Tomorrow I return to my spouse's kampung after spending nearly seven months in my kampung. Our abode is in the Midlands, in Leicester where our very dear friends live though some have died.
He's a very lucky Scotsman, my spouse. The land of his forefathers is still there, intact and safe though that security did not come easy.
This line marks the pride of the Scottish: I have withstood the shock of England, of Denmark, of Rome and the world.
I so wish my Tanah Air could have reclaimed her dignity and pride after the shock of Portugal, of Holland, of Britain and the rest of the world claiming stakes and the resources of my Tanah Pusaka.
But this we have in common. The people of Scotland can sing with pride : The eyes of my sons , their bright swords are glancing. Triumphantly riding through ruin and death.
Our Police Force and our Armed Forces have done the same, like Lieutenant Adnan from the Malay Regiment who sacrificed his life and that of his brave comrades in holding back the Japanese in Singapore in February 1942.
But the Scots were proud of their sons and celebrated and remembered their sacrifice : Bold hearts and nodding plumes wave over their bloody tombs.
Malaysia was also proud of our sons, who gave up their lives during the Communist Insurgency so that the future generation could live in peace and prosperity. The nation remembers them each year , remembering those who did not come home :
Alas the Malaysian Rakyat of today, led chiefly by the 22.6 % cohort (see AsH's posting on 27 October 2019) of Malaysia's Anak and Bangsa Malaysia have decided to spit on their tombstones instead; when the ashes of the "Great Leader" of the Communist Insurrection were brought back surreptitiously into Malaysia in defiance of the law and the heartbeat of the Nation. While the Scots can sing with pride Scotland the Brave, these Malaysians who come from all levels of society, including our Leadership should hang their heads in shame. What cowards and ingrates!
In 1967, when I graduated from Singapore University, my Abah advised me to "balek" to Malaya to his and my Tanah Pusaka. But I did not heed his counsel. Finally, forty seven years later I realised where I really belonged.
But since 2009 when I finally received my Kad Pengenalan (after 5 years of waiting) almost everything that my Abah and I held dear in our Tanah Pusaka have been battered and torn by the shameful politicking and misguided and self-serving politicisation of race and rights.
"Every nation gets the government it deserves" (Joseph de Maistre).
However the inhabitants and government of Malaysia do not deserve this generous and bountiful Tanah Pusaka .
Who will find the parang kontot and slay the burong hantu, shaitan and hantu jembalang?
In his inimitable way, P. Ramlee has brilliantly described the fate of this country.
Celaka punya penyamun, Sial! Bikin rosak ana punya programme.
Buah amra masak bergetah, Baharu na'mengkal gugor sendiri. "Di pechah2 lalu perentah" Itu - lah 'akal pena'alok negeri. (From Kalong Bunga, Buku 1 oleh Za'ba)
A LEFTY LIBERAL'S LAMENT (Musings from the Spouse, illustrated by AsH) I am an old-fashioned lefty liberal. At 76 years of age, I have clung all my adult life to a rag-bag of good intentions and easy theories, acquired mostly in the comfy sixties, about internationalism, socialism, multi-culturalism, and humanism. Some of these ideas have been discarded by most of my world; others have been resurrected - usually in a modern, and barely recognizable, shape. I have stuck to my guns. I grew up in Africa (we had to leave South Africa because my father criticised apartheid); I married a Malay girl from Singapore/Malaysia, and my son is half-Chinese; I have good friends from a dozen cultures, four different religions, and four different races; and I enjoy music and food from every continent. I marched against apartheid in New Zealand, wrote against the Vietnam War in Singapore, and in London I marched against war in Palestine, Gaza, Bosnia and Iraq. But nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared me for the Romanians. Some said they were Roma; some said they were Muslims from Bosnia - because the women wore long skirts and scarves. We noticed them begging in the streets - one woman, I remember, came up to me cradling a plastic doll wrapped in a shawl. Then about five years ago, they started moving into our street. Soon, there were five families along our stretch of road. Perhaps these too were Roma, I thought: they were generally short and darker-skinned than most, and the women were all dressed alike - long skirts, scarves around their hair. It was then the trouble started. Children would come up to us demanding money. The young woman next door came up to me asking for cigarettes. At Halloween, we had Romanian children ringing our doorbell for "trick or treat" - the first time this had happened to us in the 40 years we'd lived in Leicester. The doorbell would be rung at all hours of the night - until we disconnected it - and footballs kept thumping against our front windows. I was screamed at by one young boy when I asked him to stop kicking the ball at our house, and my wife had racist abuse hurled at her by two others. Every evening, people young and old would gather outside our front window, and sit on our front steps, eating sunflower seeds and showering the pavement with the shucks. And they never seemed to go to bed. So the street manifestly suffered. Within a couple of years, the corner house opposite us had all its ground floor windows boarded up. Fly-tipping became a permanent feature: ransacked (and pinched) charity-shop bags of clothes, children's toys, old home appliances and packaging of new home appliances, bottles and drink cans, heaps of broken furniture, mountains of old carpet, paint tins, car parts, split bags of old food, and much else besides. Further up the road, abandoned cars started appearing.
