang-Kai Shek was a proper fascist; but he would not have considered himself Western. Republic of China's Shanghai scene was relatively emancipating compared to rural China. The communists (who were in theory for gender equality) would have been seen as "westernised". Modernity and "west" would have been seen as emancipatory. 1920s are not the 1950s
I've been meaning to ask; if you haven't made one already I'd love to see a video covering french activism. Is a topic I've been recently curious about and as a french person yourself I'm sure you have some interesting things to say ^-^ btw your stuff is always super duper insightful. Thanks sm for always making such good content, specially about topics like these💜😙
I'm in agreement with what the point of this video is. I just don't believe that this type of "activism" will ever die. Our current world system "one that's empowered by American exceptionalism/economical rule is tilted towards white people/anyone who agrees with American values. I just don't see any of this changing until a new world order where every country is given an equal say in every international matter. Of course there's definitely going to be drawbacks since it's mainly the governments having a say and not the people. Another similar example is the recent FIFA world cup in Qatar, just look at the " Western activism" against Qatar, using Queer, Women's rights, etc., as pawns.
cool video! i've felt the same way for a while, especially with uganda's anti-lgbt legislation (also a byproduct of english colonization). progress can't be achieved through diplomats telling them from a distance to knock it off, but through supporting and uplifting grassroots movements. that being said, could you please fix the english captions? they're inaccurate half the time, like 3:11 saying conservatives have an "LGBTQ+ agenda" lol
Malaysia also has a stability problem, which leads to a facade of unity as the government and virtually everyone competent does preparation like moving the capital.
I'm Malaysian. Yes, one can blame our politicians for anti-trans, homophobic laws. But we cannot deny the long-lasting colonial influence. maybe hide your white fragility a bit better.
Love is very good at motivating people. And bonding with other humans. The problem is: Putting a flower in a gun barrel doesn't always work. And nobody has a Plan B, when the guy shoots anyway.
I feel like this also applies to charity. I hate when people around me generically donate to a "seems good" ogranization and never follow through with what is happening yo the donated resourses. So, at this point of my life, I decided to donate and support only locally around me. I know this has its own shortcomings as a decision, but at least I dont do more harm than good and dont feed the wrong side.
This is such a completely idiotic and inaccurate interpretation of the movie New Women. Wei Ming wasn't even in the domestic life and ideal of what a woman should be that you claimed. She also did not kill herself because she was unable to become a writer, but because her daughter died and the dire financial circumstances she was in (which had nothing to do with family life, mind you). Did you literally pull a summary off of sparknotes and called it a day?
Thank you for another well-researched and clearly presented video. Perhaps famous western activists should consult with local activists when deciding on the best way to “help.”
Hey Alice! Thanks for this vid. Now that you've said that western activism doesnt work, I want to add that it's culturally insensitive, very white and Christian, and purposefully "forgets" intersectionality. As for Matty Healy, I've heard a bit of him, in that he's a racist piece of shit while he and Taylor dated... (Again, I may have the wrong person, and I encourage anyone to let me know of any corrections as I don't know everything and I'm not completely right) Another thing: white queer and trans communities (as I am a white, Jewish, nonbinary and trans man, so I'm including myself as I've been guilty of it) purposefully "forget" that racialised trans folks are the least likely to access healthcare, the most likely to be hate crimed (with Black trans women and trans women of colour who are affected the most), the most reluctant to access gender-affirming care [as gender-affirming care has lots of racial disparities and a lack of cultural sensitivity], the least likely to be afforded housing and the most likely to be at-risk of homelessness and substance abuse, and the most likely to experience additional exclusion in queer and trans spaces because queer and trans spaces have a racism, exclusion, colonialism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, Asiaphobia, and anti-Semitism in addition to queerphobia, interphobia and transphobia. Racialised trans folks are also the most likely to have to navigate additional issues in predominantly white and leftist trans and queer spaces.
(if anyone who is QTBIPOC wants to add on, I fully encourage you to do so) If it weren't for Black trans women, trans women of colour and QTBIPOC sex workers who led the movement: queer and trans communities won't be able to have the privileges they have today, and marginalised white trans and queer people are going to need to keep this in mind (yes, I'm calling myself out and my fellow white trans queer people out).
Hey Alice, what do you think about Veganism? It is a social justice issue that I'd love your thoughts on :) On adapting activism to the people that environment: In my activism, I always try to make it about animal rights. Health and environment are always secondary to the victims. Your dialogue on the development of human rights across the globe is always empowering. Thanks for doing what you do. BTW, I loved your pronunciation of everyone's names!
i think this video really helped me sort my thoughts out on a lot of policies in my country i mean i knew what and how they were, but now, this video really gave me particular ideas to characterise what are the anti human rights movements in my country they're different than "we've been opressed, so any kind of forceful action will trigger a backlash", but it is still about seeing human rights movements as a general opressional thing i fell like i knew it before, but now i have ways to reason with some of them and maybe make as much difference as i can in this thank you
Do you not think that they will use any excuse to pass these laws? I don't think they're arguing in good faith. Keep in mind Malaysia was a Sultanate and was governed by Sharia before the Brits came. The "tolerance" they showed was minimal at best.
Specificism has to be the norm in every form of activism. Not every country pollutes the same. Not every country has the same problems, or same responsibility or same exact circumstances. Everything is nuanced, and we have to think of human societies as a group of tribes, instead of a big tribe. We are all different and we have to accept ourselves with our differences instead of looking for homogeneity or the suppression of one culture for another. We are tribal in nature.
Thank you for this very insightful video. How do we compare it against "Eastern" activism? What qualifies Western activism to be considered separately, or, as differentiated from what? Which isn't an apologia for Western activism, but perhaps a call to acknowledge the complexity of getting Westerners wanting to want the right kind of activism to execute. :)
Indian here. Article 377 of Indian Penal Code (that criminalised homosexuality and other "unnatural" sexual practices) was only struck down in 2018 by the supreme court. We still have a long way to go to right the damages done by the colonial rule and the laws they imposed. (Incidentally we're celebrating our 77th independence day from the british today - 15 aug 2023)
I just discovered your channel and I love it! Je vais écrire en français, je suis nettement plus à l'aise comme cela (et mon correcteur aussi) J'ai découvert grâce à cette vidéo que l'origine coloniale de certaines lois anti LGBT. Je pense à tous ces stéréotypes entendus du type "les pays ne sont pas développés, vous avez vu les lois qu'ils ont encore, il faut aller les éduquer et leur expliquer la vie" quand... Ce sont des colons qui ont importé ces lois au début! On reprend les mêmes schémas, à vouloir toujours importer notre société occidentale partout où on va. Le community organizing est un outil qui permettrait de faire de l'activisme autrement. Il permet d'aller soutenir des populations dans leurs problématiques en se basant sur leur solution et leur localité.... L'histoire coloniale des pays se perd et dans nos cours à l'école, on a l'impression que tout ça c'est derrière nous alors que pas du tout. Merci d'avoir partagé cela ...
Possibly your best essay yet, amazing! It's really interesting to see how, despite some ideological change, the colonial mindset of "we know what's better for you" hasn't changed at all. I got a bit curious about the Lyon-Turin tunnel. I read about it superficially but its a bit hard to form an opinion about it. Some say it will have a positive impact, others do a different calculation and say it won't. Doesn't seem like the kind of decision I'm qualified to make. Will try reading more about it, but not being an expert on any of the relevant fields, it's eventually gonna be about what side I choose to believe in, which will probably be based on reasons that have nothing to do with science. Activism can be pretty tricky, sometimes.
the end felt incredibly inspirational. I often worry thinking that theres nothing I can do to prevent rich people from destroying my home but there is:)
Matty never makes me mad so much as he just makes me sigh deeply in disappointment 😂 I like the bands music and their political takes / white-cis-het-saviour behaviour are basically acceptable in a western context but its just not going to translate well in countries like Malaysia, where the law is involved and hes not as familiar with what's already being done locally to combat the issue. Him kissing men onstage & speaking in defence of womens reproductive rights in famously right wing USA states is in a different universe to this and he just doesnt seem to get it. One is an act of solidarity, the other is a completely thoughtless, self serving and pointlessly chaotic mess. At the end of the day hes just another nepo baby and every time he gets called out on something like this he just throws a tantrum, breaks his toys on the way out. You can only pity him, ignore him and hope the damage hes done can be addressed
That's so true. So many years after colonialism and some countries still think 'we know better, we will educate you'. The effect of these actions is the opposite and more people going far-right.
Malaysia's laws concerning sex and gender may have started with British colonialization but I think everyone knows Islamic law plays a dominant role now..
I am a man, right wing (well libertarian) and definitely not a feminist. But I can recognize that your videos are well reasoned, thoughtful, well researched and - frankly - thought provoking. So even though I am probably not your target audience I really enjoy your videos, thank you very much for doing the hard work in clarifying and presenting these ideas. + Subscribed
I’m on the other side of the political spectrum from you and am probably the target audience for videos like this. It’s good to see people watching well researched things from other political view points. I enjoy doing that as well.
A message to Western activists: don't make make matters worse for the locals, especially when dealing with the kind of regimes who love to have an excuse to crack down on internal opposition, calling them "traitors in collusion with foreign imperialist agents". You play right into their propaganda.
1920s/30s China is far more complicated - that the KMT and New Life Movement were an example of western activism. Not at all. They were more an example of nationalist appropriation of some ideas and tools to engage with modernity - attempts which had started even before the fall of the Qing Dynasty and continued through the May 4th Movement. I like your general point, but let's not overstate the cultural impact of western contact. It was trivial.
It's so interesting to me how we are growing into a global community and have to deal with that western approach of expanding it's ideas at all costs. In Argentina we just had the PASO (which are preliminary elections) and the rightest right came to win. Now all the activists are trying to figure out how we let this happen; I believe it has to do with our lack of ideas on how to solve structural problems with our local experiences and ideas. It seems like all we can think of as a society is to subordinate to the historical hegemonic logic and try to replicate them everywhere without even hesitating. We now have the tools as the working class to share globally our concerns, so I find logical to try and figure out new ways of being a part of this global society we created, respecting the diverse historic processes.
the term „western activism“ is too broad to actually mean anything besides maybe „comming from any country under the umbrella term western“ and „pushing for a political interest without being backed by gov. institutions“. So many people and politics can be called western activism while having very contradictory goals. So it can only be a criticism directed against any kind of political influence from perceived outsiders. A call for acting local (while thinking global?). Fair point. But we also find ourselves in a heavily entangled, global society/culture/economy with all its institutions. I don’t really get the point of this video but it being a call to do actual activism?
interesting! i think westerners (probably due to western media) can carry the idea that all their values are the correct values, so when it comes to something like political movements that would benefit other countries, it's almost as if people are trying to force change without the grassroots action needed for certain rights, while simultaneously denouncing movements that could benefit other countries (more equal law, public services, socialism being a key example) and thinking they're backwards or living in a fantasy, when it doesn't allign with what they've been told...
