The Pedestrian -Foreign affairs is everybody’s business

Thursday, June 18th, 2009 02:18:00

IN 1979, Anita Ward's disco hit "Ring My Bell" had my pubescent hips swaying. Also in full swing were the anti-regime protests in Iran which brought down the US-backed dictatorship of the Shah of Iran. I remember the news vividly and while some of my Form One schoolmates and I were interested in what was happening, we really didn't have the capacity to understand its complexity, never mind have a position on the conflict.

The next year, I had moved to Singapore and when the Falklands War broke out in 1982, I found myself taking a position on what I insisted on calling the Malvinas War, following a pro-Argentinian position. I sparred with classmates who cared to take a position - most were indifferent though, occupied by either thoughts of girls, sports or study. Needless to say, I had little understanding about Argentina and the military junta that ruled it at that time.

What was clear was that as a teen, I was beginning to develop an adult appetite in foreign affairs.

And the newspapers and radio (no Internet then) kept me on a daily diet of human drama staged across the world: from Apartheid South Africa, to Arthur Scargill and the British miners strike, the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, the US-backed Contra War against Nicaragua's revolutionary Sandinista government, Poland's Solidarity trade union revolt against the ruling Communist Party, to name just a few.

Through my interest in foreign affairs, I could develop ideological and intellectual positions and, more importantly, participate in the passions too far away to ever savour first hand. Taking a position meant I could fix my emotional investments as I viewed these conflicts as struggles between the good guys and bad guys.

And I think in many ways the world of adults, that I am firmly entrenched in now, and its media, continue to frame foreign affairs as morality play to encourage us to take sides as well as learn salutary lessons about life.

While waiting for my A-level results, I first read about the politics of Timur Timor, then the 27th province of the Republic of Indonesia, but now the independent Democratic Republic of Timor Leste.

The book, "The war against East Timor" written by British-born Carmel Budiarjo and Indonesian Liem Soei Liong, had a profound effect on me. How was it possible that such a major event - an invasion no less, with casualties estimated at 300,000 dead - had passed unnoticed?

Of course it had happened in 1975 when I hadn't yet graduated from Sesame Street (I remain a loyal alumni). But it was more than that. The media - from the US to our local press - were complicit in suppressing the story of East Timor. For decades, the issue was kept alive by a small band of solidarity activists.

I followed the issue intermittently until my re-entry into Malaysian life in the mid-1990s. Working for a men's lifestyle magazine, I embarked on telling the story of a young conscientious Malaysian, Kamal Bamadhaj, who was shot dead in the 1991 Dili Massacre (otherwise known as the Santa Cruz massacre after the graveyard where protesting Timorese students found shelter but were later murdered by Indonesian troops). In 1995,

I interviewed Kamal's mother and sister. It spurred me on to become more fully involved in East Timor solidarity work.

East Timor's independence, beginning with a vote in 1999, was an unexpected vindication of decades of solidarity work carried out against overwhelming odds. The territory's eventual liberation was of course the consequence of larger geo-political forces as well as the simple fact that the territory's integration into the Republic of Indonesia was never formally recognised by the United Nations.

There are many global conflicts that grab our attention. Some like the Palestinian cause have broad bi-partisan support. Others, like the Sri Lanka conflict, are less broad-based but whose supporters are much more visible and therefore, in the media. Conflicts like that in Southern Thailand, which must resonate strongly with Malaysians in the border states, get even less coverage in the mainstream press.

Our open borders, of course, have consequences in this regard too. The bloody crackdown in Yangon late 2007 was followed by solidarity protests by thousands of migrant Burmese in Kuala Lumpur. And now we see the expression of concern of the hundreds of resident Iranians following protests in Tehran. Unfortunately, the 700 or so Iranian students who demonstrated peacefully in front of the UN building were tear-gassed, making our streets a miniature of the streets of Tehran.

For them, it is not a matter of "foreign affairs". And if they were passionate, who can blame them? I only wish that they, like us who take positions on foreign affairs, are given space to express themselves.

● Sharaad Kuttan has been arrested twice. First at the 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference on East Timor and then for picketing against Asean Foreign Ministers for their position on Myanmar. He was not charged.

The Pedestrian - Which cosmos are you from?

Thursday, June 11th, 2009 02:32:00

BY all accounts, the city of Kuala Lumpur hovers in the region of being 150 years old. Not as old as some cities in the region or even the peninsula. In fact, the secondary school I attended in Singapore is older.

But old isn't always gold and I know the new-ness of KL is well worth celebrating.

