Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 181

Is cooking neutral?
Nik Shahrifulnizam Bin Che Rahim
Nik Shahrifulnizam Bin Che Rahim is a chef and entrepreneur who have been actively involved
in activism and volunteerism in Malaysia since 2013. Nik has devoted his skills, knowledge, time
and energy to help the urban poor by cooking and serving the unfortunates on Sunday evenings
under the Dapur Jalanan Kuala Lumpur (DJKL). The soup kitchen runs by the youth and university
students in collaboration with a communal space called Kelab Bangsar Utama (KBU). Besides
charity and social work, Nik also actively involved in political activities through BERSIH2.0 or
The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections. Nik was an assistant to Hishamuddin Rais, a committee
member of the 2016 BERSIH5 rally and a renowned political activist and blogger in Malaysia.
Nik Shahrifulnizam was also a volunteer in the BERSIH team which observed the elections of the
Sarawak state in Borneo in the same year.
I am a cook by profession. Cooks are among the few who can claim they
serve humanity, from the most pampered to the most deprived. Whether
we live in luxury or poverty, all of us need to eat. This dynamic creates the
impression that cooking is a neutral act. While we may be what we eat, the
act of cooking throws up striking contrasts between the “local” and the
“global” and the cultural politics that surround them. What follows is a story
of cooking for the homeless in Malaysia and the cosmopolitans in London.
I worked in Malaysia as a volunteer cook for the youth collective Dapur
Jalanan Kuala Lumpur (DJKL), Street Kitchen of Kuala Lumpur, which serves
dinner to the homeless every Sunday. Due to divisive politics perpetuated by
its ruling political coalition, Malaysia has become
increasingly divided in recent years along class,
ethnicity, and religious lines. Antagonism between
these groups has also potentially affected activism
aimed to challenge the status quo. However,
DJKL has miraculously become a space that
transcends all such divisions. It has managed to
bring socialists, liberals, and Islamists together,
despite the fact that Malaysia’s youth have adopted
cooking as a political act. Even those without any
strong prior political convictions, myself included,
became politicized in the process. We cooked with
a sense of justice and in the process cooking has
become a political equalizer.
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