Nostos

"Do you miss home?"
"Yeah well, of course I do, I mean... yeah... of course I do."

My voice quivers ever so slightly, lips recoiling almost defensively as I speak the words. I cannot help but feel a pang of guilt. It's a question I am asked often, and short of giving a lengthy explanation, I opt for the much simpler, cookie cutter reply of "Who wouldn't?" and launch into a even lengthier panegyric on the beauty of Malaysian cuisine.

Occasionally though, I cannot bear to hide beneath a flurry of superfluous words.

"Do you miss home?"
"Not really."

Every single time I say this I feel like I am being judged, like I am admitting that I am a horrible person wracked with familial problems, or worse yet, an ungrateful brat who can't be bothered to remember my parents.

What is home anyway?

Sure, I miss my family. I miss driving with my father in one of his old cars, just the road and some Lynyrd Skynyrd playing on the stereo. I miss my mother's cooking, which is the strangest thing, because when I was at home I wanted nothing more than to escape from it. I miss my brother bothering me in the midst of a movie or reading a book to show me his latest cool magic trick or the latest Youtube fad he has discovered.

I miss my bed, my dog, my house. I miss the lonely walks beneath the stars to the abandoned playground, just sitting on the swing and contemplating life in solitude. I miss the colorful and vibrant food, the sweet-as-sin milk tea in the morning and the fragrance of fried rice at 3am at night.

But it's far more complicated than that. With "home", there is also chaos. There are the frantic 2am rushes to get a press statement prepared on time. There are the heart-stopping moments as you look into a riot police officer's visor and see your own reflection staring back at you. There are the speeches that come rolling, one after another, until they all blend and mix and form this amorphous, all-encompassing ball of lies that devours everything in its path. There is that fear, that anger, that disappointment that permeates the air, the front page of the newspapers, the websites, the cyberspace, the conversations at coffeehouses.

For most people, "home" is this place of refuge. This place of shelter, where everything becomes OK and life stands still. Whatever storm, quake, disaster stops at that invisible wall people call "home" and whatever exciting, crazy ups and downs go away for a monotony that most people decry but I crave.

For me, "home" is the storm. Home is the embodiment of chaos, of messiness, of burden. Yale, for all its "stress" and "commitments" and "assignments" is a safe haven for me. At least here I know I can close my eyes, I can fall asleep, I can let go of myself and life goes on. I am not constantly bombarded by an insidious hopelessness, assaulted by the egotism or stupidity of politicians, weighed upon to take upon the mantle of a fighter.

Not all people share my sentiments of course. Many can ignore, forget, forgive what happens on a daily basis in Malaysia. As much as I would like to, I cannot. I feel a sense of responsibility, of duty that does not permit me to pretend like all is fine and good with the system when it is clearly not.

Malaysia is like family to me I suppose. No matter how bad things get, I cannot let go of it.

"Do you miss home?"
"No. I don't."

Perhaps there is a better question to be asked then.

"Do you love home?"
"Yes."

"Lost Home". Taken in New Haven, December 2013. OKJ All rights reserved.
Click for larger image.

Sore

Like a moth to a light
I glide to my irresistible doom
Blinking off in electricity and singed wings.
An Icarus of another age.

Why do I fly?
When the destination is only down
and the solace of the sun lies only in its consuming fire?
Yet
In burning there is the briefest flash
Of warmth before the pain.

I soar.

Shades of Solace. Taken in November 2013, Yale University, New Haven. OKJ All rights reserved.
Click for larger image.

Nikmat Padat

Segala yang dihasrat
Tapi tak dapat
Adalah nikmat
yang paling padat.
- A. Samad Said.

Benarkah ini? Adakah sesuatu yang diidami tetapi tidak mungkin diperolehi dapat memberi kebahagiaan kepada seseorang?

Pada permukaannya fikiran ini langsung tidak masuk akal. Kan sepatutnya kita berasa resah? Kan keinginan yang tidak tercapai akan meresap dalam sanubari kita dan meracuni emosi kita? Kan kita semua diajar sejak kecil lagi bahawa tiada benda yang tidak dapat didapati, bahawa di mana ada kemahuan di situ ada jalan, bahawa kegagalan untuk mengambil apa yang kita inginkan merupakan salah sendiri?

Namun makin lama aku merenungi puisi ini, maka makin ku rasa ku dapat menghayati isinya. Aku memerhati sekelilingku. Ku lihat segala yang dihasrat olehku.

Mungkin nikmat itu merupakan suatu perasaan yang lebih mendalam. Mungkin wujudnya suatu kegembiraan dalam memahami bahawa ada benda dalam dunia ini yang kita tidak berupaya untuk mengawal. Mungkin wujudnya sejenis kepuasan dalam menatapi seseorang atau sesuatu dan tidak menyentuh atau mengalaminya, bagaikan merenung ke langit dan menikmati bintang-bintang dari beribu-ribu batu.

