The Allah Controversy and the Confiscated Bibles

Malaysia once more hits the world news for all the wrong reasons :

Malaysian authorities have confiscated more than 15,000 Bibles in recent months because they referred to "God" as "Allah," a translation that has been banned in this Muslim-majority country, Christian church officials said Thursday.

This issue about whether Christians are allowed to refer to God as Allah when they use Malay should have been resolved by the courts, but two years later the case brought by The Roman Catholic Church who say the present ruling it is unconstitutional and discriminates against those worshiping in Malay language (i.e the national language, the medium of education!) is still stuck in preliminary hearings for almost two years.

Gedung Kartun Seized

Received this press statement today and very much share the concerns :

Problematic licensing laws hampers distribution of new cartoon

The Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) and Writers Alliance for Media Independence (WAMI) are concerned about the confiscation of hundreds of copies of a cartoon magazines on current issues edited by prominent cartoonist, Zunar. The confiscation smacks of harassment and censorship of discussion of current issues.

On 25 August, officials from the Control of Publication Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs seized copies of the inaugural issues of Gedung Kartun (Cartoon Store) from the publisher's office in Kuala Lumpur. According to the magazine Chief Editor Zulkiflee Anwar Haque, better known as Zunar, more than 400 copies were seized. When contacted by CIJ, the Department's Assistant Secretary Abdul Razak Abdul Latif said the magazine was confiscated "primarily" due to the lack of a publication permit as well as for content "checking". He was unable to confirm the amount seized.

However, Zunar disputed the lack of permit as the reason and claimed that he had obtained the permit's serial number verbally. He said the officers insisted on confiscating the magazines despite informing them of the verbal permission. Zunar said he was then told to ask for an official letter regarding the status of the permit.

The permit requirement for publications is legislated under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, and failing to meet the requirement can result in imprisonment for up to three years or a fine of up to RM20 000 (USD5700).

The confiscation is a form of harassment against those who publish alternative interpretations of current events. Zunar is a long time contributor to online news site Malaysiakini and is well-known for his political cartoons. Gedung Kartun, a bi-weekly slated for the market in September, features drawings that discuss the controversial death of the political assistant from opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP) at the Selangor Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) office as well as one involving the Prime Minister Najib Razak. Zunar said the magazine is about alternative humour.

The action once again shows how the licensing regime is used arbitrarily to control expression. The employment of such law does not inspire confidence with the Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussien's announcement that the law will be reviewed to keep up with the demands of the people. To show that the Minister appreciates the people's criticism of the law, he should stop any further practices of harsh measures such as the arbitrary confiscation of publications.

CIJ and WAMI urge the Ministry to return copies of Gedung Kartun to its publisher so that it can be made available to the public. We also urge the Ministry to reveal what it's plan is for the supposed review of the PPPA and to include civil society in its consultations.

Issued by

Gayathry Venkiteswaran
Executive Director, CIJ

and Wong Chin Huat
Chairman, WAMI

For more information please contact Wai Fong at 03 4023 0772

More here and here. And you can see some of the cartoons here.

Postcards for Putrajaya

Caving Liz went to the Home Ministry (KDN) in Putrajaya with the representatives from Sisters in Islam (SIS) and other NGO's to hand over the postcards protesting book banning. She says :

... it was hoped to hand the postcards and poster directly to the Minister Syed Hamid Albar, but he sent his Under Secretary, Che Din, to receive us.

Her account and a whole lot more photos can be found here.

NGO's Protest Book Banning in Malaysia

Representatives of 10 non-governmental organisations including Sisters in Islam, human rights organisation Suaram and representatives from the Bar Council handed some 1,000 postcards protesting against the banning of books to the Home Ministry in Putrajaya yesterday.

We are concerned because the guidelines leading to the ban of books are vague and the decision by the Government is often arbitrary. Some of the banned books have also been published and widely sold in stores for some time but then, the Government decides to confiscate them. ... Similarly, we didn’t even know the books were banned until we read about it in the newspapers ...

She cited the banning of Muslim Women and the Challenge of Islamic Extremism published by SIS as an example.

We want the ministry to call for a consultation with all the parties involved in the publication of books to resolve this matter. Banning books has a negative effect on information and intellectual development.

