The Adbibahs Amin of today
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| Adibah, the doyen of Malaysian journalism |
When I received an invitation to attend Adibah Amin’s Tribute Night at The Majestic Hotel, I decided to go, even though I must admit that I did not regularly read her As I Was Passing column. That was likely because I was still quite young at the time, but her name—especially her pen name Sri Delima—certainly rang a bell.
In fact, several months earlier, I had the opportunity to visit her in hospital when she was unwell. It is often said that true friendship reveals itself when you visit someone who is bedridden and unable to offer anything in return. I brought my two children along, hoping to introduce them to this doyen of Malaysian journalism and letters, and to help them understand the significance of her contributions to the nation’s intellectual and cultural life.
The tribute night itself was a warm celebration shared among friends and Adibah’s former colleagues from the New Straits Times and The Star, many of whom I have also known for years. For me, the night was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with familiar faces—among them Rose Ismail, former editor of Life & Times in the 1990s. She was, in fact, the editor who first accepted my articles and gave me the opportunity to make my publishing debut in the national newspapers. Rose and I had not met for nearly thirty years, making the brief reunion all the more meaningful.
There were also Aishah Ali, and I understand her sister Saleha Ali, in attendance. Aishah succeeded Rose while Saleha became my entertainment editor during a period when I wrote extensively about Malaysia’s radio and TV personalities. Both she and the late Daniel Chan were on the entertainment desk.
In those days, I practically covered the entire radio scene—from Patrick Teoh to his co‑host Yasmin Yusoff, whom I too had not met in decades. Yasmin was the emcee for the evening. More than thirty years on, Yasmin retains the same charm she radiated when she appeared on Radio Four’s morning talk show with Patrick. Her unmistakable chirpy greeting—“Good morning, good morning, good morning…”—became the soundtrack to countless reluctant mornings, cajoling us out of our slumber and into traffic on our daily commute to work.
Those were truly the “good old days,” I found myself thinking. Many present that evening—people like Aishah Ali and Esther Ng of The Star—had worked closely with Adibah Amin. I am certain that to them, Adibah came across as an ordinary Malaysian journalist, driven by an extraordinary passion: to chronicle the daily lives of ordinary people. Her writing often carried a gentle wit—a subtle chuckle tucked between lines—that left readers smiling and thinking, “This, after all, is what makes us Malaysians.” That's why Sri Delima still rings a bell to many who were passing through those ealry years of the 70s through 80s. I may have read one or two of her articles but certainly it wasn't my staple. I was more of a fan of writings about the sciences than local Malaysian tales.
As I reflect over the life of this 90-year-old literature laureate, I can only say one thing: we have many Adibahs Amin who have not been given the full recognition yet. Some have the potential to become one in the future, but unless the community is willing give them an opportunity, or to hold them in great esteem, they will remain the hidden gem yet to be discovered. By the time they turn nonagenarians, they may still never see light at the end of their years of contributions of articles to the nation's readers.
Names such as Wong Chun Wai, Rose Ismail, Lee Boon Siew, Yong Soo Heong, Aishah Ali and her sister Saleha Ali, Esther Ng, Leanne Goh, come to mind, as I either met them at last night's function or somehow learnt that they were also there, but unable to find them in a ballroom with nearly 500 people. These are the Adibahs of tomorrow, ordinary of many a Malaysian, I am sure, in their own ways. I am sure each person has a story to tell about their lives.
I have lived most of my adult life in what I would describe as an altruistic society, one in which people believed in giving their best for the sake of others. It therefore came as no surprise to me that Adibah Amin’s tribute event was organised by a Chinese Malaysian, and that people of all races were present, mingling freely in an atmosphere where we instinctively felt that we belonged—to a multicultural and multi‑religious Malaysia. The race no longer mattered as we were there in a ballroom to celebrate the life of one fellow Malaysian.
It was evident that those who came together to honour Adibah Amin were, in many ways, birds of the same feather as her: Malaysians who believed in a shared vision of a prosperous nation, where people of all races and faiths work together for the common good.
