Anil proposes, Chamil disposes

Helen Ang

Two seasoned journalists Anil Netto and Chamil Wariya tried their maiden hand at fiction with differing results.

Anil’s short story ‘Penang back to the future’ took me down memory lane. Its protagonist Ann had spent “a happy, carefree childhood playing on the streets with the children from the pre-war double-storey terrace houses along Bangkok Lane in Pulau Tikus???.

I think anyone who’s grown up in Penang would be able to identify with the nostalgia of “a simpler, less polluted, less congested era???. 

Bangkok Lane was where I grew up and the two rows of houses Anil mentioned still belong to my great-grandfather Cheah Leong Keah’s estate. I too hung out with the neighbours, a gaggle of girls around my age who would all walk to the pasar malam in nearby Gurney Drive to buy hairpins and earrings, and tuck into the night market’s Hokkien mee and leng chee kang.

Anil writes of the Bangkok Lane satay stall but, aaah, he omitted to add that it was the satay seller’s bread toasted with dripping that was to die for. The story’s central character, Ann, remembers the aunties living in the lane and other scenes of Ye Olde Penang that older Penangites will recall as well, such as the vegetable farms of Tanjong Tokong and the durian orchards of Balik Pulau.

Published in March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up, Anil’s cerpen appears in Part Two of the book under the section ‘Hope’; the compilation of essays and interviews in Part One is tagged ‘Change’.

The setting of ‘Penang back to the future’ comes 10 years after the watershed 2008 general election. Anil draws from our real-life political milieu, “Out went the politicians who abused their positions of power. Penangites instead voted for a new slate of untested candidates …??? and he projects onto a year-2018 scenario.

Electing to weave his wish list into futuristic imagination, Anil stands apart from most of the other book contributors who composed factual articles. His green policies see a return of trams, “buses doing a fabulous job???, cars barred from entering the city centre, and the Penang Turf Cluf land – the source of a ‘Patrick Badawi’ controversy – converted into a 260-acre People’s Park.

Penangites shedding their practice of littering, the island’s notorious drivers switching to bicycles, local councils conducting elections, ISA abolished and Aung San Suu Kyi becoming the Prime Minister of Myammar are among Anil’s hopeful proposals.

REAL ‘MAY 13’ UNTOLD

In the author description, Anil is credited as “a freelance journalist and blogger based in Penang with an interest in human rights, environmental, social justice and public accountability issues???. Readers familiar with Anil’s journalism would be aware that his foray into fiction similarly articulates these same things he cares about.

Another short story also derived from the current political scenario, but Chamil’s mean-spirited cerpen is far from life-affirming. Unlike Anil who proposes positive change, Chamil in his character assassination story disposes of a life.

‘Politik Baru YB J’ was published in the Utusan Malaysia newspaper and has had its share of detractors and defenders. MP Teresa Kok is suing the author, alleging the story’s protagonist is modelled after herself. Chamil was granted an English language platform in The Nut Graph to retort that “YB Josephine was a made-up character that has no resemblance at all to the Seputeh Member of Parliament???.

Josephine is mischievously portrayed as “anti-Islam, anti-Melayu???, and the description of her is someone who “mahu menghapuskan tulisan jawi dan ganti dengan tulisan Cina??? (destroy the Jawi script to be replaced by Chinese writing).

Interestingly enough, Chamil’s cerpen makes a note of the March 8 book, in addition to a clutch of other distinguishing facts which mark out the ‘Teresa-world’ of his plot. Details contained in the cerpen are revealing of the essayist’s mindset but not historical accuracy. On the May 13 episode, Chamil wrote “selepas pilihan raya umum pada 10 Mei itu, orang Cina dan Melayu berbunuh-bunuhan??? (following the May 10 general election, Chinese and Malays were killing each other).

As we know, it was the Chinese who suffered the heavy death toll and casualties, indicating in which direction the slaughter took place. Or to adopt a postmortem perspective, May 13 is a spectre employed to instil fear in the Chinese community whereas no rabble-rousing politician wields the fateful date to scare Malays. 

Even if we’re charitable enough to preclude intimidation and defamation of Teresa, the context in which ‘Politik Baru YB J’ was put across to readers still constitutes harassment of a people’s representative, one who had only just earlier been ISA-ed and received death threats.

Utusan is a populist vernacular newspaper carrying out a sustained campaign of vilification against the said MP. The newspaper’s vendetta extends to ‘poetic licence’ name-calling her ‘Ratu Anjing’. This is in addition to its news reports and negative op-eds catering to the lowest common denominator and inciting hate..

And as a woman, I can sympathise when Teresa complained that the newspaper deliberately splashed the most unflattering photographs frontpage to make her look as ugly as possible (when she actually has a feminine demeanour).

STANDING ON SIDE OF POWER

Aside from his insistence of “no resemblance at all???, Chamil claimed: “The cerpen is also a reminder to politicians not to incite communal sentiments in the name of politics,??? and adding, "I must stress what was murdered in the cerpen was not a politician per se, but extreme ideas …???

Among the many public rebuttals to Chamil’s thin assertions, one by journalist-playwright Kee Thuan Chye, said: “Why not, for example, write one [cerpen] based on the famous instance when Hishammuddin Hussein wielded the keris????

On that bit about metaphorically “murdering extreme ideas???, Kee’s rejoinder was: “Why doesn't Chamil go for the obvious case and write about Umno politicians who have been playing the racial card for the last how many decades????

What struck me though was Kee’s charge that ‘YB J’ was written on the side of power. Chamil is a Datuk and CEO of the Malaysian Press Institute; his bare-faced statement – “While certain quarters take offence at the storyline and make issues out of it, the majority who read the cerpen take it positively and rationally??? – is typical ‘take-my-word-for-it’ speechifying from the side of power.

Some old habits die hard too. One instance is traditional media passing itself off as ‘New’ but nonetheless still writing for the side of power and like a stenographer, conscientiously transcribing the excuses from Who’s-he-kidding-Chamil.

As there was a lack of input on the cerpen coming from Teresa’s camp published in The Nut Graph to balance Chamil, I’m reminded of MalaysiaVotes (Nut Graph’s name before its rebranding) earlier this year giving 3,000-plus kind words to Khairy Jamaluddin in contrast to a 400-word write-up on KJ’s opponent in the Rembau election contest.

Words, be they in fiction, in news reports or in blogs, give shape to ideas. In recent years, stale notions have been slowly, painfully reevaluated. But change has to be in tandem with new approaches … hope springs eternal.

Note: Kee Thuan Chye, Azmi Sharom, Helen Ang, Animah Kosai and Chacko Vadaketh will be at Silverfish Books in Bangsar, KL on Sat (Nov 22, 5.30 pm) for readings of ‘March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up’. Helen will be reading excerpts from the chapter ‘Enough of the NEP’.