There’s probably nothing more exhausting than fighting for what you believe in. I know, I know, my view is mostly contrarian, since it’s become an anecdotal fact that if you do something you believe in, it shouldn’t drain you to the point of inaction. The flip-side is, I suppose, that when you’ve expended a great amount of energy into something - physical, emotional, mental - things begin to take a toll.
I watched my friend scramble up the slopes of his career, and there were times when I wondered where he got the strength to keep going, keep at it. His answer, delivered in his immovable, laconic style, was: “My family”. It’s the way he’s said it. When he said it I looked for cues indicating if he did it for his family for real or not, and I couldn’t detect anything past his impassive face. I’m pretty sure family men know the full weight of that expression: “My family”.
Another friend, more haphazard and decidedly less ambitious described it so: when you have kids and a wife to feed, you work your ass off. Very succint, and I wonder why guys like us are saddled with this seemingly onerous task. Before I launch into another tirade about equality in all things — burdens included — I must say that those words evoked some feelings in me: that that was the way the world works, no matter how things changed. How much of that has to do with honour, pride or just plain love?
I was thinking some time back about Chee Soon Juan and people like Lim Kit Siang, politicians who seem to find themselves on the wrong side of the incumbent. For those who have been dragged in the mud all the many years that they’ve tried to do the ‘right thing’ in Malaysia and Singapore, what has that brought them? And why do they hold on?
When I was down south, I remember reading an interview conducted by the Political Science department of the NUS, for a magazine of some sort. They interviewed the grand daddy of opposition leaders, J. B. Jeyaretnam. It wasn’t poignant or dramatic, it was bitter: I thought I’d never see this side of him when he remarked sourly how the youth in Singapore weren’t really interested in politics, weren’t interested in opposition politics and were, basically, meat puppets droning on without real purpose.
Just a few months ago, I saw him taking his customary walk somewhere in Johor Bahru near the Tmn Kolam Ayer holdouts and early post-colonial houses. For a man in his 70s, he looked hale and active. He stepped with purpose, his eyes had a faraway look and his characteristic white beard and sideburns bristled with the effort of walking. His expression told a different story, to my mind. He looked like a man who was relieved of his burden and who, in the last moments of his long life, was wondering if the denigrations of the past were worth the effort. Maybe what I felt I saw was informed by what I knew had gone on over in Singapore.
On the other side of the story, I truly wonder how Mahathir feels about his legacy. For all his faults, people laud him as the father of modern Malaysia. Through the years, he’s seen the country through some harrowing times, and his particular brand of ‘merit’ and ‘balance’ brought about sweeping changes to the lives of countless Malaysians of all races. History, I suppose, will decide the value of his premiership; already there are many others, myself included, who are asking questions of his years of reign. I wonder, however, how he sees his years as premier.
Does he look back on the years, just like I think Mr Jeyaretnam does, and wonder if it was all worthwhile? And just what sort of answer would he have for himself?
