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Breastbeating over Malaysia Hall

MALAYSIA HALL IS in the news these days. The 50-year lease on two of the four units expires next year, and all beat their breasts in shock and horror that this institution which evoked "pride and dignity and love and most of all patriotism and nationalism" is to disappear for ever. It has a honoured place in Malaysian history, the place where the first prime minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, declared plans for independence in 1956. Many worthies have passed through its portals. But more important, it was a meeting place for Malaysians and others, "a beacon of hospitality", in the gushing prose of the NST writer. But all good things must come to an end. If all that is said about Malaysia Hall is true, why then did the Malaysian government wait until five minutes before midnight to say that all is lost, and Malaysia Hall must move because the rents demanded is too exhorbitant?

Did a group looking at the future of Malaysia Hall the past decade or so for fresh premises when the lease expired, given that rents in central London, as in Kuala Lumpur, reflect not nationalist sentiment in a distant land but economic realities. The Duke of Portland, whose property Malaysia Hall is, is not about to make a special exemption. To his estate managers, as anyone here would tell you, all that matters is money; those who can pay gets the building, and it does not matter if an institution for which Malaysians in London have a fondness for or a casino. The government here wanted arrears in quit rent paid to church land on which it built schools, arguing that whilst the schools on which it stands perform a huge public service under government service, the land itself is subject to the law. It wanted to turn hallowed Chinese cemetries in Kuala Lumpur and Malacca into shopping malls. So, when the world cheers in globalisation and the primacy of the marketplace, which Malaysia once embraced but now reels in shock at its reach, Malaysia Hall's fate is sealed. Beating the breat now with no plans for an alternate location is neither here nor there.

The education ministry knew years ago the million ringgit annual lease and rentals were unacceptable. But did it plan for cheaper and better premises in the suburbs for Malaysia Hall to relocate with little disruption? It did not. It only now talks of the costs involved. The vision and smartness that two successive education ministers wanted to instil in Malaysian students is missing from their own officers. Planning is not the Malaysian civil service's forte. All that matters is what the Leader says. Our foreign policy is shot to pieces, our ties with regional nations under heavy strain, our transport policy dictated by well-connected individuals running into heavy debt to ensure those who use it too are. Our town planning is a shambles. What happened over Malaysia Hall is not unexpected. To then turn bureaucratic bungling into a public loss into public sentimentality that cannot stand close scrutiny is the cynicism Malaysian officials imply the Duke of Portland's managers treat its request to retain Malaysia Hall without paying what is demanded.

But Malaysia Hall does not loom large in the minds of officialdom or Malaysian students in the United Kingdom. It is difficult to get to, especially if you study or work outside London, and this claim it is the haunt of Malaysians these days is to stretch the truth. If it nasi lemak you want, you can get it closer to wherever you are than to Malaysia Hall for it. It no longer is the inevitable meeting place for Malaysians in the United Kingdom. How many Malaysian officials can claim to automatically think of Malaysia Hall when in London? They would not even know how to get there on their own these days from their five-star hotel suites or their own residences there.

In those days, most Malaysians went to study in London as opposed to the United Kingdom. Malaysia's independent leaders in their student days could meet there to discuss the country's future because it was a convenient meeting point. But to suggest that Tengku Abdul Rahman would meet in Malaysia Hall with Tun Abdul Razak and others is to bend the historical truth. The independence leaders had returned home by the time Malaysia Hall was leased in 1951. Indeed, by then the Tengku had become president of UMNO, Tun Abdul Razak was state secretary of Pahang, Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie in the Malayan civil service. They could have had meetings there on subsequent meetings but they certainly did not discuss their hopes for the future of Malaya in Malaya Hall, as it was then known.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my