Apa yang dingini dan dilihat dari jauh dapat mengekalkan kejelitaannya, keindahannya, kesempurnaannya. Selama ia kekal sebagai teori, dalam minda ia menjadi segala yang murni.

Keupayaan untuk berpura-pura bahawa sesuatu itu adalah sempurna, untuk percaya dunia ini mempunyai sesuatu yang suci dan tidak dicemari, untuk merendam diri dalam satu pelarian dari realiti, mungkin inilah merupakan nikmat yang paling padat.

"The Window Above". Taken in NYC, November 2013. OKJ All rights reserved.
Click for larger image.

The Old And New

"Wait a minute… how old are you again?"

That's usually the standard reaction I get from most people when they realize that I'm a 20 year old freshman. That expression of incredulity is most swiftly followed by watching them struggle to do math backwards to find out what year I was born, along with some sort of slow revelation on their part, usually something along the lines of: "Woah... So you can get us booze next year?" Yeah that's right, looks like I might get a lot more popular come February next year.

Sometimes I do wonder though: What do people think of me when they find out how old I am? Does their opinion of me change? Am I some sort of walking fossil, a freak anomaly that somehow ended up in the wrong class?

To be honest, it's been something I have struggled with in the past few years. Spending time working for NGOs and activism in Malaysia, taking the unconventional route of doing the International Baccalaureate program under a scholarship, added to the already late nature of the idiosyncratic Malaysian education system made me a year or two older than many of my classmates.

When I was doing the IB in ISKL (International School of Kuala Lumpur), I felt almost defined by my age. At times, I found it difficult to let go, to let loose and just have some crazy, unfettered fun. At the back of my head, always there was a nagging feeling that there were larger things at stake, be it the economy, politics or some lofty ideal. There were times, especially when seeing friends of the same age go into higher education while I was still in high school, that I wondered deeply if I was making the right decision.

It came to a point when I almost felt embarrassed whenever someone asked me how old I was. I would skirt around the question, answer indirectly, allude, hint, imply, and just do anything short of actually stating flat out that I was 19 years old. And of course, the dreaded "Ah that explains it." Much of what I had done or achieved felt diminished because of it, that somehow it wasn't that I was out-competing people or studying harder than people but more because I was just older than people. It was as if my age had become the primary explanation for all my actions and accomplishments, my entire existence as a student stood upon a number I had grown to distance myself from. Most frustrating of all, was to see how some of my classmates would use age as a reason to reassure themselves they could not do anything about their own situation. I wanted to tell them that age should not matter, and that so many of them could do way better than I did if only they realized it.

Outside of school life, where I volunteered for NGO groups, wrote research papers and organized protests, I received the same reaction but to a different slant. In these activist groups, I would most often be the baby, the spring chicken of the group and people would be genuinely surprised that I was still in school and not a working adult. A lot of people responded positively to this, praising me effusively for "maturity beyond my years". Though well-intended, such comments often held somewhat disparaging assumptions about "people my age" and predicated a lot of merit based on my age.

Really though, I was just a conflicted teenager like everybody else. The two worlds collided frequently, and made me feel too young and too old at the same time. I felt like some kind of circus freak, walking on a tightrope, straddling a thin thread that divided two worlds, one a blistering inferno and the other a freezing arctic wasteland. In short, Katy Perry's “Hot & Cold”.

Initially, I found it rather difficult. Straddling both worlds as old and young; the two extremes pulling me apart created an underlying resentment. There was always this cloud hanging over me, pressuring me to "act my age". I tried to hide it. Suppress it. Pretend it was never there.

Things went by like that for a while, until I recognized there were others with the same struggle. In particular, there was this guy in debate, an Egyptian called Ahmed Elkady. Ahmed is a brilliant guy, funny, smart, and mature. The only thing was he was a senior, and he was 15 years old. Like myself, much of his high school experience had been defined by his age. We were in the same boat but at different ends. There were others like Ahmed, who by the way, I consider today one of my closest friends.

Gradually, I came to terms with my age. More than that, I embraced it. I took pride in my role as the default big brother (though not in the Orwellian sense). I played and teased on my "long years of worldly experience" (I can barely type this without laughing). I took it as a cue to be patient and humble, when so many people younger than myself were doing so many great things I would never have been able to do. I rejoiced in being chauffeur, driving people around and being able to introduce my friends the hidden secrets of Kuala Lumpur restaurant and bar life.

At the same time, I also took on with ever greater fervour the perks of being young. Chatting away the wee hours of the morning on the merits of Games of Thrones, dancing and looking like a complete fool in the process, and just YOLO-ing the simple things in daily life.

My age stopped becoming a rubber band that was being stretched by opposite forces. In the midst of the late night debates, the chauffeuring and the eating, the fire and ice had melded together to form a lukewarm pond, its waters tranquil but for the occasional foray of an animal or two.

I stopped conforming to what my age group was supposed to be. Oddly enough, the whole age crisis had spurred a change in me. It wasn't that I was more mature, or more happy-go-lucky or anything else. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I felt that for the first time in my life, I wasn't acting or behaving my age.

