What will become of my Island.

Man has been alloted a short lifespan that he fills it with all kinds of actvities and leisure and calls it life and living. Some men are born with a silver spoon in their mouth while others have to struggle all through their lives to make ends meet. if only they could share the burden from those who hav and those who have not.

Clingign on to a way of life as so called progress pushes you out to the sea to fend for yourself. This is the life of the fishermen in the Goergetown . Being on the outskirt of the World Heritage Claim, this enclave of Malay fishing community faces a very uncertain future. If and when this whole front is being developed as according to some developers plans, this tate will loose a part of its real heritage, not that of the preservation of Colonialism but the ways of the Malay fishermen.

I have  been visiting this area for more that a decade just to pass my time away capturing the its rustice beauty and making frineds with the locals in order to have a glimpse of the other side of life. As time progresses I see much dark clouds hovering in the horizon threatening to invade the peaceful landscaape around me. Such is the fate facing the fishermen who work out of this jety.

The Malays are not against development, it si the manner in which it is undertaken which they object to. They know they are loosing their heritage of being the original fishermen in the area ever since their parents settled along the coastal of the island. They object to being herded into low cost housing that disrupts their way of life especially as Muslims. 

Eversince the state was wrested from the Federal Government by the predominently Chinese oppositon party, the malays have been slowly but surely driven from their village lifestyle practically into the sea. Malay politicans are as good as how much they can gain from their elected positions by practically seeling off the malay rights and inheritence to the developers. Ask any Malay here and they will tell you of how it is the elected Malays themselves that sold them out.

This no doubt id a multi racial society that practices democracy as its system of governement, however more and more it can be seen that the Chinese led government is bound and determined to lessen the presence and influences of the Malays on the island. The Malays stands no chance against the financially strong Chinese backed by overseas Chinese such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan buying up the island piece by piece. The Federal government that is the only entity the malays could depend on is as helpless as a lame duck. 

The Malays in Penang as nowhere else in the country, are truly the victims of their own elected government officials in the 60 years of the country's independence. They nkow this but can do very little as the powers that be today have thfate in a strangle hold of economic as well as political agendas. Penang is destined to loose her heritage and become another Singapore or Hong Kong with the Malays becoming the servants to their wealthy Chinese masters.