Amid sadness, our columnist finds hope in the actions of a couple of prominent people.
AS the year dwindled down to the final two weeks, I was feeling rather sad and depressed until I heard of two incidents that happened recently that are quite in keeping with the Christmas season.
Why sad and depressed at the year’s end? Well, there is the suffering caused by the floods, and while the six deaths that have occurred to date are six too many, it could have been worse, I suppose. My deepest condolences to the families of those unfortunate victims.
Adding to the depression were all the political dramas. One Member of Parliament with a PhD still defiantly maintains that DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang is directly related to Chin Peng, the communist leader of old Malaya. The same person could not even pronounce the name of Singapore’s great past leader properly and yet she has insisted that he was related to most of the DAP leaders. Aiyaa!
Then there was the political leader – funnily enough from the same religion-based party as that MP – who linked DAP’s Nga Kor Ming to the incident when China flags were waved during a festival in Teluk Intan, Perak, on Oct 24. This again brought up the “Cina komunis” conspiracy theory.
The first MP was sued for RM750,000, which she has been ordered to pay, while the other politician got off by making an “unreserved apology”. Hmm.
Finally, there was our “grand old man of politics” gathering tired-looking Malay leaders and putting out statements that Malays will lose power – to whom, I wondered? Well, to “Cina kaya” (wealthy Chinese), of course. I will be 63 come January and I have heard this song sung by that politician for 40 years now.
So what miracle could give me hope in the midst of these depressing events and political carols this Christmas and the eve of a new year?
The first involves His Majesty Sultan Ibrahim, King of Malaysia, while the other is about Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, an Umno leader and the previous prime minister.
I was completely shocked but ecstatic to see a picture and a video of Sultan Ibrahim having lunch with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi and Johor Crown Prince Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim at a “genuine 100% restoran Cina”.
They not only sat in the restaurant but enjoyed an asam pedas rice meal. Wah... wake me up, please!
If Anwar was photographed eating at a Chinese restaurant alone, he would be out of office before you could print a hard copy of the photo. But because of the people involved, there has been complete and peaceful silence from the Akmal gang, the Hadi camp, and the Mahiaddin troupe. As the Malays say, “Diam seribu bahasa (silent in a thousand languages)”. Daulat Tuanku!
I remember when I was a boy, my police constable father was fond of tearing me away from my games of marbles, gasing or layang-layang and taking me for a ride on his blue Vespa. We would stop at a Chinese restaurant for roti bakar and teh tarik while he conversed with the restaurant owner. My father had many Chinese friends and I had many a teh tarik (always poured into a saucer to cool by my father). And imagine, we were in Butterworth, Penang, not famously tolerant Kota Kinabalu.
Nowadays, I’ve heard Malays declare that just stepping into Chinese houses is haram, much less eating at a Chinese restaurant.
Seeing Sultan Ibrahim at the restaurant made a powerful statement about what I believe Malaysia, Islam and Malayness should be.
His Majesty did not use any eloquent words nor make any magnificent gestures of symbolic import. He just had lunch and, I assume, drank tea or coffee. Yet, in my 25 years of political writing, it was one of the most powerful messages I have seen.
The next dramatic moment I saw recently was created by Ismail Sabri, our simple and quiet ninth prime minister. As head of the Yayasan Keluarga Malaysia, he visited orphanages and families experiencing hardship and gave donations to all he met. I was especially moved to see him with a Christian family whose children had lost their father.
I believed previously that no Umno leader would be seen “bantu Kristian” (helping Christians), as I’ve heard some muftis and clerics have declared that Christians are an enemy of Islam. These Malays seem to have forgotten that the Prophet Muhammad had accepted the protection of the Christian Abyssinian king A-Najashi for embattled Muslims.
Kudos to Ismail Sabri. This is the Umno that I would like to see again. The Umno of Tunku Abdul Rahman and Onn Jaafar had not only the right Malaysian spirit but it also had the right Islamic values as taught by the Prophet, not by some popular cleric with a large YouTube viewership.
These two moments helped to recharge my spirit and hope that Malaysians could also rejuvenate themselves to support the King and the government to usher in a Malaysia of inclusiveness, respect and compassion for each other.
Merry Christmas and a hopeful new year!
Prof Dr Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor of Architecture at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Studies at UCSI University. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.
