Day 14.
It must be said that Malaysia is truly a varied land: a country with so many facets it's a wonder anyone has managed to carve a single identity out of what is a cultural/ethnic/linguistic mélange.
Those who has been here for any length of time cannot have helped but notice the propensity for anyone and everyone, private, commercial and, of course, governmental to fly the Malaysian flag - the flag of the mélange. It identifies the glue that sticks it all together, the strong binds of shared interest and common purpose that means this country is collectively going somewhere. And yet...
And yet, there are still great disparities between the rich and poor, between those who have the wealth and power and those that can ill-afford even the tin that roofs their shacks on the edge of town, between the rice and vegetable farmers out in the sticks and their co-patriots who swing past in their Mercs to buy the odd durian. What keeps them together?
Malaya, like the wonderful Smokehouse we are staying at, was a British invention. After gaining their footholds in the peninsula, the power and wealth of these rubber, tin and tea barons waxed greater and greater until the second world war. This stupefying and seminal event proved to be more than just a hiatus. The new Japanese overlords went to work exterminating the Chinese, generally ignoring or encouraging underlying racial aspirations amongst the Indians and the Malay community. Where were the British, their Imperial overlords from far away? The Japanese were there to liberate them: Asia for the Asians!
The occupation by the Japanese Imperial Armed forces may have been one of the most brutal of this planet's history (an estimated 100,000 killed by them in Malaya alone), but this was not a point those waiting in the wings dwelt on. Some years ago I read The Jungle is Neutral by Freddie Spenser Chapman, a history of his attempts to organise a useful guerrilla campaign against the Japanese, mainly up here in the clouded and wispy moss forests of the Cameron Highlands. Seeing the terrain even now fills me with immense admiration for such a dangerous venture. He emphasised the belligerent nature of the Chinese Communists he fought alongside even then.
After the end of the war things in Malaya had to change -the British bigwigs, the Chinese traders, the hard-working Indians and Malays all knew this, but none could agree on quite what it should look like.
As the British took back their mines and plantations, so extant rivalries emerged from within the rest of this multi-ethnic mix. The Emergency of the 50s and 60s was really a communist rebellion inspired by Mao's China. The title, Malayan 'Emergency', was chosen by the British mine and plantation owners to ensure claims for damages would be payed for by insurers who flinched at the word 'war'. At its end, and to the chagrin of many, the ascending and increasingly powerful Malays were a bit too keen to accept their heroic role as protectors of the people and conveniently forget how much the Indian, Chinese and British also did to halt the advance of militant communism in their country.
The race riots of 1969 that left hundreds, if not thousands, dead also conveniently led to the establishment of the current ruling elite's hegemony. No-one except the opposition likes to talk about it: although press and political freedoms may still be curtailed, but the country is undoubtedly prospering, isn't it?
So our Indian taxi driver takes us past the tin-roofed shacks of the indigenous Orang Asli people to the manicured hills of the tea plantations under the gaze of the watchful eye of the hill-top stations. He stops and speaks Malay as we meet folk beside the road. Turning around to us he tells us important points about the things we see in English and chats in Tamil on the taxi radio as we pull over on the single-track road for Chinese families in their new Mercs coming in the opposite direction. He drops us off we pay him for all his patience and assistance this morning and enter the make believe British realm of The Smokehouse. It's like someone's nostalgic, dotty aunty was allowed free-range on a twee, mock-Tudor Surrey golf clubhouse, except there's bigger hills -and no chavs within spitting distance. And despite the flappy flags for Malaysia Day yesterday and the Ringgit we used for currency, I cannot help asking, what DOES keep this mélange together...
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