I see book banning is one of the most serious issues facing this country at the moment, and perhaps the only way to bring about positive change is to keep up the pressure on the Home Ministry. Though it seems to me that the Islamic Departments (Jabatan Ugama) are really the cause of the problems, while standing behind the KDN, and they don't seem to be at all answerable to the public! (Come on - explain why those books are banned! What did you find objectionable? Engage in open public debate instead of, by your silence, displaying a lack of ability to engage intellectually with your critics!)

This I think is a state of affairs all Malaysians should be seriously concerned about.

No Terrestrial Address Reason for Book Seizure

At The Nut Graph Zedeck Siew manged to catch up with Home Ministry's acting director for Selangor, Zainal Osman, to find out why copies of Farish Noor's book From Majapahit to Putrajaya were seized from Kinokuniya in a joint inspection carried out by officials from the ministry, and from three Islamic departments : Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (Jais), Jabatan Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan (Jawi) and Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (Jakim)*.

Would you believe it - the first reason for the confiscation was the book does not carry the publisher's terrestrial address? :

The first clause of Section 11 of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) 1984 stipulates that “Every publication printed or published within Malaysia shall have printed legibly in Bahasa Malaysia or the English language on its first or last leaf the name and address of its printer and publisher.” ... According to Zainal, while the book does contain “Silverfish Books, Kuala Lumpur” on its first page, this is not sufficient to fulfil the requirements of the law. “We can already charge the publisher and bookseller in court,” he asserted. ... If convicted, they are liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or to a fine not exceeding RM5,000, or both.

Raman of course explains that in the ten years since he has set up Silverfish, he has moved three times, and even if he had included a street address in the book at the time of publication, it wouldn't be valid now!

But it seems that the second reason why the book is under scrutiny was because it touches on issues concerning Islam. En. Zainul explains :

Because we have no expertise on this matter, we have sent it to Jakim for study.

And this is apparently why the investigation is taking so long and why no date can be given when Jakim would arrive at a decision about the book.

Raman's decision is to withdraw the book with immediate effect and to republish (since the book is not banned) - with the address included.

It will be interesting now to see what happens - or doesn't happen - with the book. But as I say, we are watching.

* JAIS = Islamic Department of Selangor (= JAWI = Islamic Department for the Federal Territory (i.e. Kuala Lumpur), JAKIM = Department of Islamic Development.

Zedeck Investigates

Zedeck Siew in online Malaysian newsportal The Nutgraph has also been investigating the disappearance of Farish Noor's From Majapahit to Putrajaya from the bookshelves of Kinokuniya.

The bookshop's corporate affairs manager Theresa Chong told The Nut Graph :

Kinokuniya will not be selling these titles until the Home Ministry arrives at a judgement. We do not practice self-censorship, but this is a pending issue, so we will wait for a proper decision ...

But though he bookstore was supposed to have been told of a decision within two weeks, three and a half months later they are waiting! Other titles, apparently mostly on religion, were also seized.

As Rashid Khan of ZI Publications (which also publishes the book in Malay translation) says :

Books do not require a permit ... The ministry should first study the product, read the book, and conclude that it is unacceptable. Then only can they direct bookstores to not sell the book. I believe that a book is legal until it is banned. ... [These confiscations are] not fair — not to the author, the reader, the publisher, or the bookseller.

I managed to miss this excellent article The Bane of Book Banning by Ooi Ying Nee which came out in August shortly after the arbitrary banning of Muslim Women and the Challenge of Islamic Extremism edited by Noraini Othman.
The article points out that incidents of book banning have increased almost 43% under Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi's government, despite avowals of greater openness and transparency.

I believe, Noriani Othman is also yet to hear of the fate of her book.

This is simply not an acceptable state of affairs!

From Kinokuniya to Putrajaya

Raman of Silverfish contacted me yesterday to tell me that he had learned from a customer that Farish Noor's From Majapahit to Putrajaya had been "banned".

Since I was making my weekly (expensive!) pilgrimage to Kino anyway that afternoon, I decided to check out the status of the book, and discovered, yes, that the KDN (Home Ministry) officials had make their rounds and confiscated all the copies of the book, telling the bookshop that they were going to investigate it further and that in the meantime the store was not allowed to sell copies of the book.