I agree with the critique on the functionality of western activism across the board, but the question I'm left with is one regarding the ideal way for a celebrity like matty healy to use their influence to support local activism without falling into the white savior trope in a situation like this. Local ground-up activism is more effective and functional, absolutely, but how should people in these situations act ideally? I can't seem to conceptualize anything concrete, would love to hear from someone with more insight!
Simple. Western celebrities should do activism in their own country, and not fly to mine as a diva tourist just to pull off a stupid publicity stunt that does nothing but harm to our community.
As a Malaysian, I can tell you: as long as the “celebrity” is white or non-Muslim, any form of activism will not work here. Anti-West propaganda is very strong in the education system.
I've kind of been waiting for this Alice!! A very juicy topic, so its another favorite video of mine. Though this can extend into other sub-topics concerning western hegemony influencing Southeast Asia, which I'm sure you're aware of. Very heavy. I kind of touched upon this from our last conversation online, just specifically the difference of religious influence between America and the Philippines. My father used to remind me that a major culture shock for activists is forgetting that race is not an issue in Filipino politics, it is class, and Catholicism is not the problem, but the specific sects. So just dealing with those alone is going to affect how activism is going to work in the Philippines. The one common thread though, is the fear of communism as usual. Would definitely like to collaborate again soon, we need to catch up!!
It seems like Western activists who care about international issues are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If you go to that place and try to use your own energy, resources, and audience to help, you are a "white saviour" at best and "making things worse by not understanding local context" at worst. If, however, you simply support from a far - retweeting local activists, trying to learn about their specific context and needs - you are treading dangerously close to "slacktivism". That is, if you are even able to learn about the issue in the first place. What, for example, is the ideal scenario for a LGBT band member who has a show to play in Malaysia, who just learned that his identity in this country is against the law? Is it to pack up his bags and not play the show? Is it to spend about 6.5 seconds looking up a LGBT movement in Malaysia and giving them a retweet? Or is it to say, what the heck - I feel passionate about this issue and I'm going to speak about it - consequences be damned. We in the West believe in free speech. Without it, we wouldn't have concerts to begin with. Look at Afghanistan, where they are literally burning musical instruments. Look at the UA-cam comment section, where we are having this discussion. This entire world we live in exists based on the right of the individual to express themselves. To take right that away from the individual because of historical wrongs does not strike me as progressive.
I agree saviorism is a real issue but awareness of saviorism shouldn't be taken to the extreme of "just let them have the death penalty for adultery (when it's a woman) and being gay. It's their country. Don't say anything, you're white." Someone from that part of the world needs to be the one empowered to lead that but I don't believe in awkwardly looking away and refusing to discuss problems.
You raise a great point, but I think the issue is with the idea of westerners having to be at the center of solving those issues. In an ideal world it would be possible to empower the communities most impacted by the problems and increase their access to various resourses, but that is obviously easier said than done
It's always gonna be awkward because these people insist they know right and others are wrong. Dumb white ladies love talking about accepting minorities as well asa the rainbow people, totally ignoring that minorities don't take kindly to homo's. You don't have a good answer to that, because there isn't one. When you keep telling others how to live, at some point you have to admit you think you know better.
you have to actually approach our problems with a "cut the head off the snake" strategy or you ARE a hw!te savior imposter activist. you have to be willing to identify the source of the problem. give up all your emotional attachment to it. which is reallllllly hard for anyone even remotely well off inside of eurocentric countries. they are told if they were to live any other way, all luxuries and conveniences would disappear and every one would die of starvation etc. in reality, our current system LITERALLY causes 99% of the entire species to die from labor induced starvation. something that wasnt very common until n4z1s started employing the strategy. before workers were at least fed enough to be able to function. now they just work you to death as fast as possible then move on to the next vulnerable soul to be victimized. i never get the hw!te savior accusation thrown at me because of this. im not trying to enforce eurocentric culture onto others. im trying to abolish it and anything that remotely resembles it because i know concepts like countries are just convoluted ways for people with the worst intentions to establish ownership over what they literally refer to as "herds" of humans... we can keep things like parts of cultures. dress, music, food, arts, etc etc. but we have no functional purpose to divide our laws and living conditions or to distribute resources unevenly anymore. we all realize our interdependence on each other better since the pandemic forced us to see how we are all effected by each and every living thing we share the earth with. and we all realize the archaic divisions of currencies and laws serve no purpose other than to keep wealth and power consolidated into the worst humans, the ones who should never have those things in a sane world. imagine how high of a quality of life we could achieve if we did away with those things and established global direct democracy + eliminated wealth hoarders. every human on earth could be living like the most wealthy people do right now, but with the added requirement of actually having to do work to contribute to society and play your role in its functioning to earn your part of the experience of being in a civilization.
Except that doing what he did likely will cause more deaths, more laws, more conservativism, that won't affect him. It'll affect the queer community that lives there. It's the height of western self-centeredness to think "no it's totally cool for me to say whatever even though I'm leaving tomorrow but the queer community here will have to deal with the repercussions" Just. Fucking think about the repercussions of your actions??
I mostly like the video! Good to bring to the attention that famous people often ignore local issues and bring problems with locally unacceptable behavior. The complex local situation is always hard to understand, and requires local solutions. In that thought. The standard formula of: "here's one example of a royal court in Malaysia that allowed one facet of the LGBTQ community to express themselves under strict supervision, to make a case that pre-imperial people in Malaysia were loving and accepting of the LGBTQ community" is not really effective. It hinders constructive dialogue and local agency when you assume that only the white governing structures in the colonies (often numbering in the 1000's) could change deeply rooted cultural practices and imbue a society with LGBTQ hatred. Hate against the LGBTQ community is a long rooted tradition, not solely an imperial invention. It is infused in the legal structure, but that's because adat law was unwritten and dealt with by local elders. Using manang bali or other examples only reinforces the idea that in most muslim kingdoms in malaysia following adat or islamic law, homosexuality was punished. If you don't recognize it as part of Malaysia you get the inverse of a white-savior complex: the white-universalist complex. That any and all constructs and faults that don't fit within your ideology will be attributed to imperialism, without solving the root cause. Religious and cultural hatred for the LGBTQ community runs deep and requires systematic effort, and an understanding of the sources and causes, to eradicate. Abrahamic religious conservatism, but more importantly, long standing cultural traditions influence most strongly how people treat the LGBTQ on average. Here I fully agree with you, this cultural change needs local adaptations to work in that area, not a universal plan on forcing everyone to accept it on their terms.
the video is mostly fine, but nothing here has anything to do either with "western" (whatever that even means) or with "activism". it even seem to fall into the right wing claim about every person being an "lgbtq activist" just because they vaguely said or performed something positive about being gay. fighting for women's rights to vote or the eight hour workday or most first republics all happened first in the "western" world, so was this also failing "western activism"? the problem with vague and lazy descriptions like "western" is that they obscure and paint over class lines. also when some rich and/or powerful people endorse dictators because they now claim that "their" women are allowed to drive now is not activism and damages the work that actual activists do, so please don't claim that the terrible examples in the video had anything to do with "activism".
I just wanna say good job for really putting in the effort to pronounce so many different names in vastly different languages the time it took really shows 🥰
I have this coworker (who's a local here from Andorra) who, any time we bring up Cuba (her best friend is from there) says she wouldn't be able to go there because she would want to give candy to the children and things like that. I've always felt off and told her so, but couldn't really pinpoint what exactly made me think that. I think it relates majorly with this video - this white european person wanting to go and do activism basically just because without being able to look behind the implications for that. I guess you shed a light on this.
One point that people forget and that should be mentionned more often is that religion is not explicitly anti-homosexual. The anti-gay in the religion is really a reinterpretation of being anti non-reproductive sport in the bedroom. And real homophobia has to be looked for elsewhere (read, "in the partriarcat"). My idea of the root of homophobia is that more likely some men are just afraid of being called sissies.. Just saying...
Sometimes the rights of marginalised groups are crushed under the pretext of localism. We need to be careful not to subscribe to an essentialist narrative of adhering to everything that is local.
I liked this topic a lot. There was a time in the past when I strongly believed that Western activism is the best and only way to go about it. But one day, I had a realisation and began undoing that mindset. The goal is the same, but the methods should be different. I find it absurd to approach activism only through a Westernised perspective.
This "activism" of upper-class westerners just shows how present saviourist and colonialist ideas still are. I am glad the press coverage of such things is becoming progressively more critical, but it is a shame that more local and systemic efforts do not receive the same amount of recognition
even if you spend every waking moment doing awareness activism, you supporting all the places and people that cause all the problems through their businesses is making it worse for everyone. you are basically just telling people exactly how much you are harming them while you are doing it lol. we're all a bit guilty of that tho because the vast majority think that somehow our species will ever find peace and prosperity by dividing ourselves into groups of people owned by monarchs and oligarchs aka "countries"
Just like you
You should support people who are in the position to make a difference. Hyper-individualistic ideas of supporting specific businesses makes zero difference to wider society
Only people to criticize are homophobes in Malaysia
The media is totally pushing this garbage.
As an LGBTQ+ activist from the Philippines, I can say you did a great job shedding some light into the problems Western activism does cause in Southeast Asia and the Global South.
What people in the West don't realize with what Matty did was him kissing a man on stage was in itself a privilege. Any LGBTQ+ Malaysian could not have gotten away with that safely. But rather than recognizing the privilege that came with his white background and celebrity status in comparison to the local LGBTQ+ community, he provoked the authorities even more into repressing LGBTQ+ Malaysians. In the end, the local LGBTQ+ community suffered worse, while he got away scot-free to his home country.
No matter the country, the activist struggle has to be organized and led by those who are most oppressed by the status quo. If I may add to your commentary, I think the problem with Western activism is a lack of understanding on who should lead the activism. The fight to defend the retirement age or raise wages should be led by the working class, the fight against domestic and sexual violence should be led by women, etc. Leadership doesn't mean blind obedience to what these people have to say, it means we recognize that they have a higher stake in this issue, they are the marginalized and so they should be our priority in political discussions. They are the ones with the greatest potential to overthrow the system. Although we in intellectual spaces may have the most advanced ideas, our role should be to introduce those ideas to the oppressed, to mobilize them and give them the ability to turn their rage into revolution. We won't succeed if we only keep the megaphone to ourselves.
Excellently said! ❤
tama ka dyan sis
"Although we in intellectual spaces may have the most advanced ideas," mmm... problematic. I think the statement is also part of the problem. The assumption that we know best and we need to find a way to inject it into another society / culture is sort of the issue, at least the idea that is being challenged. Should progression always come from western intellectualism?
@@SuperALBSURE Depends on what sort of progress it is, and wither or not it applies the basic principles of intellectualism in order to either solve an issue or advance a particular factor of either an idea or item.
That's completely fair!
During my Master I used to have many clashes with some of my professors due to their approach to problems outside their bubble, the posh EU bubble. At the end I told many of them that First World people need to understand that Third World problems cannot be addressed with First World optics and solutions.
