Penang a Peaceful Place?

The reason i am relating the background of my childhood, the environment and the people is because it is crucial to what i am trying to express about why or how i feel about Penang growing up among the Malays and how my own mind and perception was influenced by this community in the later days of my life. I never consider one hudred percent a Malay myself and am proud to have had the opportunity to born and raised in and among Muslims some of whom i consider are Malays without doubt. My interpretation of a Maly is he who has nothing else he can relate being other than being a Malay. he thinks like one eat, sleep, shit like one. One has to feel being a Malay not so much as who one's great grand father was or where he originated from. The term Bumi Putera was coined to ensure this feeling was further enshrined into the Malay psyche a political platform for championing the Malay's cause when all else fails. The only right I have to claiming of being a Malay is this feeling that has been ingrained into my mind from my childhood otherwise I am a Malaysian just like everyone born in this country, Malays Chinese or Indians and the host of other races.
My teenage years were spent in Terengganu on the East coast of the Peninsular where I grew up among the Terengganu MalaysI moved to this predominanatly Malay state when I was twelve and was converted to Islam then. Before that I was raised both as a Buddhist as well as a Muslim in Penang. It is a long story but suffice to say even in my early years my life was destined to be a little mixed up and long term impact of having gone through such a life is what I am today...a mixed up kid, once accused in this blog as a Man with no identity. God had wanted my to take the road less traveled in this life and I have accepted my lot taking the stance that i will turn what is potentially a negative into most productive and creative well rounded life that can be lived.
THe first school I attended was a Sekolah Kampung Jawa, a Malay school and all I can remember of this school was strange smell like insence that permeated the whole area and the other was the fact that one of the my Malay teacher byt eh name of Cikgu Hamid had slammed my face onto the table for not paying attention in class. I have date with this man in hell one day I told myself. I lasted less than a year in this school and was transfered to the Jelutung English Primary School where I enjoyed the attention of my English teacher who was Chinese born and Indian raised as she always wore the sari but had the Chines looks. For some reasons unknown to me I was again transfered to Francis Light Primary School on my second yeat and ther I lasted till I completed my primary education.
I was short of being a boy genius while in my primary school except for when it came to maths! I excelled in most of my classes and even every once in a while held the first place in my class through accumulated points despite failing maths. I was even chosen as one of those to joing the express class tus skipping one year when I bypassed standard three to joing standard four. I remember this because I was already famillir with the term first general merit which meant that i was he first in my class and when I used to go upstage at the end of the years on Parents day to receive the awards, often for English, Intelligence tests, Arts and crafts, sometimes Geography and History. I would be carrying home a pile of books related to these subjects. But school was still a torture for me when it came to Maths and I hated everything that had to do with it was like my mind just refused to learn. The physical abuse and the mental torture I received from my two maths teachers a Chines and a Sikh sealed my distaste for the subject.
While in Primary school I hung out with the Chinese boys mostly as I was considered a Kafir by my fellow Malay students when they fond out that I was a Buddhist and did not go to the Friday Prayers like everyone else. I felt like a Pariah when in the company of Malay boys and they shunned my prescence while the Indians treated my like an outcaste to be tolerated only as such. So I grew up among the Chinese, visiting their homes and being accepted in their company as almost one of them. We used to hang out around the Anson road Buddhist temple grounds mostly or playing soccer or Police and Thief to pass the time. The Malay in me rebeled when it came to food during those years, I would not eat Chinese food...it was simply haram! Strange how the mind works, how it can be conditoned by one's upbringing and environment even when you know you are a Kafir as far as your so called fellow Malays were concerned, like it was your fault.
During those early years too I was attending the Buddhiast classes on weekends learnig the Pali language and Buddhist texts at the Mahindrama Buddhist Temple in Counter Hall near Ayer Itam raod. This was part of my uncle's plan for me to grow up a Buddhist. My Uncle who had adopted me was the only man in the entire family who refused to be converted to Islam and thus insisted that i be raised a Buddhist. No one among my relatives knew of my dual religous upbringing as I kept it a secret from everyone less i be further accused and humiliated among my peers in the Kampung. So every saturday and Sunday i would disappear in the morning saying I was off to school for extra curicullar activity or some excuse and cycle my way passsed P.Ramlee's old wooden house to the temple. I was at home in the temple among other Buddhist who were mostly Chinese or Ceylonese (Sri Lankans) and they treated me quite special especially the Monks from Sri Lanka who knew my Grand Father and my uncle.
I was born with a Buddhist name, Nanda Sena s/o Simon Bartholomuze, what a name!, and how much grief it had caused me among my so called Muslim brothers. My uncle was Paul Nanda s/o Paul Mariano. In Sungai Pinang I was known as Ba kecik or small Baba. My name was changed to Shamsul Bahari Bin Abdul Mutalib when I moved to Terengganu and where i was converted to Islam. Whats in a name you say, well it means a great deal when till this day the Malaysian Government Agencies that I had to deal with has delayed alot of my citizenship apllications for my children for example, simply because...
Such Is! my brief life history to lay the foundation from which i speak my mind of race and societies, of religions and philosophies, of pride and prejudices, this is my Dharma Position, the platform from which I let it loose. It is not and never will it be for me to judge or criticize, to place one above the other for better or worse, it is my intention to relate one man's view of life with thope that it will in some small way enl;ighten some soul somewhere into and awakening of his or her own heart from despair of ignorance. Time and again I have tried to relay the fact that I intend to accomplish my mission through self discovery and through self awakening..."He who knos himself knows his Lord."
What has all these to do with Penang being peaceful or not?
To be Contd...