The Englishman Who Shouted Merdeka!

Was delighted to see Fredrick Lees interviewed by Wan A. Hulaimi in the New Sunday Times today.

Some of you will know Freddy as the author of Fool's Gold, a novel (published by Silverfish) based on his own experiences as an officer in the Colonial Service in Malaya, and may have met him at the first KL Literary Festival.

I met Freddy through my friends Jean and Barry who also have a house in Rye, in Sussex.

He really is a fascinating storyteller and I loved hearing about how things were here "back then", particularly when he took my head on a virtual tour of KL in the fifties and I saw the skyscrapers dissolve and the mansions along Jalan Ampang swim back into view.

But the best story and the one I told him really must be written was his account of how he - an Englishman - was actually the person who lead the crowds in the rousing call "Merdeka!" on that auspicious day.

Freddy had been enlisted as a member of the committee that organised the Independence Day celebrations:

At midnight, Aug 30, 1957, Tunku Abdul Rahman delivered his independence message to the people. "A new star has risen in the eastern sky, a star of freedom for yet another Asian people." From his drawer, Lees pulls out a bound copy of cyclostyled sheets, the schedule of events on the morning of Saturday, Aug 31.
Everything was timed exactly as it should have happened. "At 7.36 HRH the Duke of Gloucester arrives at the stadium and greeted by Datuk Abdul Razak and Encik Abdul Rahman Talib," he reads from one page.

But not everything went to plan, the Declaration of Independence as read by the Tunku and which everyone now takes as the highlight of the event, was not read as timed in the sheets. "What happened was a bus came up to the front of the Merdeka Stadium, drove into the storm drain and could not be removed. So the whole ceremony took place one hour later," recalls Lees with a chuckle.

He also remembers another incident that still gives him great satisfaction. Lees was in the stadium’s control box with Umno’s then rising star, Syed Jaafar Albar. Just as they were studying the schedules and looking out nervously for possible glitches, "Tunku Abdul Rahman popped his head in" on his way down to the stadium grounds.

He asked Syed Jaafar to lead the crowd in cheers of "Merdeka" at the conclusion of the event. This Syed Jaafar did. "Merdeka! Merdeka!" he shouted into the microphone as the dignitaries were moving out from the specially built Merdeka platform in the stadium.

The crowd responded with equal gusto, and then, according to Lees, another hitch: Syed Jaafar lost his voice. "Syed Jaafar turned to me and said, ‘My throat’s gone, my throat’s gone. You do it!’ "I did and shouted ‘Merdeka’ into the microphone, and ‘Merdeka!’ the crowd responded. Again, ‘Merdeka’..."
In his house in the peak of Rye, at midday, in front of the landmark church of St Mary the Virgin, Lees speaks his gruff voice into an imagined microphone of 50 years ago. "Merdeka! Merdeka!" Lees proclaims to the whitewashed room of his book-lined study. He sits back with a broad smile.

"I thought then, ‘This is marvellous, it gives me tremendous satisfaction. This is why I came here.’"

Now Where Was I?

Just in case you were wondering ...

Student teachers and their lecturers (my intrepid co-travellers!) in one of the two schools I visited (as an external moderator for a British College).

Their pupils (mainly Malay but also Batek from Taman Negara). Some of the children come by boat from villages several hours up the Tahan River. Could have stolen one or two of the cutest ones!

School canteen breakfast somewhere in Kuala Tahan!

*Burrrrppp*

The job has its compensations. Another was a river trip yesterday afternoon very kindly organised by the headmaster of another school ...

Taken very shortly before we all got drenched to the skin after all the water fights and a stop at a waterfall.

Now we have plans to make an expedition right to the end of the river, visiting schools on the way.

May 13 on May 13

The real circumstances surrounding the worst racial riot in the history of Malaysia have so far not been made available to the Malaysian public. The official version is fraught with contradictions and inadequacies to which few pay credence ...

writes Dr. Kua Kia Soong in his new book May 13 - Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969.

I missed the launch yesterday but I can't wait to get my hands on a copy.

The book is said to be:

... the first credible account of the May 13, 1969 racial riots in Malaysia based on documents recently declassified at the Public Records Office in London.

May 13 is the great untalked-about in Malaysia, but its ghost still lingers everywhere - the great spectre being "Could this ever here happen again?".

Jeff Ooi was among the bloggers who went to the event and there is plenty of comment about it on the Malaysiakini site for those of you who subscribe.

Abu nearly got himself killed during the riots. He was a volunteer distributing rice in Kampong Baru, but some Malay chaps thought he looked Chinese ...

Happy Year of the Golden Piggie!

Gong Xi Fa Chai

Wishing all my Chinese friends a very Happy New Year.

May you all have a safe journey home (if you're travelling), lots of ang pow (if you're single), victorious mah jong sessions (if you gamble) and much good food to fill your tummies.

And may the rest of you enjoy a very happy holiday with lots of reading time.

I have now lived in Malaysia for two complete cycles of Chinese New Years.

Flag Waving and Photos

Selamat Hari Merdeka.

Britain doesn't have a national day. (Well okay, we have our patron saint days e.g. England has St. George's day which everyone forgets about.) We're pretty sneery about patriotism in general. The only displays of patriotism now are reserved for international football matches, royal weddings and funerals, and the last night of the Proms.