The unfortunate reality is, even within much of the global south, colonization has made it so that the vast majority of people who have a shallow understanding of activism and history put EU values on a pedestal without understanding how that’s how much of the backwardness started in the first place. Youth activism is far too focused on aesthetics built around western social media movements which are only effective online.
Damn, what Masters course did you do?
It's really hard explaining a Tesla to a child mining cobalt in the Congo. On how electric cars are going to save the world.. Save who's World?
The same happened to me.
@@ThomasMullaly-do9lzThe only world that matters to rich wrsterners. Their world. Poor westerners are not their concern either. They only care about themselves.
Like how most of them never speak up for the LGBT in muslim majority countries. In Canada, we had anti-lgbt marches held by the extremist members of the ProtectedCommunity before some of our government officials even remotely acknowledge the existence of LGBT kids in muslim Canadian households. That acknowledgement was done softly and with almost zero publicity because they still don't actually care. They're just pretend for the optics.
Less than half a dozen euro descent trans kids in Alberta, Canada are at the risk of being forbidden to compete against real girls. But it's at the forefront of every Left leaning politician's agenda. 5 euro-Canadian kids matter more than all the LGBT Canadian kids that just happen to be born in muslim Canadian families. The whole progressivism is just a business and a huge scam. Just like what feminism has become.
I will like to stress this : what he did was NOT an activism.
He got pissed that people on Tiktok keep calling him a pedo, got drunk, and basically threw a temper tantrum on the stage. People tried to say he did a shit activism, NO : he did not do anything activism, he just got mad on stage.
celebrities are always bad people
Sounds like you just hate queer people existing openly and think queer people shouldn't exist in public.
That Vogue cover was hilarious when it first came out 😂 I remember how everyone here in Arabia reacted with laughter, on how unbelievably stupid the people at Vogue were. Let’s slap a photoshoot of a Saudi princess on the cover, that belongs to the very same family, that has supported the ban on driving for almost 100 years, and imprisoned dissenters. Not to mention funding the religious police for decades. A religious police that would stop and jail a woman for not wearing her headscarf 🧕🏼 correctly, just like her ROYAL HIGHNESS in that very cover 😂
This topic reminds me of a talk I was at, where a former union-member from Iran (sadly forget his name) was speaking about the recent demonstrations against wearing a hijab. He was mainly talking about how the feminist fight in Iran was very much connected to efforts of labor-parties rebelling against the government. He also answered questions from the audience and so I asked: How can we strengthen the global feminist fight? To which he answered: There is no global solution to any local injustice. In Iran women are fighting for the right and autonomy to not wear a headscarf, while in Germany (where the talk took place) most Muslim women face daily discrimination because of their own choice to wear the hijab.
This is what I've been saying for years,there are no global standards for a movement, feminism included.
Yes this is why the Allie’s (Great Britain and France) shouldn’t have invaded Germany for invading Poland, they just didn’t have German moral standard so they didn’t understand it, just like how all of the other major Allie’s shouldn’t have invaded mainland Germany and stopped the holocaust because that was the German homeland and nazism had become part of their culture in many ways. And moral standards aren’t consisten globally because of traditionalism and culture this means we should only care about our own nationalist affairs and never support any global progressive movements because that would be colonial.
/s
-what you culture/religion/region over human rights defenders sound like.
@@RevolutionaryGuitar i think the equivalent analogy is more like “before going scorched earth and blowing things up, lets help the everyday Polish people in their resistance, allowing them to liberate and strengthen themselves.” you know, instead of a bunch of external powers using Poland as their geopolitical murder-sandbox & bombing their lands to hell.
the answer to complex problems is rarely some single grand gesture, like an invasion or a celebrity on-stage kiss. it’s everyday people, working together towards a common goal. from the outside, you can still support change without necessarily taking over the movement. you can get involved without drowning out local voices. that is the point. not cultural relativism, but support for the autonomy and decisions of the people actually being effected.
@@RevolutionaryGuitar you got it wrong fam the OP isn't talking about cultural relativism they're talking about the ground realities of liberation movements being unique to each particular struggle despite the underlying emancipatory principle being the same
@@manofgray5239 I don’t think you know how anything works, resistance movements in Poland even with outside help could never stand up to the extremely professional most powerful military in the world at the time, the German military.
Also those polish people would need guns and bombs to help them, scorching their own earth anyway. You can’t just “incrementally reform” literal fascism. Not to mention that like progressives having an obligation to progress society, the Brits and French had an obligation to defend Poland from nazis.
Resistance movements, revolutionary movements, and insurgencies literally have zero chances against professionally trained militaries/militias. In the American revolution untrained militias were very ineffective and the professionally trained and armed continental army was the most effective. In Afghanistan the Taliban as an insurgency lost against the US in nearly every engagement, the US could’ve easily kept Afghanistan if they wanted to waste more money and lives which is why they didn’t. The French resistance in occupied france also did absolutely nothing of massive importance, it was the professional British, American, and Canadian militaries that saved them from Nazi rule.
I may have misinterpreted this comment but so many of you are just spouting cultural relativism BS that I maybe just interpreted it that way.
The point is that what she did and what you are doing is blaming this western band guy for the Malaysian peoples own ignorance. It’s been a multitude of decades that Malaysia has been free of colonial influence over the government. They are mainly bigots because they take their made up religion too seriously.
Blaming a gay white dude for kissing a guy which is a human right, while you could be blaming the real issues which are social conservatism, ignorance, and religious fundamentalism.
I'm a Malaysian and i was there in the festival, I brought the tickets to see The Strokes on day 3 and unfortunately 1975 perform on day 1 and it immediately got cancel because of what he done. Most of us going to the festival just to have a good time, and it all ruined. Imagine seeing other small artist pouring their heart and soul to perform that day but then u saw Matty saying things like "its a mistake" for them to perform here and how he's not "in the mood" after you saw other artists gave their best to performance.
This festival is the only festival that we can attend and dress what we like, be ourself and have a good time, and now, the festival got cancel just because someone's imature arrogant behavior and broke the agreement of law.
Also, when you see Kid Laroi who supposed to perform on day 2 performing in the hotel lobby for the fans, The strokes added a day in Singapore just to let us Malaysian to go to see them, and have their merch discounted for us...then you look back to 1975, what have they done? nothing for the fans! and i still cant believe this band still have their fans.
They thought they did the right thing and never apologise, everyone got hurt from this situation, and why? just because "he is not in the mood"
remember that artists are inherently subversive individuals who wish to tear down society, whatever is taboo they will do it. it is important to regulate and control artists or they will destroy society
Great comment. Thank you for sharing this. It definitely shows how these 'stunts' or performative actions can have the opposite effect.
Plus, it does put the band in a less generous light compared to The Strokes, etc and makes their privileged status even more obvious.
I would have been angry, too!
And they even canceled their show in Taiwan despite same-sex marriage there is legal. The irony
Malaysia is notorious for canceling shows. haha.
Didn’t expect to comment this here of all places, sorry for you not being able to see The Strokes. I hope you get a chance to see them in the near future, they seem to like touring again
A comment for support. Alice algorithm slay
I'll throw mine in too. Thanks milord o7
Même chose
Same
And a reply to support the supporting comment, of course
Me too.
Great video, Alice! It's quite telling that Matty didn't ask himself how he could have supported LGBTQ+ activists in the country. Instead he centered himself and did something he knew he wouldn't have to face consequences for. And the thing is, celebrities like him could actually do something more productive in the West, because it's not like we're short on hate for minorities over here.
As someone who comes from India i understand what you are saying but i am tired of people criticising someone like Matt Healy and placing their energy on that more than actually criticising the conservative sections of society who are trying to uphold. At this point it seems like an easier target to talk about white activists than actually vocally criticising the actual oppressors. As a feminist in India I don’t care about white activists i am fine with them what i do have a problem with is other white activists criticising white activists for talking about other cultures and countries and thus completely shutting down what the people on ground are talking about and instead we have 2 white people trying to convince who is more “understanding” of non-white culture. We need support and more focus on the issue than how other activists chose to perform their activism.
funnily enough, the majority of your comment was spent talking about white people. That's how they get you.
That's a very interesting point. Maybe there's truth in the middle there somewhere? I don't think it's mutually exclusive.
It's important to try and move things forward, but it's also important to discuss HOW to move things forward. Some level of organization is necessary to achieve anything consistently, it's no different with activism.
I don't think there's anything wrong with "outsider" activists engaging in a more supporting relationship with local activists. It might lead to better results. Activism is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
From personal experience, the main point Alice tried to make tracks very well. There is a perception on all western countries I've lived in that basically ignores local activism outside the west, like it doesn't exist. This colonial mindset of "we know better". That's definitely not helping anyone.
@@edumazieri I agree we need to have a middle ground but i am too frustrated unfortunately with people placing so much importance on how white people choose to do their activism vs what actually happens on ground.
What you describe here is a big contributor of why left-leaning people are by far the majority on the planet, yet it doesn`t often feel that way. They put a lot of energy towards each other, rather than all going where there is more ground to be covered.
It's not our place to criticise the conservative sections of society shaped by completely different historical experiences and conditions than to our own. Though that common part is shared, it's opportunistic to intervene in such a way to the dismay of the actual LGBTQ activists of the country who share all your views and criticisms of those conservative sections of society
as an LGBTQ ex muslim from malaysia i wanna thank you for this video. what matty healy did set our activism back so much. not only was his shit show done weeks before election, the government used that as an opportunity to pander to the conservatives and has been more and more anti-LGBTQ. the crazy part is western LGBTQ folk are ignoring our voices when we say matt healy did more damage than good. so thank u for advocating on our behalf
its gotten worse after what hes done 😭 im visibly queer and i've been dressing down in fear of being arrested. i do not feel safe. its really sad tbh. so many events have been cancelled just in case the authorities show up and start jailing us. me and my friends were looking forward to this LGBTQ ballroom event and guess what ? cancelled. i was supposed to walk for KL fashion week too but the designer had to lay some models off for looking too queer. honestly i can just go on but bottom line is the situation for queer folk was already not great but matty healy was THE catalyst for things getting worse.
he hasnt even apologized to the queer community here. ZERO accountability and western LGBTQ spaces online are dismissing our voices
Not a part of yall but very well said.
I'm malaysian too and i feel you. I don't really want a marriage right or whatnot, i just want safety and protection.
claiming to be "ex-muslim", here my message to you.
If you are not afraid about hellfire think about this. The ending of human life is death. Wheter Muslim or Non Muslim. You should responsible for your action in the hereafter. Not even Hitler or Mao Zedong can run away from their actions.
What is your purpose of life if you follow your desires? It will be end after your died. Surely Allah made life as temporary to test us not to follow your desires but follow the will of Allah.
