Kampung Kubur Kuda

I’ve never been able to determine what was the name of the village where my grandmother’s house is. Although a large part of my childhood is informed by my hometown, Kota Bharu, the official name of my kampung eludes my knowledge. I know it as Kampung Kubur Kuda. I loved that name because it furnished my childhood fantasy of one of the Sultan’s favourite horses dying at the heart of the village. The primary school built right behind my grandmother’s house, however, was named Sekolah Kebangsaan Kebun Sireh. When my mother met a lady batik seller at the Buluh Kubu Bazaar, she described it as Kampung Kebun Sireh bawah lembah. Due to my bad sense of direction I have, however, learned to describe to my fellow Kelantanese friends that the village, whatever it’s name is, is the one that abuts Jalan Hamzah, near the Sultan of Kelantan’s official palace.

Since 2004, I have been able to add another ambiguous description of where it is located. A grand mall has been erected about five minutes’ walk from my grandmother’s house. I remember the sense of disorientation I experienced upon looking out of my grandmother’s wooden atap house and seeing the massive concrete face of the mall building. The transition from the wooden window frame, across the bushes and coconut trees and the village cemetery to the sterile, facile construction was almost rude.

My impression of my kampung as an island of wooden houses amidst a sea of bitumen is now complete. The town of Kota Bharu, in it’s slow, languid growth, had completely surrounded my kampung on all sides. A ten minute walk from my grandmother’s house brings me to either one of the major city roads leading to the town centre. After being away for two years, I had not grown physically but somehow my grandmother’s house and, by association my kampung felt somewhat walled in by the presence of these modern constructs.

Is this normal? I go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning thinking about it. Every answer I come up with feels wrong and everyone else's suggestion never seems to fit.

I grew up among the millions of Malays who were either desperately trying to set themselves apart or blend into the masses. Most of those attempting the first either succeeded in the most superficial way or failed miserably and were relegated to the latter - conformity.

As I progress through The Writer and The World, I had an overwhelming - and frightening - feeling that I am what Naipaul terms as a renoncant: 'an excellent French word that describes the native who renounces his own culture and strives towards the French'.

I had always, growing up, embraced English to set myself apart from my peers. I grew up in a society where Malays proficient in the English language was a valuable commodity and for me - having grown up speaking the language - excelling above the rest was an easy task. Along with the other English proficient students, I was unofficially, and perhaps even subconsciously by some teachers, categorized as one of the 'smart ones'. In retrospect, that was what might have shaped my path. I happily accepted this elevated status given to me by virtue of my facility with the language and fulfilled my role as one of the 'smart ones' with ease.

I believe we are all products of one system or another. For an adolescent such as I was, the school is the overarching, overruling system that determined who I was and what I was to become. In my family, English had always been the spoken language. There was no applause for the correctly expressed thought. In school, the simple achievement of a spelling bee won me slaps on the shoulder and nods of approval from teachers.

Of Race, Ethnicity and Nationality

I had an interesting conversation with a close friend of mine and her sister. They are Pakistanis residing in Canada. Both expressed their dislike of being addressed as Indians. 'We're Pakistani' they emphasised - they were born and raised in Pakistan. 'So, what is your race?' I asked. Again, they answered, 'Pakistani,' with equal emphasis. I was puzzled. Pakistan as a nation came into being after the Partition in 1947. Prior to that, everyone within the borders of what is now Bangladesh, India and Pakistan were known as Indians - as a nationality and, for a majority of India's population, as an ethnic group.

Does this mean, addendum to my friends' response, that Pakistani as an ethnic group came into being alongside the creation of Pakistan as a nation? In that same light, is there a difference between Indian as a race and Indian as a nationality? Certainly for Indians in Malaysia, the answer is a resounding 'yes'. I honestly don't mean to poke holes in how my friends identify themselves in terms of race, ethnicity and nationality. I was merely intrigued by the similarity of conflicts applied to the problematic issue of the 'Malaysian'.

