SENSATIONAL! Ripped from the HEADLINES!!!!

Unfortunately, there isn't any sex, violence or celebrity news here. Just a short item tucked away in the inside pages of today's Star newspaper, about a Malaysian pastor on a ride to raise funds for a school for homeless children in Thailand.

Pastor Cheah (picture copyright,
The Star newspaper).

Pastor Cheah Chee Moon (no, guys, not related to the Moonies) has been involved in helping orphaned and destitude kids in Thailand for over 20 years, and is trying to raise awareness and funds for a permanent home by riding on his dinky little motorcycle from Thailand, through Malaysia, and onto Singapore, before heading back.

Pastor Cheah's story struck a chord in me, for he embodies faith in action. So many folks use religion as a tool, sometimes heavily laced with intolerance, to create "gated" social, cultural and political communities that look inward and that creates a moat between 'us' and 'them', rather than reaching out. It baffles the mind how seeking a spiritual dimension to one's life - seeking God - can lead to such hardening of the heart. When Jesus walked this earth, he didn't hang out with the equivalent of church leaders and religious elite of his day, carving out institutions with high walls that kept out unbelievers. Instead, he walked with the sick, the poor, the reviled - tax collectors, prostitutes, fishermen and the like - ministered to their needs, and was an activist for their physical, social and economic rights, in the face of authority.

A favourite phrase of the 'religious right' has been "What would Jesus do today?", used as a guiding principle to police morality and personal behaviour. Well, Jesus would have gotten onto his rickety motorbike to raise funds for a home the voiceless children.

Is there such a thing as an objective past?

Today, for benefit of its readers who might want to stretch their legs a little, The Star, featured the historic Tok Janggut Trail in Kelantan, a state in northeastern peninsula Malaysia. Tok Janggut (which the writer of the article translates as ‘The Bearded One’, although One seems a pale version of Tok, an honorific accorded to those of who are particularly wise and respected, and who are no longer young punk warriors) was a local warlord who led a rebellion against the British colonizers around the turn of the 20th century.

The meaning and significance of his act is shrouded is some controversy, as the title of the book written by an expert (who is quoted in the article) shows: Tok Janggut: Revolutionary or Traitor?

A monument to
remember Tok Janggut by.
(Picture copyright: The Star.)

But what struck me about the article was the way in which history is again being spun in the service of the present. Here’s how the writer, reflecting the State-determined standard accounts of history of today, puts it:

“Arguably the first person to revolt against the British in the Malay Peninsula back in the early 1900s, Tok Janggut did in a way anticipate Aug 31, 1957.”

But a close inspection of the details suggests that linking together Tok Janggut’s rebellion to Malaysia’s independence from Britain requires some suspension of critical thinking.

Tok Janggut’s beef was as much against the British as it was against the Sultan of the day, and rested on local issues like taxes and local autonomy. His rebellion could be seen as part of a long tradition of maintaining a balance of power between the ruler and the local lords. The ruler, rarely all-powerful unless he was especially charismatic, won the support of local chiefs by promising them titles and legitimacy, while extracting taxes (in goods and manpower) from them. Levy too high a tax, and the chiefs revolted.

So the jury is still out on whether he is a modern anti-colonialist hero, or a local warlord seeking to exploit a weak Sultan.

Also, the Malaysian (or more accurately, Malayan) parties involved in the negotiation for independence, hardly resembled the violent and radical Tok Janggut. The British identified and chose to negotiate with a group of conservative elites (quite a few of them who had studied in England), and who were amenable to the Queen’s interest after the Union Jack had been lowered.

Ah, the devil is in the details…

Chemor is still relevant today

Okay, so I have a soft spot for old towns and places with a bit of history. They're a window not just into some sepia tinted era that has little relevance to today, but they show us how the people who came before us lived their lives even as they built for the future – that it, built the world we live in now.

We are inextricably linked to the past, individually and collectively; linked even to those who are not family, who lived in places far away, in unfamiliar circumstances. That's why the feature in today's Sunday Star on Chemor, caught my eye. This is a story not just of a town living in some time warp, but a glimpse into the very real and concrete lives of the men, women, teachers, labourers, students, town officials and others in this small Perak town.


The grand Chemor Theatre once staged
Chinese opera and Malay bangsawan shows,
explains Law Siak Hong of the Perak Heritage
Society. – Caption and picture copyright
from The Sunday Star newspaper.

The accompanying story is on the Mandailings, who fled from Sumatra in the 19th century and made their home in Chemor (and other parts of Perak, too). The Mandailings have striven to preserve their cultural identity and uniqueness, an effort that has sometimes at odds with the official project to construct monolithic "Malay" identity/ethnicity.

The political parties in Malaysia, both governing and in the opposition, are formally, or effectively mono-ethnic (the latter may claim to offer a multi-ethnic platform, but their support is often derived largey from one ethnic community), and thus it serves their purposes to perpetuate the idea that "Malay", "Chinese", "Indian" are large homogeneous groups that march to one ethnic agenda and spring from one particular cultural heritage.

This is patently not true, as the Chemor/Mandailing articles and the Johan Jaafar lament that I talked about in my previous post shows (Johan recounts how the Javanese were seen as a very distinct and different ethnic group in his village).

Of muhibah, kampungs and the slow travelling movement

I don't normally do news round-ups - see Jeff Ooi for that - but a few things caught my eye today.

The first is Johan Jaaffar's lament on "Those long-gone days of muhibah in the kampung" in today's New Straits Times. Johan's point is not new: In the past, during more innocent times, before and just after Malaysia gained her independence in 1957, it was not unusual for families of various ethnicities to not only live cheek-by-jowl with each other, but have genuine interactions and friendship. This pining for the good old days is particularly prevalent among Malaysians of a certain vintage as well as politicians out to mask their tendency to fan ethnic chauvinism with empty rhetoric of multi-cultural harmony, or muhibah.

I highlight Johan's lament because my friend John is right now undertaking a ride across the country in search of that muhibah spirit, and is at this very moment, passing through Muar, the setting for Johan's commentary. What was remarkable about Johan's picture of an idyllic kampung was that "in 1948, the area surrounding my village was the scene of the worse racial turmoil the country had ever known."

Meanwhile, two Morrocan scouts are walking through Asia to promote "love, peace and tolerance", and has arrived in Malaysia. What is it about people taking the slow road to spread positive messages? Is it because the physically draining act of walking and cycling humbles a person and makes him or her more sensitive or self-aware? Is it that the slower pace allows one to truly appreciate the worth of every single human being one encounters? Or is one just too darned tired to argue?

Riding is of course an environmentally-friendly, low-impact way of playing tourist, as this feature on Pulau Ketam bike tours attests. My recent post on the charming island failed to include some of the nitty-gritty travel details that good, responsible bloggers are supposed to have provide. Oh well, *shrug*.

But I did have a pix of pepper crabs! :)

P.S. If any of the links to the articles become broken, leave a comment and I'll fix it!