A muddy start — Ziad Razak
In a spellbinding show of light and sound, and enthusiastic performances by a dedicated cast, the story of the early rise of a muddy estuary to become the capital city of a thriving and modern nation state was told with gusto and a keen sense of appreciation for the city.
In some ways, the founding of Kuala Lumpur was like that of any other major town in the Malayan colonial economy of the 1800s: Rich deposits of tin attracted the attention of enterprising miners, colonial interests as well as the ruling royalty of the local area.
MUD colourfully captures this rough-and-tumble start by focusing on the adventures of three friends named Mamat, Meng and Muthiah (in typical muhibbah fashion).
“Wise men say, only fools rush in,” Elvis crooned with the deep wisdom of a 1960s pop phenom.
So it was with Kuala Lumpur in its nascent days of the early 1880s: a city brimming with promise and potential. Mamat, Meng and Muthiah take up their allotted socioeconomic roles in the government, the mining industry and the railways respectively, dancing and singing in celebration of the future promise of better days, unfazed by the unblurrable lines that then separated the races in the “divide-and- conquer” structure of the colonial economy.
Foolish they may have been, but the promise of wealth was real, at least for those who were willing to work had and “risk it on one turn of pitch-and- toss,” as Kipling eloquently put it.
MUD also captured the dramatic events of 1881, an annus horribilis for the young city: A roaring fire blazed across Kuala Lumpur, razing to the ground the closely-huddled homes and buildings of thatch and wood.
Not too long after, a great flood swept across the charred remains, sweeping away what little was left of the city. A wave of anguish and pathos ensues, as the show’s lead characters debate what it means to commit themselves and their fortunes to a city.
Of course, this is a musical show about Kuala Lumpur, and we know how the story ends, so the moment fades into a soft fuzzy ending as the lead characters reaffirm their faith and hope in the city, and the curtain closes with much celebration and happiness.
I thought that the show captured very clearly the city as melange — a diverse collection of honest (and not so honest) men and women and children, finding their fortunes amidst the difficult beginnings of a young and rapidly growing urban settlement.
Like any thriving city, it is the kaleidoscope of its people that adds colour and energy to the place. And this is certainly something that we tend to lose sight of as a society, lately. There is a tendency to monochromatic politics in Malaysia recently; an insistence on exclusion.
Whether it is an aggressive slouching towards simplistic religious solutions, or the desperate clinging onto emblematic markers of cultural, religious or linguistic identity, we seem to be unable to break out of the ethno-religious boxes that have compartmentalised our politics and society for decades.
The sad truth is that our politics continues to appeal to the lowest common denominator of racial and religious animus, even as Malaysian society itself has slowly evolved, through the assiduous intermingling of peoples.
In many school classrooms, in university dormitories, in office workplaces, in LRT and monorail train rides, Malaysians bump up against each other, our ethnic identities jostled up against each other.
We befriend each other; we work with each other; some of us even marry each other.
At each step, our individual ethnic identities get muddied further, as we hurl ourselves into an ever-changing melange of a unique Malaysian identity.
Many of our political parties, however, remain the ethnic bastions that they were from their founding days, either in name and/or in fact. And therein, perhaps, lies a fundamental challenge for Malaysia, one that will continue to muddy our political waters for years if not decades to come.
Having locked themselves into their own respective raison d’etre, many of which are motivated almost exclusively by ethnic identity, such political parties find it very difficult to broaden their narrative beyond their respective parochial concerns.
Those that try to step out of their respective ethnic boxes, find themselves walking a slippery tightrope which offers them very little short term benefits. Even as they try to reach out to those outside their own party boundaries, their own faithful demand greater fealty to the concerns and interests of the base.
Balancing these two polarities will require much wisdom and patience, both of which can often be in short supply in the world of politics.
But I believe we owe it, to ourselves and to our children, for everyday Malaysians to demand more from those who claim to represent our interests. We owe it to ourselves, to demand that our political leaders rise beyond the Trumpian playbook that they have been used to for decades, so that our politics begins to better reflect the diversity and dynamism of Malaysian society.
And perhaps we also owe it to Meng, Muthiah and Mamat, and all those other fools and fearless heroes of our shared history, that we make good the promise of those halcyon days.
We may have had a muddy start, as a city and as a country, but we have it within us to leave behind clearer waters for our children.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
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