Reject the Stadium Solution

Every single time an NGO wants to stage a protest, the immediate reaction is to first deny permission and then to suggest that the protest be held in a stadium.  This stadium knee jerk reaction has become the hue and cry of many a commentator, and surprisingly, even some who are for the cause of such protests also support the stadium solution. 

The common refrain comes in three forms. First, critics point to the convenient nature of stadiums that can hold large capacities of people without causing obstructions on the road, or having the risk of car accidents. Second, critics look no further than the successful Kelana Jaya Stadium and Stadium Negara protests and say: “There you go, everybody is happy that way.” Last but certainly not least, there are supporters of the cause who prefer not to break the law or whatever arbitrary regulation the authorities have thrown at people, and thus say: “Aiya…Just follow law la. They let us protest there, so let’s just protest there la.”

Protest organizers have been more or less quite adamant in not giving in to such demands, with exception of the immediate post-GE 13 stadium rallies. And every time organizers reject the “Stadium Solution” (I call it the SS), there’s a huge backlash from ordinary citizens who view their constant rejections of government “compromises” as unreasonable. Yet, for all this hue and cry, there has never been an articulation, a strategic evaluation of why it is so important for protests to be held on the streets and not in a stadium. As someone who has been an organizer of protests, this is very frustrating. So this piece sets out to articulate such a position and hopefully the rakyat will be more supportive and understanding of organizer’s woes when the next street demonstration comes along. 

The post-election Kelana Jaya Stadium Rally. From Harakah Daily.

1. Stadiums are limiting factors

By their very nature, stadiums limit the number of participants. If a stadium’s capacity is 120,000 people, then you are surely not going to get more than that number of participants. Any excess crowd will gather on the outside of the stadium, and not being able to enter the stadium to hear the speeches, or participate in any collective action, will eventually just subside away. This runs counter to the number one objective of any protest: which is to get as much mass support as possible. Simply put, it’s like going to a buffet, and being told you can only have one plate of food, that’s all. Add that to the fact that you never know for sure how many people are going to turn up, and that’s a big problem. 

Numbers are the lifeblood of protests. The more people that turn up, the more powerful the impact of a protest. Many people point to Kelana Jaya and tout it as a success. I beg to differ. Kelana Jaya reached perhaps 120,000 people, but there were thousands more stuck in traffic jams or milling about outside the stadium. Had it been held on the streets, with multiple meeting points converging on a large urban space, it potentially could have had the impact of a BERSIH. 

Not only are the number of protestors limited, the other most important factor in a successful demonstration, media coverage is also limited. Going back to the Kelana Jaya stadium protest, the Al-Jazeera reporter was stuck outside the stadium, doing live coverage of basically a few people milling about outside. Imagine the media impact lost because of that. Media impact is particularly important for protests to garner awareness, not just internationally, but also to inspire and to spur on fellow citizens who may be sitting at home wondering whether it was worth going. 

Stadiums are also a geographically limiting factor, because, let’s face it, there are not that many that can comfortably hold more than a hundred thousand people. Many stadiums also fall under the purview of federal government agencies or private corporations, for which letting an “anti-government” organization hold a demonstration is a big no-no. So the stadiums that are viable, are often those in opposition held states, where public transport is less well developed, and are often magnets for traffic jams even on the best of days. They also tend to spill out into residential areas. So if you did not want to join a protest in the heart of the city, you simply stayed back home and relaxed. Now, because the only viable stadium is in Petaling Jaya, it now restricts access for residents themselves. 

The 2012 Bersih 3.0 Rally. From Global Bersih.

2. Street protests may be inconvenient, but that is part of the point

This is in response to those who would rather follow police directions and stick to stadiums if need be. A protest, especially in an authoritarian political setting, is by its very nature an act of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is a purposeful act of breaking a particular law, in order to expose its arbitrary and unfair nature. This is what Mahatma Gandhi did in leading the Great Salt March from Sabarmati to Dandi, and making salt in defiance of the British Raj Salt Laws that outlawed any such endeavor. By doing so, he sought to show the injustice of the salt laws and demonstrate that salt belonged to all Indians. By protesting on the streets, Malaysians demonstrate the injustice of SOSMA and the Peaceful Assembly Act.

