A Malaysian fan gesturing at a live band performance during a skinhead meeting in Kuala Lumpur. Hundreds of people turn up to watch skinhead bands from Japan and Thailand performing live at the two-day event. – AFP pic, January 18, 2015.Asian “skinheads” converged in Kuala Lumpur over the weekend for two days of full on Oi music
shaven headed, tattoo-covered torsos, boots and braces, the roughly 200 skinheads from Japan, Thailand and Malaysia gathered to spread their anti-racism, anti-drugs credo.
The event was organised by the Malaysian chapter of SHARP – Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice – a group that first emerged in the United States in the 1980’s, as a reaction to the overkill media version of Skinhead equals Ku Klux klan, White Supremacist.
Bob Panjang, one of the SHARP organisers, said it was the first time such a gathering had been held in Muslim-majority Malaysia.
“We are not the Nazi skinhead groups that are racists. We don’t promote Malay power in Malaysia,” he said, referring to the country’s ethnic majority group.
“We promote the spirit of brotherhood. We oppose racism and we have Chinese and Indians in our group.”
Religious authorities today condemned the event, saying the skinheads’ tight, torn jeans and leather jackets project a bad image for youths, despite SHARP’s “good message”.
However, authorities have so far done nothing to stop the festival, held at a converted shophouse venue called “Fire House”, which was plastered with slogans denouncing racism and drug use.
The skinhead movement first emerged among working class youths in Britain in the 1960s, an offshoot of the Mods. But in the 1970’s picked up a political edge, as Britain fell from power, Huge unemployment, and civil unrest. To some a fashion, but to others, a way to project anti-establishment, anti-hippy sentiment,
However, the movement’s spread overseas was accompanied by a splintering in core values, with neo-Nazi elements becoming notorious for their violence against racial minorities in Europe, sparking a push-back by anti-racist skinhead groups.
Malaysia has tiny communities of relatively tame skinheads, rockers and other Western-inspired subcultures, which are frowned upon by Islamic authorities.
Panjang said SHARP has about 2,000 adherents in Malaysia, including “skinhead girls”. The group also opposes sexual violence.
“I joined the skinheads because I am attracted by its brotherhood and the fashionable outfits we wear,” he said.
Pictured here, is an image of the opposing side. Malay power, too some, might seem quite a contradiction, when the media version of racist’s are pictured as white skinned. Could be just ‘Punk Rock Fashion’, But disenfranchised people, from whatever race they belong, will react, rebel and possibly blame another race of people, for their situation.
The concerts featured live bands from Japan, Thailand and Malaysia playing music by late Jamaican star Desmond Dekker, an earlier pioneer of reggae and ska, as well as music from the “Oi!” skinhead subculture, and the Skatalites, – AFP, January 18, 2015.
Here at subcultz. We think it just shows the reach the skinhead culture has, across the planet. Who would have thought, when the British media and authorities were crushing us, branding and slandering the British working class kids, that it would be alive and kicking in Malaysia 30 years later. That is a surely a two fingered salute to the middle class media, if anything is.
