Cracking Malaysia

The Alfa Romeo braved the traffic to bring us back to Kuala Lumpur this week and I was interested that the country was in headline news on the BBC, albeit not for the right reasons. After seeing on world news that Prime Minister Najib Razak is being accused of pocketing nearly US$700 million from a development fund (1MDB) which he set up, I was keen to get the morning paper and learn more about it; and that was when the real surprise came.

Hari Raya

A positive aspect of religion is that it crosses borders and unites people from different cultures who share in the same rituals and follow a shared calendar of events, (although of course it also has a frightening power to divide). While Ramadan can be tough in the heat and humidity of Malaysia (I know of one person who was hospitalised and put on an intravenous drip because it is forbidden to take oral medication in the day), in Turkey the period of fasting goes from 3 o’clock in the morning until after 8 at night and in latitudes further north the time for eating and drinking is even less. But this can still be turned into a communal event as in Istanbul the whole of the ancient hippodrome, which in daylight belongs to coachloads of tourists, is regained by the locals to break the fast, and every patch of grass is claimed by a group to set out their picnic.

Bulgaria

Our holiday continues to the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria where we have an apartment. Bulgaria is a small but complex country; we first came here in 1993 when the tourism industry was just beginning to flex its muscles after straining against the contradictions of communism. Eschewing the purpose built resorts of Sunny Beach and Golden Sands we found the delightful ancient town of Sozopol with its cobbled streets and old wooden houses perched on a peninsula and with perfect beaches for our young family.

Istanbul

We are on holiday and passing through Istanbul; a city which I love for its time worn buildings and its focus on the waterways where handsome old ferries knit together its constituent parts. But most of all I love it for the feeling of being at the crossroads of the world with the vastness of Russia to the north, the mystery of Africa to the south and Europe and Asia wedded together by the suspension bridge over the Bosphorus.

Cracking Malaysia

“In two weeks we’ve had more contact with our neighbours than the last four years in China and Kazakhstan” observed Liz as she sampled a coconut coated gelatinous confection that had been handed over the wall by one of the young girls next door.

The Chinese, perhaps because of the enormous scale of their country and its population, treat those outside their immediate group of family, friends or colleagues as of no consequence and not worthy of even the most basic consideration. As individuals the people are invariably polite and helpful, but there is no social mechanism to feel any kind of empathy for strangers, and foreigners are often viewed with the kind of interest that would be accorded to a zoo animal.

Fast or Feast

We’ve now entered the holy month of Ramadan, the effects of which permeate every aspect of society. We are spared the shopping jamboree which marks a modern Christian festival but there is still a commercial aspect. The irony is that fasting focuses everyone’s attention on food, and preparations to break fast dominate, seemingly to the exclusion of the fast itself.

It’s more than food though. Ramadan should be a time of piety and goodwill to others, but I’m sure that on the first day I detected the nuance of a slightly cavalier attitude. The town roads were a bit busier in the evening and the engine note of the small motorbikes, the main form of transport, had just the touch of a manic edge to them; the throttles were opened a tad wider producing (or reflecting) an excitable busy buzz replacing the usual languid day to day routine. Here is the contradiction; the month is meant to symbolise humility and meekness but the fast, particularly going without water from sunrise to sunset in the heat and humidity of Malaysia, is inevitably is seen as a challenge. Human nature is such that enduring the privations gives a sense of achievement which is not necessarily consistent with the sought after state of piety.

Making the Earth Move

Every day for the past week or so the papers have been talking about the foreigners who stripped naked and urinated on Mt Kinabalu and how this did not cause a fatal earthquake. That there is a need to debunk the connection between offending the mountain and triggering a natural disaster does of course lend it a degree of credibility, and there are certainly some who believe that the tourist’s behaviour was responsible for the shake that claimed 18 lives. One letter to the daily paper expounded that it was all to do with geography in a tone which suggested that the writer was fed up with the primitive beliefs of some Malaysians, but then compromised the reasoned argument by saying that if it had been the spirit of the mountain it would have reacted instantly and not waited for innocent people to come along.

Two men and two women, one a Briton, were arrested but the media was quick to point out that the charge was one of Public Indecency; they weren’t accused of causing earthquakes.  But there was nobody there to be offended. The only reason the authorities knew of their behaviour was because they took pictures of themselves which they posted on social media. The real reason they were arrested was because of a perceived offence, not against any person or group of people, but against the mountain.

The four that were caught were remanded in custody ostensibly for breaching the standards of decency that are required from a predominantly Islamic country. But the offence had nothing to do with Islam; those who were outraged believe that the mountain is sacred and should be accorded respect. In my opinion this is no sillier than any other religious creed and visitors should ensure that they act accordingly, but I sense that while the actions of the culprits are universally condemned, many Malaysians are struggling to reconcile their national identity as a modern forward looking and technically advanced nation, with the beliefs of a primitive animist culture.

I suspect that a desire to not appear lacking in westernised ways has led to the authorities ignoring the wishes of a revered Bobolonian (High Priest) that the wrongdoers atone for their crime by each offering a sogit (fine) of a buffalo to the mountain. This is a shame as, not only would that be consistent with the Malays historical attitude of looking for recompense to victims above punishment of culprits, but it also seems appropriate that a buffalo is offered to ask forgiveness for wandering around in the buff!

 

Malaysia is a multi-cultural and multi-racial society and there is a general tolerance towards those who hold different standards. On the light railway in Kuala Lumpur I noticed two young women sitting together companionably, both engrossed in their mobile phones. One was covered from head to toe in traditional manner while the other girl barely had a stitch on. It seems to me that managing to combine high moral standards with an attitude of tolerance towards other groups is a strength of the country which some other nations would do well to follow, but there is a need to have some cultural awareness and sensitivity; unless of course you want to be accused of causing the earth to move.