The idea of the 'Malaysian' implies a complicated synthesis of such constructs as ethnicity: Malay, Chinese, Indian, aborigines and other invisible minority groups; and religion: Chinese Muslim, Indian Muslim, Chinese Christian, Chinese Indian and a multitude of other race/ethnicity clusters. Malays, as the previously unquestioned original peoples of the country, reserve certain rights and privileges over the rest of the country's population. From my simple observation, there has been a stronger emphasis on the Muslim Malay since the controversy regarding Muslims converting to other religions.

As a Muslim country (an idea that is highly debatable in itself), Malay and Muslim is conceptually inseparable according to the country's constitution. This begs the question : What of the Chinese Muslim and Indian Muslim? Are they allotted certain rights and privileges by virtue of their faith? Or are they still to be deprived, by virtue of their race, of the rights and privileges allotted to their fellow countrymen who are of the same faith? Or are they to be allocated a (hybrid) class that gives them the benefits of one social group without the disadvantages of another? If a hybridised society is the answer, then Malaysia will be flooded with these hybrid gclassess due to the perennially developing social groupings based on race and ethnicity.

Maintaining one's racial and ethnic identity is at once purposeful and problematic. While homogeneity is clearly undesirably for an infinite list of reasons, preserving cultural diversity is often potentially divisive and exclusionary. It is at the heart of the Holocaust, Serbia's ethnic cleansing, Rwanda's genocide and Malaysia's own small-scale but equally tragic pogrom that lead to Singapore's autonomy.

Marilah Mari, Mari Mengundi

There is nothing that I can say about the GE outcome that hasn't been said (or blogged) already. Except maybe that the term 'winds of change' appropriately describes the post-election mood in Malaysia. I've been following the progress of the GE through bloggers' posts and online newspapers from the parties involved and form both alliances. It's good to know that despite the heavily biased media, there are still an abundance of unbiased and forward-thinking minds (I could heap more praise on them but then there'd be no end to it, would there?) out there who are objectively and unemotionally scrutinizing this historic period and giving their two-cents about it. Perhaps the country isn't in such dire straits as I imagined it to be. It's amusing how there are still individuals who succumb to their political fervor by invading people's blogs and unleashing torrents of insults thinly veiled by political righteousness. Surely anyone in their right mind can see how futile that is. Even more amusing is how these people hide behind fake names or anonymity, which corrodes what little truth or credibility their comments might have had to begin with. Part of me wishes I was back home to witness this momentous occasion. Then again, this could be the best (or proper) position for me to observe the turn of events around Malaysia.

The next five years is going to be an interesting ride, indeed.

As part of their campaign, opposition party leaders are promising a smidgen of the freedom of speech - the freedom to hold public protests. I have to admit, superficial as it is, they've accentuated the key issue that is the most recent of public discontent against the government - for now. In the wake of the many recent protests that were effectively attenuated by false reports, this is the one issue that might stand a chance of swinging votes. It's a faint flicker of hope, but it signals at Malaysians' awareness on the importance of voicing their disagreements and taking action against injustices, be it social, political or of any other motivation.

What saddens me, though, is the near fecklessness of this promise. Take the US Presidential elections. All of the Presidential candidates, from both the Democratic and Republican camps, have been consistently pursuing issues that Americans are most concerned about - making education and health care more affordable, making health insurance more accessible, improving immigration laws, dealing with the situation in the Middle East more tactfully so their soldiers don't pay the price, finding alternative fuel solutions. I don't mean to glorify the Americans as the leading society of the world (as Obama puts it) , but I must applaud their discernment towards their rights and how to translate those needs into realistic demands.

As in Malaysia, these candidates' promises (or guarantees, as some of them prefer) is a response to what the American public are demanding for themselves. They want better health care, a better education system, a cleaner environment to live in, a safer country. They demanded that of their government and the candidates are wrecking their brains to come up with plans to fulfill those demands in order to stay in favor of the public. In a nutshell, the public gives birth to the kind of leaders that will best serve their interests, and vice versa.