History will tell you that KL had its origins in the 1850s when Raja Abdullah, the Malay chief of Klang, wanted to open new and larger tin mines, and this is where Kapitan China Yap Ah Loy came in. The pioneer miners landed at the confluence of Klang and Gombak Rivers, and the muddy (lumpur) landing brought forth the city's name.

SERIOUS ABOUT DIVERSITY: Intellectual pluralism is loathed and feared by those whose truths are absolute.

KL has since grown to become the capital of business, politics (even of protest) and of culture. It continues to be a conduit for goods and people from all over the world. And with the energetic marketing strategies of private tertiary institutions, the city's cosmopolitan character is continually evolving.

But not everyone is happy about that. Some would like to demonise the very notion of cosmopolitanism (as they try with the word secular).It was reported earlier this week that Party Keadilan Rakyat's Kulim-Bandar Baru MP had suggested that the NGO Sisters-in-Islam be renamed (Ikatan Wanita Kosmopolitan ) or Alliance of Cosmopolitan Women.

Over the last year it seems as if this MP has set himself the task of single-handedly destroying his own political party's "progressive" image.

His latest intervention was apparently part of a debate sparked by Pas, which at its recently concluded general assembly tabled and passed a motion against the NGO, calling for it to be investigated, banned and for its members to be sent to faith rehabilitation camps. In this debate, former PM Dr Tun Mahathir Mohamad has come out decrying the call, suggesting that Pas was displaying its "draconian" impulses.

But why did the MP choose to label them "cosmopolitan"? Perhaps labelling them "communist" would reminiscent of the Cold War. And besides it has been overused in recent weeks.

What about that other favourite hobgoblin "secularist"? Or the more generic label, "subversives"? Being who I am, I cannot begin to understand how being cosmopolitan is a negative label. While I am sure I will never be able to fathom the murky depths of the YB's mind, perhaps it is worth exploring the meaning of cosmopolitanism in the Malaysian context.There are several ways to understand the notion from a cultural standpoint. Let me quote the quick and ready Net-based Wikipedia:

● A city/place or person that embraces its multicultural demographics

● World citizen, one who eschews traditional geopolitical divisions derived from national citizenship

● Cosmopolitanism, the idea that all of humanity belongs to a single moral community
● Cosmopolitan Society/Cosmopolitan City, where people of many ethnic groups, religions and cultures meet and live in close proximity.

For each of these statements there are many questions to be asked. But what is clear is that many of us are inclined to welcome the values embedded in these stated characteristics.

We do because we are the cultural heirs to this cosmopolitanism through our ancestry as well as the places we have grown up in. For others, it is a process of enchantment because of where they have been schooled, or the books they read, the movies they watched and the places they have travelled to.

Is this fear of the cosmopolitan a trait of those who are parochial, whose sense of self is destabilised by the heady pace of globalisation and change we are confronted with almost on a daily basis?

I guess they won't allow their fears and desires to be dismissed without a fight

.● Sharaad Kuttan is suffering from an unrequited wonderlust.

The Pedestrian - Edge of my seat, on the street

Thursday, May 28th, 2009 02:18:00

THERE is endless drama on the streets, but it's not always worthy of television or serious journalistic reportage. Though I must admit I have witnessed a few cops-and-robber type scenarios myself, even in sedate PJ.

More often than not my eye is drawn to a lover's fight or flirtation (rarely directed to me). Standing in line for an ATM, I once watched a couple, a sheepish looking man and his rather unhappy woman partner. Her reluctance, as she slipped her card into the machine, was more than matched by his enthusiasm. As they walked away, hand in hand, I imagined their story.

Then there is the endless drama of parents and their children in malls. It is high on the cute factor but it's generally predictable, although the sight of kids on leashes (still rare in Malaysia) or kids running off into harm's way never fails to create anxiety.

I try not to contribute too much to the drama of the streets though I have been known to mutter the words "cow" and "idiot" under my breath while trying to get out of an LRT train as other commuters rush in impatiently.

On a few occasions I have spoken out; once when a young woman dropped her drink can on the LRT train floor with a loud bang. She starred briefly at it and turned away. I said, "You can't leave it there". "Ya, I know," she said as she picked up the can with a sullen po-faced expression.

Most times I enjoy the drama of the walkways from the vantage point of a favourite street corner or a restaurant table with a view. There the world passes me like an endless stream of images (and smells, though rarely).

It is like a movie with no clear plot. There are no protagonists. There are an overwhelming number of bit players
though, and the very rare cameo (I haven't seen a genuine celebrity since I last bumped into our own Dr Astronaut, and that was perhaps not the biggest thrill, his smile notwithstanding).

