IN February, I was surprised and honoured to receive an unsolicited letter from Tan Sri Datuk Shamsul Azhar Abbas in his capacity as founding member of the Merdeka Award Board of Trustees, inviting me to participate in the Nomination Committee for the Merdeka Award’s Outstanding Contribution to the People of Malaysia Category.
The Merdeka Award Trust By-Laws are preambled with the words of Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj: “I call upon you to dedicate yourselves, to work and strive with hand and brain to create a new nation” – and continue with the award’s objective, established in 2007 by Petronas, ExxonMobil and Shell “to recognise and reward primarily Malaysian citizens and organisations who have made outstanding contributions to the people of Malaysia in
their respective fields”. Awardees receive an inscribed certificate,
a trophy and prize money of half a million ringgit.
The Merdeka Award is also supported by signature initiatives: the Merdeka Award Grant for International Attachment, which enables qualified young Malaysians to engage in collaborative projects
at internationally-recognised host institutions, and the
Merdeka Award Roundtables, a talk-show held in partnership with Astro Awani (this year featuring emerging leaders on how the next generation of Malaysians will shape the nation).
In June, I met the two other members of my committee – the UN resident coordinator for Malaysia Michelle Gyles-McDonnough and Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) executive director Dr Zakariah Abdul Rashid – to deliberate on our category’s nominees. It was an agonising process given the sheer achievements of each, but somehow we whittled down the candidates.
On Dec 8, at the awards ceremony in the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas graced by the Royal Patron of the Merdeka Award the Sultan of Perak and the Raja Permaisuri of Perak, the award for Outstanding Contribution to the People of Malaysia – the only award available to non-Malaysians – was formally given to Dato’ Sri the Earl of Cranbrook (there is apparently no established formula to address British hereditary peers who hold Malaysian titles), a chartered biologist and Sarawak enthusiast who lectured at the University of Malaya and has written numerous books on the birds and mammals of the region, and continues to research Malaysian zooarcheology and paleo-environments.
For Outstanding Scholastic Achievement there were two recipients: the founder and director of the Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre (Amtec) and UTM Professor Dr Ahmad Fauzi Ismail, and USM School of Chemical Engineering Professor Dr Abdul Latif Ahmad. In the Health, Science and Technology category the winner was director-general of the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) Datuk Dr Choo Yuen May, while in the Environment category former director-general of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks and internationally respected figure in wildlife conservation Mohd Khan Momin Khan took the award.
Finally, in the Education and Community category the Merdeka Award was bestowed upon the nation’s favourite cartoonist Datuk Mohd Nor Khalid, or Lat. His citation mentioned his outstanding contribution to the pluralism (!!) of Malaysia’s cultural identity, and in his speech he recalled how he cashed his first cheque for ‘Tiga Sekawan’, transporting the audience back to a forgotten place: the small-town Perak of the 1960s.
Each winner’s biography in the accompanying award book concluded with how their work personified the Spirit of Merdeka, and I personally congratulated all the recipients as I exited the hall. But there was another congratulations to convey: as also in the audience that evening was one of the signatories of a letter released in the press and cyberspace that morning that had already generated a huge buzz.
This ‘Letter of the Prominent 25’ is hugely significant for two reasons. Firstly, for the assemblage of people who signed it: most are retired senior civil servants, the sort that one might expect would live comfortable lives with little incentive or desire to be controversial, which after all might risk accusations of treachery or even trigger a backlash against family members. Secondly, because of the specificity of its contents – many politicians speak vaguely of moderation and tolerance, but in this letter organisations were named and even a cabinet minister was targeted.
At a time when questioning the funds of a government-funded programme can lead to a sedition probe, such condemnation is courageous. Of course, the signatories did receive some brickbats – but any sane person would see that the contributions of the Prominent 25 vastly exceed those of their critics, whose skills mainly consist of spewing divisive vitriol.
Previously I wrote about seeking the party of Merdeka, and several readers lamented that such a party will never again exist. But I remain hopeful, because it is clear that patriotic Malaysians still do personify, and inspire others to pursue, the spirit of Merdeka through their actions and their words.
Tunku Abidin Muhriz is president of Ideas.