‘Malay power’ neo-Nazi band festival cancelled in Malaysia’s Ipoh city
- ‘Malay power’ movement believes Malaysia should be an exclusively Malay nation, immigration should end and non-Malays should be expelled
- Another concert featuring many of the same bands was announced days later, but owners of venue deny it is taking place
A festival featuring 10 right-wing “Malay power” bands scheduled to take place in the northern Malaysian city of Ipoh next month has been cancelled amid protests.
The Rebellion Fest was due to feature bands from the country’s notorious Malay power scene with names such as Xenophobia, Spiderwar and Total Distrust. The Malay power movement is made up of neo-Nazi bands who want to rid Malaysia of everyone who is not ethnically Malay and stop immigration to the country.
But this week, anti-fascist activists in Ipoh said that after applying pressure on Ladyboss Studio, where the Rebellion Fest was due to be held on April 13, the event was cancelled.
One of the activists told the Hong Kong-based Unite Asia punk and hardcore music website: “I explained to [the venue] the connection between their racist ideologies and the vile human being who attacked the mosques in New Zealand last week.
“[The owner] said he never knew about any of this and if I didn’t tell him then he would never have found out. He agreed to cancel the show and return the deposit.”
On Wednesday, posters appeared online for another Malay power festival titled Death to Antifa, supposedly to be held at the Black Box venue in Kuala Lumpur on April 6. But a spokesman for developer UEM Sunrise, which operates the shopping mall where Black Box is located, denied the event was taking place.
“No authorisation has been given for such an event to take place. UEM Sunrise wishes to dismiss any association with Death to Antifa as well as all performers related to the said event, and will not hesitate to initiate legal action against individuals or groups who organise events using [our] brand without authorisation,” the spokesman told the South China Morning Post.
Boot Axe, one of the most prominent Malay power bands, were due to perform at the Ipoh event. In an interview with pop culture website Vice, a band member named Slay said the Malay power movement was “concerned about keeping a pure Malay community all over the Malay Archipelago”.
“Malaysia is home to people from China, India, and foreign immigrants from Bangladesh, Africa, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Burma [Myanmar],” Slay told Vice. “The government can’t control the entry of immigrants, and we get so many of them.
“There are so many protests against the government about this issue, but they haven’t done anything tangible to improve the situation. Malays fall prey to criminals who come from abroad and sell drugs and commit murder, rape, robbery, and so on.
“The lesson that we can learn from Nazism is that we can take extreme racist action if the position of the Malays is affected by these factors.”
Asked how Asians could identify with an ideology that promoted white supremacy, Slay said: “Most worldwide organisations say that Nazism is just for whites. And yes, we are not members of the blue-eyed, blond-haired Aryan race – our community is brown-skinned, brown-eyed, and dark-haired. We’ve just adopted the spirit associated with Nazism as a symbol for the Malay race’s response if it’s threatened by racial issues.”
Additional reporting by Tashny Sukumaran