Stepping off the streets into a theatre is like being teleported to another planet, where all the elements in the environment (except the audience) can be control-calibrated very precisely.

Of course, some performance spaces have an intimate connection with the environment they are situated in, like the Annexe by Central Market. One can never quite tune out the buses revving up their engines as they begin the routes.

The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC) is a complete contrast, as it is tucked away in a sprawling green oasis in Sentul. Inaccessible by public transport, it has nevertheless been home to cultural activities, ranging from dance and film to theatre. Built and sustained on private initiative, it stands in contrast to State-sponsored Istana Budaya, visible from the top floors of KLPAC. All these spaces, and more, make for a vibrant city.

When I was last at KLPAC, I was watching Toilet, a performance in space, light and ideas. It's the very stuff that cities are made of.

In the second half of the performance, the director breaks with the almost ethereal images and lines up his dancers cast earlier. Four voices issue statements. This is just an extract from the endless stream of thoughts, often contradictory, that they spoke:

"I walked purposelessly. I walked purposefully. I walked on paths. I walked on paths on which it was prohibited to walk. I failed to walk on paths when it was imperative to do so. I walked on paths on which it was sinful to walk purposelessly."

These are notions for every pedestrian to ponder.

● Next week, Sharaad Kuttan will review the theatre performance 'Toilet' held at KLPAC.

The Pedestrian -Redeeming the past

Thursday, May 21st, 2009 17:51:00

TWENTY-TWO years ago today, the government of Singapore began what it called Operation Spectrum. The name was apt as the security operation targeted a spectrum of social and cultural activists.

It effectively “nipped in the bud” the desire for substantive democracy in the city-State. Neutralised, that is, until the trauma of the State repression was again outweighed by an emergent desire on the part of ordinary citizens to claim common ownership of the nation-building project.

It was May 21, 1987 and I had turned the corner on being a minor, only months before. I was 21 years old and for all legal purposes, an adult. Looking back at those events, I am now forced to see it through the prism of the events of 9/11 and the enhancement of national security laws and institutions previously thought to be anathema to democratic societies.

The authoritarian States of Southeast Asia have rarely apologised for trampling on civil liberties or for turning the rule of law on its head. In the aftermath of 9/11, the positions taken by these States were given a “moral” boost when advanced democracies actively and openly curtailed the liberties of their own citizenry on the basis of “national security”.

The US’ wars of vengeance required not only new security apparatuses but also the kind of political and moral justification that authoritarian regimes from the “Free World” side of the Cold War had become expert in articulating. In the hands of sophisticated advocates for the national security State, the arguments are complex. There is no dismissing them out of hand.

But perhaps history allows us a vantage point to begin an exploration of the real dangers in the political logic governments and nations founded this premise. After 22 years, sufficient popular and scholarly analysis strengthens the opinion that the so-called communist conspiracy was nothing more than a political fiction. Whitely Road Detention Centre is Singapore’s Guantanamo Bay, as Kamunting is ours.

This is where the alleged Jemaah Islamiyah operative Mas Selamat spent a couple of years cooling his heals. Twenty-two years ago the lives of a good number of people became entangled in it. They were taken from the homes, their families and their lives for what the government and an uncritical media called a “Marxist Conspiracy”.

The use of the Internal Security Act, detention without trail, and televised confessions substituted due process and the Rule of Law as the mechanism to prove their guilt. A two-part television programme “Tracing the Conspiracy” was shown to those who tuned in.

I was nauseous watching it. Less than a month after the May arrests, a former student leader in exile in the UK who was named in the conspiracy issued a defence, claiming that “the government fabricated the communist conspiracy for partisan ends”.

This is Tan Wah Piow’s “Let the people judge: Confessions of the most wanted person in Singapore”. A year after the first arrests, only the alleged mastermind remained in detention. Then, astonishingly, nine ex-detainees issued a joint statement.

They denied the government accusations against them of being Marxist conspirators; they alleged ill-treatment while under detention; and that their TV confessions had been coerced. They were, consequently, re-arrested. Unfortunately for those in power, disquiet about these arrests persisted through the years, and like little weeds in the cracks of the pavement they are irrepressible.

Last weekend in Kuala Lumpur, former political prisoners from successive generations of dissidents gathered, to share their thoughts – and poems – on a matter of grave concern on both sides of the Causeway: The use of the ISA and its effect on the maturing of our democratic nations. It must be repealed.

● Sharaad Kuttan was born in JB, educated there and in Singapore. And has lived in the Klang Valley for the last 14 years. He would like Malaysia to boast about its human rights record for a change.