Of course, each one of Gandhi’s protests presented huge inconveniences to both the authorities and ordinary citizens. His call for a national day of prayer and fasting to protest the Rowlatt Act, put into context, was more than a massive inconvenience. Imagine, one man essentially declared a public holiday, and put the entire nation on standstill. Trains stopped working, shops closed, packages and deliveries delayed. 

A ruling coalition only stands up and takes notice when it is hit where it hurts. The inconvenience of it all is a purposeful material and symbolic signal to the government to take heed of the rakyat and “Listen, listen, listen”. If street protests were so easy and free of consequences, then activists could protest 365 days a year without any effect, and the government could afford to ignore such pleas. 

By making stadium protests a contained event, the ruling government also contains the impact of any such action. 

People arrested at a parliament protest I was present at. Luckily it was not an enclosed space.
 From Keow Wee Loong Photography.

3. Stadium protests are not only limiting, but downright dangerous

By far the most important reason to avoid a stadium, or any enclosed area at all costs, is the potential danger such spaces entail. Look no further than the annual deaths during the Haj in Mecca on the risks huge crowds in small spaces bring. Not to forget the various stampedes in football stadiums from the 2009 Houphouët-Boigny Arena stampede where 19 people died, to the 2013 Stade Félix Houphouët-Boigny New Year stampede where 60 people died. 

The above are religious and sports festivals, but imagine how much more tense the situation is at protests, where the threat of police action is always over the heads of protestors. Emotions run high, and the slightest spark can trigger panic. Imagine if police fired tear gas into Kelana Jaya stadium that night. Thousands of people, rushing to get away from the debilitating gas might have trampled all over each other. Or what if there is a threat of a bomb, some unbased rumor as is common in such incidents? This is exactly what happened when 147 people were killed during the Chamunda Devi stampede at the Chamunda Devi temple in India, caused by a rumor that a bomb was planted in the temple complex.

Unlike street protests where participants have dozens of avenues of escape should there be any incidents, stadium often only have a few narrow exits. The slopes and benches do not help either. Unlike street protests where the only obstacle might be a road block (and this can be circumvented too), all that needs to be done to hem protestors in is to simply lock the doors. 

This risk to human lives is by far the most concerning facet about the Stadium Solution. It is an unacceptable risk that should be avoided at all costs.

Reject the Stadium Solution

No doubt, the ruling government is probably perfectly aware of how stadium protests are limited, less impactful and more dangerous than street protests. Like a noose that seeks to strangle, the stadium is a tool of encirclement that seeks to corral the efforts of protestors.

I hope, especially for those who have always wondered “What’s wrong with a stadium?”that this articles lays it out clearly and concisely why the stadium is an ineffective and risky venue for any sort of mass demonstration. Reject the Stadium Solution. The streets are paid for by the blood, sweat and tears of all Malaysians, it is high time we claimed them to assert our independence from unjust laws. In the words of St. Augustine: “An unjust law is no law at all.” 

Also published on Loyarburok, MalaysiaKini, Malaysia Today, The Malay Mail, Malaysian Insider, MSN News Malaysia, and Yahoo! News Malaysia.

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.
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Broken Reflections

When I was about 9 years old, my grandmother passed away. At the time of her passing I was at my godparents house, having fun with computer games and just fooling around. My godfather tried to convey the news to me lightly, by telling me that grandma had gone to a better place. A better place without suffering, where everyone was happy all the time and lead blissful lives.

I knew what he was talking about. It was not heaven or some sort of paradise that sprang to my mind but death. I had seen my fish dead, floating right side up in a murky bowl of water clouded by fish pellets and droppings. I had witnessed hens slaughtered at the wet market, their necks choked by clenched fists while a clean cleaver slit their throats, their blood spilling onto the concrete floor mixing with the rainwater and scattered bits of vegetable. I had observed ants, by the hundreds carrying dead cockroaches murdered by pesticide, back in a cannibalistic funeral procession. 

Somehow, I had been acutely aware, from a very young age, that death was natural, universal, and inevitable. Yet I seemed to have no fear of it. It occurred to me as futile to fear something that was so ... part of the way the world functioned. I often imagined myself dying in various ways, from cancer, from a car accident, from drowning. 