However, in recent years, I have also observed a disturbing shift in how people relate to one another, a change amplified by the rise of social media. Platforms that should foster dialogue are now often flooded daily with hostility, half‑truths, and outright falsehoods, driven by a singular intent—to “assassinate” the character of anyone deemed ideologically inconvenient. Increasingly, this is no longer a matter of race; it is about who holds power, and who others believe ought to hold it.
This was not the Malaysia that our dear Adibah would have envisaged. She emerged from—and wrote within—a Malaysia deeply scarred by race‑based politics, including the May 13 tragedy of 1969. That episode, fundamentally a political clash between rival parties—those who won and those who lost the general election—came to be framed largely as a racial riot precisely because political parties at the time were themselves organised along racial lines. When the supporters of these political parties, most of us from the three main races in PeninsularMalaysia remained faithful to each other. I was too young to know much about the incident but the little that I knew when I overheard a phone conversation between my late father and my mother was that in Pahang, my father said everything was normal. They were still having breakfast together in the canteen as if nothing had happened.
Adibah’s lifelong work stood in quiet defiance of such divisions. She saw Malaysia from the lenses of a Malay woman who believed that empathy trumped ideology, and where understanding everyday lives mattered more than amplifying differences. This is why people found comfort in reading her column. Therefore, I have to admit that the evening held in her honour served not merely as a tribute to her legacy, but also as a poignant reminder of the Malaysia we once believed in—and perhaps still can be, if we choose to.
The country can no longer tolerate what Malaysia’s first Prime Minister and Father of Independence, the late Tunku Abdul Rahman, once described as the greatest bane to nation‑building: the deliberate undermining of unity in a country that draws its strength from the diversity of its cultures and religions. Like Adibah Amin, the late Tunku—who was regrettably forced to step down under immense pressure with just the stroke of a pen orchestrated largely by a single individual through one poison letter—repeatedly warned that Malaysia would never know peace if national unity were sacrificed to racial, religious, or political self‑interest.
That individual has already had more than his share of history’s stage—over two decades of it. It is time for him to step aside and allow his successor, who is more capable, to lead, especially given that this successor
has received legitimacy not only through the mandate of both the former and present Kings, but also through the expressed will of the people at the ballot box.
If Malaysia does not wish to head down a path similar to that taken by countries such as Sri Lanka, where economic collapse followed years of political mismanagement and massive corruption—resulting in runaway inflation of nearly 70 percent and an overwhelming debt burden—then it must return to first principles. Encouragingly, Malaysia has, at the very least, received positive assessments from international bodies, particularly with regard to its recent economic growth and recovery. According to Investment banking group JP Morgan, both Malaysia and China are "emerging as relatively resilient economies in Asia amid intensifying global energy market volatility due to the ongoing conflict in West Asia."
Therefore calls for a reaffirmation of the vision articulated by Tunku Abdul Rahman, whose outlook was anchored in a simple yet profound belief: for a diverse nation to succeed, unity, tolerance, and goodwill must prevail over fear, factionalism, and narrow self‑interest.
It is my hope that from this tribute night, more Adibahs Amin will emerge in the local news landscape—individuals who rise above political pettiness and ideological mischief; instead, help the nation’s economic and social flywheel gain momentum, rather than bringing it to a grinding halt by throwing spanners into its works. After all, this is not the Malaysia that Khalidah Adibah Amin had envisioned. Her writings were like a balm that brought healing to the nation after the social unrest was brought under control at the expense of the lives of many innocent people.
A night held in tribute to this doyen of Malaysian journalism and letters must also be seen as a tribute to the many Adibahs of twenty‑first‑century Malaysia—past, present, and yet to come—who believe that the nation’s future lies not in tearing itself apart, but in holding together.
Just one word from someone as senior as Datuk Seri Khalid has encouraged me to continue on with my mission in nation building. Be the Adibahs of Today and wrote a kind word ro encourage a young person in your care.j
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