Jiwa Merdeka - The Spirit of Independence.

This Merdeka, we celebrate the Mah Meri tribe of the Senoi people. The original people of this land aka the Orang Asal. They have lived for centuries off the land in harmony with nature. Their deep reverence for nature has made them renown for their art of carving masks and statues which they use in prayers and ceremonies. Each carving has a folklore linked to natural and benevolent spirits that live amongst us. We're taking a leaf from these people to transcend the physical and political to embrace the spirit that unites us as a nation. 

Much like the delegation of diverse, multiracial and multi-talented individuals who journeyed to London in 1956 seeking independence from the British. 

“Don’t ask, don’t get.”

This must have been the thought driving our founding fathers as they embarked on their historic journey to London in February 1956, determined to secure our independence from British colonial rule. Armed with meticulous arguments, well-crafted proposals, and a deep understanding of the terms set by the British, they were prepared for the most important negotiation in Malaya’s history.

The delegation was formidable in its resolve and preparation. So persuasive were their presentations, so thorough their negotiations, that independence was secured in a single formal meeting on that chilly February day in London. While the air may have been cold in the British capital, the sun was undoubtedly shining brightly over Malaya.

Malaya, or Tanah Melayu, was granted independence that very month, with the official date set for August 31, 1957. And as they say, the rest is history.

Let us pay homage to the elite team who journeyed to London and returned with our freedom:

1. Tunku Abdul Rahman

•          Position: Chief Minister of the Federation of Malaya and leader of the delegation.

•          Role: Tunku Abdul Rahman was the head of the delegation and the primary negotiator. He was also the President of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and would later become the first Prime Minister of independent Malaya.

2. Tun Abdul Razak Hussein

•          Position: Minister of Education.

•          Role: Abdul Razak was an important figure in the negotiations, representing UMNO. He would later serve as the second Prime Minister of Malaysia.

3. Tun Dr. Ismail Abdul Rahman

•          Position: Minister of Commerce and Industry.

•          Role: Dr. Ismail was a prominent leader who played a key role in the negotiations and was instrumental in shaping post-independence policies. He later became the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia.

4. Tun Tan Cheng Lock

•          Position: President of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA).

•          Role: Representing the Chinese community, Tan Cheng Lock was an essential figure in ensuring that the interests of the Chinese population were considered in the independence negotiations.

5. Tun V.T. Sambanthan

•          Position: President of the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC).

•          Role: As the representative of the Indian community in Malaya, Tun Sambanthan was responsible for advocating for the rights and interests of the Indian population in the new nation.

6. Dato’ Abdul Razak bin Dato’ Hussein

•          Position: Minister of Education.

•          Role: Dato’ Abdul Razak played a significant role in the negotiations, particularly in discussions related to education and administration.

7. Dato’ Wong Pow Nee

•          Position: Chief Minister of Penang.

•          Role: Representing Penang, Dato’ Wong Pow Nee was involved in the negotiations to ensure that the interests of the state and its people were addressed.

8. Colonel Tun H.S. Lee

•          Position: Minister of Transport.

•          Role: As a representative of the MCA and a key member of the Alliance Party, Colonel H.S. Lee contributed to the discussions on infrastructure and transport policies for the new nation.

These delegates were part of the Alliance Party, a coalition representing the three major ethnic groups in Malaya (Malays, Chinese, and Indians). The successful negotiations in London led to the agreement on Malaya’s independence, which was officially granted on August 31, 1957. *

This diverse group of talented individuals, representing a cross-section of our nation, laid the foundation for the country we now know and love as Malaysia.

The Malaysia We Know – And Love

However, the Malaysia we see today is but a shadow of the nation we were in the decades following Merdeka. While we have enjoyed political freedom for 67 years, the journey toward achieving true spiritual independence—'Jiwa Merdeka’—remains unfinished. 

This theme resonates deeply in this year's Merdeka celebrations.

