Kuala Lumpur
January 1999

Well, not actually three feasts and an opera. The feasts were all Reformasi affairs and the opera, also a kind of reformasi event, was a day spent in court. Each of the feasts was in its own way an occasion of celebration, and the court had all the ingredients of a Malay opera (sandiwara). In any case, they all took place within the Hari Raya festive season.

Feast One: A Renaissance

The first of the 'feasts' was the majlis berbuka puasa (breaking of fast ceremony) organised by the new Social Justice Movement (ADIL) in the last week of Ramadan. The invitation came at short notice and the venue was the third choice, the two earlier bookings having been cancelled by the establishments concerned at the last moment. But no matter. What could have been more propitious than the final venue - the Renaissance Hotel - whose very name echoes the spirit of Reformasi? The first public function to be organised by ADIL, it was an uproarious success. If the majority of those attending were Malays, there were enough Chinese, Indians and others to give it a multi-ethnic stamp and, in terms of feeling and intent, we were all one.

The occasion has been more than adequately described elsewhere (Sabri Zain's 'An Evening with Justice', Harakah, 25 January 1999). Suffice it to say that the atmosphere was electric. It was electrified when Christopher Fernando, Karpal Singh and Zainur Zakaria made their entrance. It was electrified when one after another - Mahfuz Omar for PAS, Lim Kit Siang for the DAP, Dr Syed Husin Ali for Parti Rakyat Malaysia - got up and spoke for us all, as if with one voice, demanding justice and decency in the conduct of our public affairs. But the most electric moment of all came when it was Dr Wan Azizah's turn. The lady is not a politician and speaks not with a slick politician's tongue. But she is a wife and a mother and an educated woman of great feeling, loyalty and courage, and as she spoke in her almost school-drama kind of way, her straightforwardness and sincerity touched our hearts and her message reached our souls. She was why we were there.

Feast Two: An Intimate Occasion

The second 'feast' was more personal - on the second day of Hari Raya itself - when we dropped by at Dr Chandra Muzaffar's home. A large, distinguished-looking man, whose face was festooned with one of the most luxuriant beards we had ever seen, was sitting there, along with three faces very familiar to us but whom we had never met personally before. And of course there was also Chandra and his good wife, Mariam. The faces we soon enough recognised as belonging to lawyers Manjeet Singh and Bulwant Singh, while the third belonged to the wife of Dr Munawar Anees. The bearded gentleman was Dr Munawar himself.

This was an intimate occasion but a very privileged one. The lawyers wore their dedication, competence and courage lightly, lacing them with an offhand, ribald brand of (Sikh) Malaysian humour. Mrs Munawar was nothing if not charm and composure unaffected. The learned doctor himself, who probably has not shaved since what he styles as his 'kidnapping' took place, affirmed that every word of his sworn statement regarding his experience at the hands of the police (which many of us would have read through the Internet and in Aliran Monthly) was true. Would the Prime Minister have known what was going on? Of course not; anyway, he wouldn't want to know, came the artless reply from one of those present. "Leave it to us," the police doubtless told the Minister. "We know what to do."

Feast Three: Rich Fare

The third 'feast' was rich fare, provided at night at the Federal Hotel at a forum sponsored by the DAP. It began with the very multi-ethnic audience who packed the hall being introduced to the brave grandmother and the granddaughter from Malacca. (The duo's Member of Parliament, Lim Guan Eng, had tried to highlight their plight but instead found himself in jail.) The introduction and a moving letter from the confines of prison by Guan Eng himself set the mood for the evening. Three of the panelists - Ramdas Tikamdas of HAKAM, prominent lawyer Param Cumaraswamy, and Professor Chandra Muzaffar clinically explained and analysed the injustices that Malaysians are currently facing. The fourth, Karpal Singh, chose a more populist, taunting approach, the politician in him getting the better of the lawyer, but the message was the same.

That the panelists were preaching to the converted became obvious from the questions and comments from the floor. These were equally as pungent, reflecting the same all-pervasive sense of outrage and anger shared by us all. The speakers came from all corners of the nation - Johor and Kelantan, Selangor and Kedah, Sabah and Sarawak. Unmistakable DAP accents merged in unison with the equally unmistakable tones of PAS members in a solid denunciation of equivocation, hypocrisy and bad faith by those in authority. There were young graduates, newly engaged in their professions, and retired headmasters, down-to-earth men of commerce and smooth professionals, ordinary homemakers and the disabled. In all, another cathartic experience in which many Malaysian threads were woven into one simple, single whole.

At the Opera House

As a foil to all this festivity, we spent a day at the opera (sandiwara). This particular opera has been running for some six weeks now to full houses - 'all tickets sold out' with people queuing up from the wee hours of the morning to get a seat.

We managed to get a seat on the first day of Act Three, when the counsel for the defence (for the opera takes the form of the trial of a very important person (VIP) charged with abominable crimes) were entering their summation. By this time, the plot had taken an ingenious twist: the VIP was no longer being charged with actually committing any abomination - in fact in Act Two it had become clear that there was no firm evidence to show that he had - but was merely being charged for taking steps to cover up what he had not done.As this is the first time that this particular opera has been performed, no one knows for sure what the outcome will be. But, for many in the audience, the indications are that the VIP will be found guilty and sentenced to prison, where obviously people of his ilk belong. However, the opera is of especial interest in that it departs from the grand tradition of the Malaysian opera-house where the hero (a VIP, of course), accused of the most heinous crimes, always gets off free, the evidence having been found to be irrelevant, and the victim is charged for getting in the way - a happy solution all round.

Some Thoughts

After having witnessed at least one memorable episode in this opera, we found it hard to be anything but light-hearted about anything. But our thoughts strayed back to the three other feasts we had attended. What was it about them which so caught our imagination and made them such memorable occasions?

Well, one thing, certainly, was that at each one of them, we felt we were among friends, that we were in very good company. Most of the others who were present were unknown to us, but they did not seem to be strangers. Though we certainly differed from one another in size, shape, hair-styles and habit, had different tastes and spoke in different tongues, we all seemed silently to speak the same language and breathe the same emotions, and we all laughed at the same jokes - Malaysian jokes with Malaysian allusions that only a Malaysian could understand. We made a lot of noise, but we broke no plates and did not push or shove. Nor did anyone come out of it with a bruised eye. And when it was all over, we all went back home reconfirmed that we were after all not alone in believing that truth, honesty and justice are ideals which are norms in any civilised society, for the preservation of which we must be prepared to make any sacrifice, regardless of which religion we follow, which culture we belong to, or which language we speak.

And looking back at it too, in that small opera house in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, the same emotion and spirit palpably prevailed in the minds of the spectators and of at least half the cast as well.