15 Malaysia - Amused or Aware?

        No doubts the Malaysia new emerging film directors have never fails to amuse the public these days. Recalling those funny videos entitled 'Duit Kecil', "Halal", "Rojak" and etc which being shared ,teased  and discussed online? Those are productions by 15 local filmmakers leading a funny but meaningful land in promoting awareness to public while stay amused. As I browsed  through most of the short films, they are all talking about socio-political issue. But wondered why social can never be separated from the politics. Taking an example as i make myself understood enough about the concept of Halal, Halal is referring to any object or actions which is permissible to use or engage accordance to the Islamic Law. So i suppose u see the word "LAW" here and now u get the reason a person action in society can be related to politics anytime. All because of Law!

        Like I have said, 15 Malaysia is a film-making which involves the promotion of creating awareness in all sort of issues. I believe when u speak about Halal, at least 50% of the nation got a rough idea of what it really is. But when it comes to Islamic banking, definitely not even half of the 50% of people mentioned just now know every single thing about Islamic Banking. And I'm one of them. Wished I'm a student majoring in finance then I can get this thing clear out of my mess in mind. Now one thing for sure is Islamic banking is not for Muslims alone.

        This funny and laugh-out-loud film "Potong Sage" uploaded to Youtube, starred by Namewee about a Chinese boy who had long-stayed in Taiwan has misguided on the attempts at opening an Islamic bank account. It sounded like potong salah, and the sacrifice he has to make is cut off his hair but not "something else". Right approach but wrong idea, isn't it? It was believed that this film tried to convey a message that Chinese don't quite understand about Islam and thus made a lot of misunderstanding. We do agree that it is hard to acknowledge something if one do not understand about a certain thing.

        While attempting to bring about awareness and spreading this vital message around, this issue has also become a controversial debate among the Youtube viewers as they had discussed this video in a cultural context.  Non-chinese has bring up a debate of how this insulting idea bring destruction to the racial issue. But whatever it is, this video without having it viewed as bias, have a good intention in educating the public. The new insight of sharing participatory video indeed possess great potential in stimulating and communicating with video viewers. Whether I am talking about Halal or Islamic banking idea, it doesn't matter. The point is such kind of awareness promotional video gives exposure to public about the real experiences, needs and hopes in their own perspectives. Lunch & Lunch (2006) said, it helps to strengthen the community and develops consensus in mind in the process of promoting and creating awareness. (Source Here) So, what's so bad about it? Without any bias, the true meaning of the video can only be reached our mind successfully.

References:

Lunch, C. & Lunch, N. (2006). Insights in Participatory Video: A Handbook for the Field. Insightshare: United Kingdom.