The scenario we witness in Malaysia is similar, except that the issues that are gaining interest ones that will not go any further than a few months after elections. Year after year party leaders throw out promises of temporal nature and we lap them up in the hopes that they will lead us 'to a better future', 'build a better society', 'creating a "masyarakat glokal"' and all that nonsense. Year after year, the same places in the country are flooded during monsoon seasons. Instead of pushing for better drainage, flood victims are quickly pacified by local ADUN who stop by to hand out RM100 gift hampers on their way to the next luncheon. Every time the highway toll rises there's a public outcry and the newspaper's reader's section is filled with letters from disgruntled drivers. Sami Vellu feints concern with statements saying he will look into the matter and promises that the new toll rates 'will not burden the public'. With that the issue, with the help of the government-controlled media, is downplayed and we go back digging deeper into our pockets. For the rest of the election term, the Malaysian public pay the price for their choice in restless doldrums.

It paints a sad picture when a person is ill-equipped to choose what's best for himself/herself. I don't mean to incite public uprising and encourage people to overthrow the government. Countries that work on that system of anarchy are already paying a dear price. I think as Malaysians, our responsibility lies beyond the pickets and rallies. We need to arm ourselves with the more powerful tool - education - that would put the freedom of speech to good use. As a Muslim, I fully understand the responsibility to educate myself that is put upon me by God. We need to educate ourselves on the standard of living we so rightfully deserve, the equal opportunities that no Malaysian should ever be denied of, the right to formal education that no child should be deprived of. We need to demand to know where each sen of the taxpayers' money is going. We need to demand for a better education system. We need to demand that the impoverished of the society is not digging through the trash to make ends meet while we strive to build the biggest, the tallest the longest of materials.

We should make demands. Each of us has the right to do so. But first we need to enlighten ourselves on what those demands should be.

Discussions over pizza/random ramblings

It's always amusing to see what kind of hair-brained scheme the clowns in power will come up with to lure in votes come election time. One scheme for this year seems to covet the most innocent of voters - the infringed and impoverished minority susceptible to the meagre promises made by politicians. Parents of school children who are on the RMT will be called to school for a special ceremony to recieve certificates (of achievement?) in recognition of their child being in the program. FYI the RMT stands for Rancangan Makanan Tambahan - a supplementary food program to provide kids from impoverished families with a stable and healthy diet. (What kind of food these children are getting through the program - now that's a whole different can of worms!) But this is not going to be just a simple ceremony for according certificates. How can it be, when the local politician (or whoever holds the most clout in the area) will be invited, speeches given, food catered and served, buntings hung and loads of kow-tow given, all at the expence of the innocent John. Q. Taxpayer. What it will hopefully do is boost the image of the powers-that-be in the eleventh hour of campaigning.

Let's consider for a second the ingenuity of this magnanimous gesture of pseudo-recognition. If my child were on the program, yes, I would very much like to be invited to the school to be recognized. I would very much like to recieve a certificate that would remind me of my daily struggle to simply feed my children. I would really love to go up on stage and have a hundred people applaude me for unwillingly depriving my child of his or her most basic need. People like me, whose children are 'previliged' enough to be on the program, are majority working on a daily wage. If I miss a day of work, I'd miss out on the day's wages. But hey, this ceremony is such a big honour that I wouldn't mind leaving work for one day.

Really, I don't mind depriving my child of another day's meal because the powers-that-be are generous enough to put up a ceremony for me. The rest of my children will go hungry too because only one child per family is allowed on the program. But hey, the powers-that-be have a budget to work with just like me. They can't afford to feed all of my children through RMT, although they all go to school equally hungry. If they do that, then there'd be no money left to spend on the more important things. You know, things like the chauffer driven luxury car to transport the bigwig from his mansion to the ceremony. Or for tipping the local press so they'd make this event their cover story for tomorrow's print. Or the colourful buntings and decorations that someone will take home as theirs at the end of the day. Or the votes that this glorious occasion will garner for the-powers-that-be. Or the heavy, embossed, signed, and sealed certificate that I'll take home and...serve to my children for dinner, perhaps?

