COMMENT | In defence of political satire

COMMENT | Notorious political satirist Fahmi Reza attracted controversy in the last couple of weeks over a series of satirical graphics lampooning prominent Malaysian public figures. While he often gets attacked for his scathing social commentary via his imagery, the blowback often comes from seemingly unrelated third parties.

On April 5, taking a cue from an off-the-cuff remark of one politician towards another (with the former mocking the latter for being so skilled at party-hopping that he should have a “Masters in Party-Hopping”), Fahmi (above) produced a mock Master’s diploma for the said politician from the fictional 'National Frogging (a local colloquialism for party-hopping) University'.

The mock logo was based on the coat of arms for the National University of Malaysia (UKM) with frogs in place of its original symbols. This drew the ire of the university and some of its students and alumni who charged that the university's coat-of-arms had been defaced.

They threatened legal action unless Fahmi removed the offending image. In true Fahmi Reza form, he then proceeded to release a higher quality version of the graphic.

Yet, this controversy was not the usual fare commonly associated with the political artist and has drawn some mixed responses from...