Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 5 June 2017 issue)

Dear Kam,
My father keeps telling me that we’ve had it easy in Malaysia. I say, whatever.
Callous and carefree

I recently had the good fortune to meet three young Iraqis who are studying in Malaysia. They wanted to interview me about a book I wrote 10 years ago for their dissertations and it was instantly obvious that they were very intelligent because they liked my book. They asked excellent questions about my book, about the process of writing and about Malaysian literature in general, and I told them about the travails of the Malaysian middle class and the country’s changing demographics and priorities. Eventually, we stopped talking about me and we started talking about their lives, and I was shocked. They come from three very different parts of Iraq, but they have all experienced similar turmoil and rupture in their young lives. These three young Iraqis who expressed such interest in Malaysian literature seemed so normal, but their lives have been anything but.

One of them comes from the north of Iraq and he calmly described how his uncle was murdered “for saying the wrong word”. His uncle was crushed to death for a perceived insult and the other Iraqi students agreed that they all had similar stories they could tell. One day, his family suddenly had to grab whatever they could and run to escape. They ran further north and found safety in Kurdish lands. He said that growing up in Iraq, he had always been aware that society was divided by a schism between Sunni and Shia. But when he went north, he found a new divide between Kurds and Arabs. And when he went further north, the divide was between Kurds and Turcomans. Basically, wherever he went, he found that there was a perceived divide between one group and another and that the people who always suffer are the ones who try to live without those divides.

They all agreed that they live in a state of anxiety. Their country and their lives have been torn apart and their futures are up in the air. Everything could be changed in an instant by forces beyond their control. And yet the young man whose family had abandoned their entire world in one day said that the lesson he has learnt is that “you will survive”.

I was unable to comprehend that certainty. I know that in a crisis, I will not survive. When I watch a post-apocalypse movie, I know that I would be one of the first to die and that the battling survivors are other people. But this young Iraqi, who has lived through an actual apocalypse, was telling me that no matter what happens, you will find the capacity to survive. I’m still not sure that means me.

Why on earth had we been taking about my book? I had written a book about the exotic adventures of a pampered wastrel and Anglophile Malayan civil servant. My stories seemed so ridiculous compared to the trauma of their young lives. Why were they interested in me and Malaysia? Because they are dedicated to their studies, that’s why. These young Iraqis were less than half my age, but they had a maturity beyond my years.

It was a wonderful afternoon in KLCC with these three bright and remarkable young Iraqi students. Everything seemed so normal as I walked away from them and through the crowds of shoppers, but I felt stunned. I don’t believe for one moment that the disasters that have befallen Iraq will ever happen to Malaysia. They feel real and important, but whatever traumas I or my country have been through are as nothing compared to some other people’s tragedies. Iraq’s apocalypse has made deadly what were once merely casual divides. It saddens me that we happily exploit non-existent divides as if they are some sort of game.

Dear Kam,
I don’t believe anything I read on the internet and I believe everything I read on the internet. I don’t believe the mainstream media because that’s all propaganda and lies. But I believe everything I read on conspiracy theory websites because why would the Russians lie?
Confused

Sometimes, things are not what they appear to be at first sight. For example, I was in downtown KL last night and I saw a guy hitting some parked motorcycles with his helmet and shouting angrily but there was nobody else around. I immediately assumed he was mad and that I should avoid him. But as I got closer, I discovered that he was banging the bikes and shouting because he was trying to persuade a great big rat to get off his bike, and the rat was stubbornly refusing to budge. When I saw this, I thought to myself, sometimes things are not what they appear to be at first sight. And that we have a rat problem in downtown KL and it looks like they’re trying to steal motorcycles. What will happen if they learn how to ride them? Soon they will take over the streets and start demanding protection money and say things like, “That’s a nice motorbike. It would be a shame if something happened to it”. As I say, things are not always what they appear to be at first sight. There was a perfectly rational explanation, but that was boring so I decided to scare myself with an alternative reality.

Reprinted with the kind permission of