[nasional_list] [ppiindia] The changing face of Malaysian politics
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- Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 09:33:01 +0200
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**http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4841580.stm
Last Updated: Saturday, 25 March 2006, 12:49 GMT
The changing face of Malaysian politics
By Jonathan Kent
BBC, Kuala Lumpur
Recently the daughter of a former prime minister of Malaysia compared the
fate of Muslim women to black South Africans under apartheid. And senior police
officers received a public dressing-down by their chief for a lack of awareness
of human rights. But Jonathan Kent is keen to put on record that, behind the
headlines, lurks another, different, Malaysia.
Nik Aziz Nik Mat has controversial views about women
On a good day I reckon I have the best job in the world.
It gives me an excuse to talk to people from every walk of life in
Malaysia.
I have interviewed prime ministers and religious leaders and businessmen,
but that also means spending inordinate amounts of time in smart residencies
and marble dressed hotels and that is not the Malaysia I love.
There is a modest wooden house next to the mosque in Kampung Melaka.
The green paint is peeling and the door hinges could use a spot of oil.
But it is home to Nik Aziz Nik Mat, the elderly chief minister of the state of
Kelantan and the spiritual leader of Malaysia's conservative Islamic opposition
party PAS.
Nik Aziz studied at the same religious school as all but one of the
leaders of Afghanistan's Taleban.
In the past he has declared that wearing make-up can invite rape, that
the state should offer jobs to ugly women because pretty ones can find
husbands, and that TV sport shows featuring skimpily clad women should be
banned.
But if you are picturing an irascible boggle-eyed firebrand think again.
He [Nik Aziz] may believe that I am going to burn in hell but he is
always charming and welcoming, and there is always a mischievous sparkle in his
eye
Nik Aziz embodies the deep-rooted gentility that is one of the defining
characteristics of Malay culture.
He may believe that I am going to burn in hell but he is always charming
and welcoming, and there is always a mischievous sparkle in his eye.
And however uncompromising his pronouncements, he always ends them by
saying: "But that is just what I, an old man, believe. You must decide for
yourselves."
It is a humility he shares with Malaysia's Prime Minister, Abdullah
Badawi, a man whose heart belongs to the country's small towns and villages
where decency can still prevail.
'Quiet dignity'
Halfway up the Cameron Highlands road, down a blink-and-you-miss-it
turning, through a ramshackle village, across a river and through the forest,
is another small home.
It belongs to Zaini, a member of one of Malaysia's indigenous communities
collectively known as the orang asli.
It is a hut made of bamboo and thatched with palm leaves. The air flows
though the slatted floor and it is perfectly cool even in the tropical heat.
Zaini brings pineapple from the field outside and you have never tasted
fruit so sweet.
The orang alsi are defined by the land. Their relationship with it is
spiritual as well as material.
And though nearly 50 years after independence Malaysia is yet to give
most of its indigenous people ownership of their ancestral land, they struggle
on with quiet dignity.
Indeed dignity is a quality I associate with many of the poorest
Malaysians.
The rubber tappers, the farmers, the tea pickers, the hunter gatherers.
They raise their families, put food on their tables, eke out the little money
they have with great stoicism and hope for a better future.
'Extraordinary' food
Some dishes are more exotic than others at the kopitiam
In Pulau Tikus on Penang Island there is a coffee shop - I forget its
name - what locals call a kopitiam, in the hokkien Chinese dialect.
It is old and not particularly clean, its tables and chairs are plastic
and the food is extraordinary only in the way that much of the food in Malaysia
is extraordinary.
They do a few dishes and they do them well. This is the kind of place I
meet up with friend or interviewees and where they ask the key Malaysian
questions.
"Can you take spicy ah?" They push small bowls of hot chillies towards me
and look coy.
"Spicy, no problem," I'll say and pop a chilli padi in my mouth.
"You can take belacan [dried shrimp paste]?" they ask.
"Belecan oso," I reply, "and petai."
Petai are crunchy beans with a metallic flavour whose essence comes back
to haunt one hours or even days after they have been eaten.
They look impressed.
These last two years the quiet Malaysians have started to speak up
"What about durian?" Durian is a fruit the taste of which has been
described as like eating cheese off a dead body.
"Aiyoh," I say "durian cannot," and screw up my face.
At this point everyone will laugh.
Political awakening
This kopitiam is the favourite of Lim Kean Chye. The doyen of Penang
lawyers, 86-years-old and sharp as a pin.
I ask him what has changed here during his lifetime.
"Nothing," he says. And of course it has not.
The noodles are the same, the local coffee, the chatter as people meet
friends and eat.
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became prime minister in October 2003
But then he tells me of the old days when doors were left unlocked,
bullock carts were parked on Northam Road and there was always a free cup of
tea for the rickshaw pullers.
There is a nation of quiet Malaysians out there.
Recently I recorded five from very different ethnic, religious and
political backgrounds debating police reform, something I think they may have
been too scared to do under the old premier, Mahathir Mohamad.
But these last two years the quiet Malaysians have started to speak up.
And though the braying benches of parliamentarians who call one another
monkeys or racists warn that public debate will lead to race war, disorder and
strife, the Malaysians I meet can thrash out the issues and get along with one
another just fine.
And with a quiet Malaysian like Abdullah Badawi at the helm perhaps their
time has come.
From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 25 March, 2006 at
1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service
transmission times.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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