Today I learned that this ban applies to all Farish's books which the store is not allowed to bring in until further notice (although there are still copies of the Malay translation of Di Balik Malaysia published by ZI Publications still on the shelves).

Things that I don't understand :

Why did the officers decide to take the copies? The book has been on sale since 2005! If it was so controversial why couldn't the KDN have investigated it back then? The book has a valid ISBN from the National library, the copies weren't hiding anywhere, Farish has a website and has made public appearances to talk about the issues discussed in the book.

Why do they have to swipe all the copies when a single copy would suffice for examination purposes?

Why can't they supply the bookshop with any valid reason for wanting to remove the book? What exactly is their objection with the book? Is it the terrifying fact that Muslim intellectuals actually exist in Malaysia? Is it because the official version of the country's history is questioned in the book? As always we can only guess. Raman thinks it might be because the book has Majapahit in the title and anything connecting Malay culture with its Hindu roots is so controversial these days, especially with the fatwa against yoga so much in the news.

Do officers really need to go into bookshops and take books from the shelves? Isn't this an uncomfortable way of operating for the staff of the shop and the customers? Does it really make Malaysia look good in the eyes of tourists who frequent the country's biggest bookstore to see uniformed officers prowling the shelves?

Do officers actually have a legal right to remove books or tell a shop that the book may not be sold if the book is not in any sense legally gazetted as banned? (I don't know the legal position but it would be useful to have information on this.)

Why haven't the publisher and the author been informed of the removal of the book through official channels instead of having to rely on rumour (which causes unnecessary stress and anxiety?).

How many more books are being removed from bookshop shelves in this way? No wonder the bookshop is circumspect when selling certain titles! Bookselling is a hard business to be in, so why make it harder for retailer?!

Yes, the book is still on sale quite legally at other bookstores so you can still buy it at the moment. (This is the way these things work here.)

Let's hope that reason prevails and the books are back on the shelves in Kino very soon. We're watching closely.

Armstrong Unbanned

Sometimes common sense wins.

I learned from Roosfa Hashim's article in Utusan Malaysia today that Karen Armstrong's A History of God which was officially banned in May 2005 is now now longer on the banned books list and is beginning to reappear in the bookshops.

Ioannis Between Covers

A terrible distraction popped into my mailbox yesterday in the form of a review copy of Ioannis Gatsiounis' Beyond the Veneer : Malaysia's Struggle for Dignity and Direction, which Philip Tatham of Monsoon Books had very kindly sent to me.

I only meant to have a quick dip into it over a cup of tea, but got completely sucked in and got no work done after that.

Ioannis is a freelance journalist, originally from New York and based in KL (and a friend I've not seen around for quite a while, come to think of it ...). His articles about Malaysia have appeared in a number of publications including Newsweek, The Washington Times, Al Jazeera, and Asia Times. He also writes fiction, and he is working on a (very Graham Green-ish!) novel.

This book is a collection of his articles covering the issues and events that lead to the "political tsunami" here in March 2008. (See the blurb and read sample chapters on the publisher's website here).

If I don't comment further on the pieces (apart from to say that I am finding them very well written and fascinating because the Malaysian political landscape is never dull!) it is because I feel unqualified to do so as a mentally lazy person who only really cares about books and trees and whether women are being prevented from wearing noisy high heels and lipstick.

But actually Ioannis does talk about books too.

He has a very nice review of Amir Muhammad's Politicians Say the Darndest Things among others, as well as a piece about a controversial book which almost didn't get written because it was so hard to buy the book (God is not Great : How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens).

I thought this part interesting ... and telling :

This was in a bookstore in majority-Muslim Malaysia's glittering symbol of modernity, the Petronas Towers. I had just been told by the sales clerk the store would not be carrying the title, (which as I write this is number three on the New York Times' nonfiction bestseller list).

Her face, framed by a powder blue headscarf, turned florid as her eyes clung to the computer screen. I requested to speak with a manager. The clerk ignored me. I asked again. The manager would inform me that members of Malaysia's Internal Security Ministry had swept through the store the day before and "requested" that the title be removed from the shelves.