What does ‘Jiwa Merdeka’ truly mean?

At its core, spiritual independence was the very essence of our founding fathers’ vision. They understood that our greatest strength lies in our diversity. Our multiracial composition demonstrated to the British that we could govern ourselves with peace, harmony, and prosperity. It was this very criterion—the ability to unite despite our differences—that convinced the British to grant us independence. The diverse composition of our delegation, coupled with the merit of our negotiations, sealed the deal.

Our multicultural society is the lifeblood of our nation, and our existence as a progressive country hinges on it. Yet, the ever-looming clouds of race, religion, and colour threaten this vision. ‘Jiwa Malaysia’ or spiritual independence, calls us to transcend these divides and embrace a collective spirit that sees beyond physical and political distinctions.

That is the true spirit of Merdeka—*Jiwa Merdeka*.

Happy Merdeka to all.

Visual rationale:

The Mah Meri tribe belongs to the Senoi people, one of the indigenous peoples of Malaysia, renowned for their ancient mask carvings from the wood of the blackboard tree for use in celebrating festive occasions like weddings. The masks embody benevolent spirits that, in the animistic pantheon of the Mah Meri, are used to drive away evil, soul-stealing spirits.

Source: https://www.maskmuseum.org/mask/mah-meri-moyant-kuhau/

Visit them online to discover their amazing story  here: https://www.mmcv.org.my/fully-customizable-2/

*Handcrafted by human, verified and cleaned up by ChatGPT4.

Sources; "The Making of the Malayan Constitution" by Joseph M. Fernando >https://www.mbras.org.my/monograph31.html

"The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya" by T.N. Harper >https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/end-of-empire-and-the-making-of-malaya/introduction/6D87C369666F27067AB19D136F2E1FAE

34 and counting. HB Jon.

The Paris 2024 Olympics

Mohd Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images

REUTERS - Christian Hartmann

J
Juliette Armanet and Sofiane Pamart performing 'Imagine' afloat a flaming piano (Image via Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

It was a Friday coming into the weekend, and what a week it was son. Ending into a new era of consciousness and blessings in my personal journey.

It was always a fresh new personal beginning for me and your day was marked by the opening of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Finding online comments and reactions strangely negative, even hostile, I, on the other hand was totally enthralled by the 5-hour long opening ceremony that marked the coming of age of human creativity and ingenuity in the telling of the story of the Olympics in the modern era to people of all ages. 

The French did just that by bringing French culture- art, history, music, dance, fashion, theatre and digital storytelling to the streets, skies and rivers from the cities of Marseilles to Paris turning the entire opening ceremony into a long and extended indulgent foreplay with no end in sight. Until the opening speeches at the Trocadero, one would guess that the Olympic cauldron would be lit, at the base of the Eiffel Tower erupting at the top of the tower as the climax, but it wasn't to be. 

It was instead designated to another venue of significance when the torch emerged, from it's long journey, under the catwalk of the Trocadero to continue it's extended journey to the Tuileries Gardens. Located just outside the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris to a flying cauldron- A ring of fire 7 meters in diameter harnessed to a hot air balloon. 

The French Montgolfier brothers invented the hot air balloon in 1783 and launched it at the very same spot. Once lit it hovers 60 meters over the city at night turning itself into another breathtaking landmark or 'skymark' to compliment the Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elysees during the games. You'd make an excellent conversationalist, commentator, pundit, writer, journalist, historian and fanatic when it comes to these things I guess.

Time has passed quickly since your sixteenth and two weeks after your sixteenth. Eighteen years have flown by in a heartbeat. In comparison, gfh now aka gfhX is on our 27th year and growing. 

