Malaysia in Adibah Amin’s eyes
Adibah Amin used to write under the pen name of Sri Delima and, just like the gemstone, she is indeed precious to Malaysians.
While a lot of us may feel frustrated and disillusioned when it comes to the politics of this country, Adibah’s time-tested writings can serve as a soothing balm to our emotional wounds.
In the 1970s and early ‘80s, the 85-year-old charmed us with her musings and reflections in her ‘As I Was Passing’ column in the New Straits Times. She dissected the Malaysian psyche with wit, wisdom and overflowing love and her audience was huge.
Born in Johor Bahru, Adibah has had an illustrious career as a writer, journalist and translator, although her first love remains teaching. On top of that, she dabbled in acting, bagging the Best Supporting Actress award at the Malaysian Film Festival in 1980 for her role as Cikgu Bedah in the movie Adik Manja.
Despite her whimsical sense of humour, there is often an underlying moral to her stories that she delicately delivers in good faith.
Her uncanny understanding of human nature inspires us to be kinder to each other.
She calls us out on our erring ways and yet, at the same time, readily shoulders part of the blame for she believes that we share a collective responsibility when it comes to societal ills.
Racism is a subject matter that remains close to her heart. Although she hopes for an undivided Malaysia, she is only too aware of the polarisation within our nation.
In one of her articles, ‘Them and Us’ from her book Glimpses, she gently addresses the topic of othering. She writes of the fear of threats to one’s way of life from people of a different social group, saying this can often result in the marginalisation of people who are not part of the dominant social group.
But she doesn’t stop there. She gives a solution, ending the article with:
“Every mother has it in her power to help break the circle. For a start, some mothers teach their children to answer ‘Malaysian’ when asked their race.
“One mother goes a step further. To that question, her children cheerily reply: ‘Human.’”
Adibah tells us to not shy away from talking about sensitive topics. She says not doing so would inevitably cause us to drift further apart. An occasion of where she does this is when she addresses structural inequalities in another article from Glimpses called ‘Memories of Merdeka’:
“And how do you convince a schoolgirl we are all Malaysians together, when observation and intuition tell her that certain classmates will have better opportunities by virtue of parentage, community and connections?”
She also tells us that while it will not be easy, she is convinced that we can do it with fair minds and humble hearts.
In 2006, when she was 70, Adibah published her first novel in English, This End of the Rainbow. It is a coming-of-age story, loosely based on her experiences as a student at the University of Malaya in Singapore in the early 1950s. While the book is an easy read, it tackles the heavy topics of ethnic diversity, social injustices and racial prejudices.
Staying true to her characteristic optimism, she writes in the preface:
“I pray that all of us in our own ways will work towards the ‘pot of gold’ on the other end of the rainbow: our shared dream of lasting harmony.”
Unfortunately, Adibah suffered from a stroke in 2008 and hasn’t been quite the same since. She is being supported and cared for by her younger sister, Fadzilah.
Seeing through Adibah’s lens is indeed a delightful experience, as one is guaranteed to fall in love with Malaysia all over again.
As we approach Independence Day, let’s celebrate this gem of a soul who truly epitomises what it means to be Malaysian. - FMT
✍ Credit given to the original owner of this post : ☕ Malaysians Must Know the TRUTH
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