Thursday, April 07, 2016

Meet the artist facing off against the Malaysian prime minister and his cronies...

Right now, Malaysia's prime minister Najib Razak is embroiled in a corruption scandal so massive, it will make you nostalgic for the days when politicians were dumped over one too many helicopter flights or an expensive bottle of wine.

It's alleged that PM Najib funnelled public money from the country's future fund into his personal bank account to the tune of AU$847 million. There are other allegations too, darker but less concrete, from bribery and extortion to the murder of a young woman. Under normal circumstances, this would be enough to topple a country's leader. But this is Malaysia—a country plagued by political corruption, where press freedom remains dismally low.

That's why few Malaysians were surprised when the country's attorney-general cleared Najib of any corruption in January 2016. Instead, the official line is that the unexplained hundreds of millions flowing into the prime minister's account was a donation from the Saudi royal family. Many Malaysians don't believe this for a second—pointing out the former attorney-general, who first launched the investigation, was removed by Najib.

Enter Fahmi Reza, a Malaysian artist whose political art has been getting him in trouble for decades. Fahmi's latest work, a giant clownish take on Najib's face, went viral throughout South East Asia, and has become the icon for an anti-corruption push in Malaysia. VICE sat down with Fahmi to talk about going up against the most powerful man in your country, getting arrested, and Kuala Lumpur's DIY punk scene: Full story...

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