One can only imagine how magnificent you look at 34. But then again, you have looked magnificent since the day you were born. Seeing you at thirteen, fifteen or sixteen is witnessing a phenomenon unfold like a flower from the bud. As you stride into proper adulthood you're probably just a more substantial, more matured, more thoughtful, kind and compassionate human being. Shouldering the weights and burdens of this world with a light-heartedness that only you know how. You'd have your fair share of heartaches, heartbreaks, joy and happiness, disappointments and unexpected blessings and you'd treat all these imposters just the same. With nonchalance. With a disenchanted wonder. Because you know that life is ephemeral and if I might add, that one should not attach oneself to people, places and things that are impermanent.  

"A flower is only a flower because it falls." ~ Lady Mariko in Shogun. 

Nothing delivers the message of impermanence more than a flower and no other race of people understand the certainty of death more than the Japanese. Perhaps that is why they kill, and are willing to die so readily. 

Despite their brutality, cruelty, and lust for power and conquest, the Japanese seem to have regaled in an extraordinary past and to a lesser extent in possession of a beautiful present as a wonderful legacy gifted by the ancients. 

The games ended last night, Sunday 11 August, 3 days after your departure on the 9th. 

What an eventful and enjoyable fortnight of 26 July to 11 August and what a brilliant & fitting coincidence to celebrate your 34th. 

My personal highlights (apart from the opening gambit) of the games were as follows;

• two bronze medals for Malaysia by the men's badminton singles and doubles team. Lee Zii Jia silenced his critics with silence. This makes Malaysia the most successful country in the Olympic Games winning 15 medals without winning a gold medal. 

• a tenacious, spunky and quick as lightning 22 year-old singles badminton player from India, Laksya Sen who lost to Zii Jia and the bronze medal in a thrilling three setter. 

• the surprise gold medalist in the mens 200M finals- Letsile Tobogo 21, won Botswana's first gold medal at the olympics. 

• another super feat was achieved by Julien Alfred 23, from St. Lucia who soundly beat 3 American sprinters to the tape in the premier event of the womens 100M finals to win her country's first Olympic medal- a Gold. Three days later she was edged out by an American by two tenth, and settled for the Silver in the womens 200M finals earning 2 medals for St. Lucia with a total delegation of four athletes. 

• China's men and women's dominance on the diving platforms were breathtaking to watch. 

• The most individual gold medals was won by 22 year-old new French swimming superstar Leon Marchand. He won 4 golds and 1 bronze. He was also the athlete given the honour to carry the Olympic flame contained in an antique lamp to be extinguished at the closing ceremony. 

Thus ends another instalment of the greatest show on earth in the form of the Paris 2024 Olympics. What fitting tribute it was to a sportsman like you for it to fall on your birthday. 

Happy 34th son. 

Au Revoir.

The Journey.

Every once in a long while, a voice silently creeps up and whispers loud in my heart with the journey that brings great respite to my journey. Walk on. 

 One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice --

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voice behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do --

determined to save

the only life that you could save.

 

 Mary Oliver

The Journey

1986

(Edited 15/6/24)

What this poem means to me?

It’s a near perfect description of the journey

I have traveled over the last five years. 

From the start to the present. 

I was caught in a vortex of cosmic proportions

that wrenched my insides outside. 

I have never felt so lost in my life.

I have been lost before but each time only momentarily.

Only because I always had my family to go home to.

I have had an abundance of physical and emotional

comforts all my life.

But not this time. It’s been five years and counting.  

I now know the meaning of pain, encompassing regret, longing,

missing, yearning, wishing, desiring and dreaming.

And I also know how to put all of them behind me except dreaming.

That is what I hang on to dearly, long inspired by this short poem;

“ Hold fast to dreams,

For if dreams die,

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.”

~ Langston Hughes

My dreams have kept me sane as I descended the abyss.

I have blessed every pain and suffering I endured.

I am truly grateful to have walked this path. 

I realised that the person I need to love and forgive is myself.

Only then can I love and forgive others. Unconditionally. 

I am finally free. 

I do not ask for or expect love in return. 

I am in no need for external love or validation. 

I am whole. I have loved. I am loved. I am in love.

I am love. 