Romania joined the European Union in 2007 and in 2014, restrictions on Romanians' rights to work in UK were lifted. By 2017 there were 411,000 Romanians in Britain, a jump of 25% from 2016. In 2015 the house opposite us had two glass ground floor windows - with the pavement beneath one of these a site for fly tipping by the new neighbours.
By 2018, both of the windows were boarded up. It's easy to make a connection between the plight of the occupant of the corner house and the unsupervised football games on the street of our new neighbours' children.
So as not to make ourselves a hostage to fortune, we decided to change to stronger PVC double glazed windows in 2016 which set us back by £400.
Aaahh children, and our neighbours' children, what would our future be without them? This is one solution suggested by a restaurant in Market Street, Leicester, 2017.
And this was all just in front of the house. Through the living room walls we had a never-ending chorus of shouting people, thumping feet, and slamming doors - I pitied the landlord when he discovered the damage. Some (though not all) Sundays we had religious services, complete with a speaker system, going for an hour or two. When Pope Francis was inaugurated, a three-hour long service went on into the early morning. Such occasional piety I don't mind - but when the pattern of behaviour is frequent and unrelenting ... then I do mind. But what about the back of the house? Presumably to extend the living space, our neighbours built a lean-to kitchen in the back yard, covering the entire yard with bitumen sheeting and plastic - and from this, on many a weekend, would come a clatter of pots and pans well into the early morning. Perhaps, because of this al fresco kitchen, rats started to appear in our backyard. But the real problem at the back was that our neighbours no longer had a shed for their clutter. Gradually, our private access path took on the role. Soon, we were unable to open our back gate to put out our wheelie bin. We asked our neighbours to remove their rubbish: initially, they demanded we put out our bin through the entry of our other neighbour - which would have involved lifting it over the party wall; they eventually agreed to clear things, and we had access for two months. Then the rubbish started to reappear. We asked again. The same thing happened once more. We gave up.
That was almost four years ago.
These photos, taken from the other side of our back gate were taken only because a neighbour two doors away was doing renovation work and had left the side door to the street unbolted.
The view in April 2018 from our side : before (image 3) and after (image 4). Now our wheelie bin's freedom of movement has been restored!!
But our problems at the rear of the house were not just about access. From our neighbour's upstairs window we have had a shower of lighted cigarette butts, drink containers, paper tissues and Pampers thrown in our direction. Over the years, hundreds of cigarette butts have landed in our yard - we only need a long hot summer and some dead leaves against our garden shed ......
From the rear window (on the right), our back yard was peppered with cigarette butts and a paraphernalia of rubbish, including Pampers, by courtesy of our neighbours from the European Union.