All my life, I had fought against categorization, from the issue of my race to gender to religion. I had faced all of them head on, confronted them, and exposed them in writing or in action. But my age, this was the elephant in the room I had not deigned to look at. Once I did though, I realized that age was another one of those social constructs imposed upon people to make them “behave”, to teach people to think what an ideal person of age so and so should be like. It was another lazy category to explain away things. “Ooh, Malala Yousafzai is so young!” Her deeds are incredible for any age of any circumstance, and though it truly is remarkable that one so young should be so strong, it’s not the sum total of who she is. It should never define or diminish her accomplishments.

By the end of it all, I was no longer 18 or 19 or 20. I was no longer old or young, a fossil or a baby. I was just, simply, me.

Somewhere, somehow, in the process of coming to terms with my age, I had broken free.

Straddling a thin thread that divided two worlds...
"Dichotomy", taken at Wellington, NZ, 19 January 2012. Copyright of OKJ.

Congratulations & Condolences

"Congratulations."

It's not that I'm not grateful but somehow there is a pang of bitterness that comes with winning the Freshman Prize Debate. Don't get me wrong, I could not be happier and I consider myself incredibly lucky to have such a great support group of friends that helped me win the prize. And I most definitely am not trying to diss anybody who participated, we all did our best and I don't have any right to lord it over anyone.

Yet every time somebody congratulates me I don't quite know how to respond except rejoice and feel that I'm supposed to be a lot more ecstatic about my speech. 

I spoke against the motion which was that responsibility ends at our borders. I used the example of the Westgate Mall Kenya massacre to demonstrate how our world is so interconnected that it was impossible and immoral to shirk from our responsibilities to every citizen of this Earth. 

But there's the problem, see? I used the Kenyan massacre. I distilled the tears and blood, the troubles and tragedies that affected real people into some simplistic didactic takeaway about the world. I felt almost soiled as I was speaking the words, like an actor wearing a blood-stained shirt and winning a prize for his performance, except that the blood was real and belonged to someone who had to die for him to win. 

The night before the debate, I had just attended a candlelight vigil for the victims of the massacre. A few Yale students had been personally affected. The ceremony was simple and solemn, but heartbreaking. It kept me awake, eyes staring at the ceiling for hours on end. It was all too real. 

I had grappled with my feelings when I spoke the words to my speech. I tried to attempt to express my sorrow and my empathy, I tried to do justice to the victims of the massacre and honor their memory, I tried to bring this great message of caring for one another, but everything seemed to fall short. My words felt hollow and meaningless. I felt like that politician who only appears at televised funerals during campaign season and who pretends to eulogize people he does not even know for publicity's sake. 

I consider myself an introspective person. I try to reflect on what I am doing, how I am doing it and why am I doing it every once in a while. And all the while, as I looked back upon that Freshman Debate, the prime motivation in place was simply to win.

How often do we, in the face of glory, forget the real impact of the issues we debate? How often do we reduce lives and livelihoods to plot devices and rhetorical questions? Is this what politicians do?

What does it say about me as a person?

I'm afraid I don't have any answers. All I know is that somewhere, while I'm eating away the hundred dollars someone is suffering from the very incidents I mentioned to win a prize with.

"My condolences."

Man In The Mirror

I can still remember it so clearly.

We were in the car, the entire family, on the way to Melaka or some other outstation location. We had been discussing politics, about how our nation was in dire straits, about how corruption had a stranglehold on the country like vines creeping over a wall, about the injustices and apathy of the people.

Then as we emerged under a flyover, we came upon a police roadblock. The police were checking for ICs, pulling over those who had committed traffic offenses, or who had been speeding in the long, straight stretch of highway before this.

An officer waved us over. My father pulled the car over to the side and dutifully wound down his window. Some words were exchanged. I can't exactly remember what but it was clear that the car had been over the speed limit and a fine would be issued. Unless the issue was solved ... amicably of course.

I was sitting at the back of the car, cheek resting against the seatbelt, eyes half closed in a half-hearted attempt to feign sleep. A deal was made, no fine was issued and we continued driving along.

Eyes now fully closed, I felt my chest tighten as I realised what had just happened. I pretended my eyes were tearing from sleepiness and fatigue,rather than from the hurt I was feeling. You have to understand, I know bribery was commonplace, and was for most people, the most convenient thing to do. But to see it done before my eyes, to witness someone who had shaped me, who could be said to have formed my values and had always emphasized me to be morally upright above all...

Something inside me died that day. The expectation that ordinary people could rise above their station, sacrifice their own conveniences and take the harder but morally just route faded away. The idealism that drove me to believe that humanity was naturally good, and that given the choice and facts people would do the right thing was shaken to the core. Not everyone can be a Gandhi, Mother Teresa or Mandela.

I had always believed that corruption was an issue of ethics, morality and goodness. Educate people enough, tell them how their actions adversely affected society, and they would perhaps change their behaviour. The incident forced me to reevaluate such an idealistic view, and consider such issues in the context of economic benefit, incentives and disincentives, gains and benefits to the private consumer. Simply put, people will almost always take the most convenient route.