In fact, I still remember an incident where I very nearly drowned myself. And by Jove it was such an incredibly stupid way to drown too. My younger brother and I both took swimming classes together, and after class we would fool around in the pool just having fun. One day, I had the bright idea of giving my brother a piggyback just like my dad usually did. It was pretty fun up until the point when I waded into the deeper end of the pool. Can't really remember why but it was something about trying to allay my brother's fears of the water by immersion and crap like that. And boy did I get immersed.

The moment his head went near the water line, my brother panicked and in attempting to get higher, pushed on the only surface he could find: my head. This of course, caused me, his support to simply go deeper into the pool, and he panicked more and more. I remember desperately shouting "LET GO! LET GO! YOU WON'T DROWN!", the words in between lost in gulps of water. I laugh when I think of it now, drowning in 6 feet of water. I tried to push off my brother so that I could save the both of us, but this only caused him to panic more and wrap his legs around my neck ever tighter.

Halfway through the ordeal, which seemed like the longest time ever, I stopped struggling. It wasn't that I had run out of breath. I just realized the futility of the whole situation and felt this impending sense of doom. Somehow everything seemed sharper in that moment, like one of those super High-Definition videos where it all seems so incredibly detailed as to be unreal. And I just let go. I closed my eyes, and let myself drift-drown like a metal pin dropped into water, rolling gently as it falls, almost without resistance. 

The swimming instructor eventually fished us both out of the water. I just lay down on the floor like a limp fish. Maybe I was in shock. But thinking back to it now the experience seemed almost serene, almost meditative in nature. I knew I could have died. It hung over me like that phantom indent on your head after wearing a head band for a long time then taking it off. It sometimes still hangs over me. But I never associated the whole incident with fear.

"Death Over The Hill" Taken in Auckland, NZ 2011. OKJ All rights reserved.
Click for larger image.

There are few things that truly scare me. Sure, there is the occasional ghost jumping out at the screen in horror movies and the moment when a roller coaster dips from a gravity defying loop, but true terror? The kind of fear that seeps into your very being, that paralyzes you even as it panics you, that shadows your moves and thoughts and dreams and sinks its teeth into you while never letting go?

Only two things have managed to invoke this sort of foreboding doom in my heart, and they are in some ways diametrically opposed. The first was a fear of being forgotten. History had always fascinated me and the deeds and legacies of great men like Alexander, Saladin, Washington and Gandhi struck me as something to aspire to. To be remembered, to be spoken after one's passing, to become, in a way, immortal. I had read somewhere that the poet Keats epitaph had been "Here lies he whose name was writ in water", and I was determined to have my name carved in stone. I wanted to leave a mark in the world, to do something great and be remembered for it. 

Yet there was something extremely disquieting about such a fear. I didn't only admire the Mandelas and St. Francis' of the world; increasingly I found myself drawn to figures like Hitler, Qin Shi Huang, Caesar and Stalin.  These were the giant who were great, but also terrible ( #Voldemort). I was slowly coming to a realization there was very little I would not do to be remembered, be it great evil or great good. Or as Milton puts it in Paradise Lost: "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven". Perhaps the acceptance of the inevitability of death made me infatuated of living after death by leaving a legacy. Maybe this was my way of dealing with the specter of the end of life, the sense of mortality that I grew up with. 

This was the fear of my high school years. But as I grew older, a new fear emerged. I feared myself. 

I came to the realization that fundamentally, I was not a good person. I could be very selfish, I could very incredibly self-centered, and had a supreme sense of self-preservation. I craved attention, thought myself very smart indeed, and reveled the freedom that came with positions of authority. I could be abrasive, temperamental and capable of much dishonesty. Increasingly, I viewed my fascination with fame and legacy and the martial as something repugnant, something corrupting and dangerous. I have done bad things, things that at the time I thought were justified, or dismiss-able in the name of some higher cause. But as they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. 

This process of realization took a long time. It felt like an egg being cracked over my head while still sleeping. First you don't notice it, simply thinking it cold. Then it somehow incorporates itself into your dream, weaving in and out, droplets of egg white and yolk stringing over your hair. Finally comes the awakening, the touching, and then the horror of realizing that a life that could have been was shattered on you, the liquids of the womb dripping over your face, your neck, your T-shirt emblazoned with self-righteous quotes. 

