You Remember You Strong

On 28 July this year our PM announced the appointment of a new Deputy Prime Minister. I'm not interested in your vile comments, so don't bother. Dato Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the new Deputy Prime Minister, is no stranger to Malaysian political folklore, rising fast and furious through party ranks. Umno now has three million members, so a party member's chance of becoming a Deputy Prime Minister is as good as seeing Elvis busking at Sogo. Dr Ahmad Zahid is a wily politician with a typical chequered career, ups and downs and outs and ups. I guess it's all ups from now on.

Your cynical inner self might question why we need a Deputy Prime Minister. Some countries, like Singapore, have two deputy prime ministers. I don't know exactly what  a deputy prime minister does, let alone two. Everybody in UK thinks PM David Cameron's deputy is Brendan Rogers, including David Cameron himself. I'm sure Dr Ahmad Zahid knows what to do as Deputy Prime Minister. Even if he doesn't, he can quickly fall back on his day job as Minister of Home Affairs, a job he's performed so well so far. Penang and Pandamaran are now virtually free of part-time gangsters, big-time gangsters and Dato gangsters.

Everywhere in the world a home affairs minister is a powerful, intimidating, and even shadowy, figure because they're in charge of public safety and internal security. They control (figuratively) the police, immigration and prisons. If police and prisons don't scare you, nothing will. You'd know you have an effective home affairs minister if you feel safe at home and you don't run red lights and you stop bullying lady drivers.

But why call it Home Affairs? Maybe to differentiate it from Foreign Affairs and other affairs that take place away from home (office, Starbucks etc). They also call it Home Affairs Minister in Zimbabwe. So we must be on the right track. In North Korea two ministries are responsible for home affairs: Ministry of State Security and Ministry of People's Security. Ministry of State Security takes care of prisons, while Ministry of People's Security also takes care of prisons. Prisons are biggest business and GDP generator in North Korea.

Now back to our new Deputy Prime Minister. I've never met or spoken to Dr Ahmad Zahid in person but he impressed me as crowd pleasing and easygoing when I saw a footage of him on a big bike wearing a big smile. My wife thinks he's good-looking, you know, that lush crop of real hair, sharp dress and all. She's using me as the benchmark, so the standard is pretty low.

I've nothing but respect and admiration for what he has accomplished in and outside of politics. Like I said, it's not easy to become a minister anywhere in the world, let alone a Deputy Prime Minister. Bung Mokhtar has been a noisy MP for more than 20 and everybody expects him to remain a noisy MP for another 20 years. Neelofa is rich and famous but she'll never get to be a Deputy Prime Minister by selling lots of stuff online. Dr Ahmad Zahid also holds a bona fide PhD from a bona fide university. holder. It's not easy to find a Deputy Prime Minister with a bona fide PhD these days.

Dr Ahmad Zahid and I were both born in the early part of 1953. Nothing special about that because thousands of people were born in 1953. I was born in Kelantan and he in Jogjakarta. He speaks fluent Javanese, if that means anything. Admittedly there's nothing special about being born in 1953. Millions of people were born 1953, including our Prime Minister and Cyndi Lauper. It's ok if you don't know Cyndi Lauper. It's also ok if you don't know anything. 

But Dr Ahmad Zahid and I also share something else. We both attended schools at the old Tiger Lane in Ipoh. His school, Sekolah Izzuddin Shah (Sisi), was just across the road, within a shouting distance (quite literally) from my school (Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman (Star). Since we're born in the same year, it's safe to conclude that we're around Tiger Lane at about the same time, the hippie years of 1966 - 1971.

I'm not sure why, but it's like some kind of law that schools in the same neighbourhood must hate each others' guts. Harvard steals MIT's Nobel prize winners, and vice versa. For years St John's has been insinuating that VI is a glorified mental institution. There's no love lost between my school and Sekolah Izzuddin. The resentment ran deep for three reasons:

1. Both schools were fully residential, all-boys schools. So the students were a deprived and deranged lot. We're all accidents waiting to happen.

2. Sekolah Izzuddin was a state-run religious school, whereas my school was a federal-funded English-medium school and, of course, less than religious. They learned Arabic while we played Rugby and Cricket.

3. My school was physically about one hundred times bigger with lots of buildings and fields and gardens. Not to mention wacko wardens and cooks running around non-stop.

