there’s still hope in this neck of the woods, or A Malaysian Tail

 

“Mama dengar bunyi dekat bawah, like someone trying to open the sliding door. balik!” i rushed home after the call from my mother late Wednesday night, worried that someone was trying to break into our home.

 

my family has lived in Shah Alam for 24 years and for the most part, life has been peaceful. we are very close to our neighbours and friendly with folks in the local shops and market. we moved to Shah Alam when there were no McDonald’s and not a single traffic light. the site of the Concorde Hotel was still a plantation and the “Blue Mosque” was under construction.

 

today, we are no longer a town but a city. and apparently, Shah Alam has the country’s largest concentration of affluent middle-class “Bumiputras”. ideally that should mean sophistication and civility. but, the recent anti-temple cow-head protest was inspired and organised by our own folk.

 

we have never before seen such incivility in Shah Alam. who are these people, really? how is it they can exist among us? how did they come to exist at all?

 

these were questions i asked myself as i drove past the Selangor State Secretariat building, after my mother’s distressed call. but my thoughts were interrupted as i turned the corner into our neighbourhood and saw a motorcycle parked by the roadside.

 

a young man was squatting in front of my neighbour’s gate. it was close to 2 a.m. and my suspicious urban mind immediately thought, “ommigod! you a*sehole burglar! kantoi! i got you now!” i pulled up right next to him and wound my window down half way. “awak buat apa tu?!” i barked at him, trying to conceal my own fear.

 

the young man took off his helmet and pointed to something in front of him. “kucing ini kena langgar …” he said in a strong Sabahan accent. i looked at the cat and to my horror it was Orange Boy Cat, the stray that visits us regularly to eat our cats’ food. his face was badly injured and he was breathing very fast. clearly he was in severe pain.

 

someone had hit the cat and left it lying in the middle of the road. the young man was riding home on his motorcycle when he saw the cat lying there. he had rescued the cat from further misfortune by placing him by the roadside. my first instinct was to call my vet friend, Kavita, for advice.

 

i then left the young man, Daryl, and the cat for a few minutes while i went home to check on the house to make sure everything was okay, and got a small cage for the cat to rest in safely. i thought to myself, “Almighty, cucurilah rahmat on Daryl for his compassion! and bagilah balasan yang setimpal padahnya to the cruel monster who ran over the cat and sped away!”

 

there really was nothing Daryl could do at that hour except sit there to accompany the poor animal. it was so heartening to see such compassion for a helpless creature of God, and just 600 metres away from the State Secretariat building where the group of callous bigots paraded with a cow’s head earlier this Ramadhan.

 

Daryl volunteered to nurse the cat at his flat where he lived with his brother, Kenny. the next day, the 3 of us took our whiskered friend to see the vet.

 

today, a week after the accident and on Malaysia Day, i am pleased to report that Orange Boy Cat is recovering well at the clinic. his jaw is broken and his leg is slightly screwed up, but he will be okay. soon he will be moving in with his new Sabahan family, Daryl and Kenny.

 

there are still decent people living in Shah Alam after all. thank you boys for giving us hope.

 

 

The Beautiful Malay [A participant's comment]

 

As published in The People’s Parliament

 

Assalamu’alaikum Encik Haris and readers.

 

i contemplated writing this comment in Malay but i want to be understood properly by your readers so i’ve decided to write this in English.

 

firstly, thank you Encik Haris for documenting the visit which was initiated and attended by private citizens of Malaysia. and might i add, with the exception of my beloved mother and a number of gentlemen, the group was made up of young people. 

 

reading some of the comments here, it sounds as though until this post was published there were no decent “Malays” left in this country. so much so that our visit to the temple comes as such a pleasant surprise to many of your readers here – to the point of tears. imagine if you didn’t publish this post. we would all be left in our bigoted belief that the vast majority of Malays/Muslims in our country are arrogant and intolerant.

 

one of your commentors even said that it is “so rare that Malays come out of their way to lend a hand to non Malays”. perhaps such people should socialise a bit more and not depend on newspapers and blogs for generalised “truths” on how members of other races behave.

 

we would like to think of ourselves as intellectual and [correction: sophisticated] for our ability to carefully identify all the political culprits who are responsible for the sorry state of our perpaduan today. but we, the Rakyat, are ourselves too self-righteous to even admit that WE are the most responsible party in this mess. we let this happen.

 

bless the internet for today we have an avenue to share information and discuss more openly. but at the same time, cyberspace has become a place for thousands of Malaysians to become yea and nay sayers without doing much else.

 

if you really like what you see here, get your own little group together and visit your neighbourhood’s places of worship and offer a hand shake. and yes, that should include your neighbourhood mosque or surau. if you want to bring a buah tangan to these places of worship but you’re not sure what’s appropriate, bring something safe. we brought flowers. and jelly.

 

we don’t always have to move in big groups to make our point. and we certainly cannot afford to wait for another incident to happen before we make our move.