"So there is no official ban?" I queried.

"No."

"So ... self-censorship?"

The manager glanced over her shoulder, "Religion is a sensitive issue in Malaysia."

"I understand that but should protecting religious sensitivities happen at the expense of free and open inquiry?" Put another way, should the rest of us be stunted intellectually because some people of faith are thought to be susceptible to intolerance?

She murmured, "It's not that we don't have the book, it's just we're not displaying it."

It was a subtle concession, and soon she was retrieving a copy from the back of the store. Book and receipt in hand, I hung a little longer than I might have on its sweeping subtitle, How religion poisons everything.

This bears out exactly what an audience member at the recent forum on book banning said about trying to buy one of Karen Armstrong's books (not a banned title) at the same bookstore.

You cannot blame the store, or its management (though it looks as if Ioannis would rather like to) but the intimidatory practices of the KDN who snoop around bookstores and ask staff to remove titles they don't approve of.

If a book is not banned officially (i.e. gazetted as such) then it should be freely available and bookstore staff not harassed, not forced to hide titles under the counter.

I have, incidentally seen Hitchen's book on sale openly in other bookshops, so it looks as if the frighteners are being put on this particular store.

Banned Books and Testicular Fortitude

Who, indeed, determines what you can read? Sisters of Islam were revving up their campaign against book banning at KLAB on Saturday with sandwich board ladies, t-shirts for sale, and snazzy paper bags to take them away in (below). And the postcards of course.

I am very happy to see SIS so actively involved. Most of the books which have been banned in Malaysia are about Islam, so it is necessary that an Islamic organisation can find the right counter-arguments.

The forum on Saturday afternoon brought together (from left, below) Astora Jabat (deputy editor of Al-Islam and columnist for Utusan Malaysia), V. Gayathry (Centre for Independent Journalism) and Norhayati Kaprawi (Sisters In Islam).


No-one from the Home Ministry (KDN) came. We aren't surprised.

Gayathry described a meeting that CIJ had had with the Ministry as ultimately depressing since there seems no will to change the way things are done. Most of the decisions about the books we can or cannot read are made by much less educated civil servants who may not even understand the books they are banning.

Most of the religious books that are banned are banned on the say so of JAKIM (Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia - The Department of Islamic Development Malaysia) and often because a single individual has complained about them. Some think that people who are not Muslim have no right writing books about Islam, hence the ban on some of the seemingly innocuous titles about Islam and books that have, up to now, been freely available here, sometimes for decades.


Astora gave a historical overview of book banning in the Islamic world. It hadn't occured to me that the Malay translation of the word "banned", "haram", carries the full weight of religious disapproval because it is the same word used for prohibition in Malay translations of the Qu'ran, and this of course discourages protest of book banning from Malaysia's Moslems.

Astora also talked about free access to books that are banned via the internet, though I have no idea of the website(s) he was referring to and would be grateful if anyone can let us know.

There were some questions and comments from the audience. One woman told an unbelievable tale about trying to buy one of Karen Armstrong's still unbanned titles - the bookshop had it in stock but was afraid to sell it because they said they had "been strongly discouraged" (by whom? presumably KDN officers?) from selling it and other of Armstrong's books.

I was going to talk about the restricted books but since Raman was sitting right behind me, and since he is the one who had alerted the world to the issue, it was better that he spoke. He talked of arbitary bannings of Khalil Gibran and Rushdie's books.

Raman asks (rhetorically), does the new Minister, Syed Hamid Syed Albar, know what's going on, or actually have the will to change anything? Above all does he have (Raman's favourite phrase) the necessary "testicular fortitude" to put things right?

Perhaps there is some hope ... wasn't he the person who invited Karen Armstrong to speak in Malaysia though several of her books were banned?


KDN officers often just take matters into their own hands, prime examples being the restricted books issue, the seizure of bibles, and the seizure of Christian children's books. In each case, it appears that KDN officers acted unilaterally, and only after there was an outcry did the Ministry slap wrists and put things right. Each of these instances has made Malaysia look pretty silly from overseas.

Something else that was discussed - authors often not knowing that their books were banned and therefore running out of time to mount an appeal. I gave the instance of Amina Wudud (see comments here) who thought I was spreading baseless rumours about her book being banned.

