Carnation Press Manifesto
The Artist as a Revolutionary - A Carnation Press Manifesto
It has felt like the world is ending for the longest time. 2025 was in the top three warmest years on record with temperatures rising an average of 1.44C; data centres invade our cities and use up water while regions of rural communities are still without clean water; illegal dumping pollutes the countryside inflicting disease into working-class populations. Fascism is on the rise both globally and locally, with the 2022 and 2023 elections seeing significant strides made by the right-wing coalition in Malaysia. Activists and individuals are being detained en masse for exercising fundamental liberties. Malaysian youth are tired and dissatisfied, struggling to get jobs, buy houses, and survive in an increasingly hostile capitalist society. Many dream of migration as a way to escape the pressure and claustrophobic reality of late-stage capitalism. Individualism runs rampant and loneliness swallows us all in our interlinked, hyperconnected, dystopic society.
In the face of a world falling apart, change begins.
The Covid-19 pandemic radicalised many youth against capitalism, with many seeing for the first time the privilege and exceptions granted to the elite. October 7th 2023, perhaps the greatest ever act of resistance against imperialist occupation led to the ongoing Palestine-Israel war, the world’s first livestreamed genocide. People have begun to wake up and realise that to be silent in the face of injustice is to choose the side of the oppressor.
In Malaysia, protests are becoming more frequent, creative, and radical, with groups like GEGAR and MP4P leading the fight against western imperialism and Malaysian complicity in the genocides in Palestine and Sudan, exploitation of Congolese resources, and the bombing of Venezuela. Other youth-led groups like MISI: Solidariti ignited a fire in their online activism and organising during the Movement Control Order (MCO) at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia. I name these groups for I follow their activities closely, and have continuously been able to draw strength from them to aspire for something greater. Alongside them I have been able to dare to hope for a more optimistic world. A conversation I find myself having over and over again is how to keep going, how it often feels like to be so aware of everything all the time is so painful, and how it often feels like insanity to keep doing mundane tasks like going to school or work as wars continually break out, bloodlines are erased, and we edge closer and closer to climate catastrophe. We remember the legacy of our forgotten elders, the Malayan communists who fought against colonialism and for our freedom, whose bravery and strength is still called ‘terrorism’ even now, three quarters of a century later. Every hopeful thread seems to have been lost or tangled or cut.
In 2021, Sarah Irdina, co-founder of MISI: Solidariti, was arrested by police. This was in the middle stages of the pandemic, when there was still very limited movement in Malaysia. She was detained for several hours, well into the night, under the Sedition Act 1948. Her crime? Tweeting a set of demands related to the suspension of Parliament and the then-ongoing state of Emergency. She was twenty years old at the time, and was released following widespread public pressure and condemnation.
The 2020-2022 Covid-19 pandemic, the MCO and state of Emergency in Malaysia led to the normalisation of police and military encroachment on public life. People faced threat, fines, and harassment for existing in public spaces. Simultaneously, people witnessed politicians and other members of the elite openly travelling and fraternising in public spaces, maskless and without consequence. Covid proved to be something that led to the radicalisation of many, with the white flag campaign allowing for communities to come together to give aid and support to their neighbours, and the black flag initiative letting people express their desire for change in government.
In 2025, Tash Aw’s critically acclaimed novel The South was pulled from shelves over perceived ‘controversial’ content. While longlisted for the Booker Prize, the book is nowhere to be found in the country it is set in, in the homeland of its author.
This is the story of contemporary Malaysia. We love our country but that country doesn’t love us back.
Like many young people, I often find myself ruminating on the state of the world. Oftentimes, it feels like a state of despair. My grief threatens to weigh me down and prevent me from continuing to live my (very privileged) life. Yet I cannot be satisfied existing in my thoughts alone. I must act.
The world is on fire, the world is going to end, so what can we do?
In my case, I write.
Literature has always proved to be a home and a friend. Perhaps the earliest thing radicalising me were the simple fairy tales of love and justice. In the immortal words of James Baldwin:
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.
Aarani Diana
Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Malaysian Carnation Press