 

Wassalam.

 

——————————————————————————————

 

* The beautiful Malay on The People’s Parliament.

 

Honouring the Malaysian woman

 

Rejected by newspaper editor

 

In 1965 a Javanese teenager found herself commuting back and forth the lonely trunk road between her home in Seremban and Kuala Lumpur. She was only 17 and without a driver’s licence. Typically, she would be accompanied by her mother, two younger brothers and a Tiffin carrier of home cooked food for her sick father at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital.

 

Life was exhausting growing up taking care of younger siblings, live-in relatives and a mother who was behaving erratically possibly due to menopause – though that would have been a huge mystery back then. Yet, she would sit for her High School Certificate exams and pass with impressive grades.

 

Today, a teenager like her who is smart and starred in a state youth hockey team would probably enrol in a good university. However, that was not the case for her. Her family needed care and her commitment was to them. Unlike some of her brothers who got the opportunity to study all the way in England, the young girl was grounded at home.

 

But what would she do for a living without the prestige of a college diploma? She would do wonders.

 

She was bold, intelligent and was blessed with a flare for writing both in English and Malay. With encouragement from the late A. Samad Ismail she became a cadet reporter. It was a rough job for a young woman fresh out of school. The press room was patriarchal, rowdy and no curse word was out of earshot. She became one of the first few women reporters in Malaysia and certainly one of the first few women reporters to cover crime news. But the tough nature of the job only prepared her for greater things in life.

 

At the age of 21, she was chosen by the Australian Rotary Club to participate in a cultural exchange programme. For several months she travelled and lived with Australian families around the Riverina region playing the role of a young Malaysian ambassador. Mayors and government officials would admire the way the young reporter carried herself and the positive image of Malaysia she represented. The Australian press would sing praises of her and the goodwill she extended on behalf of her country.

 

Her experience and talent would one day secure her a position at the esteemed Financial Times of London. How proud a Malaysian she was every time the newspaper published her by-line. Here was a hardworking young Malaysian who was truly “glokal” long before Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak invented the word.

 

But her service to her country was mostly accomplished at home. In 1973, she became the 245th employee of the newly established Malaysian Airlines System (MAS). The airline was a symbol of independence and pride in post-Merdeka Malaysia. Like her contemporaries, she put in a lot of love and hard work for the airline to take off.

 

MAS had just been created following the closure of the Malaysia-Singapore Airlines (MSA). Former MSA staff had to be reassigned, assets around the world had to be dissolved and a new Malaysian identity had to be created for MAS. She was one of those dedicated staff who helped nurse and nurture our national carrier in its teething days. And like those of her time, she would now cringe in despair whenever news of loss and abuse in the airline surfaced.

 

This young woman was well on her way to making a life for herself. But that did not mean her childhood “career” was over. She still had to dedicate time and energy everyday to clean the house and manually giling (ground) meal ingredients for her mother who endlessly received visitors. This she did despite having a full time job.

 

But it was this tough life that gave her the strength and courage to start her own business at the age of 28. Her small company, assisted by close friends and family, would organise Malaysia’s first international motor show which also featured classic cars from the Sultan of Selangor’s garage. Despite all the funds made available to young entrepreneurs today, not many below the age of 30 can claim the same glory as this woman who did not even have the privilege of a tertiary education.

 

Her hard work and perseverance paid off and she eventually blossomed into a respected corporate figure in the telecommunications industry. She had done wonders for her family and country, and had helped paved the way for professional women who came after her. Most importantly, she did it sincerely and selflessly.

 

Her proudest moment however, was the day she stood on a sidewalk as she watched the eldest of her three daughters march the streets of Wellington, New Zealand dressed in a graduation gown and a mortarboard on her head.

 

To this woman, my mother, and other Malaysian women like her, I wish you happy anniversary. Your daughters are proud of you and are eternally grateful for your sacrifices.

 

Thank you for making Malaysia a better place for us. 

  

Business as usual

 

Rejected by newspaper editor

 

The recent Umno general assembly was hard to ignore. Even Pakatan Rakyat die-hards who claimed Umno had passed its glory were tuning in to news reports and blog posts to keep up with the latest. Young people and non-party members too wanted to know what in-coming party president and prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had to say, and they wanted to know who would be the new leaders entrusted to salvage the bruised party from further ruin.

 

What happens in the Umno general assembly affects not only party members but the whole country. By convention, for as long as Barisan Nasional dominates parliament, the Umno president and deputy president will become the country’s prime minister and deputy prime minister respectively. It is also usually the case that members of the supreme council are appointed into cabinet. In this regard (and whether one likes it or not) Umno’s business is everybody’s business.

 

The assembly was particularly important this year because things were not well with the rakyat. We have been in a state of political restlessness for a whole year and are anxious about the impending economic depression.