(Amina (if at all you revisit my blog) it is more helpful to stand with us and fight bannings than to turn round and bite the blogger who broke the bad news, hoping you - and others whose books were banned would actually help us to fight.)

All in all it was a good meeting and the first real coming together of concerned parties from different organisations. I hope that it is the beginning of something much bigger. I hope too that everyone who is concerned about books being banned will protest not just the ban on the books which represent their own religious or social views but all banned books. On principle.

DAP MP Theresa Kok has, as far as I know, has been the only politician to ask a question in parliament about banned books, but she was asking only about Christian books. (And she got no answer, of course.)

(It appears it isn't just books that are banned ... apparently Patrick Saw had some of his t-shirts with irreverent messages on them seized from his stall in central market by KDN officers!)

Hands Off The Holy Books!

If Muslims can get so worked up by the fact that some right-wing Dutch politician hungering for publicity can stir up a debate by demeaning the Quran, why is it that so many Muslims remain indifferent to how their fellow Muslims treat the holy texts of other faiths and belief-systems? A case in point is the recent seizure of thirty-two Bibles from a Malaysian Christian who was on her journey back to Malaysia from the Philippines. Upon arrival in Malaysia, her bags were checked by the customs authorities and all of the Bibles were confiscated, on the grounds that they had to be vetted by the Ministry of Internal Security. But since when were Bibles deemed a security threat in Malaysia, and to whom might they pose a danger? More worrying still is the fact that the customs officers – who we were told were Muslim – had seized the Bibles on their own initiative, despite there not being any formal ban on Bibles in the country. (After all, there are literally millions of Christians of all denominations in Malaysia and they have lived there for decades if not centuries, so why the fear of Bibles now?) In the event the Bibles were eventually returned to the Malaysian Christian in question, but worrying doubts remain. What will be the fate of other books of other religions and belief-systems? As a scholar who teaches comparative religion, I have in my collection not only numerous editions of the Bible but also Taoist, Buddhist, Hindu, Tantric, Animist and Jewish texts. Are these to be screen and vetted too? And on what grounds; that as a person born to the Muslim faith (a contingency of history that I did not decide or determine, I might add) I am not allowed to read such texts for fear that I may be ‘contaminated’ by alien ideas of alien creeds?

Farish Noor on The Other Malaysia website is commenting on this incident.

Lucia Lai blames the UMNO gomen, though it seems to me that in most cases it is individual officers (whether of the Internal Security Ministry, or as in this case customs officers) who are acting on their own woefully misguided initiative.

Of course such incidents provoke an outcry and are put right later, but not without bringing the country a barrage of bad publicity (look at how this story has bounced round the globe) and causing deeply hurt feelings at home.

Such incidents really worry me because there is such a need for religious tolerance in this multi-faith, multi-ethnic country. We've seen too many countries take the other path.

11 More Books on Islam Banned

11 more books on Islam have been banned by the Internal Security Ministry (KDN) the Star reports today. The ban order was gazetted on Jan 17 under Section 7(1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984.

The titles are listed below. And so you can make up your own mind about whether these books should have been taken out of circulation or not, and look for patterns, I've put in links and footnotes wherever I could find information. (I found nothing at all on the Bahasa Malaysia books.)

Secrets Of The Koran: Revealing Insights Into Islam’s Holy Book by Don Richardson (1)

Qur’an and Women Rereading the Secrets Text From Woman’s Perspective by Amina Wadud (2)

The Two Faces Of Islam: Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism by Stephen Schwartz (3)

Woman In Islam by Margaret Speaker-Yuan

Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About The World’s Fastest Growing Faith by Robert Spencer (4)

What Makes Me A Muslim by Catherine M. Petrina

The Importance Of Muhammad by Marilyn Tower Oliver

Faiths - Islam : Worship, Festival and Ceremonies From Around The World by Trevor Barnes

Amalan Kemurahan Rezeki by Lifa Karimah (I can find no information on this one.)

Rahsia Jalan Yang Lurus and

Islam & Pluralisme by Al-Mustaqeem Mahmood Radhi

(1) Don Richardson is a Christian missionary who accuses writers like Karen Armstrong (some books by whom are also banned) of "whitewashing" the reality about Islam.

