Yellow (2011)

Watchmen 'button' as seen in the film

Recently I was musing under the brightness of the hot noon sun and typing with one hand, with the other I reached for my iced maize drink. The drink’s yellow colour momentarily dazzled me, caught as it was by shafts of sun tripping over my neighbour’s coconut trees. The brightness of the colour yellow brought to mind all kinds of yellow things - from the maize making the drink that particular tint to the spice - turmeric and its indelible stain. 

In a golden reverie, I recalled days listening to Donovan Leech’s most endearing song - Mellow Yellow and, many years later - that droning song about the same colour, from the band - Coldplay. 

Quickly I recalled that there were hippy filled submarines of yellow (by The Beatles and Heinz Edlemann) in the 1960s, dastardly and dangerous yellow fevers and one particular yellow window inserted in his museum, by Sir John Sloane, giving a Mediterranean tint to his collection of artefacts in Lincoln Inn Fields, London.

The sun-filled saffron thought persisted – a yellow sun brings that Kryptonian - Superman his super powers. Royal yellow is the colour of kings, and queens for that matter. Yellow metal is associated with gold, and certain orders of monks wear yellow – reflecting dropping leaves and ephemeral life. Yellow is allied to Texas roses, it became the ink colour for America’s cartoon Yellow Kid and those extremely helpful telephone pages of a lemon hue. 

Yellow is not, normally, the colour of revolution, so why - I asked myself, were members of Malaysia’s police force arresting people in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor for wearing the colour of quince and primrose.

True we had been through this before – in Perak, in Ipoh to be more precise, but then it was the colour black. 

Black was caught up in some power tussle between the officially elected state government and those wishing to oust them – the ousters won. Sympathisers of the ousted officials wore black in mourning for democracy and held a candlelight vigil. Holding lit candles and wearing black T-shirts became banned in Perak, for a while. Now yellow was banned, outlawed like some distant cousin to Lincoln Green and Robin of Loxley. 

Despite the local telecoms company – Digi adopting a rather curious, and rotund, yellow ‘man’ as their mascot, and yellow appertaining to Malaysia’s royalty, the wearing of T-shirts of a yellow hue, with or without the additional text – Bersih (clean) became suddenly illegal in Malaysia - for a short period of time.

‘Do we have to take down our curtains then’ I asked my wife innocently, ‘should we attempt to hide the Alamanda flowers, and what about our cat Tyger – technically more ginger than yellow, but in the sunlight....’ A ‘we are not amused’ face turned to me, said nothing vocally but a whole lot non-verbally – ‘I’ll start putting the curtains back up then, shall I’ I said.

 It was all clearly a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding that brought a host of blue wearing policemen and related protectors of government, wearing red, onto the streets of Kuala Lumpur shooting grey teargas and blue chemical-laced water canon at people gathering and wearing shirts of a yellow hue.

Said protectors of government accosted many people, practically ripping their yellow T-shirts from their backs, while other people, wearing yellow, were beaten and, once on the ground, kicked – and all because they were wearing the wrong colour T-shirt, a colour officially outlawed by Malaysia’s Home Minister.

It was not as if these yellow people were creating erotic material, such as Audrey Beardsley’s infamous Yellow Book of Victorian England, nor were they swinging through the streets apropos some yellow costume clad blind superhero (aka Daredevil), but walking orderly towards a stadium where they hoped to hold a rally in favour of fair and clean elections.

The blue clad defenders of the status quo (and I resist the analogy with Pepperland’s Blue Meanies) took exception to the hosts of yellow T-shirt wearers and waged a one-sided war upon the undefended and unarmed gatherers. Brutalised and beaten, yellow quickly became stained with red, like some contemporary Malaysian mimicking of Alan Moore’s Watchmen comic book logo - replete with the blood droplet.

Some days later, T-shirts washed and only a faint stain of red remaining, sanity has, gladly, returned to the streets of Kuala Lumpur. The teargas, but not the tears have wafted away, irritant-laced water has sunk, as have hearts, into Kuala Lumpur’s drainage system –and only the bitter taste of blue against yellow remains. 

It was with a smile then, that I recognised a great deal of irony in the images coming through the internet of the Malaysia’s Prime Minister, red faced in his audience with Queen Elizabeth II, in England. Regally and royally she greeted the promoter of blue, with a stunning ensemble entirely decked out in the most alluring shade of - yellow.