Malaysia is getting pretty conservative bud. You'll probably only get away with basic protection rights for now.
if this group's performance was going to cause a problem why were they invited to perform? if there were local standards of behavior to be met, why didn't concert organizers tell the foreigners about them as part of deciding whether they should be hired or not? artists are not known for being sensitive to conservative ideas, and this has been true for all time, so why are people surprised here?
I have been watching videos on Zoological Institutions and the inefficacy of their conservation of endagered species, and their strong focus on entertainment. Its eaqually suprising and concerning to see parralels here. Activism as a self serving performance in complete disregard to it's outcomes, more a show that a cause and goal. Thanks for the great video!
can you tell me the titles of these videos (i'm aware of park services shilling for unsustainable forestry - but i want to learn more about what you watched)
its an old strategy first invented by the rich. except they called it "charity" and "philanthropy" but either way its just pr tactic basically. a way to get above getting criticized and something to point at to try to shame anyone who might criticize. "who cares if my business is starving 50k people to death a year! i just built a soup kitchen in a homeless area thats not even where that business is operating"
@@af8828 yeah, I'd also love tp see the videos
please share the titles of some of these videos! i’d love to learn more
Western activism will never work. The whole point of Western activism is to elevate the activist and/or their brand rather than serve the subject of their activism, and the conversation always devolves into "did you see what [X] is doing to help [Y] community" rather than asking what can be done to help [Y] community, and does that community even want help if offered?"
It fits into the same bucket as billionaire philanthropy. Billionaire's use philanthropy as a weapon to further enrich their estates and control how systems of want and need are built rather than actually contributing to meaningful, lasting change.
Western meaning? European ?
Thanks for validating my approach to organizing and activism. We can't throw up every progressive cause (even if we'd like to) and expect a conservative population to roll with it with zero blowback. We need to measure our tack right up to that line where we can see the most effective change without recieving massive blowback. Easier said than done.
"love will conquer all"
Seeing the state of the world, some people will never feel love & respect to others
😢😢
"Only the unloved hate" - Charles Chaplin
Alice, as an Azerbaijani, I thank you so much. As you may know, France's main political groups are known for their racism against Azerbaijanis. You are a content creator I adore very much as a feminist, queer Azeri guy. For a moment when you came to Azerbaijan, I thought, "Oh God, I hope she won't be racist." Thank you for not being so. Actually, this is about a small detail. The problem is not with the people of Azerbaijan but with the ruling group. The people of Azerbaijan are also one of the groups oppressed under autocratic rule, like the majority of the world.
Merci beaucoup/Çox Sağol💜
We should be listening to those local activisits. I don't think its wrong to make these kinda gestures but theres a massive level of ignorance being shown by thinking you know more about that country that anyone else. We can't assume to know better than the people living it right now.
It’s true but she doesn’t touch on the local activists who are saying something else, and plenty are.
@@LGrian I still think the point stands tho. He made a decision carelessly without considering the potential ramifications. Yes there are people in support but quite a lot of activists in the region felt his actions were performative. These people are the ones out there canvassing and trying to sway the public in favour. It bullshit that they have to but that the unfortunate truth.
He gets to leave that country with some brownie points but he leaves the real people struggling to pick up the pieces.
nope. these gestures does harm to queer and trans people in Malaysia and functions as nothing more than a white savior's ego stroking. these kinds of gestures are fundamentally wrong in this context. I'm Malaysian, btw.
Omg thank you for covering this, as a SOGIESC activist in Malaysia, the 1975 concert was a huge headache for our local activism scene. We just had the results of our state elections and the Islamic Conservatives (we call them PAS) and their coalition has swept between 90% to 100% of the seats of 3 state assemblies out of the 6 states that are up for election, and had gained a large minority of the other 3. They rode heavily on anti-LGBTQ moral panic. One of the most provoking events was just that one kiss by a foreigner who had the privilege of leaving behind the hellfire he caused for us. It only lend credit to the local conservative narrative of "Budaya LGBT bukan budaya kita" or "LGBT culture is not our culture".
I know his heart was in the right place but it would've been more appreciated if local activists were consulted on it. Thus far his actions benefitted no one but himself and has only thrown the local SOGIESC community unwillingly into the spotlight. The spectacle was only seen by conservatives as imposing the foreign culture of our former colonisers onto our culture. Malaysian activism work still hinges a lot on changing hearts and minds of communities by communities, demographics by demographics, to which his actions, without any inherent messages other than to signal an opposition to oppressive laws, only brought unwanted attention to us.
I really hope that with this event in mind it can be a useful reminder to the importance of local community actions instead of these spectacles-based approach to only bring attention. There definitely are many things to learn from Western activist actions, but it must be up to local actors to bring it back to their own communities and decide how to implement them. Because, at the end of the day a bourgeois led revolution in the name of the proletariat is still a bourgeois revolution, cuz only the proletariat can lead a proletariat revolution.
Perfect comment.
Best of luck.
As a north african woman aching for reform, i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. you've managed to say everything i've been saying for the past few years in one single video - your best i would argue - et je t'adore du fin fond de mon coeur alice
I live in a Muslim Southeast Asian country. To be fair, given the levels of hyperpolarization, the Islamic fundamentalists are easily triggered by everything and western social media companies have zero interest in regulating their hate speech. The tech companies profit off this type of radical engagement. It is only inevitable that social conflicts are destined to happen. It's no longer possible to tiptoe around these issues and these countries are mature enough to take responsibility for their own politics. There are no victims, everyone is playing a game. Humans are the same everywhere. As much as I enjoy egging the occasional entitled and ignorant fool. You'd be terrified to stand with this mob. Westerners who aren't on the ground in these countries don't really have an accurate read on the situation. The 1958 novel, The Ugly American, might seem outdated but it encapsulates the hubris of intellectualizing a conflict without first experiencing it.
I agree with most of your points. But if Western companies try to regulate hate speech, maybe Islamic fundamentalists might take it as a colonialism action? In order to against colonialism, more and more ppl will become fundamentalist?
"It's no longer possible to tiptoe around these issues". Yes, that's my reaction, on this occasion against Alice's view. You start by discouraging some random gay kissing at a concert, very soon you are playing the game of the laughable hypocrites (the gay Iranian mullahs and Taliban, etc.).
Thank you for this view, I agree! Very insightful.
Accusing the West of causing the conservative backlash is a bit exaggerated. It is also the fault of radical Islam, which is spreading across the globe. Wahhabism which is also funded by Saudi Arabia and is popular across multiple countries there. Sure, the West used to be religious, but they thankfully got rid of it after Enlightenment values started to spread to the whole populace, and Capitalism, Socialism and Science broke free of the mold and container in which it had been born. There are similar Christian movements in the West now threatening minorities. So the subject should not be seen solely through colonial - anti-colonial lense. There are former colonies that are very liberal and anti-religious too.
In general any religious movements are harmful for their community, especially Christianity and Islam. Western values are internally incoherent because you're supposed to simultaneously believe in science and truth, yet due to "toleration" and "freedom of speech" religions and misinformation is supported
Well, sort of? The problem whith this kind of activism is not that "people" do it. Its that "westerners" do it in other countries, in wich the conservatives use the anti western feeling present in most 2nd and 3rd world nations to get elected.
It wouldn t be an issue if it was natives doing it, hell they do it here every July. The problem is when westerners come in to do it.
It also doesen t help that the super conservatives and facists get funding from western billionaires and governments either.
Such an awesome coincidence you bring this topic up about localism and being more active in our surrounding communities. It was something I have been increasingly thinking about more throughout this past week. Thank you!
Another great and thoughtful commentary by Alice...
When I saw the title though,, I thought it was gonna be about how even (or especially?) in the West, activism is NOT working due to ongoing state efforts to undermine/criminalize activists and their local causes!
Me too, though I think the greater obstacle is not so much the state's predictable resistance as a profound lack of social imagination. Everyone knows that the system is designed to prevent the kinds of changes we most desperately need, yet many people continue to invest all of their time and effort into political change rather than considering what could be accomplished outside of government by developing our own networks of mutual aid. Of course, it's necessary that we continue to fight for political change, but when we focus exclusively on this we're denying ourselves the greater part of our power.
This is a topic that ive been talking about frequently in the last while, im glad im watching more input about it… while the goals of progressiveness can have a global application, the methods those goals are achieved can vary drastically, as power structures across nations are built quite differently.
An example i used to take is how actors in the progressive movement has outlined homosexuality as a gender with specific aesthetics and behaviors. While homosexuality is merely a sexual orientation and can be associated with any social role, conservatives in developing countries use the exotic gender portrayed for homosexuality and feed on the emotions triggered by the unfamiliarity of that gender, and use them as an argument to convey that homosexuality is the sickness that lead to those weird portrayels.
Something that took me awhile to learn: let the others take the lead and follow what they do. They know what they need better than I do. Great discussion as always, Alice! I hope you are well!
i think the main thing i’m not sure about is if it’s right to say that healy was engaging in activism at all - he clearly felt badly about having come to Malaysia to play despite moral objections to their laws, so he did what would make him feel better, he transgressed. it wasn’t any play at activism, I can’t see how we could interpret him as trying to change anything there. i don’t think sharing an opinion can count as activism, at least not in this case. of course it was careless given what kind of problems it produced for the people in Malaysia, but he never was out to help them in the first place. he can’t be a white savior if his intention was always to act only for himself.
You have a good point. It's not like musicians are booking their own venues. That action on stage was most likely an attempt to stop his label booking shows in similar countries. He said, he didn't even want to play there. The band is being sued for 2million pounds, which really solidifies "Its only illegal, if you don't have the money to pay the fine." With the backlash and the fine, I doubt he'll be pulling a stupid stunt like this in the future.
Yeah I don't think he really fits the concept of white savior. More like privileged white person doing what he wants and in some areas that can be so transgressive it might appear to be activist - but there's no real intent behind it. Just "I do what I want, what are you gonna do to stop me?"
Agreed with this sentiment - what’s interesting is western media tending to frame it as it is, focusing only on the kiss and none of the additional context around it which further leads to that activism angle (Eg. how his application to perform was initially rejected by the govt but then overturned after an appeal by the organizers, then on stage being drunk, destroying the organizers’ drone, and just being plain rude. Yes, he’s “speaking up” for the LGBTQ community but I’m not sure if the local LGBTQ community appreciated that kind of a brash voice ‘representing’ them)
He's a child having a tantrum against his managers for booking him to perform in a conservative country.
Let’s not forget that generally kissing in public, let alone on stage, regardless of sexual orientation, is uncommon in Malaysia
Sexual policing is also not restricted to the LGBT+ community either
True, we asian no PDA. Gay or not. Not even in movies.
@@teknoid5878 Ignoring direct attack on Malaysian officials against LGBT community?
For a couple of years I've wanted to start an animal rights / veganism (abolitionist) philosophy course for beginners. Its not really a popular position in Mexico (my country). Perhaps I'll give the course every six months or so during the weekends.
A lot of vegans support bullshit welfare reforms or bans on certain products, but actually refuse to just speak about veganism because they don't think they can convince anyone. I think it's possible if we just take the time to read, write and speak in a friendly tone about our ideas.