(2) Amina Wadud is an African- American professor of Islamic studies and has won awards for her work.

In 2005, (according to Ali Eteraz on the Guardian website) :

Wadud led the first publicly-held, mixed gender, Friday sermon and prayer in history. Wadud's book and leadership opened the door to the first feminist translation of the Quran, by a woman named Laleh Bakhtiar, which removed the permission for wife-beating from the translation by choosing one of the alternative meanings of an Arabic verb. It would appear that Wadud had quite an impact.

(3) Stephen Swartz is interviewed here about his book on Saudi fundamentalism, and a review appears on the Atlantic.com website.

(4) More about Robert Spencer here and on Youtube.

If there's no space for intelligent public debate on these bannings, at least let me give it a little room in the comments to this post. (Please let me stress that word again - intelligent - no slagging off allowed!)

Postscript:

Fathi Aris Omar has put up a very useful list of links about this (and other incidents of) book banning.

And I thought this comment from Zaharan Razak particularly apt:

How are we going to grow up wise and worldly if we are prevented from knowing what the "other side" is saying? How are we going to grow up big and strong and take our place on the world stage if we don't know our weaknesses?

Remembering Mr. Wilson

Sorry it's taken me so long so get something up about last Monday's event - our Time for a Tiger tribute to Anthony Burgess, sponsored by the Malay College Old Boys' Association with a talk about the author given by Dr. Rob Spence.

I didn't want to rush posting this: it was an event I've wanted to happen for a very long time and the whole evening was very special to me. It went some way to stilling an ache in my heart for the neglect of the author of one of my favourite books The Malayan Trilogy.

It's probably the first literary event I've dreamed up where I've had to do almost nothing at all! When I ran my idea past Mustapha Abu Bakar whom I bumped into at the MCOBA dinner, earlier in the year, he embraced it with total enthusiasm and roped in a couple of very able henchmen, Rashidi Aziz and Ghazali Baherein of the Selangor Timur chapter of MCOBA.

When I turned up with Rob and his wife Elaine (hours early because I was so totally paranoid about possible jams on Jalan Tun Razak) everything was already set up for us in Wisma Sejarah and the caterers were just moving in.

Sponsorship for the event had been obtained from Maybank (who have a tiger on their logo) and CIMB, and even there were even very nicely designed banners for the event. (I thank Azizul Kallahan and his team for these.)

Kavita from book distributors Pansing turned up with a box full of copies of Anthony Burgess' The Malayan Trilogy for us to sell at a 30% discount - and more or less the entire stock of the books in the country got snapped up within an hour! (More have been ordered from the UK, I'm glad to say.)

The crowd began to arrive, old boys who are really perpetual school boys laughing and joking around, many of my good friends who come by to support just about every lit event I organise, and new friends made via this blog and Facebook. I was too nervous to eat, sipped a little fruit punch wishing it were a Burgessian gin-setengah for a little dutch-courage.

First to speak was MCOBA president , Dato' Megat Najmuddin (fondly known as Mac) who gave the opening address.

We'd met up with him and the organising committee for hi-tea (Elaine and Rob blinded by the sight of such plenty in the buffet spread!) at the PJ Hilton the day before, to finalise details.

I was to introduce Rob, but I am afraid I wanted to hijack the event for a few minutes to fill in the back story and explain how everything came to be brought together, which seems no less than a miracle to me, looking back.

I spun the story about how I had gone to teach in Kuala Kangsar because I fell in love with a book, how meeting Syed Bakar fuelled that connection with Burgess', how I got upset because no-one else I met in the town or school seemed to know or care about the author ... or was maintaining a conspiracy of silence (highly likely I think in the light of some of the stories told later in the evening).

I talked about how I had tried to organise an event in 2006 to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first book of the trilogy - Time for a Tiger, but how the whole think had stalled when the book was placed on a list of "restricted" books, and how it had become necessary for a certain bookshop owner, bloggers and journalists to make a great deal of noise so that restrictions on the book and some other works of fiction were eventually (silently!) lifted. (This got a round of applause, which made me very happy and which I share with all those other noisemakers.)

