Two videos to share.

Two videos to share with everyone today:

1. The Bomber

This is the latest documentary we’ve completed at work, a documentary I will always associate in my mind with falling asleep on the couch at 5AM for.

We shot this in Indonesia in July. I couldn’t stay for the whole duration of the shoot because I had to go to the media camp in Chiang Mai, and I spent most of the time in Indonesia cloistered in a hotel room with a translator madly subtitling, but what I saw was enough. It completely shifted my perspective.

When we think and speak of suicide bombers, we always think of extremists, of zealots, of people who are slightly unhinged. We shake our heads and tut, and we fear them, but we don’t actually think of them. Not properly, anyway. We don’t think about who they might really be, what they have been other than suicide bombers, where they have come from and what they have been through.

When I first met Jaka and his family, I was struck by how incredibly normal they were. They were just like any other family, pulling together the best they could to get through what had happened. I was surprised by the family atmosphere at their aunt’s house, how they all sat in a circle and ate lunch and chatted away. And then I realised, “Well, of course they’re a normal family. What else did you expect them to be?”

Following Dani’s story and understanding more about his life and his family was a real eye-opener. It showed me how nothing in life is really ever black and white, no matter how much we crave labels and clear-cut cases. There is just a whole lot of grey, and we do the best we know how.

2. Save Vui Kong Campaign

The campaign to save Yong Vui Kong’s life is still ongoing, and will be ongoing for as long as Vui Kong is still alive.

This video has been put together using the photos taken at the Speakers’ Corner event – Give Vui Kong a Second Chance – on the 1st of August. While there, we relaunched The Anti-Mandatory Death Penalty Photo Project, this time focusing on appealing for mercy for Vui Kong rather than in protest of the mandatory death penalty. (We are still against the MDP, though, so feel free to add photos asking for the MDP to be abolished!)

As I wrote in my previous post ‘Taking a stand, together‘, it was incredibly encouraging to see all the people at the event and to feel the support for the campaign. But we still need to do more, more, more to get the word out and more people aware and involved. I believe that the more people find out about Yong Vui Kong, the more they find out about the Misuse of Drugs Act and its presumption clauses, the more they find out about the mandatory death penalty, the more they will realise that it is a system in need of review. This is something that is happening in our country, and therefore it deserves to be an issue open for public debate and discussion. And we can only have debate and discussion if people are aware, and informed.

So please, share this video (along with as much information about Vui Kong and the MDP as you care to share – links in my right sidebar) with your friends and family. Post it on Facebook, on Twitter, on MySpace, on your websites and blogs. Please help us get the word out!