The horror of realizing that even as you woke, you had the power, and perhaps even a desire, to crush yet more lives and eggs. The fear that pervades you as you look into the mirror, and recognize but refuse to acknowledge that the person staring back is you. 

It was a moment of truth for me because I had always believed myself essentially a good person. Yet my desires, my ambitions, my actions often contradicted with the self-image I had forged in the fires of egotism. And as fear of myself surpassed my fear of anonymity, I entered a phase of extreme self-examination. 

That process continues today, every waking hour, every passing moment. I subject my actions to scrutiny, I criticize myself, I question my own motives for doing the things I do. It's why so many of my blog posts including this one are self-deprecatory, reflective, and sobering. They serve to provide a counterbalance to my natural tendencies to think myself all-knowing and all-powerful, and anchor me with an open confession of my vulnerabilities, bared for all the world to see, so I never fall into the trap of thinking myself above others. A friend once described my writing as agonizingly self-aware while at the same time indulgent. I think of it as almost like trying to get drunk while in a cold shower. 

This blog post is perhaps the coldest of such "showers" yet. It has taken me a long time to confront these fears of mine, and to surmount perhaps another fear, the fear of being judged by others when this post is published. But I believe that it is necessary, at this crossroads of my life, to be brutally honest with myself, and to not only recognize but acknowledge, nay, shout out in a megaphone who I see in the mirror. I don't think I'm alone in recognizing there are parts of my own character that I am deeply uncomfortable with, and maybe sharing this odyssey will help others step up and face their own inner demons. 

I yearn for a day when I will be able to say confidently I believe I am a good person. (Yet, how will I know if it's not self-conceit?) I hope that I will have not only the strength to change, but also the strength to acknowledge my weakness. And I pray that one day, I will no longer be haunted by the fears of anonymity and myself.

Until then, I will continue to look into a cracked mirror stained by the splatter of shattered eggs, while drowning in the blood of slaughtered chickens and choking from the iron grip of tightening legs. 

"Staring Upon The Mind" Taken in New York, December 2013. OKJ All rights reserved.
Click for larger image.

Metempsychosis

Somehow, the parade and the block party of the President's Inaugural evoked in me a deep-seated, irrational fear.

At first there was the excitement, the thrill that came with trailing the jolly band, the colorful procession of trumpets, whistles and drums. President Salovey was in high spirits, waving to his bevy of followers, the faculty clad in full dress and regalia were prancing away, the whole scene was one of and joy and jubilation. I scrambled after the marching company, snapping away on my smartphone, tailing them like the paparazzi.

Then this overwhelming sense of deja vu crept in, like a raw egg cracked over a bare heart, the liquid coating it in an eerie coldness of life lost. It was not the first time I was doing this. I had been in this situation before, the intrepid, excited reporter seeking a snapshot of the band. The chasing after a marching company, the noises and beats of drum and fanfare, the beautiful chaos of the moment: these were familiar to me.

I had experienced all of it during my time in the protest movement. The excitement, the joy of seeing so many turn out to support the cause of free and fair elections, to see people power in the making! I had been there, documenting everything in my mind and my camera, running frantically after the tails of this or that prominent politician or activist. I still think about it and my heart swells with joy.

But such joy was always temporary. Something would always turn ugly. The police would crackdown, someone would be trampled by the crowds, a horrific car acccident would occur. I often thought of that momentary joy in the odd lens of tall building suicide. Jumping off a building, there is perhaps a moment when you feel the gust of wind against your cheeks, your arms spread like an eagle ready to soar, and maybe, just maybe you think ironically by descending you ascend the heights of ecstasy. But such a moment is always fleeting, and then you hit the ground and your body splatters against a hard concrete ground or somebody's Lamborghini and it's all over, you're literally brought back to a blood soaked earth.

As I followed the president's procession, a mounting sense of urgency overtook my joy. As I looked to President Salovey and the smile on his face, I had this sudden feeling that all was not well, and that at any moment shouts of joy would turn into screams of terror. My "Spider-Sense" went on high alert.

I tried to reassure myself nothing could possibly go wrong, walking backwards to capture the scene. Then I turned to walk forwards and was confronted with the sight of a police car. The officer smiled and lightly tapped my shoulder to direct me to the sides. I recoiled slightly from his touch.