And it's not only our immediate neighbour. We have had three letters from the railway company demanding settlement of unpaid fares. From the name, we know the Romanian culprit lives in number 57 - he gave our address to put the authorities off his scent. ---------------------------------- Lest I be accused of picking on Romanians, let me say two things very clearly. Firstly, I am reporting my experience of every single Romanian I have ever met. So perhaps there are nice Romanians, and one day I will meet them. Secondly, no, it's not just Romanians. For some years, our next door neighbours were Polish. They were noisy and arrogant. One wanted to buy our car, and soon after we said it was not for sale all four tyres were slashed. On another occasion, I watched the same neighbour bring an old TV set to the front of our house and throw it bodily onto our front step. We were terrified. There was a time, too, when a walk down Evington Road risked bumping into drunk and thuggish East Europeans who certainly seemed to be Polish: I was accosted four times by such people, all demanding money, in the space of a year. So maybe it's just Eastern Europe. And maybe Brexit is, for many people like me, an understandable gut reaction to foreign tyrants on our streets and in our midst. One thing I am sure about: it is nothing to do with racism. These thugs are all white, they are all European, they are all Christian. I wish, I so wish, all my neighbours were Bangladeshi, Pakistani, or Indian. _______________________________________________________________________________ Postscript The week before last, a Mercedes SUV tore round a corner onto our road and landed on top of a neighbour's parked car. The time was 8.50 on a Sunday (19 May) morning; the driver was the teenage son of one of our Romanian neighbours, well over the alcohol limit.
Pile up on the road.
Pile up from our window.
Five days later, on a road we can see from the window, a gang of men attacked a house with iron bars, planks, and bricks, smashing all the doors and windows. A video of the event appeared in the local paper. Three Romanians were arrested. We all voted the following day. ----------------------------------------------
The photographs and comments in blue are by courtesy of Mrs AsH Buchanan.
On 23 May 2019 Ash and her two favourite codgers, Iain and Jack went a-voting.
Note our choice: seventh from the top. We have had enough!!!!
On Sunday 25 May came the denouement.
The Result
The reference to the different Political Parties.
But, being the wise, cynical old fogies that we are, we are aware that the problems of living in our neighbourhood will not improve. Fortunately we are from the baby boomers generation - our days are limited.
.... just a little play of words on Robert Browning's poem "Home Thoughts from Abroad".
Been back for nearly 2 weeks : the moggies were happy to see us.
But the spouse was already showing signs of exhaustion. He succumbed to the infections we picked up on the plane and it ended in this for both of us.
Through the haze of sniffles, sore throats, hacking coughs, fever and headache one's thoughts wander to Victoria Park where the spouse would wander almost every day to feed the gulls.
Walking back home from the Park we also noticed these 'leftovers' on the pavements.
Used capsules of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) - another form of recreational drug for 21st century young denizens.
The 'creativity' of the young in filling up their their hedonistic and high-tech lives are quite amazing - makes my generation with their ciggies and rock 'n' roll very tame indeed.
But some things remain unchanged.
Hope springs eternal even in Leicester. We get this through our letterbox very frequently.
This image below - up to 10-15 years ago - is not a typical scene, in where we live in this part of Leicester.
A car from Eastern Europe, all 4 tyres flattened and abandoned. As it has an East European number plate, the owner /culprit would be very difficult to trace. When and if it is finally towed away, the Council will have to pay for it. As it is, this year our Council Tax will be upped by 10%.
Fly tipping, of broken bits of furniture, mattresses, children's bicycles, broken plastic roofing, planks and all sorts of odds and ends have also blighted this residential area - again a recent introduction by our EU brethren.
Still, one has to ....
But bananas in Leicester are tasteless.
Back in Setiawangsa, we discovered a little stall that has a regular supply of my favourite pisang emas.
On the second day of Chinese New Year we decided to get our usual supply of bananas and papayas. But the shop was shut. As I walked towards the stall selling my favourite pisang goring, I became aware of the openness of the little street and the peaceful, quiet surroundings because there were hardly any cars or motor-bikes.
It was just like walking along the lanes in Kampung Abu Kassim, Pasir Panjang, Singapore 60 years ago. I felt a bit tearful but I can't blame it entirely on the impending cold. Time and tide can break many a heart!
I went back the next day to snap some pictures, hoping to recapture in Kramat, that bit of my past.
But it was just a wild fancy. This was all I could get. No more rose-coloured spectacles!
Jalan AU 3/12 at 0730.
Remembering a kampung wayside - minus the car and the atap genting.