That "English medium and bigger buildings" bit was actually irrelevant because we're completely different types of schools, with dissimilar inputs and end-products. But the big heads among us took this as a subtle sign of superiority and a green light to run down our neighbour.

The rare black and white aerial photo above clearly shows how our school Star overwhelmed our neighbour Sisi. My school had eight hostel blocks, with two (Yellow House and White House) at the far end and closest to Izzuddin. Incidentally these blocks housed more than their fair share of those elements that our gay prefects had, quite rightly, downgraded as basket-case. These guys needed only half a reason to fly off the handle, so to speak. In the late afternoons they'd mill about the fence to trade insults with their opposite number across the road. I can't recall all the gibes and taunts, but the one that stands out until today was "Oi, dok baca Yasin ka?" I suppose that verbal pile-driver packed enough cerebral power to leave the other side with no options but to bay for our blood.  

It had to be sooner rather than later. Both sets of students, as a routine, would descend on Ipoh town (now city, for some reason) on weekends and our paths simply had to cross because Ipoh at the time was smaller than modern-day Subang Jaya. We'd to share the same bus. You can imagine the tension and anticipation boiling up whenever the two groups converged at the bus station. There's plenty of provocative stares and eyeballing. If I'm honest, the Izzuddin guys always had the upper hand and we're, well, cowed. They're on average bigger and had reached puberty earlier. Our dining hall wasn't Ritz Carlton, so we didn't grow and develop quite the way we should have.

Admittedly we're only good and strong in numbers and well behind the fence. Outside the school the Yellow House cowboys walked like choir boys.

I myself had an encounter of the fourth kind at the bus station. It was one fine Saturday in 1971. It's half a century ago, so I can't recall the month. Four of us were at the bus station listening and humming along the Hindi hit "Tum Bin Jaon Kahan" blaring loudly out of the jukebox. We were feigning a brave front  in clear view of a watching Izzuddin clan at the far end. They read our ruse and threateningly gestured for one of us to join their table for a heart-to-heart talk. We sent over the biggest guy in our group to at least establish some physical parity. I forgot what actually transpired but our go-to guy kept his cool. He was back with us after about ten minutes with a "last warning" from the Sisi mob. 

To this day we're not sure what was the last warning for. None of us was from Yellow House and we'd never offended them in any specific way. It was a Hindi song we were playing, not an Arabic song. Our group were technically harmless and peace loving. We went to Ipoh town to seek solace by watching Chinese and Hindi movies. We never talked to their girl friends as far as I can remember.  In fact we never talked to any girl since we bid farewell to our moms in January 1966.

To be fair the altercations had never escalated into all-out skirmishes or hand-to-hand combats. Deep down, we'd so much in common: Melayu, Islam, Kampong, and broke as hell. Nevertheless making fun of Izzuddin guys continued to be the most popular sport (after rugby).

One cruel joke making the rounds was an unfortunate event involving one of our boys. Walking all alone, he was pulled over by the Izzuddin crowd in Ipoh town and verbally warned, in English, "You remember you strong?". 

Our guy was stumped and he took all the time he needed to regain himself and to make sense of it all. You remember you strong? "Awak ingat awak kuat!". Hahahaha. In Malay context and culture, it wasn't a casual question. It's a clear and severe warning. In no time, "you remember you strong?" became our battle cry. It soon developed into a potent weapon for us to cull any of our own trying to show off, rerun old jokes etc. This precious line has been repeated a thousand times in our lively group exchanges to this very day.

Well I thought nothing of this "You remember you are strong?" episode beyond its comical and nostalgic element until Dr Ahmad Zahid was appointed Deputy Prime Minister. I don't have any proof whether he had any part in the bus station showdown or whether he was solely or severally responsible for coining the paranormal poser "you remember you strong?" I don't think he was complicit in any way for two reasons. One, he was foreign born. Two, he was more of  a bookworm or a softie who loved classes and exams. He's has a PhD, remember?

For us, boys from the big, English-medium school, it's time for some reflection and serious soul searching. Leaders lurk anywhere, shaped and made in the humblest of surroundings. Like it or not, an Izzuddin alumnus is now the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister. So eat your heart out, boys.

Dr Ahmad Zahid is effectively the most powerful person in the whole country now. He can haul up anybody he sees as a threat to national security. See the pic above. He's making a point or perhaps reminding us or even issuing a last warning. I'll never know what he's saying. Could it be "You remember you strong?" Who knew.