Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 27 February 2017 issue)

Gosh Kam,
Eight children killed while cycling at 3am? What’s going on?
Shell-shocked

Eight children were killed on a highway in Johor when riding their bicycles at 3am. I am sure you have heard about the tragedy by now and have probably seen how public opinion has heaped blame upon the parents. This is unfair. They lost their children.

It was the 1970s when I was the same age as these children. Back then, we got up to all sorts of crazy stuff and usually on our bicycles. Looking back, it is amazing to think that any of us survived. I know of a few children who did not, two having drowned in abandoned swimming pools — one in England and one in Malaysia. Back then, my mother would never have let me be out at three in the morning but otherwise, we were able to roam freely all day long. My parents grew up in the 1940s when the only danger was Japanese soldiers for my father and Nazi aircraft for my mother.

By the 1970s, those threats were gone and my mother simply assumed that her children could live the same carefree childhood that she had lived in rural Wales. Her father was the policeman in a small village where there was no crime, so he spent his time admonishing children for riding their bicycles too fast. He allowed them only two speeds: slow and stop. Meanwhile, my father was growing up in Kuala Kangsar. I read a newspaper from the 1890s called the Perak Pioneer where readers were constantly complaining about Malay boys riding their bicycles too fast. I think my father’s childhood was too cosseted for him to have become one of those rogue Perak cyclists but he did die while driving a very fast car.

The recent tragedy in Johor is truly awful and although I know that my opinion counts for nothing, I do feel conflicted. On the one hand, I do not like speed but on the other, I wish that today’s children could experience the same carefree freedom that I enjoyed in my childhood. We got up to crazy and dangerous stuff but I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to learn things for myself (I discovered that being punched in the face by a girl is both painful and embarrassing) and to have adventures. One of the surprises of the recent tragedy was the discovery that there are still parents who would allow their children to go out at all hours because nowadays, most of them are kept inside all day long.

If I had children, I would not let them out either. There are too many cars and other dangers. And I definitely would not let them ride their bikes on a highway at 3am. But I can’t help thinking that children are losing out by being denied the freedom to have a childhood that our families have lived for generations, until now.

Dear Kam,
Why can’t I stop reading about Donald Trump? It is so depressing and yet I keep going back for more. Help.
Sucker for punishment

I do not like him but I have discovered that there are many people in Malaysia who are fans of Donald Trump. I think that some people like him because they hope that he will destroy the US from the inside, and some because of his anti-Muslim rhetoric. The latter is not that surprising given that there has been a constant blast of ugly language aimed at non-Muslims in Malaysia and that we are now sleepwalking into introducing hudud. But I would say to Malaysian fans of Trump, just as I would say to any British people who still think that Brexit might be a good idea — you are wrong. I think you will agree that I have made a compelling and cogent argument.

How do I stop myself from obsessing about Trump? Morning, noon and night, I find myself thinking about the awfulness of Donald Trump. I think about his xenophobia, the exact nature of his mental illness, his connections with Russia, his Malaysian-style nepotism, his child-like vocabulary, the dangerous emptiness of his bravado, the cultural implications of China’s replacement of America on the world stage (the good news is we will be in the same time zone when we watch the China Oscar ceremony), and basically, how Trump is going to destroy the world.

In my head, I have been interviewed on countless occasions on TV news stations and US talk shows where I have clearly explained to the American people that Trump is a corrupt moron and a stooge of Russia and in my head, the American people have been persuaded and thank me for my intervention. In my head, I have solved the problem of Trump every single day for the last four weeks and yet I wake up each morning and discover that he is still there and that he is still an idiot. I have been obsessing about Trump and I have to find a way to stop because I cannot keep this up for the next four, or possibly eight years. And that means I will have to stop reading Facebook.

Facebook provides a fascinating window on the concerns of the day. Stories crop up that animate people for a few days and then disappear to be forgotten. (Can anyone remember the gorilla that got shot in a zoo?) I follow lots of people and, apart from a few smug and well-rewarded lackeys, I mainly follow people who are defiant or angry but ultimately despairing in the face of a world and country that they perceive to be slipping away from them. One good thing that has emerged since Trump came along is that apart from a couple of crazy diehards, virtually all conspiracy theory nonsense has stopped. That aside, my Facebook feed has become something of a window on the feeling of helplessness in middle-class Malaysia.

So, I am going to make a conscious effort to stop reading about Trump. I will limit myself to watching the US talk show host Stephen Colbert’s very funny and biting monologues, and that is it. But if I am really going to stay away from Trump news, then that means I must stay away from the internet, from Facebook and from Twitter. Obviously, I am not going to. I am not going to surrender.

Reprinted with the kind permission of