Malaysian State of Affairs

A satirical poem on the Malaysian state of affairs recently came my way. While it was amusing in it's cadence, it also painted a lucidly sad picture of how the government is being run. I won't go so low as to print the poem here, since there are already individuals who are at this moment rigorously circulating it on the net. Besides, every time I dare to venture into the topic of Malaysian politics I sound every bit the cynic I try very hard not to be. The issues so creatively purported in the verses were nothing new. They have been the bane of political debates for years. Suffice it to say that the body claiming to serve the people of the country are still only paying lip service to their oaths. While the unknowing partisans of our pseudo-democracy are busy applauding the likes of Siti, Mawi and the jokers on AF, local bureaucrats are free to dicker the public coffer amongst themselves. It saddens me that the independence our forefathers so proudly negotiated from the colonials without dropping a single drop of blood is now reduced to a few succinct stanzas of morbid humor. Picture a clown weeping and you'll get the picture.

Home

Working out, safely.

After seven years of living within the vicinity of readily available public amenities, I've decided to make use of one of them,the local gym, two months before we're due to move out. It's no fancy affair, just a few equipments in an eighteen-by-nine room. The work clothes I got for myself at the beginning of my tenure is beginning to feel snug and I wasn't breaking enough sweat walking from my friend's car to the train station entrance. I'd have gladly walked the distance from my office to the station if not for several life-threatening factors.

To begin with, the roads here are rarely curbed, meaning you'd be walking ON the road,either on the side or, if you're completely bonkers, right smack in the middle of it.(I think the government's campaign for people to walk against traffic is pointless so long as they're still walking ON the road).

Even if there are continuous and safe curbs to tread on, there's the dogs issue to deal with. Here in the motherland, domestic felines and canines alike roam the streets unhindered. Just last month my family had a nerve-wrecking encounter with a surprised-but-decided-to-be-fierce mongrel on our walk to the local mamak's. It was an amazing scare but none of us were hurt, except for maybe my father's pride when he slipped to his rump in taking off his sandal to fend of the malicious dog. So you see, a walk down the street 3 minutes from home can be quite a life-threatening adventure.

Say the local authorities, for some insane reason, decided to do their job and round up all the strays, another issue persists. Local dog-owners, at least the ones in my neighbourhood and the ones near my office, seem to favour the streets as one big, free, maintenance-free litter box. This is as disgusting as you can imagine. Every morning and evening, on my way to and from work, I can see individuals standing by the road-side, innocently holding a leash while their domesticated poop-machines do their 'job'. Some don't even bother going into the bushes. I used to walk home during my final years of high-school and I've been an unwilling witness to the products of this daily irresponsible act. I'm sure some irreversible damage's been done to my psyche from unwanted sightings of excrement. Don't get me started about (accidentally)stepping on a pile of crappola.

Irresponsible bowel movements and insufficient pedestrian amenities aside, there's the motorists creating traffic and emitting carbon. The dangers of inhaling car exhaust is an old and oft-discussed issue. Pedestrian priority is non-existence here in the motherland. The rule is, if you see someone trying to cross the road, be sure to speed up and make sure the person doesn't cross in front of you. Now, thanks to low cc motorcycles that can weave in and out of traffic and in between cars faster than you can run to the loo, we're faced with the danger of snatch- thieves. This reckless breed of purse-dippers are becoming bolder too, slashing their victims needlessly in procuring their loot. Every time I cross the road, my purse is clutched to my chest rather than kept in my hand-bag. In the event that my handbag gets snatched, I'd at least still have saved my purse. It's ridiculous carrying a bag that doesn't serve any purpose. That clearly reflects the (near-bedlam) environment we've had to live in.

So, after seven years if walking and looking past that gym, I've decided to put on some running shoes and give it a go. At least I'd be breaking a sweat without unwittingly reducing my life span.