CJs: Tackling Religious and Ethnic Issues

One of the main objectives of the Malaysiakini-ICFJ citizen journalism program was to highlight religious and ethnic issues that are especially relevant in Malaysia.

CJ Jimmy Leow filmed a puppet show in Penang, a Chinese tradition from the city of Teochew.

The training program participants were encouraged to promote human rights and religious and ethnic tolerance through their videos, in a country where people of many different religions and ethnicities live amongst each other. But their interactions can often be less than neighborly.

As Maran Perianen, the program’s director, explained, “Religion is something very sensitive in Malaysia. It’s like, ‘I don’t talk about your religion, you don’t talk about mine,’ you know? If anyone says anything, they’ll be at loggerheads.” But the citizen journalists (or CJs) are working to change this.

Many of the CJs have made videos that promote religious tolerance in Malaysia through awareness. For example, CJ R. Vijay Komar produced a video about Malaysian Muslims. It reports that evening meals during Ramadan are often open to non-Muslims, and that many Malaysians avail themselves of the opportunity to join together with their neighbors during the holy month.

Trainee Thambi Rajan Rajagopal filmed Penang’s Hare Krishnam preparing for the Festival of Lights in Penang as part of a five-part series highlighting different religious traditions in Malaysia.

CJ Jimmy Leow filmed a puppet show in Penang, a Chinese tradition from the city of Teochew.

Others are highlighting Malaysia’s many ethnic minorities. In one of his videos, CJ Pairin Boka captures the lives of an ethnic group in the remote Bengoh region in the state of Sarawak, and the government’s encroachment on their community through development. There is no electricity or telephone access in this region; it was essentially isolated until the arrival of the CJs with their Flip cams.

One of 20 videos which has been filmed in Sarawak, this piece has helped make many Malaysians “aware of the problems faced by the people there,” explained Perianen. Articles had been written before, he said, “but no one had really seen what it looks like to be living in this area”—until now. Boka also shot a video about the government’s plan to evict residents from their homes in Samariang. When this story was picked up by Malaysiakini, the assigned journalist managed to speak to the minister in charge. The minister denied that the state government planned to evict the residents. Subsequently, the government’s threats of eviction died out.

Rajeswari Raman, another CJ, made a video about a particularly controversial issue. Illegal immigrants who come to work in Malaysian factories will often marry locals and then use their wives’ names to start a business.

“Normally,” explained Perianen, “the local council will provide rows of stalls and shops for the locals to do business…well now, they have taken over the stalls, and our locals, Malaysians, don’t have a source of income.” It had become so tense that the Malaysians and immigrants were lobbying threats back and forth and logging police reports.

After Rajes covered this issue, managing to interview the immigrant business operators, Malaysiakini editorial staff picked it up and chose to pursue it, “really going deep inside and investigating…the real issue."

CJ Jimmy Leow filmed a puppet show in Penang, a Chinese tradition from the city of Teochew.

But sometimes, the videos that have the greatest impact are the ones that are least expected to.

One of the CJs filmed what “was supposed to be a very light and colorful story” about water buffaloes, says Perianen. Near the end of the video, he touched on the aspect of the danger posed by these particular buffalo, which had caused a few accidents and deaths.

A week after the footage came out, the Wildlife Department sent an email to the program saying that, now aware of this problem, they were going to take action against the owners of the water buffaloes in that area, which they did.

"That particular article was the least likely, in our minds, to generate an impact, you know?” reflected Perianen. “But it did."