It felt incredibly odd to see a smiling police officer. When I had been working in the protest movement as secretary to an NGO coalition, the police were people you avoided. They represented the authorities who were looking for any crack in your defenses, any excuse to clamp down and end it all.

I had witnessed with my own eyes police dragging people out on the streets, beating them to a pulp and narrowly escaped such a fate myself. I had evaded trailing police vans in the dead of night, trying to rendezvous with my colleagues just released from detainment for voicing their dissent, at one time even switching meeting points 3 times to slip out under the watchful eyes of the police. I had choked on tear gas, been bruised by a stray canister, run frantically away from them in a cat and mouse game in the narrow street alleys of Kuala Lumpur.

And now they were the good guys.

Trying to ignore the storm of emotions I turned to my usual refuge, food. Food trucks galore presented themselves and for the first time that day, in the midst of Snowcones, kettle corn and fried dough everything seemed better. Free food always makes me happy.

Despite it all, the specter of ruinous protests still lingered in the back of my mind. It was so ridiculously irrational yet it was something of an instinct I had developed. You needed to be constantly on high alert to survive. Surveying the scene, I couldn't help but notice how calm everything was. It was organized chaos. Images of destruction and mayhem flashed in my head in stark contrast.

The giant inflatable bulldog stood tall as a monument to the nature of the block party: full of a festive air, way over the top and comical.

I thought about the other "monuments" that I had encountered in protest. There were the barbed wire fences, hastily set up to prevent citizens from gathering, ironically enough, in Freedom Square. There were the ominous black vans, complete with cages in the back that transported away many a friend. And then there was the smashed up, overturned police car pounded to bits by angry protestors, and left as it was for hours into the aftermath, like some grotesque monument attesting to the ugliness of the mob, the chaos of what became a riot, the blurred lines between right and wrong.

I didn't have much time to ruminate as I was pulled along into a line of fawning students wanting a part in the event I called the SSS: Selfie Sunday with Salovey.

It was good fun and when I got back I thought about making it my profile picture, just for bragging rights and all. I'm not a fan of selfies so I don't take many photos of myself, I prefer to be the guy taking the photo or if I am already wielding the camera I prefer to take monochrome shots of inanimate objects like buildings or leaves or some abstract act piece.

So I looked through my previous profile pictures and stumbled upon one from a long time ago. There I was, getting my shot taken in front of a line of riot police. The two photos with two very different figures of authority.

I reflected long and hard on the day, and it's taken me weeks to be able to pen down some of the feelings I felt, and even then I don't feel like I'm doing them justice.

It took me a long while to realize I had nothing to fear. The police were not going to pull out a gun and start shooting into the crowd, the only smoke that appeared was from a fog machine not a tear gas canister, and President Salovey certainly wasn't going to go berserk and choke me with that  flashy looking necklace thing (though I can imagine such a scene in a future YSO Halloween show). As I calmed down and the ridiculousness of it all dawned upon me, I felt something else.

At first, I was confused at what I was feeling. It was a sensation alien to me especially at such events, when always I had to look over my shoulder, evaluate every street to assess its viability for a swift escape, or keep a wary distance between a police officer and myself. Then I realized what it was I was feeling.

For the first time in the longest time, I felt safe. I felt welcomed.

I felt free.

"Horizon Beyond Chains" Taken November 2011. Milford Sound, NZ.
Click to view higher quality photo.

Pantun Keseorangan

Angin dingin bertiup mencipta rima,
Dedaun pokok bergoyang mengikut lagu.
Dalam kesepian malam bertepuk dada,
Tanya minda apa isi hatiku.

Tupai bersantap di atas dahan,
Menikmati cuaca menjamu selera.
Bukanlah suatu kelaparan malah lebih mendalam,
Keinginan yang makin hari makin bergelora.

Kekasih berbaring di atas laman,
Berbisik-bisik berkongsi isi.
Berjalan sunyi tanpa teman,
Kekosongan memenuhi sanubari.

Monyet cuba memanjat tali,
Dihalang oleh suatu perangkap.
Imbas kembali sengsaranya hati,
Cuba lupamu tetapi kurasa tidak lengkap.

Kemarau melanda bagaikan gurun,
Bila datangnya hujan siapa tahu.
Tanpamu sesaat menjadi tahun,
Kedahagaan jiwa— inginku bersamamu.