But I think a national day is a much good thing, even if you're cynical about the marching and the flag waving and other openly extravagant shows of patriotism. It makes you think about your nation, examine how far you've gone since the turning point of Independence, and contemplate your future.

This year's National Day feels a bit dislocated. 49 is an awkward birthday. (Been there myself, bought the t-shirt.) You're contemplating the big one, when you can really pull all the stops out, so you don't bother much with the one at hand.

Congrats then to the New Straits Times which is celebrating Merdeka with an excellent exhibition of photos from 1957 in Bangsar Shopping Complex. The pictures also appear in a special pull-out section in today's newspaper.

I scanned in my favourite photo (top) captioned Have payung, will travel. I just love this group of smiling Malay girls strolling with their parasols. And how gaya they are in their traditional dress with flowers pinned in their hair.

Can a whole era be summarized in these images? Nostalgia naturally tints the past in rosy tones, but I do wonder if folks were happier back then.

The NST has also produced a facsmile of it's 1957 Merdeka issue which makes fascinating reading.*

Conversation With a Tai Ko

Foreigners can often get away with saying things that citizens can't or won't say. BBC's Jonathan Kent reports on the triads in Malaysia. Scariest part of the interview with a prospective tai ko:

Ah Hing makes no bones about his world and his life. "I admit that I am a bad guy, and that I'm a gangster," he said.

"So who runs your world?" I asked - to which he gave a simple reply : "The government".

Smoggier Still ...

The "haze" a.k.a. the smog from hell is worse still today. According to The Department of the Environment, the API here in Petaling Jaya is 349.

I was joking about API's over 500 yesterday ... but it has hit 529 in Klang and 531 in Kuala Selangor.

It was the first item on the BBC news broadcast just now. There was Jonathan Kent telling the world that a state of emergency has been declared.

Really?

I turned to the local TV stations. Programming as usual. No news flashes or alerts. Shouldn't they be keeping the country constantly updated? Or shouldn't there be at least a ticker thingy running across the bottom of the screen?

This news from Forbes.

The place to turn is you want breaking news is Project Petaling Street where Malaysian bloggers ping their latest entry.

Here are a few of the latest haze pings just to give those of you who live far away a taste of what living under a pall of smoke is like. (If you live in the Klang Valley you'll probably want to entertain yourselves elsewhere, I don't blame you.)

Fashion Asia invites you to see the view for yourself; PapiMami talks of panic buying in the supermarkets; Paul Tan posts a satellite picture of the plume of smoke from Sumatra heading our way; Suanie provides lyrics for some great patriotic haze songs if you've got any breath left to sing; and Perpetual Rush wants a leopardskin surgical mast (we must be gaya even as we choke to death, see?)

But the most brilliant idea comes from Haze Haters who is inviting everyone to send in their photos of the "haze" for an online photo petition. He's had some entries already.

The Malay Mail today offered some tips on how to stay healthy including

* Women should consider covering the head with a scarf.

One wonders why only women and not both sexes, unless the writer had another agenda.

But how about this as a way to beat the haze?



Photo of Erik Fearn from Jeff Ooi.

Postscript:

Some very funny haze jokes from Midnight Lily . Gotta laugh or you'd cry, innit?

One Apocalyptic Afternoon

They call it "haze". Euphemistically.

The air thick with smoke from fires burning in that legendary "neighbouring country" we're all too polite to name.

So thick that the traffic lights are on at midday along the expressway, and I can hardly see the buildings on the other side. The sun an orange ball, sick and unreal.

he streets and open-air cafes are deserted. Shop doors firmly closed. Folks scuttle indoors as quickly as they can. The cautious ones wearing face masks.

I'm sneezing, my eyes sting.

Indoors, with windows shut, the smell of burning still.

Someone on the e-group says that the air pollution index (for too long classified information although now apparently we're permitted to know) reached 410 in Klang at noon. Way past hazardous. 500 is emergency. Or does it mean you're dead?

My husband tells me to leave the country. He wants Malaysia to declare war. ("I'm serious." He is. I'm glad he never entered politics.)

Someone on the e-group suggests a petition.

Someone else suggests this has become Mordor. There should be Orcs running around.

Someone else declares that the end of the world is at hand now that the winged-chariot space shuttle has landed.

This apocolyptic afternoon.

Only rain can help, but when will rain come? No real rain expected till October.

Can't they seed a cloud?

Just drink more water, stay indoors, eat cucumbers. The usual drill. You've been here before. Almost every year. Don't get dramatic about it. You'll live.

Or have we just grown so used to this that we treat it just as another season of the year? We who have no seasons but monsoon and heat and musim buah might perhaps relish the variety? Or perhaps we'd like our fish from Klang ready-smoked?

Malaysia in a Nutshell?

Malaysia is an extremely complex country ... and to simplify the social and political landscape for outsiders is no easy task.

You've probably seen this article by Jonathan Kent, our local BBC correspondent already, since it got passed on on e-groups and by e-mail.

It struck a chord with me. Malaysia has a rich heritage and the loss of traditional arts and culture I find heartbreaking.

And I thought these lines telling:

"All we can do these days is tut tut at one another," a Malay friend tells me.

Across the country one sees the evidence of a culture of disapproval.

Would love to know your thoughts.