The Pedestrian - Princess Villa’s resident evil

Thursday, May 14th, 2009 02:49:00

ONE of my many duties at this paper is writing wry comments on news reports on a daily basis. Before I was directed to the Bernama newswire service, I used to trawl the net for the bizarre and the banal in foreign lands. Now with the Bernama newsfeeds, I am up to my chin with raw material for the Third Eye column.

It’s essentially a 116-word nip at our weird and wonderful world. Over the last few months I have been able to lightly lampoon, or at least draw attention to, all dimensions of life, both wacky and unworthy.

Threatening notes with bad spelling, faulty microphones at a State assembly, misplaced metaphors and disingenuous reasoning employed by politicians; low-grade fraudsters and an infinitely gullible public, and superstitious beliefs of all sorts.

Recently I came across a story that was too dark to lampoon but I tried all the same. I titled it “Asing Villa” (May 1). It was based on a media report that foreign workers in the Iskandar development region will be placed in “enclaves” so as to ensure “a safer and more conducive living environment” for Malaysians.

These so-called enclaves, one named Princess Villa, had all the makings of a concentration camp, short of boiling the inhabitants down to glue. These villas come with double-layered fencing, close circuit television, biometric tagging for residents, a “panic-button” system, dedicated wardens, 24-hour security and a curfew.

I was angry when I first read it on April 30, and I still am.

What has become of us as a people that we think that we can subject other human beings, here to drive the wheels of our industry, to these prison-like conditions? Something evil seems to be at the heart of the nation, feeding off fear and contempt for others “lesser” than us.

The media reported quite un-ironically that “locals living in Iskandar Malaysia can look forward to a safer and more conducive living environment with the introduction of a foreign worker’s enclave equipped with double-layer fencing, close circuit television (CCTV) and 24-hour security.”

The report failed to note that the residents of these enclaves are not convicted prisoners but workers, like most of us. We work, earn a wage and spend our salaries as consumers. The fact that these people are not citizens does not give us the right to deprive them of their rights.

What I find equally offensive is the attempt to dress this proposal up the language of the hospitality industry. “Villas”? Perhaps we should rename our prisons while we are at this complete charade. Why not “Sungai Buloh Villa” and “Kajang Villa”?

Clearly the idea is to create what is called a cordon sanitaire, a buffer zone, between foreign workers and locals. The principal assumption of this plan is that the former bring with them unwanted influences. The common but flawed assumptions are that these people come with crime and disease.

What would the Malay Peninsula be if such a plan were implemented years ago? Perhaps as a grandchild of migrants, the idea of excluding people from participating fully in the fabric of our evolving society strikes at my very sense of being.

Some weeks ago, I walked into a Myanmar supermarket with a Burmese friend and he pointed out a CD on sale. It was of a literary event held in KL together with five well-known writers from Myanmar.

Surprised? So was I. The people of Myanmar who have brought their labour here for several decades, are now bringing their culture too. Let’s not put to an end to the open mingling of people.

● Sharaad Kuttan was born in JB, as was his mother. His father was born in Penang while his grandparents are from India.

The Pedestrian - How I learnt to love KL

Thursday, May 7th, 2009 06:43:00

CONFESSION time. I have a love-hate relationship with Kuala Lumpur. The city has taken 14 years of my adult life but I am still torn, unsure if it has my undying loyalty. The tussle is between a deep impulse to run away and longing to finally put down roots. I came in the boom years of the mid-90s when KL and its denizens seemed puffed-up with material success.

Konkrit Jungle — by Liew Kung Yu

Everything could be forgiven or explained away by what seemed like the steady march of our economic success. In my first year I would take long walks through the city. I would begin in the late evening at Dataran Merdeka and walk the full length of Jalan Ampang back home to the hilly edges of the Klang Valley, with its panoramic view of the city’s skyline.

I took many notes on encounters and of objects from the streets that were still unfamiliar to me. Coming from 14 years in the ultra-efficient tropical citystate of Singapore, the adjustment process required me to unlearn as much as learn many habits. I shed some with delight and embraced others reluctantly.

Then came the Asian financial crisis of the late 90s and factional fighting in the government that did so much to unravel the certainties the city clung to. I watched with fascination as politics, rather than economics, provided the slogans of the times.

Unable to resist the temptation, I joined those eager for change and inhaled my share of tear gas. I even harvested some cans, which I then donated to an artist friend who used them in his work. For me the tear gas can, which I picked while still hot and noxious, is the cherished debris from a city suddenly shocked into recognising its own failures.