"Solace" Taken at Queenstown, NZ, December 2011. Copyright of OKJ.
Click for larger image. 

Young & Beautiful?

Blogger's note: The following article is by Ahmed, a very good friend of mine who was 15 years old when he entered senior year in high school. His is the counterpart to my tale, that of being younger than everyone else in school. Enjoy.

I've always identified myself as a third culture kid, a TCK, a citizen of the world. Essentially, that means that I don’t belong to the culture of the country I was born in, nor do I belong to the culture of the country that I am living in now, but another, international third culture.

Yet it’s not the question “where are you from?” that I struggle with. It’s “how old are you?”

Instantly, the wheels click in my head when I hear those four dreaded words, the bane of my existence. I wonder how to answer the question. Most of the time, I just deflect, change the subject, and try to talk about something else. Occasionally, I tell the truth, that I am 17 (and in my second year of university). It’s a question that really tears me apart, because once you answer it and other people find out, it instantly becomes your only defining characteristic. You stop being that nice guy or that funny guy or that lively guy (I really flatter myself too much), but instantly turn into the guy that’s younger than everyone else. And with that comes its own set stereotypes.

The word “genius” is tossed around a lot. People expect you to possess unparalleled intelligence, they instantly think “oh, I read about this 14-year old kid in the news that’s doing a PhD in neuroscience, who must be like you, right?” No. Not even close.

People expect you to be immature. Those are people that I could never hang out with, people that every time you’d meet the first and only thing they would bring up was your age, and you’d have to sit there and watch them struggle to do math backwards to find out what year I was born.

Then, there were the people that always had it in the back of their minds. The people who, when you try to have a conversation with them, are giving you this blank stare, because you know they’re not even listening to you but thinking about how they could have possibly ended up in this situation where they’re having a serious conversation with someone who, to them, is a child.

To a lot of people, it was as if my age was the only explanation for all of my actions and accomplishments, not because I was smarter or had out-competed my classmates, but because of a number that I had grown to resent and distance myself from overtime. To be honest, I always dismissed these explanations as some underlying resentment or envy from my classmates, not willing to accept that I performed better in school because of factors that were within their control. They would use my age to reassure themselves that was the explanation, and so there was nothing they could do about it.

There are a few that managed to stay above the fray, to be able to accept me for being me and not a product of my age, and those are the people I would count among my closest and dearest friends. Those are the people who were never bothered by my age. They’d be shocked when I told them the first time, then you’d completely forget about it.

Kar Jin writes in his blog post, “At the same time, I also took on with ever greater fervor 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.” Life will afford me those guilty pleasures. But then, once I do something that’s more traditionally “my age,” people will respond: ‘Ah, that’s so predictable. It’s because he’s younger than all of us.’ This really makes it difficult to revert back to the way I normally am, because people will just say ‘wait, go back to the silly person you were yesterday, that representation of you makes me more comfortable, because it’s how society has taught me to think you should be like, plus it makes me more comfortable about my own insecurities.’ I’m paraphrasing, of course.

Another thing I faced were girl issues. Girls would NEVER see me as date-able (at least in my grade), but rather as a little brother. This is especially compounded by the fact that girls mature faster than guys. And so, you might be wondering, “well Ahmed, why don’t you date someone your age who isn't in your grade?”

To that, I say that I can never hang out with people that are my own age anymore. That’s because I've spent my whole life surrounded by older people. I am an only child, so I had my parents in the early stages. Then when I went to school, my classmates were older than me, and it has been that way ever since. I've matured at the same speed and level of people that are two, three, heck sometimes four years older than me, and so now I find people my age unbearably childish, ironically just as people older than me sometimes find me incredibly childish. I’m sure this’ll be straightened out in my 20s when we’re all around the same maturity level, more or less, hopefully.

I've decided to tell no one at my university. No one knows my real age (although maybe if they manage to unearth this, my secret will be out). I feel like that’s made people take me more seriously, but I've lost what’s made me unique – I was the child prodigy in ISKL, both a blessing and a curse.

Now, I’ll have to find other avenues to be special. And hopefully, I will be able to find a way to be simply me.

"I've spent my whole life surrounded by older people..."
"Childhood", Taken December 2012 at Napier, NZ. Copyright of OKJ.
Click for larger image.