Anyway, this video gave me further confirmation about the need for local or small initiatives. We don't need freaking PETA or Mercy for Animals to make progress.
Also, I love Kristin Ross book. Yet, I don't think I got how it relates to the video. Perhaps it has do to with the way the French state crushes creative and radical alternatives? Perhaps it has to do with the necessity of rethinking our ecology and how it combines with a luxurious life? Maybe I'm just overthinking it, and it's just a really good recommendation to think about political alternatives.
just love your comment so much. thank you!
Abolitionist veganism is one such example of ineffective activism, even if you're doing it sincerely as opposed to performatively. Convincing people to eat less meat for moral, health, and environmental reasons is far more effective.
@@synchronium24 I disagree. My guess is that you already are familiar with what I'm about to say, but it's worth repeating it. The aim of veganism should not be to reduce meat consumption, but to achieve a greater moral conscience on the moral value of animals.
If you promote reducetarianism, you are saying that there's really no problem with using animals as objects, because a sentient being either has moral value or it doesn't: If a being has moral value, then we shouldn't treat it as a property at all (for this reason, we don't think that it's ok to eat humans once in a while); if a being doesn't have moral value, then it's an object and there's really not problem in treating it as a property. From this position, it follows that reducetarianism is irrational, because it doesn't really affirm that animals have value, yet it asks us to somewhat behave as they did: it's like asking parents to beat their kids less often when, for starters, we should be sayin that kids should't be beaten at all. This is a perfectly reasonable starting point for human affairs, but some reason many animal orgs think it isn't for animal issues.
I think the position that abolitionism and straight vegan advocacy are ineffective is a self-fulfilling prophecy: most animals orgs refuse to promote veganism because they think is ineffective, so they convince people that they don't have to be vegans to "help" animals or support the cause (usually, they just ask for donations). This way, the number of vegans remains low, so the animal orgs further convince themselves that there'll never be a significant amount of vegans.
I think we have to trust people's intelligence and just speak up about veganism. It's really nothing extremist.
From my point of view (and I get the feeling we won't come to an agreement) is that the big animal orgs are the examples of the sort of self-congratulatory activism that this video criticizes. Now, we can spend a lot of time accusing the other's position of being ineffective, but I don't think we'll really get anywhere. My intention is not to drag this discussion. Still I will answer to you for the sake of dialogue, always in a respectful manner.
@@germenmalvado Let's start from the beginning of human beings. When we were hunting animals in forest, we didn't do much harm to animals even though we ate them. But when we started agriculture, we made many species distinct.
You might say hunters also wiped out some species, it's true, but much less than in agricultural people. Every plant product you eat is based on intrusion and occupation of animals' habitat. In this case, if you want to be consistent, veganism isn't much better for animals' rights.
The point you made about the difference between value and aesthetic was quite interesting. Probably a really important topic to discuss, because differentiating between aesthetic and activism becomes quite hard in germany
I really liked this video!! I appreciate the analysis of activism from a more holistic and international lense. I think international issues are a huge blind spot for me, and I wish to expand my knowledge of progressive issues beyond the American lense.
This channel is fantastic I think. It’s informative without being agitative. A lot of leftist UA-camrs focus on agitative propaganda, and it’s nice to have an alternative in your content :)
What is "agitative propaganda"?
@@serdirtbagoftheleft4045 a certain style of conveying information. Google can explain better than I. I believe Stalin coined the phrase but I could be entirely wrong.
As a Malaysian, I can wholly say that the timing was far from perfect given it was near to the state elections in 6 states, where it is a battle ground between progressive and traditional Muslims. The regular mistake done by non-traditionalists is they get sucked into the race and religion game.
Also, the sad reality is LGBT is very rejected in Malaysia's current socio-cultural climate. Things got worse for the community, where even the so-called "fence sitters" are calling for performers to keep their "liberal" agenda and politics out of music, which is a tall order for some international acts.
I'm still fucking pissed that I didn't get to see The Strokes, though. Fuck everyone involved in the cancellation.
Honest question as a Muslim, what makes you think that Muslims will ever accept LGBT acts within their societies?
Malaysia is a muslim country, what to you expect.
Omg yes. Malaysia just reversed a secret coup by the ultra-nationalist conservative political bloc and appointed the mainly progressive political coalition. Then this bullshit happened. Now the progressive coalition has to make concessions to the conservative Malays so they won't lose the next election. I read last week that the Parliament is reconsidering to not overturn the sodomy laws after months of debates and in fact legislating stricter laws specifically concerning LGBTQ. Wonder what happened... 😤
Rip bro. Hopefully you catch the Strokes next time
no such thing as progressive Muslims. Islam is inherently conservative. Any follower of Islam will automatically be at least be conservative
Matt Healy made a rebuttal to some of these general accusations. Here's a small excerpt:
“The 1975 did not waltz into Malaysia unannounced, they were invited to headline the festival by a government that had full knowledge of the band, its well-publicized political views, and its routine stage shows. The Malaysian festival organizers’ familiarity with the band was the basis of their invitation. Me kissing Ross was not a stunt suddenly invented to provoke the government, it was an ongoing part of The 1975 stage show which has been performed many times prior. We chose to not change our set that night (to play pro freedom of speech and pro gay songs)
To eliminate any routine part of the show in an effort to appease the Malaysian authorities’ bigoted views of LGBTQ people would be a passive endorsement of those politics. As liberals are so fond of saying: ‘Silence equals violence:’ use your platform. So we did, and that’s where things got complicated. Naturally, the Malaysian authorities were irate since homosexuality is criminalized by death in their authoritarian theocracy. That is the violence: reality obscured by the more friendly term ‘cultural customs.’ But it was the liberal outrage against our band for remaining consistent with our pro-LGBTQ stage show that was the most puzzling thing. Lots of people who appeared to be liberal people contended that the performance was an insensitive display of hostility against the cultural customs of the Malaysian people and that the kiss was a performative gesture of allyship. To start, the idea of calling out a performer for being performative is mind-numbingly redundant as an exercise. Performing is the performer’s job. The stage is a place for creative artistic expressions that are inherently dramatized. That’s why audiences go to fucking shows. Other apparently liberal people contend that the kiss was itself a form of colonialism, that The 1975, in the rich tradition of evil white men forcing their western beliefs on the eastern world. My, how the west has fallen, ladies and gentlemen. The Dutch East India Company could have saved a fortune on weaponry if they knew that all they had to do was make out with each other to forcibly subjugate the people they were exploiting. To call The 1975’s performance “colonialism” is a complete inversion of the word’s meaning. Colonialism is the practice of forcible occupation and economic exploitation. Once again, The 1975 was INVITED into the country to headline Malaysia’s music festival in an effort to capitalize on our popularity so that they could make money… There's a contradiction at the heart of the liberal outrage over our supposed cultural insensitivity. Their unconditional belief in inclusivity and religious tolerance has led them to indirectly support a government that is intolerant of their own existence. What responsibility do liberals have to be ideologically chivalrous to those who wish them death?"
You’re right that local specificities have to be taken into account, and in the case of the non-Western countries you mention, the best thing western activism can do is to help open up debates and not provoke and participate in cultural wars. The majority of these countries are recent, fragile, generally poor, and try to build an identity after a colonial period, and under the pressure of capitalist neocolonialism
What you say reminded me of an article written by Arab feminists complaining about the lack of support for feminism from Arab women, and although much of what they list as discrimination against women is real , they did not realize that a large part of their discourse is an import of "struggle" that are specific to the Western context (rich, developed countries, with an economy that can integrate women etc.), that the gender roles and local traditions and the family structure, although inequitable towards women, ensure them a certain protection in a context of poverty sometimes extreme, in which there is so much pressure on men to provide for their families, that they feel obliged to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean in rudimentary boats, to try to find a job in Europe to send money to their families.
In these conditions call for "liberation from men's domination" more like a call for betrayal, so the backlash against them comes from the women themselves.
That's a really new perspective to me, but it makes so much sense. Thank you!
@@phoebeel
You're welcome
That's what decolonial movements like declonial feminism have been saying for a while now.
@@samyd5410 I know that decolonial or postcolonial feminism exists and basically what they argue but I didn't know about this specific example of Muslim women not wanting to betray their male family members.
@@phoebeel
Hey sorry I didn't see your message
Yes, a few years ago there was a big trend on Arab social media "I will never let down my father" or something like that, initiated by many women in some muslim countries against the discourse and proposals of activists who called for the reduction of the authority of fathers within families.
Some activist speeches, feminist among others, don't work or are very badly received because these are not individualistic societies, and it's not only because of conservative traditionalism, in many societies the family and the community protect against very harsh living conditions.
But I don't think it's specific to muslim woment ; I've seen many conservative American and other Western women saying similar things.
I don't know anything about Healy and his own motivations and education on the subject, but it's a tricky line between demonstrably showing support for certain causes and doing nothing at all. An outspoken boycott could just as similarly be weaponised by local parties as a demonstration of westerners needlessly involving themselves.
Also, I feel it sort of needed to be said - it's mentioned in the text of some of the articles and Alice flirts with it by only saying "conservatives" but religion, in this case Islam, has a far larger part to play in this specific scenario than colonialism, as trendy as it is to blame the latter for all the evils of ex-colonial countries.
Islam is a colonial force. It’s just a slightly older one.
@@LGrian You could argue humans themselves are a colonial force. It should be down to the Malayan tapir to pass judgment on LGBT legislation.
@@LGrianIslam is a colonial force? You don't see Muslims going around invading countries and trying to force our views onto people with different beliefs then trying to force that on them. I do see that liberals go around trying to force us to accept their degeneracy all the time.
Never thought I would ever see a Western UA-camr talk about the whole Good Vibes Festival debacle in Malaysia. Glad to see Malaysia's issues getting more global attention.
Definitely agreed with the title before I started but I think the quote about support being readily available when you can score political points pretty much sums up everyone involved in this scenario and could be applied to those who come up in a similar conversation.
Healy was clearly trying to get back to a point of being loved for expressing a poorly placed liberal sentiment after the whole podcast thing. Rina Samawaya trying to stir up controversy about a joke mocking the axis powers fits so funnily in this whole situation too. The comms side of the music industry at present really highlights the lack of context they’ve been operating with forever, ie. Lizzo.
Also if Harry Styles did what Healy did he’d probably get a knighthood and pretend like he’d turn it down.
Absolutely love your videos you deserve a huge audience btw!
As a queer Malaysian, I'm so happy you made this video. Some of the comments under this video are absolutely rancid.
In regards to musicians who don't want to play in a homophobic country, you could just simply not go. Seriously... if you're an out queer person and you don't wanna come to Malaysia (or other anti-lgbt countries), please don't come for your own sakes. /gen
I do agree with a few other comments stating that colonialism isn't the exclusive reason for the anti-lgbt laws in Malaysia right now (the rise in Islamic conservatism for the past 2 decades is a major cause too).