With the turnaround in the economy, the city returned to many of its old ways but I watched, more detached, both the old excesses as well as new possibilities. The hideous and grandiose architecture of both personal and corporate hubris has returned. But that in itself cannot erase those moments in the life of the city that redeems, that makes a city special and vital.

Young, hip people serving food to the city’s poor signalling new forms of activism; recent migrant communities establishing supermarkets and restaurants bringing along with it unfamiliar scripts on signage into view; new cultural spaces where art struggles to give form to new ideas and attitudes. Almost all of this is done without the aid of the State, which seems ill equipped, in a bureaucratic sense, to do anything more than to hollow out the fashionable slogans of the times: from ISOs to Excellance to Glocal.

These empty slogans clog the arteries of our city. They numb the mind. And ultimately, change nothing. I want this city to be better but at the moment I am at a loss at what can be done. I think I should fish out my notebook and perhaps then I can view the city again with fresh eyes. And see possibilities in all that has become too familiar.

● Sharaad Kuttan will be moderating a panel discussion: “Examining the aesthetic choices of our urban environment” at Galeri Petronas, Level 3, Suria KLCC on Saturday at 4 pm. It is being held in conjunction with the exhibition, “Cadangan-Cadangan Untuk Negaraku: New Photographic Works” by Liew Kung Yu.

On the panel will be design consultant William Harald-Wong, architect Kevin Mark Low and public art promoter Azhar Ahmad. The discussion will bring a range of perspectives from architecture to design, to explore issues concerning the development of our urban environment, from the selection of public sculptures to urban planning and architecture, including the relationship between urban communities and the space that they inhabit.

The Pedestrian - Roadblocks to peace

Thursday, April 30th, 2009 07:59:00

CHECKPOINTS and roadblocks are a notorious fact of life in many conflict zones.

In post-war history, one checkpoint even achieved the status of an icon. Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol, not only of a divided Berlin, but also of the world torn apart by the ideological and geo-political struggles of the Cold War.

I faintly remember the roadblocks of my Malaysian childhood.

They seemed to mark off the so-called “Black Areas” where fighters of the banned Communist Party operated, from the vast supposedly threat-free “White Areas” under the control of the Federal government.

These days, I associate roadblocks with policemen within city and suburban limits monitoring drunken Friday night drivers as well as conducting ‘routine’ checks.

While pedestrians do not have to suffer roadblocks, I remember at least one instance of being dragged by the scruff of my neck by a policeman in the Jalan Pudu area.

I was manhandled before I was asked for identification. When I showed him my IC, he let me go without even an apology for his uncivil behaviour.

Of course, this does not compare to being in a war zone.

And I have not been to many.

And in 2000, I visited Sri Lanka on a trip to observe how groups tasked to monitor parliamentary elections perform.

On the flight from Bangkok to Colombo, I was told by a member of our small team that rumour had that it a large number of suicide bombers had come into the city.

The fear I felt was rather abstract and was easily soothed by the complimentary beers on flight.

It was only when I walked the streets of coastal Colombo that I began to understand how fear and checkpoints come together.

The checkpoint dynamic was explained to me.

The principal actors in this drama are the government soldiers standing guard, armed militants and innocent by-standers in between.

As he looks at the anonymous faces queuing in front of him, the soldier asks, do I pull the trigger before the armed militant sets off his or her bomb?

For the armed militant wanting to get through the checkpoint unnoticed, his question is, do I set the bomb off before I am discovered?

For the rest, the tension in the air is thick.

After a week on official duty I set off to write an article on the conflict, drawing up a list of possible story ideas.

One was the rescue of child soldiers recruited forcibly by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE).

This charge of having child combatants is a real blemish on the LTTE movement.

But the Sri Lanka conflict is not so simple, and without real good and bad guys.

My story idea was soon overtaken by the horrific murder of the children, apparently by Sinhala locals, in the vicinity of a minimum-security prison where they were being held for rehabilitation. Undeniably, the murders fit a long-standing pattern of anti-Tamil violence, for which the LTTE is just one of many responses.

While I am no expert on Sri Lanka, I published on my return an article on the conflict in a local newspaper, titled “To Slave Island With Love”, a reference to a historical district of Colombo where Javanese slaves were brought.

It was later re-printed in a Sri Lankan newspaper without permission, perhaps for its pro-peace orientation. In a pointed reference to Malaysians who support the LTTE, I pleaded for those in the international community to support the peace movement instead of fuelling the war.

Today the Sri Lankan conflict is hitting another crisis point and I hope the international community acts fast.

● Sharaad Kuttan loves walking barefoot in the sand. On beaches we’re all pedestrians.