Nothing Is Ever What It Seems

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It is chilling to think that somewhere in the country, two men are right now enjoying a sumptuous meal in a restaurant, looking relaxed and happy.
Days ago, their faces concealed, they dragged a 12-year-old away from his mother and jabbed him with a syringe in the car park of a mall.
Then came the blood-curdling text messages to Rafizi Ramli’s wife. The first of these, made more sinister by its brevity, read: “Be quiet. If you continue, AIDS”. It was what the Chinese call, “slaughtering the chicken to frighten the monkey”.
For the men involved in this cowardly plot, this was an easy “job”. Carried out in broad daylight, it required no firearms or explosives. All it took was a few days of stalking the mother and son. And an iron-clad guarantee that they will be “protected” come what may.
ADSMen like them don’t wake up one morning and say, “Let’s go out and frighten a mother and her child to death”. Instead, they go about their “job”, working in the shadows cast by powerful men who hate to see their plans thwarted by the law. Or by political upstarts and whistleblowers.
And if at all these two men spoke about their fears of being eventually caught, they would have been reminded with a cynical chuckle of a whole lot of unsolved cases piling up on the tables of investigating officers. Especially in the last few years.
Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli (middle)They must have also sensed that the hidden hand that arranged and paid for this “job” would lose a lot if they ever took the stand, divulging names of go-betweens, places, phone calls, and plans. And of overheard conversations and of things they were not meant to see.
Besides, they had every reason to believe that the hidden hand behind this “job” knows Malaysia, its people, and its institutions, all too well. Our response to blatant abductions, “disappearances”, and bombings has fallen into a predictable pattern.
First, the genuine outrage from many of us and then, like so often, things will quieten down. Like the weather after a violent afternoon thunderstorm. There is also a new abbreviation in town, bandied about like it is part of our Constitution: NFA, always spelt in caps. “No Further Action”.
The religious authorities have yet to condemn this assault on our collective good conscience and dignity. Civic bodies, NGOs, and ex-top civil servants, generals, and men who have contributed much and gained much from serving the country have stayed on the sidelines. Why this silence?
Revisionist history
And as always, our academia has yet to emerge from its rotten coconut shell, tempurung, barring a good professor or two. Perhaps, they know that our minds are mostly hidden from us and filled with forbidden thoughts and repressed memories that control our lives without us knowing it.
They know that our national life is like the brightly lit front porch of a house, while our dark secrets, including our propensity for political violence, are hidden away in a cobwebbed storeroom. Time now to relook at that old Devil of revisionist history that has blighted our lives for the past five decades.
Perak’s first resident JWW BirchVery few are aware that JWW Birch, that inept and tactless first resident of Perak, was not the first to die in the rebellion against colonial rule that erupted all along the Perak River circa 1875. A Malay gentleman, the competent Mohamad Arshad, was the first to die at the hands of his own people.
Mohamad? Never heard of him! Was he part of reformasi?
Nah! He was bilingual in Malay and English, having served the Penang government for many years. As interpreter to the newly appointed Birch, he was keenly aware of the politics of the Perak sultanate, made more complicated now by having three rival claimants to the throne.
ADSOne of them held on to the royal regalia, the other to his stronger lineage, and the third to his influence among the feudal chiefs, making a fortune in the tin-mining industry. The other chiefs saw it as their personal right to impose taxes and tolls on the river traffic of a state, just now embracing modernity.
It was the morning of Nov 2, 1875, the second day of Hari Raya Puasa, when Birch’s large perahu naga, dragon boat, moored mid-river and opposite the only shop in the village of Pasir Salak, some 70km upriver from where the Perak River empties into the sea at Bagan Datok.
Birch was going about his toilet in a floating bath-house owned by the Chinese shopkeeper cum jeweller Koh Ah Yong, under the personal protection of the village chief, Dato Maharajalela, a vociferous and determined opponent of British interference in Perak.
Half out of self-interest and half out a principle, he hatched a plot with the connivance of Sultan Abdullah to murder Birch at the first opportunity. He prepared his loyal henchmen, including his father-in-law, Pandak Indut, to carry out the deed, carefully choosing to remain in the shadows.
The Little Perak War
The diligent Mohamad, 50, had gone ahead of Birch to stick bills on the wooden walls of Koh’s shop, detailing that henceforth all taxes must be collected in the name of the sultan and the State of Perak. These were torn down in anger by the tens of men gathered on the riverbank.
There was no misunderstanding, no salah faham between Mohamad and the angry men surrounding him - they all spoke Malay. He re-stuck the bills. It infuriated the angry men. Versions differ, but it ended with the unarmed Mohamad being attacked repeatedly even as he tried to reach the safety of Birch’s boat.
Mohamad was already dead, his skull split in two, when it became Birch’s turn to die, attacked from all sides through the thin nipah walls of the bath-house. The cries of “Amok! Amok!” soon died down as men armed with parangs and swords milled about, not knowing what to do next.
The reprisals were swift. Marines and soldiers from Hong Kong and Labuan were rushed in. The “Little Perak War”, as it was called in London and Singapore, saw the perpetrators brought to book in a court of law. The ringleaders, including Maharajalela, were hanged in Fort Matang. A few others were banished.
The harsh punishment sent out a clear signal that Pax Britannia would not tolerate rebellion in the other Malay states, now having residents as their advisers on all matters except those affecting Malay customs and religion.
Mohamad and Koh, who incidentally had a cook/assistant named Khoo Ah Chai, have all been airbrushed out of our history except for a few academic papers. As a country and a people, we avoid confronting the hard truths of our history.
By the way, there are no records to show that Koh and Maharajalela were business partners.
And we continue to gloss over the demons of our past, whether before Merdeka or after it; before May 13 or after it; before Dr Mahathir Mohamad or after him; before Najib Abdul Razak or after him; before Anwar Ibrahim or after him. And before the attack on Rafizi’s son or after it.
And so ad infinitum, remembering nothing and never learning anything from the useful lessons of history.
But something good has come out of all this: Rafizi has sworn to continue the fight. He is shaken but not stunned. He is a braver man than the many who claim to be our pahlawan (warriors). - Mkini
MURALE PILLAI is a former GLC employee. He runs a logistics company.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MKtT.

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