Idk if Healy was doing it for "activism", but it still resulted in QUEER MALAYSIANS (the community) that were negatively impacted. Because you know who knows intimately about the homophobia in Malaysia, Gay Malaysians.
Colonialism is the core reason why we have that law in the first place, which is the seed that worsen the hatered against the lgbtq+ in our country.
When you plant a weed it will grow and it's hard to get rid of.
Reactionaries will be reactionaries because they never sit down and think.
Look our country is never the bastion of lgbtq+ before the british, but toleration is better than eradication but of course acceptance is the best.
1:26 Not the mention of Section 377, the bane of our existence. Even though it’s scrapped in India, it’ll take a long while for things to be better.
A lot of political performances in the pop genre are highly praised. I think, the Healy kiss was less of a political statement and more of an action to stop his record label booking similar venues in the future. The kiss reaction might show a big shift in the overall public opinion of such political messages in music. It makes me wonder how this will play out in the future?
Love the video! The photograph at 4:13 is actually of Empress Dowager Cixi and her eunuchs, in Qing dynasty China, taken around 1903.
It's worth mentioning that the Swatch & The 1975 incidents respectively came around the bad time since it's during the state elections here in Malaysia. A lot of us are trying to stave off the "Green Wave" led by a very hardline conservative party. The Swatch thing is just to discriminate against the local LGBTQ; but also to draw in more conservative votes away from the opposition party, which frankly, didn't work. Matt Healy's is really bad timing and further worsens the precarious situation during our state elections.
Anyway, we've hold on to our seats, but barely, since the opposition conservative party have now hold more territories than the current federal govt.
The question now is what can we do to help the local LGBTQ here, rebuild our country while trying to stave off the fundamentalist party from encroaching onto our territory?
Why is it any of your business who he kisses? Just because your politicians are awful doesn't mean it's everyone else's responsibility to not do gay things while visiting your country. Blame the politicians
@@intrusive-th0tmost of us Malaysians would agree with you that our politicians are awful. The struggle is how to change that given the corruption in the country. It’s not like the west where there are relatively stronger institutions to keep our politicians in check, so sociopolitical change is going to be less straightforward than an awareness campaign and an election.
On Matty Healy specifically, much of the media focuses on the kiss but not much else on the context that The 1975's application to perform was initially denied. Organisers appealed on 13 July, vouched for The 1975 in writing that the band will not act out & will take full responsibility should there be any non-compliance of the rules.
He violated that contract with his drunken tirade, blatant insults of the government, and ofc the kiss. Again, Malaysians might agree with that sentiment but it’s not something you’re free to tell to the govt’s face. Where many have been upset is the blatant disrespect of the ministry’s goodwill faith he wouldn’t act out, pushing the message far too aggressively, and causing the entire festival cancelled - cue losses for all the other artists and vendors involved and sabotaging another creative platform.
Creative spaces where lgbtq communities thrive are already under threat as it is. A loud brash act of performative activism just puts a further unnecessary target on their back. Matty Healy’s awful reputation also makes whatever he says or does easier to discredit and disregard.
If he truly did it for the benefit of our local lgbtq community, he could’ve uplifted them in other ways like donating to local causes or highlighting the activist work that’s already being done on the ground. Instead the guy took the money and ran
This video just popped right after I read an article about the gay kiss in Malaysia 😲
The photo depicting "Sida Sida" was actually a photo of Empress Dowager Cixi and her eunuchs... That was Qing China not Malaysia
^^^This video doesn’t feel sufficiently researched, which is unusual. Hope she considers reuploading with that correction and some additional perspectives.
@@LGrian Yeah, the new life movement part skipped over the fact that it was done in response to the May 4th movement which talked abt ideas of female emancipation, anarchism and anti-imperialism.
I usually like these videos but i dont know why it went off on a chinese history tangent? It feels a bit like 'malaysia is just a part of all that same area' without realising malaysia and china are entirely different.
Great video!
It has been said that war is politics by other means. The truth is, politics is war by other means. If you do not utilize local guides on enemy territory, you are likely to lose.
1. Take power
2. Leverage that power to gain more power
3. Give power to the worst-off.
4. Repeat
maybe im just too cynical but it seems that every coup or "revolution" does pretty well with part 1 and 2 and somehow never quite make it to part 3..
@@zeusmultirotor8479 revolutions that work as intended are few and far between, that's why people cherish them...
Its why plenty of Americans treat their founding fathers more like religious deities spreading the word of God. Because its so rare for revolutionaries to legitimately put their ideals above their political interests (like George Washington not even wanting to be president, but when his country asked him to be one, he did the best a man could do).
@@zeusmultirotor8479 NGL, step 3 is usually whitewashed as a convenient excuse to seize power. But there is change in the air. The Age of Simony is coming to a close and the Age of Pluralism is dawning. Money talked itself into a trap. Much love!
@@freddy4603 speaking of whitewashing. Lol. And yes, cannot disagree. That revolution worked as intended. Just not sure you are aware of what their intent was. I appreciate your time and effort commenting. Much love!
@@rkmh9342 their intent was to keep expanding west. Thats what both the elites and the people wanted, and the only ones really standing in their way were the crown across the sea that had just decided to start taxing them more.
Certainly a controversial desire by todays standards, but aside that, its one of the greatest successes of the Western world.
To many countries hide behind “but colonialism gave us these laws we still happily use. It’s not our fault”. Malaysia has had well over a century to remove theses laws but they don’t because they agree with them.
It’s a pretty conservative place. A good 60% is Muslim and most would happily tell you LGBT people shouldn’t exist.
yeah it was pretty horrible to sit in the back of the car listening to my parents talk about the "degenerates of the west" and their "gay agenda". i don't know when i'll ever be out to my family at this point. infinite gratitude towards matty.
In California some schools are now required to tell the parents if their child is expressing any LGBTQ interests in school.
It's the "tell them that their gay" law.
Find some bravery and come out. Letting them control the narrative lets them win. You need to shatter their mind set
Well when you see what the schools in the West are teaching kids, then you would agree with them.
Children have NO business learning anything about LGBTQ+.
And yes, the West IS degenerate and becoming more degenerate.
@@SaintGBar22it's not safe for them to come out, both legally and socially. you can't force someone to come out in the name of shattering mindsets.
courage to you OP, as a fellow queer Malaysian i hope things will get better for us soon. you're not alone.
@@SaintGBar22 Matty Healy is in the comments yall
Recently this was a big topic in Mexico, because a feminist influencer went to an event in Rwanda and all her posts were about she becoming the white saviour. She was very criticized and the topic of social enterpreneurship came into. It has been a big thing how white saviours now are making money from social movements.
As a Chinese, I have to say before we had interaction with Westerners, women's status was very low. Both Soong Mey Ling and the woman in the movie New Woman who wanted to be a writer are women models from the West, one is a traditional model and one is a progressive model which is inspired by A Doll's House written by Ibsen from Norway.
@@anarchosyndicalist We don't share any cultural commonality. I've read history that before Islamization you people had the highest gender equality globally, but Chinese are not the same.
But history isn't the most important we should look at. It's meanless if I say China was the greatest empire in 800 BC because we are not living in 800 BC.
Your comment is bordering on apologia for Western colonialism
@@avinashreji60 We disabled most of women to let them could not walk fast to leave home. That's our pure, untouched original culture.
That is not the entire story though.
Foot binding is something that started in the imperial court and got spread into the society, in fact many women from ethnic minorities and distant villages did not do it. This was simply another example of elite women deciding the status of womens' rights in the country without hearing the voice of lower class women.
And it was not just "western interaction" that was helping women's rights, it was western colonialism that weakened the monarchy and made Chinese people finally question the status quo and rose up and started the revolution. Western colonisers at the time had no interest to save Chinese women from their oppression and only wanted the money and resources.
The Chinese history of modernisation is extremely complicated, I agreed that Alice probably didn't use the best examples here but I think her point is valid.
@@celeste654 Westerners weren't interested in helping women's rights but elite women could read from the West. "A doll's house" isn't within mainstream western value but a radical anti-patriarcal work. The concept of human right is a very new concept from Enlightenment, and it didn't exist in China or anywhere in the world. The same for some eastsouth Asian, they were not lgbtq friendly(since this is a concept derived from human rights) but just had different gender norms.
Food binding might started from the court but it's Qing dynasty, the Manchu monarchs actually dislike and even opposed food binding but this practice was still popular.
Another British boy band pop group came to a former colony and disagreed with their laws and customs and they used their privilege to break those rules. It was the Beatles playing in the Southern USA and they refused to play to segregated audiences. Should they have agreed to segregate their audience because it wasn’t their place to intervene and they didn’t understand the political situation on the ground? No, and local activists cheered them on for what they did. The KKK got riled up but many more people realized that segregation was bullshit and many young black people stood with their white peers for the first time at a concert.
I feel like the left spends so much time and energy fighting amongst ourselves instead of fighting injustice. Debating whether some else’s activism is good or bad instead of helping fight discrimination. Did Matt Healy help anything politically by kissing a man onstage? Eh probably not, but he did what rock and rollers have been doing for decades - sticking their middle finger up to authority. More people should be doing that and doing less debating the finer details or rebelling against oppressive regimes who don’t give a shit about decorum or debate.
I think it’s different because both UK and USA are majority white, very wealthy and both are/were colonizers, even tho the USA was once a colony to the UK. Both are western powers that always interfere with non-western countries. If the 1975 helped local activists in their fight it would be much more respectful to their LGBT Malaysian colleagues. People need to ask oppressed communities HOW they can help them or if they need help at all. Like respect their autonomy. The 1975 were giving ✨white saviour complex ✨ vibes
@@richelleangelaguerra5440 the southern US isn't majority white and never has been, though. It seems that way because of our particular expression of apartheid but don't get it twisted: white majorities are strange, alien things to the South, artifacts of black migration away the moment the folk that could escape that rule did, and the expulsion and genocide of indigenous peoples.
I feel like you're missing the point. It's not that there was anything wrong in what he did, it's just that he did it at the wrong place and at the wrong time, with no thought or care whatsoever for the people who are going to be affected because of his selfish actions. His white saviour antics just allowed the Muslim conservatives in Malaysia to win in their state elections and put the LGBTQ+ community of Malaysia in the spotlight. And what he did, doesn't affect him not a fucking thing.
You mentioned 'the local activists cheer them on for what they did' - That makes all the difference why the Matty Healy situation is harmful while the Beatles was not.
@@caffetielwdym the south isn’t majority white? It absolutely is.
Every activism done in the face of performance and mediatic impact akins to woke-washing in my book. In many of the volunteer and activist activities I've partaken, the most important thing seemed to be "how it would look on the public eye" instead of what is actually beign achieved. Prove of that is that these actions are allways possitive, in the sense that, even when they intend to be very political and put on conservative people; they allways refrain from showing anger, bitterness, or the crude face of the misery they are fighting against. It's all toned down and glossed over, all fun and spectacle.