I still think about that incident and wonder if I had just dreamed it all up. Sometimes I wish it was indeed just a dream.

Nowadays when I blame anyone for something I try to look in the mirror. While we complain about corruption, how many of us feed it? How is it we condemn corruption while actively sustaining it with our bribes to get off speeding fines, pass driving exams, simplify bureaucratic processes?  How is it we can face ourselves in the mirror knowing full well we are part of the system that oppresses people and squanders our nation's resources?

I don't know. All I know is whenever I look in the mirror I am constantly reminded of our tendency for hypocrisy and making exceptions for ourselves. I see a reflection of myself, staring back at me with eyes wide open, asking: "Are you part of the system?"

Are you a part of the system?

Be The Change

When I was younger I wanted to be a politician. I read about the backstabbing, the betrayals, the 180 degree turns and the populism. I saw the dirtiness of tactics, the flexible morality of principles, and the overwhelming sense of vote preservation that drove many a politician. 

It requires immense moral strength to be a Gandhi.

Yet somehow I had a lofty idea that I could be that one in a million, some sort of fully dressed Gandhi, a Malaysian George Washington, a Mandela that would bring true national reconciliation to our oft divided world. I believed that I was good enough to rise above the muck, to be selfless and to be a kind of saint. In other words, I thought I would be like a lotus flower, growing out of mud yet pure and radiant.

I've had a few years to mull over things, to reflect and meditate on matters, and to embark on a journey of self-discovery. 

And increasingly, I have to come to a gradual realisation that I should not be in politics. I simply have too many flaws, flaws that will probably only be exacerbated by a career in politics.

Might I be the next Ibrahim Ali?

For one, I love the spotlight. I crave the applause of a crowd, the cheers of a racuous audience, the pindrop silence that comes when touching upon shaky ground. My hearts beats a little faster as I see teary eyes or hearty laughs from those watching me. It's perhaps this that has led me to be quite active in public speaking, drama and debate. In other words, I am an attention whore. I won't mince my words, I love attention. And I can only imagine what kind of politics such tendencies will breed: The conspiracy theory spouting of Tian Chua? The senseless but fiery rhetoric of Ibrahim Ali? The publicity stunts of Waythamoorthy?

And then there's the fact that I often think of myself as smart. Sometimes, I may fall into the trap of believing I have the best answers to it all. That somehow I am in control of things and that I may outsmart people here and there. This tendency, coupled with my strong idealism, may result in me thinking that I alone have the best ideas, the best way to achieve a greater goal. Needless to say, it is a common trait amongst dictators: From Mao to Stalin, Hitler to Pol Pot, all believed passionately that they were achieving a greater good, that they had the best answer to everything, and therefore saw fit to wipe out all who opposed their twisted visions. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The worst dictators are always the ones who believe they are doing the world a favour. 

Beautiful car... Bigger tempation?

I also love the luxuries of life. Good food, fancy restaurants, exotic cocktails. Seeing and driving classic Mercedes Benz in mint condition really just does wonders to my mood. Keeping to a diet of eating healthily is difficult enough for me... I shudder to think what the temptation of easy millions may do to my conscience. 

Many people I know would brush these concerns of mine off, saying that I am by far, a good person and that they have confidence in me. But I also know I have deep, deep flaws. I can be insensitive, selfish and self-absorbed. I am often a master procrastinator and a lazy bum, and I sometimes don't take criticism kindly. And the list goes on. Those who have spent a longer period of time with me can testify to these flaws. 

So why am I listing out all these flaws, baring myself to the world? I'm not looking for sympathy or reassurances. In fact, I'm looking for the exact opposite, I want to hear about how I may have offended you, or made a mistake, or just screwed up things without knowing. I want to put this on record, so that one day should I fool myself into thinking I can rise above it all, someone can shove this in my face and remind me of my flaws.

But more than that, it is because I hope I can change myself for the better. I would like to believe that I already have, by reflecting, by avoiding situations that exacerbate my flaws, and by acknowledging my problems in the first place. I've often thought about running away from the world, holing myself up some place remote, maybe high up in the Himalayas with a simple life, with the hours spent on just being. 

But it's not a luxury I can afford for now, so my journey goes on. In the words of Mohandas K. Gandhi: "Be the change you want to see in the world." 

Perhaps one day I will have changed enough to be ready to enter a career in truly serving the people. But until then... I will continue to reflect, to act, and hopefully, to change.

Alone

"Solitary Confinement", taken at Vienna Zoo, 31 July 2011. Copyright of OKJ. Click to see higher quality image.

Somehow, despite being surrounded by people all the time, I cannot help but feel alone.

It's not that I don't have great friends, I do, good friends who I know will be there for me should I need them. It's not that I'm a loner, far from it, I enjoy the company of people, eating, laughing, singing together.

Perhaps alone is not quite the word for it. 

