How rich?

It’s heartening to learn that the Party Socialist leaders have declared their assets. We can be sure that the other politicians will never do the same.

The anti corruption body is hitting the headlines, not for arresting the big ones but for two persons - one of whom was a customs officer - falling to their deaths from the upper floors of their building. Scandal follows scandal in this country and nobody seems to care a damn.

The government acted stupid in closing the dialysis centre in Penang. The excuse was that it did not have a qualified nephrologist. The government should learn from China’s experiment of the “barefoot doctors” who provided health services for the countryside when there were not enough doctors to go round.

It is shocking that there was no public condemnation of the action of the Education Department who instead of sending the man to court merely transferred a teacher who beat a One Year student and fractured his or her (the reporter failed to tell us whether it was a girl of boy) hand.


Scent of an Island
Pix by Ismail Hashim / Poem by Cecil Rajendra

Another morning
The amplified voice
of a muezzin
cracks electric
from the majestic
minaret of the State mosque
snapping the city
from its thicket of sleep

circle of fireflies -
the luminous dial
of my bedside clock -
semaphore an eerie 5.30.
What can I devise
to pass this purgatorial
hour before sunrise:
too early for a rehearsal
of morning ablutions
too late for a retrieval
of that broken tendril of dreams.
Outside, the estate air is still
grey with remnants of night;
another dawn awaits release
from the scrag throat of a cockerel.

***

Scent of an Island is an ongoing attempt to capture the sights, sounds and smells of Penang in words, image and music.

The real Penang as experienced by Penangites - the good, the bad and the ugly; the experience not censored, sanitised, varnished or packaged for the tourist.

*****

Hwa Pin is a popular and famous coffee shop in Church Street dating from the 30s.
Many notable and legendary Penang artists, past and present, have had a cup of coffee or aTiger here; including the likes of Penang's first mayor, lawyer Goh Guan Ho, musician EdwinRajamoney, artists Tan Choon Ghee and Chuah Thean Teng while discussing the printing of a brochure or programme with the proprietors of Georgetown and supporters of Penang's cultural heritage for over 5 decades.

The late Goh Guan Ho's law offices were directly in front of Hwa Pin. They have recently been converted into an art gallery - Galeri Seni Mutiara (II).

Rashid Maidin’s Memoirs (continued)

15 Strategic Move to the North

The MCP worked out a plan for the National Liberation Army to make a strategic retreat to the north. Accordingly the 10th Regiment was to get ready for the move. I was to move earlier, to Perak as a preparatory step to lead the Malay Work Office, Northern section.

I had only been with the regiment for two months and had to leave them. With several Malay companions I followed the pioneer group which was already in Perak. My group reached Perak and we contacted the publishers of the paper. The unit comprised Malays, Chinese and Indians. There we joined the Orang Asli in planting.

Towards the end of 1953 the main body of the Regiment named the “Hang Jebat Troop” arrived. We were overjoyed to able to meet Abdullah CD, Musa Ahmad, Suriani Abdullah and others and to talk once more. In order to prepare for the tasks ahead we had discussions with the MCP Perak secretariat at which Suriani was the interpreter, as she was good at Chinese and English. She was charged with helping the Hang Jebat Troop in working with friendly units along the journey, arranging for supplies including medical as well as arms and other needed materials. Sometimes she helped to coordinate the actions of the units in the area.

Because we had lost contact with the north Perak organisation, with the agreement of the state secretariat we headed for an area in Ulu Kinta, a journey which took us ten days. There we found a huge cave which could contain about 30 persons. Around were Orang Asal hill rice growing in valleys and on the hill slopes. This an Orang Asal area where the villages were connected. They were our warm supporters and they hated the British colonialists. Indeed they had a unit of fighters there. Wth their help food was not a problem. They supplied potatoes and even let us take supplies from the fields.

At first we spent the night in the cave with the Orang Asal but, a few days later, the local responsible comrades came and had talks with us. It was decided to organise the Orang Asal, to study their character more thoroughly, to publish a paper and to organise the people in Sungai Siput. We set up a unit under Abdullah CD to organise and to study Orang Asal society in the area i.e. the Orang Asal grooup in Perak kumpulan Orang Asal, Musa Ahmad and I were to be in charge of a unit to publish a magazine and publicity and also the study of the Orang Asal of Kelantan. Abu Samah Mohd Kassim’s unit was to organise the people in Sungai Siput.

The story of Abu Samah is interesting. He was known in the jungle as Sibar. It was our custom to change names when in the jungle and also when moving to another location. This was to avoid being traced by enemy spies for the locals did not know the true identity of the fighter and their loose talk would not identify the person and would not harm us. Abu Samah was a member of the PKMM and was made a member of the Temerloh UMNO committee by its head. When the British declared the Emergency they were going to arrest him but he joined the 10th Regiment from the beginning. One day asked by his mother he returned to her house which had been recently emptied by a guerrilla unit and was now surrounded by the colonial solders. Abu Samah was caught in a trap. Shooting began. An enemy soldier pounced on Abu Samah and held him. But Abu Samah wrestled with him and exlpoded a hand grenade and escaped.

While Abu Samah was entrusted with organising the people at Sungai Siput, Musa Ahmad and I led a group to high ground an hour away from the cave and set tp a temporary camp there. There, publication was made of writing or translations, the writing was stencilled, the typists typed and the printers printed, all worked hard to get the first leaflets out.