These actions just seem like a good excuse for "compromised", very well-off savy mediators to suck up public funds that could be better invested in ways that don't imply shouting over the real activists, or gentrifying the diverse neighborhoods until achieving the expulsion of the very people they supossedly want to help, from a very patronizing christian possition. I don't use the term colonial, because to me that does not point the underlying messianic benefactor attitude, the elephant in the room over which colonialism rode upon; but the fact of the matter is that we don't speak of coloniasm when non-christian countries invade one another. Heck, sometimes we don't even make the connection between the two when talking about "patriarchy"
We have contested colonialism, but we have not contested the notion of charity, or missionary work. IMHO this is one of the big reasons as to why these dynamics are alive and well, and still seen as a mark of virtue in our culture. Religion may have been divorced from law and rights; but still permeates the culture and tells people how to behave if not what to belive in. And we have absolutely no place telling other people to change their ways of behaving and thinking, if we are not willing to do just as much first.
Right because heavily muslim malaysia would be a queer paradise if it weren't for the british lmao
6:15 Ruan is pronounced "Jouanne" (as you would pronouncit in French); you pronounced it as if it were "Huang". Excellent video. 7:05 Chang-Kai Shek was a proper fascist; but he would not have considered himself Western. Republic of China's Shanghai scene was relatively emancipating compared to rural China. The communists (who were in theory for gender equality) would have been seen as "westernised". Modernity and "west" would have been seen as emancipatory. 1920s are not the 1950s
I've been meaning to ask; if you haven't made one already I'd love to see a video covering french activism. Is a topic I've been recently curious about and as a french person yourself I'm sure you have some interesting things to say ^-^
btw your stuff is always super duper insightful. Thanks sm for always making such good content, specially about topics like these💜😙
Any feminist interested in this subject should give a chance to the book "Against White Feminism" by Rafia Zakaria 💗
I'm in agreement with what the point of this video is. I just don't believe that this type of "activism" will ever die. Our current world system "one that's empowered by American exceptionalism/economical rule is tilted towards white people/anyone who agrees with American values. I just don't see any of this changing until a new world order where every country is given an equal say in every international matter. Of course there's definitely going to be drawbacks since it's mainly the governments having a say and not the people. Another similar example is the recent FIFA world cup in Qatar, just look at the " Western activism" against Qatar, using Queer, Women's rights, etc., as pawns.
cool video! i've felt the same way for a while, especially with uganda's anti-lgbt legislation (also a byproduct of english colonization). progress can't be achieved through diplomats telling them from a distance to knock it off, but through supporting and uplifting grassroots movements.
that being said, could you please fix the english captions? they're inaccurate half the time, like 3:11 saying conservatives have an "LGBTQ+ agenda" lol
Malaysia has been independent for seven decades, I think its OK to blame their politicians for their homophobic laws at this point.
Malaysia also has a stability problem, which leads to a facade of unity as the government and virtually everyone competent does preparation like moving the capital.
Not to mention the country is over 60% Sunni Muslim.
@@pastedsmiley why do you assume every comment is that person's "only takeaway"?
I'm Malaysian. Yes, one can blame our politicians for anti-trans, homophobic laws. But we cannot deny the long-lasting colonial influence. maybe hide your white fragility a bit better.
@@pastedsmiley you didn't answer his question.
Love is very good at motivating people. And bonding with other humans.
The problem is: Putting a flower in a gun barrel doesn't always work. And nobody has a Plan B, when the guy shoots anyway.
Encore une youtubeuse a partager a tous les copains sur les réseaux, super vidéo
I feel like this also applies to charity. I hate when people around me generically donate to a "seems good" ogranization and never follow through with what is happening yo the donated resourses. So, at this point of my life, I decided to donate and support only locally around me. I know this has its own shortcomings as a decision, but at least I dont do more harm than good and dont feed the wrong side.
This is such a completely idiotic and inaccurate interpretation of the movie New Women. Wei Ming wasn't even in the domestic life and ideal of what a woman should be that you claimed. She also did not kill herself because she was unable to become a writer, but because her daughter died and the dire financial circumstances she was in (which had nothing to do with family life, mind you). Did you literally pull a summary off of sparknotes and called it a day?
Thank you for another well-researched and clearly presented video.
Perhaps famous western activists should consult with local activists when deciding on the best way to “help.”
to begin with, celebraties wont save us. to but that expectation on them to an exhadurated extent is silly
Hey Alice!
Thanks for this vid.
Now that you've said that western activism doesnt work, I want to add that it's culturally insensitive, very white and Christian, and purposefully "forgets" intersectionality.
As for Matty Healy, I've heard a bit of him, in that he's a racist piece of shit while he and Taylor dated... (Again, I may have the wrong person, and I encourage anyone to let me know of any corrections as I don't know everything and I'm not completely right)
Another thing: white queer and trans communities (as I am a white, Jewish, nonbinary and trans man, so I'm including myself as I've been guilty of it) purposefully "forget" that racialised trans folks are the least likely to access healthcare, the most likely to be hate crimed (with Black trans women and trans women of colour who are affected the most), the most reluctant to access gender-affirming care [as gender-affirming care has lots of racial disparities and a lack of cultural sensitivity], the least likely to be afforded housing and the most likely to be at-risk of homelessness and substance abuse, and the most likely to experience additional exclusion in queer and trans spaces because queer and trans spaces have a racism, exclusion, colonialism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, Asiaphobia, and anti-Semitism in addition to queerphobia, interphobia and transphobia.
Racialised trans folks are also the most likely to have to navigate additional issues in predominantly white and leftist trans and queer spaces.
(if anyone who is QTBIPOC wants to add on, I fully encourage you to do so)
If it weren't for Black trans women, trans women of colour and QTBIPOC sex workers who led the movement: queer and trans communities won't be able to have the privileges they have today, and marginalised white trans and queer people are going to need to keep this in mind (yes, I'm calling myself out and my fellow white trans queer people out).
Hey Alice, what do you think about Veganism? It is a social justice issue that I'd love your thoughts on :)
On adapting activism to the people that environment: In my activism, I always try to make it about animal rights. Health and environment are always secondary to the victims. Your dialogue on the development of human rights across the globe is always empowering. Thanks for doing what you do.
BTW, I loved your pronunciation of everyone's names!
i think this video really helped me sort my thoughts out on a lot of policies in my country
i mean i knew what and how they were, but now, this video really gave me particular ideas to characterise what are the anti human rights movements in my country
they're different than "we've been opressed, so any kind of forceful action will trigger a backlash", but it is still about seeing human rights movements as a general opressional thing
i fell like i knew it before, but now i have ways to reason with some of them
and maybe make as much difference as i can in this
thank you
Do you not think that they will use any excuse to pass these laws? I don't think they're arguing in good faith. Keep in mind Malaysia was a Sultanate and was governed by Sharia before the Brits came. The "tolerance" they showed was minimal at best.
Specificism has to be the norm in every form of activism. Not every country pollutes the same. Not every country has the same problems, or same responsibility or same exact circumstances. Everything is nuanced, and we have to think of human societies as a group of tribes, instead of a big tribe. We are all different and we have to accept ourselves with our differences instead of looking for homogeneity or the suppression of one culture for another. We are tribal in nature.
Thank you for this very insightful video. How do we compare it against "Eastern" activism? What qualifies Western activism to be considered separately, or, as differentiated from what? Which isn't an apologia for Western activism, but perhaps a call to acknowledge the complexity of getting Westerners wanting to want the right kind of activism to execute. :)
Eastern Activism is conforming to societies expectations and getting mad when other's point out the eastern countries inhumanity.
4:43 The Swaddle has a great video on the origins of this Act.
Indian here. Article 377 of Indian Penal Code (that criminalised homosexuality and other "unnatural" sexual practices) was only struck down in 2018 by the supreme court. We still have a long way to go to right the damages done by the colonial rule and the laws they imposed. (Incidentally we're celebrating our 77th independence day from the british today - 15 aug 2023)
I just discovered your channel and I love it!
Je vais écrire en français, je suis nettement plus à l'aise comme cela (et mon correcteur aussi)
J'ai découvert grâce à cette vidéo que l'origine coloniale de certaines lois anti LGBT. Je pense à tous ces stéréotypes entendus du type "les pays ne sont pas développés, vous avez vu les lois qu'ils ont encore, il faut aller les éduquer et leur expliquer la vie" quand... Ce sont des colons qui ont importé ces lois au début! On reprend les mêmes schémas, à vouloir toujours importer notre société occidentale partout où on va.
Le community organizing est un outil qui permettrait de faire de l'activisme autrement. Il permet d'aller soutenir des populations dans leurs problématiques en se basant sur leur solution et leur localité....
L'histoire coloniale des pays se perd et dans nos cours à l'école, on a l'impression que tout ça c'est derrière nous alors que pas du tout. Merci d'avoir partagé cela ...
Possibly your best essay yet, amazing! It's really interesting to see how, despite some ideological change, the colonial mindset of "we know what's better for you" hasn't changed at all.
I got a bit curious about the Lyon-Turin tunnel. I read about it superficially but its a bit hard to form an opinion about it. Some say it will have a positive impact, others do a different calculation and say it won't. Doesn't seem like the kind of decision I'm qualified to make. Will try reading more about it, but not being an expert on any of the relevant fields, it's eventually gonna be about what side I choose to believe in, which will probably be based on reasons that have nothing to do with science. Activism can be pretty tricky, sometimes.
the end felt incredibly inspirational. I often worry thinking that theres nothing I can do to prevent rich people from destroying my home but there is:)
Matty never makes me mad so much as he just makes me sigh deeply in disappointment 😂 I like the bands music and their political takes / white-cis-het-saviour behaviour are basically acceptable in a western context but its just not going to translate well in countries like Malaysia, where the law is involved and hes not as familiar with what's already being done locally to combat the issue. Him kissing men onstage & speaking in defence of womens reproductive rights in famously right wing USA states is in a different universe to this and he just doesnt seem to get it. One is an act of solidarity, the other is a completely thoughtless, self serving and pointlessly chaotic mess. At the end of the day hes just another nepo baby and every time he gets called out on something like this he just throws a tantrum, breaks his toys on the way out. You can only pity him, ignore him and hope the damage hes done can be addressed
Enjoy the bravery of having no rights!
Stonewall could've never happened in your country
That's so true. So many years after colonialism and some countries still think 'we know better, we will educate you'. The effect of these actions is the opposite and more people going far-right.
Malaysia's laws concerning sex and gender may have started with British colonialization but I think everyone knows Islamic law plays a dominant role now..
Exactly. They are using British code as a scapegoat, it's so annoying
you hit the nail on the head - appreciate the nuance here.
I am a man, right wing (well libertarian) and definitely not a feminist. But I can recognize that your videos are well reasoned, thoughtful, well researched and - frankly - thought provoking. So even though I am probably not your target audience I really enjoy your videos, thank you very much for doing the hard work in clarifying and presenting these ideas. + Subscribed
I’m on the other side of the political spectrum from you and am probably the target audience for videos like this. It’s good to see people watching well researched things from other political view points. I enjoy doing that as well.
