We built this country!

Some stories I have told and some that I haven't

Author: VC George (2021)

The powers that be wants us to believe their narrative. They assert that their concocted tale of how history happened keeps true to the natural chain of events. They create a smokescreen to justify the turn of events to explain social strata's current status and how social justice should be. 

Our history likes to paint Indian immigration to the peninsula as a single wave of settlement. With a single stroke of ink, they put all Indian in the same basket. That they were brought in the colonial masters as indentured labour (a milder wording for bonded slaves) to milk out not only the juices of rubber trees but also the milk the wealth of the nation. It was no coincidence that the Malay Peninsular was referred to as "Swarnabhumi" (Land of Gold). In the same breath, these keepers of Nation history declare that the British never really colonised us. They were just administrators. 

Sorry to burst your echo chamber, purveyors of fairy tales. Indians were sailing the seven seas even way before the Malaccan Sultanate, often quoted as the spark of Malay identity. The Malabari Indians even showed Francis Light the route Pulo Pinang, the island they had been frequenting for so long. How many of us know the Malaccan Sultanate kingmaker, Tun Perak, was of Indian extract? But then so was the despotic and corrupt Tun Mutahir, an Indian Muslim. On the royalty side, Raja Kasim who was summoned to the throne after Raja Muhammad's knifing fiasco had a mother who was Indian.

The Indians who reached here were traders and master boat builders in the early part of the country's history. Indian sojourners then sauntered in later at the end of the 19th century, equipped with the best of what English education could offer. They arrived at the behest of the colonial masters to help out in the day-to-day administrative work of a cash cow of a nation that paid for half of the Englishmen's extravagances back in their Motherland. 

Unlike other European colonialists who hurriedly left their posts in a hurry in total pandemonium, the British actually left Malaya with a comprehensive post-independence roadmap. They cast in stone the Constitution and the citizens' charter to ensure equality for all.

Somewhere along the way, this arrangement was hijacked. Politicians with self-serving agendas and a blank cheque for eternal power decided to use what they learnt from George Orwell and Joseph Goebbels to good use. They rewrote as they saw fit.  They knew that he who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. They understood that they can create the illusion of truth by repeating a lie often enough to become the truth. 

They try to say that the indentured Indian labourer got immersed in estate life only to be torn about in the quagmire as the British planters left their plantations and the new owners decided to cash out. The Indian poor were forgotten in the greater scheme of things. Lost of job, home and wanting of skills drove them to the wild side of society, a world of crime and subsequently justified police brutality.

That is why we need more books like these - to tell the contribution of different communities to what was one time expected to emerge as one of emerging Asia's Tigers.  Sadly, the other sibling cubs have all gone places. We are left alone as the sick and wounded feline without a roar and probably needing crutches soon. 

VC George, a 90 years old retired Court of Appeal judge, tell us his life and times growing up in Klang in pre-WW2 Malaya all through his journey into adulthood and his illustrious career. He (Honourable, Lord or just George) has inked his narration in 100 short notes, which tend to end up with an unexpected twist or a witty footnote. This man was there in the flesh during the nation's birth, just like the many others referred to as pendatang (newcomers, just off the boat). These wrongly called pendatangs are the very people who helped to produce enviable students of international calibre, established medical facilities that transformed our health services to be at par with international standards, founded research centres and universities, and gave dignity to august Halls of Justice in the country.  

A good read. It is filled with many anecdotes and 'one liners'. It tells of a time when people would take jokes in a good spirit and not be offended or raise a big hue and cry, claiming victimisation. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.