I've always been a rather odd one out I know. Friends say I'm a 40 year old living in a 20 year old body. Given my old fashioned taste in music, I can't say I blame them, haha! But it is more than that. I can go crazy,  enthusiastic and childlike at times ( ask my younger brother). I can be carefree, funny, and happy-go-lucky when I want to be. 

But I don't think that's quite it either.

Rather, I believe it's because of what I believe my life is about. Friends sometimes call me crazy, obsessed or say that I care too much. My mom freaks out everytime I go to some rally or write some article criticising the government. One of my best friends used to say: "Why do you get so upset? It's not even really affecting you." Another unfortunate love interest felt rather neglected when I seemed to love my country and perhaps not pay as much attention to her. 

But that's just it. I feel "alone" at times because I feel that so very few people understand what it is to have one's life revolve around the prospect of serving a greater cause. To many, politics, socioeconomic issues and the fates of others are very separate from their own conception of self. But to me, it is everything. 

For as long as I can remember, I have always been interested in people. Not gossip or the celebrity stuff, but the happiness, the welfare and the livelihood of people. I started blogging because of the gross injustice I felt that was inherent in the Malaysian education system. I study history and economics because I want to learn as much as I can, so that I can broaden my perspective and look upon today's issues with an eye as  to not repeat the terrible past.  Heck, I remember how I used to make my birthday wishes and prayers: "May all people be happy. May the cruel be kind and please help them realize there is a better way for all of us." 

Looking back at my application essays to the US, my whole application rested on sociopolitical concerns. Even my speech competition was based on a speech I made about racism. 

Perhaps that is why I sometimes feel.... not understood. Not misunderstood, no, but just... not understood. I must sound like I'm spewing nonsense now, but it's just that I feel there is this core to me, this core that does not belong to myself but to something bigger than little puny me. 

Maybe one day, when I am going to risk my life or getting arrested, I will find someone who will not say: "Are you mad?" But rather understand that, yes, I am mad, I am mad about the injustice, I am mad about the hypocrisy, I am mad about the hunger, the racism, the corruption, the poverty. 

Maybe one day I will find someone who instead of holding me back, will simply hold my hand and walk with me. 

Until that day, perhaps I will stick to long lonely drives home, listening to my heart beating in the dark. 

Identity Crisis

"Tell us about who you are."

Who am I? 

The truth is, I don't really know. 

The past two years has been an incredible journey of self-discovery and change for me. My involvement with the amazing people at various NGOs, research institutes, schools, and conferences have shaped, bent, demolished and rebuilt my conception of self again and again, so much so that I am truly not the person I was two years, or even one year ago.

In a short two years, I've gone through various crises of faith: I started out as a Buddhist, briefly became an atheist, and now I'm agnostic. My political beliefs have been a roller-coaster:  from right wing free marketeer to left wing social liberal and now a centrist and moderate. Even my opinion of food, one thing I always thought would be constant, has been challenged: I find myself meeting people who have turned vegetarian for one reason or another and I question whether I can continue eating away with a guilty conscience. 

People who know me from my Wesley days call me an idealistic, melodramatic chatterbox. Those who know me from my early ISKL days might call me a reserved, skeptical realist. Those who know me now probably say I'm a mixture of both. I used to think I was pretty knowledgeable about the world, and I frequently made assumptions about people. But now it seems the more I learn, the more I realise that I know so little. 

Man, I must sound like a really funky cocktail gone wrong. But in truth, I don't think that's a bad thing. I try to reconcile the differences, to recognise the conflicts that are happening within me, so that I can know myself a little bit better.

And so to answer the question: Who am I?

I still don't know. And I may never really know.

But I plan to find out. =)

P.S. How have you changed these past years? Who are you? I'd like to hear, and thank you so much for reading!

Amnesia, Paranoia, Inertia (API)

I love history. I really do. I love how history has a tendency to manifest itself in different forms from time to time, how a single event has the power to change fates of nations across generations, how rich and colourful the characters of the past are. History speaks volumes to me.

Which is precisely why I disliked the history syllabus back in school. It was stuffy, repetitive, and had a one track interpretation of things. In short, it was like a really ancient man- who suffered from amnesia, paranoia, and inertia (API). And today, like a slightly spoilt grandchild, I’m going to delve into the fiery (get it? OK lame) issue of our history syllabus and complain about this old man.

Tiananmen Square

Twenty-three years and eight days ago, hundreds of students, who had been standing up for their voice to be heard, were killed during the Tiananmen massacre in China. The Forbidden City witnessed a bloodbath. The foreign media condemned it. The world cried out bloody murder.

You’d think that such an event would have changed a society to its roots. You’d think that people hold that date dearly to their chest, and remember it as a day of shame, never to be repeated again. Yet today, Beijing University students do not remember it at all. When shown a picture of the tank man – the famous photo of the man who tried to stop an army tank – they could not recognise it.

Some of you reading this may be gasping in horror, especially if you watched the video embedded in the link. How could such an important event be completely forgotten by the students from the very university that led the movement? It would be like Singaporeans having no knowledge of the 1965 separation, or of Indians not knowing about the Amritsar Massacre.