A message to Western activists: don't make make matters worse for the locals, especially when dealing with the kind of regimes who love to have an excuse to crack down on internal opposition, calling them "traitors in collusion with foreign imperialist agents". You play right into their propaganda.
1920s/30s China is far more complicated - that the KMT and New Life Movement were an example of western activism. Not at all. They were more an example of nationalist appropriation of some ideas and tools to engage with modernity - attempts which had started even before the fall of the Qing Dynasty and continued through the May 4th Movement. I like your general point, but let's not overstate the cultural impact of western contact. It was trivial.
It's so interesting to me how we are growing into a global community and have to deal with that western approach of expanding it's ideas at all costs.
In Argentina we just had the PASO (which are preliminary elections) and the rightest right came to win. Now all the activists are trying to figure out how we let this happen; I believe it has to do with our lack of ideas on how to solve structural problems with our local experiences and ideas. It seems like all we can think of as a society is to subordinate to the historical hegemonic logic and try to replicate them everywhere without even hesitating.
We now have the tools as the working class to share globally our concerns, so I find logical to try and figure out new ways of being a part of this global society we created, respecting the diverse historic processes.
the term „western activism“ is too broad to actually mean anything besides maybe „comming from any country under the umbrella term western“ and „pushing for a political interest without being backed by gov. institutions“. So many people and politics can be called western activism while having very contradictory goals. So it can only be a criticism directed against any kind of political influence from perceived outsiders. A call for acting local (while thinking global?). Fair point. But we also find ourselves in a heavily entangled, global society/culture/economy with all its institutions. I don’t really get the point of this video but it being a call to do actual activism?
Such a well-produced video. Really shows how much you have done your research :) Greetings from Indonesia
interesting! i think westerners (probably due to western media) can carry the idea that all their values are the correct values, so when it comes to something like political movements that would benefit other countries, it's almost as if people are trying to force change without the grassroots action needed for certain rights, while simultaneously denouncing movements that could benefit other countries (more equal law, public services, socialism being a key example) and thinking they're backwards or living in a fantasy, when it doesn't allign with what they've been told...
Everyone believes their values are right, by definition.
@@kanucks9Yes, the difference being that some people really want to force their beliefs to other countries.
Love that you pronounce influencers as influenzas 😅 great video, makes me analyse myself and motivations.
I agree with the critique on the functionality of western activism across the board, but the question I'm left with is one regarding the ideal way for a celebrity like matty healy to use their influence to support local activism without falling into the white savior trope in a situation like this. Local ground-up activism is more effective and functional, absolutely, but how should people in these situations act ideally? I can't seem to conceptualize anything concrete, would love to hear from someone with more insight!
Simple. Western celebrities should do activism in their own country, and not fly to mine as a diva tourist just to pull off a stupid publicity stunt that does nothing but harm to our community.
As a Malaysian, I can tell you: as long as the “celebrity” is white or non-Muslim, any form of activism will not work here. Anti-West propaganda is very strong in the education system.
I've kind of been waiting for this Alice!! A very juicy topic, so its another favorite video of mine. Though this can extend into other sub-topics concerning western hegemony influencing Southeast Asia, which I'm sure you're aware of. Very heavy. I kind of touched upon this from our last conversation online, just specifically the difference of religious influence between America and the Philippines. My father used to remind me that a major culture shock for activists is forgetting that race is not an issue in Filipino politics, it is class, and Catholicism is not the problem, but the specific sects. So just dealing with those alone is going to affect how activism is going to work in the Philippines. The one common thread though, is the fear of communism as usual. Would definitely like to collaborate again soon, we need to catch up!!
And sorry I'm late to this!! A month ago! What.
It seems like Western activists who care about international issues are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
If you go to that place and try to use your own energy, resources, and audience to help, you are a "white saviour" at best and "making things worse by not understanding local context" at worst.
If, however, you simply support from a far - retweeting local activists, trying to learn about their specific context and needs - you are treading dangerously close to "slacktivism". That is, if you are even able to learn about the issue in the first place.
What, for example, is the ideal scenario for a LGBT band member who has a show to play in Malaysia, who just learned that his identity in this country is against the law? Is it to pack up his bags and not play the show? Is it to spend about 6.5 seconds looking up a LGBT movement in Malaysia and giving them a retweet? Or is it to say, what the heck - I feel passionate about this issue and I'm going to speak about it - consequences be damned.
We in the West believe in free speech. Without it, we wouldn't have concerts to begin with. Look at Afghanistan, where they are literally burning musical instruments. Look at the UA-cam comment section, where we are having this discussion. This entire world we live in exists based on the right of the individual to express themselves.
To take right that away from the individual because of historical wrongs does not strike me as progressive.
I agree saviorism is a real issue but awareness of saviorism shouldn't be taken to the extreme of "just let them have the death penalty for adultery (when it's a woman) and being gay. It's their country. Don't say anything, you're white."
Someone from that part of the world needs to be the one empowered to lead that but I don't believe in awkwardly looking away and refusing to discuss problems.
You raise a great point, but I think the issue is with the idea of westerners having to be at the center of solving those issues. In an ideal world it would be possible to empower the communities most impacted by the problems and increase their access to various resourses, but that is obviously easier said than done
It's always gonna be awkward because these people insist they know right and others are wrong.
Dumb white ladies love talking about accepting minorities as well asa the rainbow people, totally ignoring that minorities don't take kindly to homo's.
You don't have a good answer to that, because there isn't one. When you keep telling others how to live, at some point you have to admit you think you know better.
you have to actually approach our problems with a "cut the head off the snake" strategy or you ARE a hw!te savior imposter activist. you have to be willing to identify the source of the problem. give up all your emotional attachment to it. which is reallllllly hard for anyone even remotely well off inside of eurocentric countries. they are told if they were to live any other way, all luxuries and conveniences would disappear and every one would die of starvation etc. in reality, our current system LITERALLY causes 99% of the entire species to die from labor induced starvation. something that wasnt very common until n4z1s started employing the strategy. before workers were at least fed enough to be able to function. now they just work you to death as fast as possible then move on to the next vulnerable soul to be victimized. i never get the hw!te savior accusation thrown at me because of this. im not trying to enforce eurocentric culture onto others. im trying to abolish it and anything that remotely resembles it because i know concepts like countries are just convoluted ways for people with the worst intentions to establish ownership over what they literally refer to as "herds" of humans... we can keep things like parts of cultures. dress, music, food, arts, etc etc. but we have no functional purpose to divide our laws and living conditions or to distribute resources unevenly anymore. we all realize our interdependence on each other better since the pandemic forced us to see how we are all effected by each and every living thing we share the earth with. and we all realize the archaic divisions of currencies and laws serve no purpose other than to keep wealth and power consolidated into the worst humans, the ones who should never have those things in a sane world. imagine how high of a quality of life we could achieve if we did away with those things and established global direct democracy + eliminated wealth hoarders. every human on earth could be living like the most wealthy people do right now, but with the added requirement of actually having to do work to contribute to society and play your role in its functioning to earn your part of the experience of being in a civilization.
Except that doing what he did likely will cause more deaths, more laws, more conservativism, that won't affect him. It'll affect the queer community that lives there.
It's the height of western self-centeredness to think "no it's totally cool for me to say whatever even though I'm leaving tomorrow but the queer community here will have to deal with the repercussions"
Just. Fucking think about the repercussions of your actions??
I mostly like the video! Good to bring to the attention that famous people often ignore local issues and bring problems with locally unacceptable behavior. The complex local situation is always hard to understand, and requires local solutions.
In that thought.
The standard formula of: "here's one example of a royal court in Malaysia that allowed one facet of the LGBTQ community to express themselves under strict supervision, to make a case that pre-imperial people in Malaysia were loving and accepting of the LGBTQ community" is not really effective. It hinders constructive dialogue and local agency when you assume that only the white governing structures in the colonies (often numbering in the 1000's) could change deeply rooted cultural practices and imbue a society with LGBTQ hatred.
Hate against the LGBTQ community is a long rooted tradition, not solely an imperial invention. It is infused in the legal structure, but that's because adat law was unwritten and dealt with by local elders. Using manang bali or other examples only reinforces the idea that in most muslim kingdoms in malaysia following adat or islamic law, homosexuality was punished.
If you don't recognize it as part of Malaysia you get the inverse of a white-savior complex: the white-universalist complex. That any and all constructs and faults that don't fit within your ideology will be attributed to imperialism, without solving the root cause.
Religious and cultural hatred for the LGBTQ community runs deep and requires systematic effort, and an understanding of the sources and causes, to eradicate. Abrahamic religious conservatism, but more importantly, long standing cultural traditions influence most strongly how people treat the LGBTQ on average. Here I fully agree with you, this cultural change needs local adaptations to work in that area, not a universal plan on forcing everyone to accept it on their terms.
the video is mostly fine, but nothing here has anything to do either with "western" (whatever that even means) or with "activism".
it even seem to fall into the right wing claim about every person being an "lgbtq activist" just because they vaguely said or performed something positive about being gay.
fighting for women's rights to vote or the eight hour workday or most first republics all happened first in the "western" world, so was this also failing "western activism"?
the problem with vague and lazy descriptions like "western" is that they obscure and paint over class lines. also when some rich and/or powerful people endorse dictators because they now claim that "their" women are allowed to drive now is not activism and damages the work that actual activists do, so please don't claim that the terrible examples in the video had anything to do with "activism".
I just wanna say good job for really putting in the effort to pronounce so many different names in vastly different languages the time it took really shows 🥰
Thank you for posting this. A timely reminder.
I have this coworker (who's a local here from Andorra) who, any time we bring up Cuba (her best friend is from there) says she wouldn't be able to go there because she would want to give candy to the children and things like that. I've always felt off and told her so, but couldn't really pinpoint what exactly made me think that. I think it relates majorly with this video - this white european person wanting to go and do activism basically just because without being able to look behind the implications for that. I guess you shed a light on this.
One point that people forget and that should be mentionned more often is that religion is not explicitly anti-homosexual. The anti-gay in the religion is really a reinterpretation of being anti non-reproductive sport in the bedroom. And real homophobia has to be looked for elsewhere (read, "in the partriarcat").
My idea of the root of homophobia is that more likely some men are just afraid of being called sissies.. Just saying...
Thank you for explaining in such detail ..I like your videos for its lucid explanation
Sometimes the rights of marginalised groups are crushed under the pretext of localism. We need to be careful not to subscribe to an essentialist narrative of adhering to everything that is local.
I liked this topic a lot. There was a time in the past when I strongly believed that Western activism is the best and only way to go about it. But one day, I had a realisation and began undoing that mindset. The goal is the same, but the methods should be different. I find it absurd to approach activism only through a Westernised perspective.
Celebrities are not activists…
Love your videos!!! I was thinking about this lately too, timing was perfect.