 

We knew from the onset that the outcome of the general assembly must provide some sense of confidence for the rakyat. More importantly, the assembly and the party elections had to reflect the changes demanded by the general electorate. If not for the party’s own survival, for regular Malaysians to feel assured that their grievances were heard.

 

The Umno delegates knew this, and they knew they had the power to act. They also knew since March 8 last year that women and the young were two caucuses they could not afford to neglect. These are groups that are becoming increasingly informed and demanding. To make things trickier, they exist within the party and without.

 

The delegates knew they had to win, win back and maintain support from these caucuses. And they knew that in their weakened form, they had to take drastic measures.

 

For these important caucuses the Umno delegates voted into the supreme council Datuk Bung Moktar Radin, the Sabahan whose greatest contribution in parliament was to use abusive and sexist language against his colleagues. They also installed Datuk Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim, chief of the ‘failed and forgotten’ Putera Umno.

 

For Malaysia’s mothers, women professionals and activists as well as the women who make up 60 percent of all graduates produced year after year by our local universities, the delegates delivered just one representative to the supreme council: Datuk Dr. Norraesah Mohamad. And in the spirit of reform and renewal, they voted overwhelmingly for Khairy Jamaluddin despite his unpopularity and the stern warning against bribery issued by the party’s disciplinary board just a week before the elections.

         

So, the Umno delegates have exercised their right and power to elect their heroes and role models. Meanwhile, Pakatan Rakyat is poised to continue their offensive against Barisan Nasional in the upcoming tri-elections and the rakyat too will continue to be restless and anxious. Looks like it is business as usual in Malaysia, everyone. What’s for lunch?

 

On bribery and extortion

 

Rejected by newspaper editor              

 

Why is it in situations where police officers ask for bribes, we call it corruption or graft?

 

This is usually the case in newspaper reporting and in online discussions. Indeed, these words describe the immoral and illegal act of giving or taking something (usually money) for personal gain. However, these words also have other definitions.

 

Corruption for example, can also be used to describe the debasement of language. For instance, some might disagree with the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka and say that bajet (uhuh, as in budget) is a corruption of the Malay language because there is an existing Malay word for it: belanjawan.

 

In botany it seems that graft refers to a shoot of a plant that is inserted in a groove of another plant where it continues to grow. No police officer or bribery is involved here.

 

Shall we call it bribery then when police officers ask for bribes? Well, not quite.

 

Bribery is when we, the Rakyat, offer police officers money in order to get out of trouble. A familiar example is when someone is pulled over for speeding: He offers the police officer money in the hope of avoiding a heftier fine.

 

These are the sampah masyarakat amongst us who prefer to ignore the fat button-badge on officers’ uniforms (and giant stickers on their patrol cars) telling us not to bribe them.

 

That bribery is still rampant in our country only reflects how morally bankrupt we are as a society, and of course, that the fat button-badge is on the whole a fat joke.

 

What do we call it then, when police officers themselves ask for bribe? It’s called extortion.

 

According to Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, extortion is “the act or practice of wresting anything from a person by force, by threats, or by any undue exercise of power”.

 

In legal terms the Dictionary defines it as “the offence committed by an officer who corruptly claims and takes, as his fee, money, or other thing of value, that is not due, or more than is due, or before it is due”.

 

Here is a classic example of extortion: Imagine a scenario in which a patrol car pulls over to talk to a group of say, Bangladeshi workers. They are asked to produce their identity cards and working permits for inspection. Suddenly, one of them is ushered into the patrol car.

 

Five minutes later, the Bangladeshi leaves the car to join his friends and the patrol car drives away. Let’s say you approach the group of Bangladeshis and ask them what happened. They tell you the officers asked for money, which they paid under duress for fear of deportation. This has occurred despite the fact their working permits are in order.

 

According to the Public Affairs Department in Bukit Aman, there is nothing irregular about police officers asking any civilian – citizen or not – to step into the patrol car for questioning.

 

The civilian however, is not obliged to enter the patrol car if he is not comfortable doing it. Uhuh, if you have not done anything wrong, you can say no to the police officers and state that you would rather be questioned out in the open.

 

Unfortunately, in the example above, the Bangladeshi may have felt intimidated and obliged to obey any and all instructions. Should this happen to you, and if you are asked for money, do not allow yourself to be intimidated.

 

You are being extorted. This situation is not simply one of corruption. More precisely, you are being robbed because you are asked to give something up against your will. In such cases, resist the demand. Write down the patrol car number, and if possible the staff number on the police officers’ uniforms.

 

You should then file a report at rmp@rmp.gov.my and perhaps even write to the newspapers about it. If you happen to drive by others who are in a similar situation, find out what’s going on. You are entitled to know what is happening on public roads.

 

This will also send a loud message to errant police officers that the Rakyat is watching and yes, we will pull over and be nosey.

 

Do not under any circumstances offer police officers a bribe simply because you are scared. That would make you sampah masyarakat, the same way you are sampah masyarakat when you see others bribing or extorting but chose to just drive by.