The moral of my posting : for all those aged from 13 or thereabouts to 40, 50, 60 ; record and remember the scenes that make up the tapestry of your being before it's too late.
A lot of arguments and discussions have been going on in the UK in the past few weeks about leaving or remaining in the EU. Much scaremongering and selective facts and figures have been put forward to (supposedly) guide the voter in making a decision.
The most ferocious debate concerns the issue of immigration. The argument has been over-simplified with the Leave people being tagged as racists and bigots by the Remain campaign, whose voices strongly represent the liberal urban elites - especially in and around London.
Daily Mail - DM Comment 21 June 2016
Frank Field - The Guardian 14 June 2016
Daily Mail DM Comment 21 June 2016
Until 2004 when East Europeans joined the EU, there was no large scale migration to Britain. There are now 3.3 million EU nationals living in Britain - up by 2 Million since 2003. Unlike migrants from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and parts of Africa, they do not have to go through the hurdles of an English language test, or a UK citizenship test. As soon as they enter Britain they are granted special privileges - and eventually all the rights of a British national - because they are members of the EU. Unlike other non-EU migrants, their numbers cannot be restricted as UK as a member of the EU are bound by European treaties and European law.
In comparison, I reckon Sabah and Sarawak got a better deal when they joined Malaysia. For instance Peninsular Malaysians need a work permit to work in East Malaysia and they are also restricted from buying land in these two states.
If I am in Leicester right now, I would vote for LEAVE. My reasons are very personal because of my empathy and concern for the plight of my work mates, my working class friends.
These mates of mine and all the other places I worked at are the ones who pay the price of the EU's "Freedom of Movement" i.e the right to migrate within the EU to whereever the grass is greener. I know the problems they are facing: unemployment , short term contracts, reduced benefits, school place for their kids, and registration at Doctors' Surgeries.
The Unions who are supposed to represent them have done nowt and somehow managed to put their backsides on two stools - Leave and Remain!!
Daily Mail - by Ian Dury & James Slack, 20 June 2016
Paul Mason - The Guardian 20 June 2016
These are the 'native' population that have been thrown on the scrap heap in the name of globalisation and free-market economics practised by their neo-liberal elites in both the Labour and Conservative Parties
Paul Mason - The Guardian 20 June 2016
If their anger is not placated the rise of more right-wing extremists in Britain is inevitable.
The other consequence of this anti-immigration mood is the effect on those refugees who are desperately and justifiably in need of support, of the most basic of security. In comparison to such people, the relatively secure East Europeans, tripping around looking for greener pastures, are very privileged people indeed.
I cannot help but observe the uncanny similarity of 'class politics' in Britain and here in Malaysia - of the gaping fissure between the luvvie elite in the urban centres and the hoi polloi poorer working class. In Malaysia it's the gap between the city centres like KL and Penang and the rural/smaller towns. In Britain there is the North-South divide with the well-heeled 'salariat' ensconced in the South.
Alas, in Britain, for my working class mates; and in Malaysia for friends like Osman and Aishah - our local road sweepers from Kampung Ayer Kuning, near Kampar - they shall for ever be the mentimum tossed and scraped by the durian.
I shall await with trepidation the results of the Referendum.
When news of Huckle's litany of child abuse got to Malaysia two weeks ago, I recalled this nursery rhyme I learned in Primary One.
One, two buckle my shoe, Three, four, shut the door, Five, six, pick up sticks. Seven, eight. lay them straight. Nine, ten, a big fat hen.
With Richard Huckle in mind this is my revised version
Nursery rhyme for a Sunday School Teacher One, two, unbuckle my shoe. Three, four, (he) shuts the door. Five, six, he made me sick. Seven, eight, I'm ridden with self-hate, Nine, ten, a big, evil man.
Here's one victim's recall of the abuse she suffered - cited in a Report on Child Abuse in the Methodist Church in Britain, I have learned that it is impossible to recover from sexual abuse when no one recognises the seriousness of it. My church did not want a scandal, my parents did not want a scandal. I was left to feel worthless and devalued, while the man was left to get on with his life and, for all I know, repeat the crime with someone else."