Like they say in Motown;

“...baby I can give you all the loving you need.”

May Your Journey Be Fulfilling. 

I love you. Happy New Year.

A Holiday

Sunrise @BeachHut by PineForest

I left on the 2nd day of Xmas for my long awaited holiday (anticipated for several years) & returned on the 13th day of Xmas. 

I flew as far away as I could to the remotest, deserted islands within the region. I had a fabulous time every single day. Even the day I had a disagreement with a female trigger fish. I was snorkelling at a small island T, stumbled upon her lair and startled her. She attacked me, pursued and bit me on my left achilles heel. 

Perhaps the most significant experience of my entire trip was the meeting I had with myself. I had decided to book a last minute escape from party island to a quiet island to spend New Year's eve in silent retreat. It was the most basic, rustic, authentic beach hut on a near deserted beach save for chickens & cows. No air-con, no hot water, no attached bathroom, no sink for washing. Just a fan, a mosquito net, a comfortable large mattress with hard pillows in a sturdy wooden hut on concrete stilts. After almost a week of people and activities on party island, I was yearning for some quiet time with myself on a deserted island. I was ecstatic at the idea.

On the second night, I awoke suddenly like a scene from a horror movie at 3.38am feeling fearful of my surroundings. I immediately sat up on my mattress, drank some water and sat in silent contemplation in my hut conscious of the huge banana tree in front of my door. I needed to overcome the gripping fear of Mara looming outside my door. I recalled childhood horror tales related to banana trees bearing young fruits & female ghouls dressed in white. I was all alone with no one around me and nowhere to go. 

I took refuge in feeling what Siddhartha felt the night before his enlightenment when he sat to meditate against Mara's torments & temptations. He was under a bodhi tree and he finally succeeded. I was under coconut trees and succeeded too, two hours later Mara fled my life. I sat and meditated relentlessly and felt indescribable bliss at dawn. Despite the beach, the breeze and the waves, it was just the silent stillness that I felt.The stillness solidified into a thick immense cloud swathing me as I merged into it. 

Perhaps I remember this episode most of all is the fact that it was the only spiritual experience I could intellectually recall. 

The other intellectually exhilarating experience I can recall is the vibrant underwater life fringing the islands especially the remotest ones within reach by boat. The corals & underwater flora and fauna were tourist brochure worthy. While I am convinced that nature is very much alive & thriving, the threat of plastic pollution is real as sunset. It permeates every facet, phase and strata of human existence and excesses. Every morning, plastic debris of all shape and size wash ashore polluting the most pristine of beaches with waste excreted from the cluster of neighbouring islands. This is probably the biggest elephant in the room that the whole world is ignoring with apathy. I see native islanders themselves littering, children tossing candy wrappers as casually as pushing back hair from their sun-browned little faces. Plastic pollution, like most problems facing our world needs to be addressed from the grassroots by individuals not only government. The owner of my beach hut, Gun, a strapping islander who harbours ambitions of being a politician bent on improving the lives of his fellow islanders by mitigating the plastic menace. I wished him success as he, accompanied his wife and infant daughter transported me by boat to the main island and by car to my next destination.

I stayed on the main island for the rest of my holiday. Throughout, my trip was dotted with interesting meetings and connections with locals and individuals largely genuine. People and pets living in paradise and realising they do and those who wished they were somewhere else. I sat more with the former kind, shared stories and meals with them while nursing a swollen foot that seemed to have crept up on me exactly a week after the underwater altercation. 

Doctors and nurses from two nations could do nothing except prescribe a cocktail of antibiotics and pain killers for the swelling. I ditched both after 5 days of no visible results and hobbled along while observing the phenomenon on my foot for several weeks. I resigned myself to the fact that there is no known medication for trigger fish bites. Yet.

Best Friends in Paradise by PineForest

Best Video capture this year by PineForest

Sunset in Paradise by PineForest.

Happy New Year 2024.