And how Burgess is now recognised as one of the important British authors of the second half of the twentieth century, so Malaysians and in particular Malay Collegians, should be very proud of that connection.

The last piece of the puzzle was meeting Burgess expert and enthusiast Rob Spence via this blog, and then asking him if he would come to Malaysia to talk on the author. Was I surprised when he said 'yes'! ... provided I could get an official invitation for him, and Prof. Lim Chee Seng of Universiti Malaya very kindly obliged. (I'm so sorry Prof. Lim couldn't make it as I owe him a big thank you.)

Rob then took the floor and gave a really interesting talk about how he felt a personal as well as a professional interest in Burgess after growing up in the same part of Manchester. He gave an overview of Burgess' life but focussed mainly on his time in Malaya including plenty of gossipy snippets which delighted those who had known Mr. J.B. Wilson as a Malay College teacher.

He also took us through the three books of The Malayan Trilogy in which Burgess had made an effort to depict the whole country in its racial diversity (to an extent I think that no author has managed since). The novel has been largely misunderstood by post-colonial academics he said - my feeling too.

One point that Rob emphasised was that English literature owes a great deal to this country

Malaya made Burgess

as it gave Burgess his start as a novelist. It is a debt perhaps owed particularly strongly to the people of Kuala Kangsar and the boys of MCKK.

Then it was time for questions and for those who had been taught by Wilson/Burgess, the real experts, to have their say.

His former students stepped up to the microphone to tell us what they remembered of JB Wilson, the man and the teacher.

We heard about the rows between Wilson and his wife Lynn in the King's Pavillion hostel, and quite publicly in the bars in town, we heard about the succession of guests to their quarters for drinking parties, including the local police chief.

We heard too about how Wilson was an exacting editor of the school magazine pushing young writers to do their best and offering a glass of what looked like kopi-o but turned out to be stout to one young journalist.

We heard too about how one boy remembered Wilson (who was also a composer) playing the piano, and how he worked with him on a piece of music.

My friend Kamalundran who had been a teacher at MCKK, remembered Burgess from the teachers' college in Kota Bahru and recalled how he was a teacher always on th side of the students.

What emerged was a portrait of a man entirely unsuited to the profession, at odds all the time with the school authorities, but able to relate to the boys and in many ways having a profound influence on their lives.

Most of them, anyway. Datuk Hamiddin Abdullah said that for decades he had hated the teacher and had to stop reading Time for a Tiger at the beginning of chapter 3 when he found his own shameful story (reported in confidence) recorded for the whole world to read. Talk about an author stealing from life.

This evening, said Datuk Hamiddin, he had finally changed his mind about Burgess and was going to finish the book, and I actually feel that he may have been feeling proud to be part of the fiction.

I really want to collect these reminisces (and from those who couldn't make it) and if MCOBA agrees, edit them into a book.

My thanks again to everyone who came, and those who helped organise the event. I don't think it could have been a better event.

(Below, the old boys, with Rob, Elaine and myself.)


Postscript:

See also Rob's posts here and here.

There's also a very nice account by inspigoblog.

Camus (previously one of my MCKK little boys!) has a whole lot of lovely photos of the event. here.

More on the Seized Christian Children's Books

Some further thoughts on the seizing the other day of children's books written from a Christian perspective.

The books seized apparently include:

My First Study Bible by Paul J. Loth, 366 Bible Stories by Robert Brunelli, The Little Children's Bible Storybook by Anne De Graaf.

Several questions come to mind:

Why now? What has sparked this sudden and coordinated seizure when presumably these books, and books like them, have been on the shelves of MPH and other bookshops for many years.

What is fueling this present intolerance? Why is it only now that sensitivities might be offended and not at some point in the past?

Why did the gesture need to be made so public? (Seizing books is pretty gestapo-like and dramatic, don't you think?)

Might the same books be seized in other bookshops, and indeed in Christian bookshops? Otherwise, why has MPH been singled out?

Isn't this move unfair as there are children's books written in similar storybook style (though of course without cartoonish pictures of the prophets which seem to have so offended) aimed at Muslim kids freely available on the market which Christian parents probably would not want their kids to get their hands on? (I was browsing through some very nicely produced books at the Islamic Arts Museum the other day).