Read more in
As for Huckle, after admitting to 71 offences of abuse against children between the ages of 6 months to 12 years from 2006 to 2014, an English Court sentenced him to 22 life sentences - to be served for at least 25 years. It's mind-boggling for any lay person to figure out "22 life sentences" when this pervert has got only one life. What and whose purpose does this punishment serve?
Penitent ?? Or grateful and relieved?
As for his victims and their families, they face a life sentence too for what they suffered, knowing that by 2041, when Huckle is just 55, he will be set loose on society.
Only this time, I hope the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service), the NCA (National Crime Agency) and the might of the British Judiciary will guarantee that Huckle remains in his motherland and keep him away from the poorer people of the world - whether they are Christians or not!
This predator has a record of writing and admitting :
1. " Impoverished kids are definitely much more easier to seduce than middle class western kids." (Mail Online 2 June 2016) 2, "As long as I keep a broad number of contacts amongst the poorer people I know, I'm sure some would be inclined for someone of 'high status' such as myself to be caring for their kids for long or short term." (BuzzFeed 2 June 2016)
Note: 'high status' means white and westerner.
In Malaysia, much outrage was expressed by both authorities and NGOs - as well it should be.
Mail Online 2 June
As for the NCA - they were using "legislation that allows UK nationals to be prosecuted in the UK for offences committed overseas." One cannot help but realise that this seemingly decent piece of legislation has a double edged sword : one to ensure punishment of British miscreants abroad, the other is to protect their criminals from any 'alien' (?) or 'barbaric'(?) justice system. - punishments like death sentences are anathema to the liberal western system of justice, Maybe that is why Huckle looked relieved and held his hands in prayer after sentencing at the Old Bailey.
An example of responses from Malaysia's NGOs :
Certainly after this case, Malaysia needs not only to enforce a stronger protection of children, harsh punishment for the perpetrators, but also more transnational cooperation in nabbing and prosecuting the paedophiles.
But wait a moment. Britain hardly has a creditable record of protecting their children either.
1. There's the much loved entertainer Sir Jimmy Savile.
From humble DJ to Lord of the Realm
Top of the Paedophile Parade.
Who? Me??
2. Australia's entertainer-export to Britain and the Commonwealth.
This was no kangaroo court.
How did he get away with 33 years of sexual offences?
3. Lord Greville Janner - a scion of Leicester society
That police were pressured by politicians - you mean this is possible in a non-banana republic/state like Great Britain?
4. Glam rocker Gary Glitter.
All that glitters is not gold.
5. Then there are institutions like Children's Homes and the long-running involvement of the Church in child abuse. The Catholic Church especially has a long history of covering up for the perpetrators while the victims are shunted aside. Here's just one example from the US, but the revelations go further afield to many other parts of the world.
6. Just last year the Methodist Church made an apology to the 2,000 cases of physical and sexual abuse within the institution dating from the 1950s. "The children's charity National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) described it as a horrifying catalogue of abuse."
We in Malaysia have a lot to learn about dealing with sexual and child abuse, about the enactment of laws to protect the child and punish the perpetrators, about counselling and helping the victims and their families. BUT .... we also need to turn to the values and mores of our own culture before taking on wholesale the methods and ethos of countries like Britain.
A few years ago, when Gary Glitter was exposed as a paedophile who had set up in Cambodia to ravage children, with impunity it seemed, there were many in Malaysia (including myself) who breathed a sigh of relief: no, it could never happen in Malaysia.
But now it has. What lessons shall we learn from this awful milestone?
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Postscript: Listening to Richard Kerr brings back distressing memories of my failure as a teacher, for turning my back on a cry for help.
Today, she would be almost the same age as Richard Kerr. I dearly hope she survived
her pain.
My one massive failing as a teacher.
But I do feel a sense of warmth when, many years ago, I demonstrated my support and care for one of my senior boys - who had been abused by his own father - when he was diagnosed with VD. The teachers gossiped about him, told each other tales of how to keep their distance away from him in class.
During my geography lesson, I went to his desk and demonstrated how to measure the length of a river with a string on his textbook - Bunnett's Kajian Peta. I shall never forget the happy smile he gave me. He was eventually cleared of his blight and he must be a grandfather by now.
