Around the end of June, when Malaysians were grappling with the worst of the pandemic, an Instagram square with three white flags on a black background started making the rounds on social media. It was stark and simple and called for those in need of food and other aid to wave white flags—#BenderaPutih—from their homes so that help might reach them. There was no need to feel ashamed, it said.
It wasn’t entirely clear whom the clarion call originated from, or whether there would be ready lines of assistance to the white flag bearers, but it took off; some were moved to tears when help actually came. As they had throughout the pandemic, ordinary Malaysians rose to the occasion and filled the gaping void left by an insecure government that, critics say, had abdicated its duties to citizens in its handling of the pandemic in favour of retaining power. This was kita jaga kita, hashtagged.
Riding on the same wave of discontent, the #BenderaHitam movement started trending just days after. It urged people to fly black flags from their cars and their homes, and to share the pictures on social media. Significantly, it demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin who had come unceremoniously to power after a political coup in February last year. At a time when the toll of COVID-19 has been peaking, with over 20,000 infections and 200 deaths daily, passions have spilt over from social media and onto the streets, in a build-up of protests led overwhelmingly by young people.
In a year that has seen an intensified government crackdown on freedom of speech, the police called in more than 30 protesters for questioning. When they arrested 20-year-old Sarah Irdina for sedition in July, she was detained overnight and had her home raided over tweets promoting the protests. Irdina’s photograph went viral in a black-and-white Instagram post calling for her release. In it, she is captured smiling in mid-motion; and in another time, you might have simply thought that she looked happy and carefree.
Heidi Quah, a tireless 20-something activist, has been working with her team through the pandemic to distribute aid to refugees, migrants and Malaysians in need. She has received numerous reports of suicides in the course of her work—especially among residents of low-cost flats, which are usually high-rises. “It’s been really heartbreaking. Almost every other day we get a report of a suicide,” she tells Esquire.
In the first five months of this year, the police recorded 468 suicides, compared to 631 in 2020 and 609 in 2019. It’s a problem compounded by the shortage of psychiatrists—there are just 400 throughout the country where there should be 3,100—and the fact that many suffer in silence since attempting suicide is not only a crime under Malaysian law but is also seen as a taboo. Kenny Lim from Befrienders Kuala Lumpur, a hotline offering a listening ear, tells Esquire, “We are seeing an increase in calls from people struggling with financial issues and also with isolation because of travel restrictions.” Malaysia’s unemployment rate hit 5.3 per cent last year (the highest in three decades), and some commentators have spoken of a nouveau poor—middle-class families slipping into the low-income group. The government has offered them cash aid but delays in disbursement mean it’s too little and too late.
It was during this time, while Malaysians were trying to navigate the country’s third large-scale lockdown that began 1 June and continues still in most parts of the country, that a group of youths who has preferred to remain anonymous reportedly created the black-and-white poster which was shared among Malaysians; they had also lost a friend facing financial difficulties to suicide some years ago. Other reports credited the idea to politician and women’s rights activist Nik Faizah Nik Othman, whose Facebook post was widely shared.
Regardless of how it started, people began to fly homemade white flags. A woman who not only had given birth to her third child but her husband had lost his job and she had 16 family members infected with COVID-19. A young nasi lemak seller without arms who had lost his income. A single mother and her teenage daughter who survived on biscuits for days. Moreover, from her work on the ground, Quah observes, “It’s usually one white flag raised, but later you find out there’s actually an entire community struggling in the area. We are working with about 30 to 40 community leaders to identify needs on the ground.”
Other charities and businesses also jumped in to donate essential supplies, and the public pitched in to set up food banks in front of shops and petrol stations. Celebrities weighed in too; Malaysian rapper Altimet announced on Instagram that he and his team would scout out several areas every Friday to distribute food until no more white flags were seen. Amid all this, enterprising coders created maps and an app, called Sambal SOS, to help people identify points of aid.
For Quah, it’s important to express solidarity, not charity. Recently, she partnered with Jenn Low, the founder of local jewellery brand Wanderlust + Co, who offered to put together "happy bags"—toys for children and, say, facial spa masks for mothers—to supplement the usual grocery essentials, with kind notes crowdsourced from hundreds of Malaysians. Quah cried when the families sent her photos of the notes stuck on their walls at home.
“A lot of them feel very ashamed to ask for help,” she adds. “We have always been thinking how to further humanise this experience, like safeguarding their privacy and not photographing them. It really impacts their mental health when they need to prove their suffering, or even after receiving aid they need to pose and say thank you.”
In the first half of 2020, Malaysia looked to be a relatively admirable example of how to handle the pandemic. The first super-spreader event was a mass religious gathering at a Kuala Lumpur mosque, which became the largest-known coronavirus vector in Southeast Asia at the time. But the authorities acted quickly, imposing the first nationwide lockdown in March and bringing infections down, and reached zero transmission on July 1.