Surely in a country as diverse as this where racial and religious harmony needs to be a way of life, such heavy-handed tactics can only be harmful?

The questions won't be answered by any official source, of course. They never are.

Being of the Richard Dawkins school of religious education I have no vested interest ... except that any kind of book banning makes me very very angry.

Update (22/1/08) :

All's well that ends well, it seems.

In a small column on page N20 of the Star today:

Several Christian books confiscated by the Internal Security Ministry here for carrying pictures of Moses and Noah have been returned.

It is learnt that church groups were notified by the ministry that the books, taken away during a routine check by officials of the ministry’s publications unit, have been returned to the MPH bookshop.

This also invites a number of questions ... but I'm sure you are capable of formulating them on your own.

If You Can't Laugh at Yourself, Who Can?

Some time ago I asked (playing Devil's advocate, I admit) whether Malaysians "get" satire.

Well, perhaps there are those in the Malaysian Internal Security Department (KDN) who (*gasp*) don't. The Wikipedia website reports that:

... Uncyclopedia, a parody of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, has been labeled by the Malaysian government as dangerous. The Internal Security Department of Malaysia issued the warning today, saying that the site has "messages and information insulting Malaysia".

And just how is Malaysia depicted? Here's a snippet:

Essentially the penis of Asia which is located to the north of their cousins who live on an even smaller island Singapore, Malaysia (also known as Bolehland) is a young nation of diverse cultures and races such as F1 Formula-1 and Nascar. The timezone of Malaysia is unique because it follows the system of +1/+2 PMT (Predetermined Meeting Time) which is 1 or 2 hours later than PMT. Most foreigners have difficulty adjusting to this new timezone as they tend to show up 1 or 2 hours earlier than the local counterparts. The nation is moving forward with a vision towards becoming a developed nation by the year 2020, 3030, 4040 or whatever catchy number. ... Another common state that Malaysians have is denial (no lah, where got?), which incidentally, is a river in Egypt.

The Internal Security Department urges folks not to circulate the content of the site. (Ooops!)

And in response to the warning, the Uncyclopedia Internal Security Department has issued one of its own ... and asked all Malaysians not to use the country today.

Please do your best to comply.

I picked up the story from Howsy and it is also covered by Jeff.

Children's Books Seized

This from Malaysiakini via Lulu's blog. (More on 5XMom's blog.)

Intimidasi?

Elizabeth Wong muses about the seizing of Dr. Kua's book about May 13 and wonders why it was actually necessary for KDN officers to actually walk into a bookshop and seize 10 copies without paying when they could simply have asked the publisher for a review copy or when they could just have trotted along to the launch and picked one up for themselves.

It does look like heavy-handed tactics were employed for the sake of making a point very publicly ... which can't have been pleasant for the management of the book chain, or the staff.

Elizabeth reports today that:

MPH said they don’t want to sell it, as KDN has advised them not to, even though the book isn’t banned. ... Kinokuniya said, because the book is controversial, they will practice self-censorship and not sell it.

... There is very little that we can do, if bookshops do not live up to their social responsibility as frontliners in the war against ignorance and pem-bodoh-fication (a word first introduced to me by Jason Tan, editor of Off The Edge) of the minds.

Bookshops are businesses first and foremost, Elizabeth. Where got social conscience?

But word is that Popular, Times and Silverfish are still intending to sell the book.

Government Bans 18 Books

From the Star today:

The Government has banned 18 books with contents that tarnish Islam’s sanctity, are factually wrong, have deviated from true Islamic faith and insulted the prophets.

The order for the ban was made under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, the Internal Security Ministry said in a statement.

Among the publications banned are Kamasutra: Apakah Kebaikannya by Drs Munir Rahmat, Pengakuan Mangsa Rogol (Ayu Mayangsari), Umee Srimas Pakar Repair “Anu” Lelaki (Webah Salleh), and Rahsia Penyegar Tenaga Batin Suami Isteri (Dr Ruhani).

Also banned are Islam and the West: A New Political and Religious Order Post September 11 written by Robert Van de Weyer and Who is a Muslim.