The funny thing is that my generation has its own amnesia too: May 13, 1969 – the day when violent ethnic clashes rocked our country.

Most of my friends have no idea about the significance of this date. Even when I explained it to them, their reaction would be incredulous, saying “There were race riots in Malaysia?”

But then again, they’re not to blame: it wasn’t in the history syllabus. Apparently, the ministry decided to put in only ‘positive elements and not negative elements’. By that same logic, I suppose the Germans should not read about the Nazis either.

May 13, 1969 is not the only case of selective forgetfulness. The contributions of the leftist political parties in the fight for independence, the story of Yap Ah Loy, and even the origins of the Malays have all been omitted or barely mentioned.

So many parts of our own nation’s history were blotted out because they were not positive enough?

Napoleon Bonaparte

Here, let me test you. Napoleon Bonaparte, Mehmed the Conqueror, Dwight Eisenhower, Deng Xiaoping, Genghis Khan, George Washington, Josef Stalin, Muhammad Jinnah – what do they all have in common?

They are great leaders? Perhaps. All men? Well yeah, but not what I was looking for. The answer? They are all absent from the history syllabus.

Suffice to say that the lack of world history in syllabus is a great source of shame when meeting foreigners, especially when the history-savvy amongst them know about Malaysian history. (An American acquaintance of mine was shocked to find out that our Sejarah textbook had condensed World War I and World War II into four pages).

My friend, who is going to Cambridge University, is now getting informal coaching sessions from an acquaintance to brush up on his world knowledge lest he look like an idiot in ‘jolly good’ England.

And mind you, I’m not even one of those who complain the syllabus is too Islam-oriented. In fact, I rather enjoyed those parts – they are important parts of our world history that are often ignored in the West. What I really didn’t like however was the sheer repetitiveness (and this is why I say our history syllabus is like an old man) – Melaka in primary school, Melaka in lower secondary, and wow whaddaya know Melaka again for upper secondary! Yay.

Paranoia

The old man of our history syllabus is not only forgetful, but paranoid. For instance, communists apparently are evil, indiscriminate killers who want to take over the world. These history professors are living in the past – the Cold War is over.

Today, we are doing business with the Communists in China, while many communist parties have rebranded themselves and have won democratic elections. Yet our history syllabus carries on, not even bothering to explain the ideology of communism before condemning it as rubbish.

Of course, the reason why controversial issues such as these are ignored or represented by one viewpoint is because our young minds will no doubt be influenced and we’ll end up being terrorists.

Thank you for saving my soul, Mr History Professor. I know I am not as mature as all those other kids in Europe and other developed nations who can study “hot” topics and somehow not go wacko.

On a more serious note, the paranoia evident in the way the history syllabus is set defeats the very purpose of studying history.

One of the quotes that are in almost every chapter of the Sejarah textbook is by George Santayana: “Those who do not study the past are doomed to repeat it.”

Those who wrote the textbooks are the same ones who included this quote; they are also the ones who seek to only include positive elements in our syllabus. I can only hope that my generation, despite not studying incidents like May 13 do not repeat them.

Inertia
Inertia is a physics term used to describe the tendency of an object to remain at rest. Our history syllabus suffers from inertia of the mind – it is not helping students improve their thinking in any way.

Back in secondary school, studying history was a bit like this: the textbook is your bible, memorise it, bring it everywhere you go and voila, just vomit out the facts and you’re fantastic. Even when it came to essay questions in SPM like “Why did the Japanese not invade Thailand during World War II”, it came down to memorising listed reasons in the textbook.

Sharif Masahor

I remember one of my exams had an essay question that asked why people like Dol Said, Sharif Masahor and Dato Bahaman deserved to be national heroes. I answered that they did not deserve to be national heroes as they were mainly fighting for their own taxes and influence, and they were not concerned with nationalism; it was all about state allegiances back then.

It turned out that it was not a yes or no question. I soon learned to fall in and get my A.

When I began my pre-university course in history, I realised that history was no more than interpretations of events – it is His Story after all. Such a revelation sounds pretty lame. After all, imagine me gasping in awe: “There are VIEWPOINTS!?”

Truly though, it was such a break from the past of memorising Sejarah blindly. When I told my Canadian lecturer what the Malaysian history syllabus was like, he was appalled and said he would probably resign if he had to teach it in that way.

Today I’m relearning (and from a Mat Salleh at that) that the Baling talks had two sides to it. I’m evaluating Dr Mahathir’s time in office, reading and citing from sources ranging from the Malay Dilemma, to Lim Kit Siang’s speeches in Parliament.

I am allowed to say that Mao ZeDong was a visionary. At the same time, if it suits me, I can also say that he was an absolute murderer. I can even say he was both, as long as I analyse historical incidents properly and can come up with plausible explanations to my thesis.

