| An enclave of harmony in Malaya |
| Tuesday, 01 September 2009 12:53 |
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By Himanshu Bhatt.
Just as they were getting desperate, something unusual happened one afternoon; the residents heard sounds of knocking from the gate behind the mosque compound. When they went down to check, they found several carts filled with fruit, fish, vegetables and bread – fresh rations left behind by a group of Chinese from another part of town. There were no explanations, no announcements. The Chinese just brought the carts, knocked on the gate, and left. I recorded this incident a few years back while interviewing the remaining elderly Malay residents still living in the enclave. Bordered by migrant Chinese clans and quarters dominated by Indian traders and port workers, the Acheen Street quarter offers remarkable insight into the much forgotten co-existence of the early diaspora and indigenous cultures that welded together in Malaya. Elders I interviewed described how the sense of multi-cultural kinship was unique in the area. The communities were not exactly assimilated, but they all lived together, side by side. The enclave is labelled in a 1798 map of Penang island’s flourishing northeastern cape as "Malay Town". The area would emerge in years to come as an Islamic intellectual base in Southeast Asia during the British colonial period. But even as some of the earliest Quranic texts in the region were printed here, the enclave was a model for racial harmony with the Chinese and other races. Fittingly enough, just last weekend, a delegation of Muslim intellectuals from across Southeast Asia, who had converged in Penang, visited the site as part of a study trip to promote pluralism and peaceful conflict resolutions. What made the occasion poignant was that the visitors belonged to an influential, reform-oriented network of Islamic scholars and activists, speaking different tongues like Thai, Tagalog, Bisayan and Malay. Calling itself the Southeast Asian Muslims for Freedom and Enlightenment (Seamus), the group has actively sought to promulgate a liberal face of Islamic civilisation that seeks to interact peacefully with other faiths. And the visit to the Acheen Street enclave was tinged with immense significance as the area was both an Islamic intellectual centre and a community at ease with other cultures. Indeed, the old quarter had bred personalities like legendary artist Abdullah Ariff, and media pioneers Abdul Wahab Zain and Mohamad Saman Zain who co-founded Warta Negara and the Berita Harian daily. There were also the likes of writer Rashid Talu who authored Iakah Salmah – considered one of the best Malay novels before the Second World War – and the 19th century pioneer Malay printer Shahaya Basheer whose press was so popular that it printed books for the Johor sultanate. But what makes the historic Malay-Muslim community – once visited by Unesco’s heritage centre – especially unique is that it holds a legacy of ethnic harmony so natural and unassuming, that it would put to shame recent efforts to integrate races in Malaysia. I once spoke to Ahmad Basheer, in his 70s, who grew up in the area, and found him talking endlessly of the close inter-racial goodwill harboured by the early Malays, who themselves came from diverse migrant cultures – Javanese, Acehnese, Arabs, Yemenis and others. In fact, retired police officers revealed to me that until the 1860s the Malays here were passionately involved in Chinese kongsis or secret societies. This pattern ended in 1867, during the infamous Penang riots involving the Ghee Hin and Hai San societies. "You see, it was a multiracial fight. There were also Hindus and Muslims in both camps," he said. Even during the tragic race riots of 1969, while much of the country was in crisis, there were no such problems in the neighbourhood, Ahmad said. "When we walked past Chinese groups, they would know we were from Acheen Street. And the Malays here knew that the Chinese cared for us," he said. The community has since largely dissipated as the younger generations have moved out of the inner city. But the spirit that held the people there together in the early days can still be felt. Ahmad’s son Zakaria Basheer, who now lives elsewhere, was especially touched by a recent encounter with a Chinese stranger in George Town. "I entered a printing shop and the Chinese operator got excited when he found out where I was from. He called his mother and they practically treated me like family," Zakaria said. "They kept talking affectionately. I didn’t even know who they were. All they said was that they knew my neighbourhood from the old days. It just showed that we were already so integrated years before. "Here we are now looking for a formula for racial harmony when it was already there a long time ago." ** Republished with permission. This article first appeared in the August 19, 2009 issue of theSun. Himanshu is newspaper's Penang bureau chief. Related articles
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SOME TIME in the mid-1800s, while George Town was hit by bloody secret society riots, a community of Malays living in the historic Acheen Street mosque enclave found themselves holed up in their homes during a curfew for days in a row, with depleting stocks of food. 
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