After last September’s state election in Sabah, however, daily infections rose again and progressively increased. The authorities continued to arrest undocumented migrants, leading to infections in detention centres, even as activists warned that this would deter them from coming forward for testing. The coronavirus then made its way through the crowded factories and worker dormitories of companies such as Top Glove, the world’s largest producer of rubber gloves. Then, in January this year, as daily cases breached 3,000, Malaysia proclaimed a state of emergency, which suspended parliament. It angered critics who saw it as a smokescreen to avoid challenges to the Muhyiddin leadership.
By the third lockdown in June, preceded by a period of relaxed movement restrictions and new variants entering the country, frustration had set in alongside despair. The public watched political and business elites flouting pandemic rules with barely a slap on the wrist while ordinary citizens were fined sums of money they couldn’t afford. Small enterprises on the brink of shutting down looked on as large factories with working conditions more conducive to spreading the virus were allowed to operate.
Despite the accelerated vaccination rate in previous weeks (a quarter of adults were fully inoculated by 27 July), there is as yet no break in the clouds. Malaysians saw circulating photos of bodies stacked in hospitals and morgues due to the lack of beds and ambulances. They saw ghostly undertakers, covered from head-to-toe in protective gear, struggling to bury the bodies. Meanwhile, there was some confusion as to whether Malaysia was still under emergency rule, and the embattled government postponed the next parliamentary session, where it would be put to a confidence vote.
Then, on Monday, 16 August—after failed entreaties to several quarters for support, including the youths—Muhyiddin tendered his resignation as prime minister, plunging Malaysians into a strange alchemy of greater uncertainty and optimism.
The #BenderaHitam movement came to life shortly after several politicians of Muhyiddin’s government dismissed the white flag initiative. “Muhyiddin himself during an interview said, ‘Don’t wave a black flag or white flag, wave a blue flag [the colour of his political coalition, Perikatan Nasional]’, which pissed people off even more,” says Farhan Iqbal, a photographer who has been following the protests closely.
Moreover, Iqbal adds, there was a growing sense that one could no longer pin one’s hopes on politicians, of any stripe. “The best way to put it is—tak boleh berharap.” So the black flag as a symbol of protest was kickstarted by a loose youth coalition that calls itself Sekretariat Solidariti Rakyat, made up of over 50 different groups. It includes Undi18, which has campaigned for the right of 18-year-olds to vote; and Misi Solidariti (Sarah Irdina, who was arrested, is its co-founder) that encourages direct action to create change. At 28 years old, Mohammad Alshatri, a programme officer for Suaram—a human rights group that has been around for decades—considers himself “not too youthful”. Most members, he tells Esquire, are between the ages of 18 and 22. Many of them have never voted before in an election. On Instagram, you’ll find them to be eloquent and unafraid to speak their minds, sharing their passion for social justice and the quotidian moments of their lives with equal verve.
From social media, the coalition has since taken to the streets in three demonstrations: with just its members on 17 July to cautiously test the waters amid the pandemic, making a vivid statement in carrying fake corpses wrapped in white; then alongside members of the public with a vehicle convoy on 24 July, and, finally, boots on the ground on 31 July. The last apparently saw a turnout of about 1,000 people, among which a group of rowdy protesters was also pictured flipping the bird. But photographers and journalists on the ground such as Farhan Iqbal and Hadi Azmi have shared that they were only a tiny minority and the disturbance did not last long—that the protest was peaceful.
In the course of all this, many protesters have been investigated by the police for the improper use of network facilities and causing public mischief. Alshatri has been called in for questioning five times since July and was once fined, along with two others, MYR2,000 for breaking pandemic restrictions. He also said that after the final protest and the latest round of questioning, the police had visited the organisers’ homes to check on their addresses, even though they had given their statements.
Some Malaysians criticised these youths for endangering more people in a worsening pandemic, while others found their grassroots movement inspiring and credited their meticulous planning. The Sekretariat consulted with medical practitioners on how to safely protest and had marshals on the ground to help maintain social distancing. They made plans to ensure ready access to pro bono legal representation and crowdfunded money to pay off any fines. Two weeks after the 31 July protest, the health director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah announced that there had been no known infections from it.
Bridget Welsh, a veteran observer of Malaysian politics, tells Esquire that the delayed implementation of the right of 18-year-olds to vote has been an important catalyst for the burgeoning youth movement. Echoing Iqbal, she says it differs from previous resistance movements such as Bersih, in that it doesn’t originate with political leaders or anyone famous. She describes the movement as more equitable and non-hierarchical, in which youths connect across ethnic lines using social media, united by a common sense of justice and inclusiveness. As such, the government underestimates their kind of mobilisation to its detriment. “It’s not coming from following somebody, it’s coming from following what they believe,” she says. “Bersih was led by very prominent people like Ambiga [Sreenevasan]. These youths—people don’t know their names but they’re getting to know their names.”
As Alshatri reflects on the past year, he believes that Sekretariat Solidariti Rakyat has made an impact on the Malaysian political system. “The most important thing is we want to show that ordinary people have the power to shape politics through direct action,” he says.