Barely any of the arguments were in the text. We did not even have a textbook. We had instead excerpts from multiple authors to look at all views. It doesn’t make me any less patriotic; in fact, I’d say learning about the world has made me more patriotic.

Above all, I am learning that there are no absolute answers in complex historical events. Only fools claim they do.

It saddens me deeply to know that the greatest tragedy of our history syllabus is not its myopic and tiny scope, not its paranoia and forgetfulness, but its feeble attempt to feed us half-truths and viewpoints as gospel.

George Orwell once said: “He who controls the present, controls the past. And he who controls the past, controls the future.”

Josef Stalin, the authoritarian dictator of the Soviet Union, launched campaigns to find, imprison and kill historians. Such sentiments reveal the importance of history.

I find our syllabus suspiciously close to attempts at indoctrination – the ultimate inertia of the mind.

As a young Malaysian, it pains my heart to see others my age turn away from such a beautiful, relevant subject because all they have encountered is a twisted, biased and repetitive version of it. People like to complain many youths are unpatriotic.

As with relationships, we have to know a person, warts and all, to love him or her; how can we love Malaysia if we don’t know its faults and dark moments?

I hope the old man of our history syllabus can still be cured.

I pray that my children can know the world and Malaysia. If indeed my child comes up to me and says, “Dad, I think maybe the communists were not evil. I believe May 13 was a spontaneous uprising. I believe Dol Said deserved to be called a national hero”, I will ask her “Did you read all viewpoints? Did you form this opinion yourself?”, and if she says yes, I will say “Good for you!”

And the rest, is as they say, history.

As published on Loyarburok, Voice of Children and Malaysia Today.

BERSIH- Of Police Brutality & Maggi Mee

Gives a whole new meaning to Duduk Bantah, eh? Source in image.

This is one of the definitions given by Urban Dictionary (yes I know, what a load of nonsense, but bear with me):

Police [ puh-less], noun The guys you run away from.

e.g. SHIT, IT’S THE POLICE, RUN!

Usually Urban Dictionary doesn’t quite give the most accurate of definitions, but this one seemed pretty damn accurate on Saturday. Well, most of you would have had your own experiences, but I needed to vent my frustration ( since I don’t have anybody to beat up), so here I am writing an article which probably only three people will read (one of them a cyber police officer, perhaps).
I’d just like to clarify some things before I move on. Firstly, I am in no way against the police themselves as a force, but rather am opposed to their conduct. In fact, I owe a lot to them, and have friends who have policemen as dads. Secondly, this article is based on my experiences, so please don’t tell me I’m spewing nonsense (I’m talking to YOU, cyber police officer lurking in a dark room).

Okay, moving on.

Police in solemn silence, after prayers.

Police organisation

It was about 1.30 p.m. at Masjid Negara. The solat had begun, and people were starting to pour into the mosque. There was a huge crowd of police (most of whom looked very young) on my side of the road – about five hundred of them – and you could that some wanted to follow the crowd into the mosque (for prayer or for the shade, I don’t know). They had been standing there for about half an hour by now, and some began to sit down. A Bersih supporter joked they were staging their own Duduk Bantah, haha!

The day was maddeningly hot. I thought I was dying from the heat, when suddenly I noticed this huge movement on the right flank of the police formation. They were mobilising! The crackdown had begun! I stood up on the steel railing at the side of the road trying to get a glimpse, oh poor vertically-challenged me. And there they were, about twenty to thirty policemen, surrounding this elderly pak cik. All of them were reaching into their pockets, grabbing his hand…

To give him money for drinks.

Bet I caught you there, eh? Okay anyway, a friend of mine decided to belanja the policemen. “The police are our friends, remember that!”, he said. So we bought like ten cups of sirap and orange juice, and the police officers shared them out. They were a bit reluctant to accept it at first, but judging by the way they devoured the drinks I suppose they were pretty parched. We then begun a conversation with them.

I asked one if he knew how many policemen were present. I hazarded a figure of 3000. He just shook his head, saying there were many more than that. A little bit more snooping revealed that they were all from different contingents – some from Johor, Selangor, Perak, and even from Penang. No wonder the other protests were so peaceful, all the police were in KL!

I even found out that a few of them, by their own confession, were “dari negara asing” ( from a foreign country). I was pretty puzzled, but they seemed tight-lipped about this and so I didn’t press further. Overall they were quite friendly;  joking around and jabbing each other, they reminded me of schoolkids teasing each other about “girlfriends”. Several protesters even shared cigarettes with them.

Mainstream media said businesses affected. Affected in a good way I suppose?

About twenty minutes later, prayers ended. Some policemen had stood in solemn silence the whole way. I talked to them a bit more, and one of them asked me why I had turned up. I told him about election fraud. We had a bit of a discussion, and he concluded: “You ada pandangan you, saya ada pandangan sendiri lah.” ( You have your opinions, and I have my own views)

There were lots of helicopters overhead, and even these funny men on parachutes with giant fans strapped to their back (para-gliders). Most were probably FRU air surveillance. Very nice. I joked that, for the next Bersih, we should hijack those parachute things and land in Dataran Merdeka, bypassing all the barbed wire. Heh.

In any case, I found the police mobilisation in shutting down roads to bevery impressive. It definitely revealed the extent to which the government had made preparations for Bersih.

Police “professionalism”

Many festivities followed. This mood continued at my side of Masjid Jamek (I had moved, as Masjid Negara got boring), until about 3pm or so. Then all hell started breaking loose.
Tear gas was everywhere. Without warning, police started shooting at us. It was like having cili padirubbed into your eyes, and a whole chunk of wasabi shoved down your throat and up your nose. For those of you who didn’t go gatal to experience tear gas, I would not recommend you attempt to reenact my description. I had a towel wet by water from a pak cik, a mask from an uncle, and salt from a little adik - the clothes of the true Malaysia.

Police fired tear gas indiscriminately. Their tactics were obviously to box us in, not to fan us out. I was getting tired from all the running and gas, and thought of just resting. Then a grandma who must have been in her 70s tapped me on the shoulder and said: “Let’s go!”  I sure didn’t feel tired after that.

We ran back and forth, back and forth. Some protestors started hurling insults at the police, who responded likewise. The police shouted, “ Come la! Come la! If you’re so brave, come and hit us la!”

Though certainly the police were provoked, this was certainly unacceptable as they are to be moral guardians and upholders of peace and law. Instead of managing the situation, they fostered aggession. At one point, I was wandering off and got manhandled by a policeman who shouted at me “Pergi! Pergi! You jangan kacau di sini!” and pushed me back into the fray.

If this were some first world country – and yes, I am saying Malaysia is a third world country – the police officer would probably have just barred my way and politely but firmly said “Sir, this is a restricted area, please leave for your own safety”.

What ever happened to our Malaysian police motto of “TEGAS, ADIL DAN BERHEMAH”?

I know, pretty wet, and mind you this was BEFORE the action started!

Excessive force

Things gradually died down from there, as being true Malaysians, my friends and I just had to go for a makan session. So we went to Restoran Ali, although it was less packed than the nasi briyani stall next to it. The food there was not that great, to say the least. The maggi goreng was rather bland, and they had run out of most other foods (in hindsight, I think he got it mixed up with Restoran Ali Maju).

Anyway, in case you’re wondering what on earth this has to do with the police, we were eating away when a group of people in yellow shirts came running over shouting “Baju! Baju! Baju!”. I didn’t quite understand what they were shouting about until this young Chinese guy came over to our table and explained that the police were arresting everybody in yellow. We quickly put on our jackets, a quick ‘I told you it’d come in handy!’ whipped out to my friends in the process. One guy who had heard the brief exchange took off his shirt, while some others either didn’t bother or didn’t hear.

Ten seconds later, a dozen police officers came running over, holding batons and shouting their heads off. They pulled the noticeable yellow shirt wearers out of the mamaks, and the guy who took off his shirt wasn’t spared either ( I mean who on earth walks around, eating dinner half-naked in public?). The police started beating them up, kicking them around. I was tempted to stand up and cry foul, but a tiny voice in my head whispered to me about the importance of continuing the Ong family line and the futility of it all. So I just kept eating.

The police shouted while hitting them, saying “You berani lawan polis, you tau tak dua orang polis sudah mati!” (You dare fight the police, do you know that two police officers have died!) The newspapers make no mention of this, so I assume these were baseless rumours.

Such a rumour could only have come from police themselves, or from the top. If it was from the former, they should have verified the claim through their clearly well-organised communication network. If it was from the top, then it is obviously to stir up emotion and make things worse. Either way, it revealed the excessive force and gangster-ish spirit of our police officers: you hurt one of us, we have the right to hurt you; taking the law into their own hands when they of all people should know that a criminal must be tried by a court.

These vigilantes were obviously not of the Spiderman type, but rather indiscriminately vented their anger on innocent protestors who did not resist arrest.

After they left, I heaved a sigh of relief. Afraid that they might come again and this time check under my jacket, I dumped my Bersih T-shirt into the nearest dumpster. What an ironic end.

I was trying to get back home then, but to no avail. Most of the roads and trains were closed. So I was walking along St. Johns when a group of people came running and shouting how the police were now arresting practically everyone still on the streets. My friends and I dived into St. Johns Cathedral (well, it was as good a time as any to start feeling religious!) and hid there for an hour or so.

Aftermath

I’d like to end my account of Bersih and the police with an analogy: If we are shot by a gun (or, if you prefer, a tear gas canister), do we blame the gun or the person wielding the gun? If we are angry about the police, do we blame the police or those who direct the police?

I leave that judgment up to you. But what I do know is that after the day’s events, I have changed. I remember the first moment the tear gas hit – I shed tears, but they were not just tears from the tear gas, but tears from my heart. Something inside me had died. But recalling the Yellow River that day (we could have given the real river some competition!), something new also grew, and is still growing inside me.

I call it hope. And I hope it grows inside you, too.


Originally published on Loyarburok.