Memali, Baling: Remembering Ibrahim Libya

I am clearing up old files, and updating my Linkedin (as you can see from my new banner), when one of the photos on the previous banner took me back to my fieldwork in Memali, Baling.

This trip was for my former column in The Malaysian Insider, and then book, Holy Men Holy Women, which probably was the genesis for IMAN Research. This was in 2011.

Memali remains as one of my favourite assignments and trips into the heartland of Malaysia, and its beauty is hidden for it is home to a tragic history: the Memali Incident.

I have taken the liberty of taking excerpts from my book, Holy Men Holy Women, to tell you a little story that happened when I was young in Malaysia. This is an abridged version of the chapter, Remembering Ibrahim Libya.

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‘Memali had to be a [public relations] failure on the (Malaysian) government’s part,’ Z, the former militant schoolboy I had interviewed about years ago for my column and book, I Am Muslim (2007), wrote to me in an email. ‘I was in school then, and you know my history. We all saw it on TV.’

‘They weren’t terrorists. They’re just simple kampong folk.’

************

Baling is like many small towns in the country. It’s a living Malaysian cliché: Low-rise and not well-made buildings, old government offices built in the 1960s, with quaint old houses scattered here and there. Newer housing projects are far and few, as the roads lead to villages and more villages. Or rather, more village houses.

Modern amenities and provisions like a supermarket and a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise lend Baling a rather gaudy atmosphere. It’s a town like Bentong or Raub, whereby locals who work in Kuala Lumpur reminisce about the fresh air and how cheap it is to live there. And yet Baling, for all its simplicity, is a historic town.

The communist Chin Peng hid in the primary school; the infamous Baling talks arose from his negotiations with the then premier of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman Al Putra. It is also linked to local folklore: the Raja Bersiung, a cruel character from the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa. (According to a paper written by Wan Shamsudin Mohd Yusof in 1999, Nostalgia Sejarah Baling di Masa Silam Berdasarkan Beberapa Catatan, Baling’s name derived from two Siamese words, ‘ban’ and ‘ling’, which mean Kampung Kera or Monkey Village. )

I was in Baling, Kedah, and I was supposed to stay for a week at a sekolah pondok (religious school) belonging to an Ustaz Hilmi. I was also supposed to look for Buddhist healers! In the end, I was unable to stay there as the pondok had an influx of destitute senior citizens and orphans. A friend had kindly put me in touch with his aunt’s family, and I would keep in touch with Ustaz Hilmi during my stay there.

Mak Teh, a jovial woman in her late 40s, hosted me throughout my stay there. It was a delight to have a visitor from a big city come over, she said. She could take me around in her car with her kids. What was it that I wanted to see? Oh, we could go to Chin Peng’s hide-out. And maybe a healer or so. Her mother-in-law was a healer and could speak in there languages when she healed people. And if I had the energy, she suggested we drive up to Memali and see where it all happened.

‘Memali? Memali as in the Memali Incident which happened in 1985? I saw all that on TV,’ I said.

‘Well. It’s about half an hour away from here. Maybe I can make some calls and we can all go look? Eh, bestnya buat research macam ni! Mak Teh boleh jadi assistant!’ (This project is fun! I can be your assistant!)

The Memali Incident happened in 1985. I was 16 years old then, and I happened to be watching the news with my parents. The one image that has stuck until today is of an elderly woman rushing at what presumably was a tank, though the camera shot of her was a frontal one. There were police and the army, and trucks. A lot of smoke. My parents didn’t budge from the dining table as they sat glued to the television, watching the incident.

‘Abah. Kenapa perempuan tu menjerit Allahuakhbar? Why is she screaming and running?’

My father shook his head. My mother asked the same question.

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(Photo of the late Ibrahim Libya and his friends. This was from the family album)

Ibrahim Libya in his younger days was quite a dapper young man. Based on the photos his family kept, he was quite a dandy, with sharp jackets and bellbottoms. He had been educated in various places such as the University of Tripoli in Libya, hence his nickname Ibrahim Libya.

He had attended Sekolah Rendah Kebangsaan Weng in Baling before furthering his studies in Islamic studies at Sekolah Agama Ittifaqiah, Kg Carok Putih, Weng and later Pondok Al-Khariah, Pokok Sena, Seberang Perai. He had also studied in India and at Al-Azhar University in Cairo.

When he came back, he and his young family lived in Kuala Lumpur. He worked with Pusat Islam. He even appeared on television to lecture on topics of Islam. He left his job and took his family back to Baling, as he felt disenchanted by the ‘… materialistic lifestyle the city offers…’

By and large, Ibrahim Libya was known to be a family man and dedicated to the cause of Islam. Moving back to Baling, he soon became known as quite a raconteur, and quite a joker. He had one gift: He could speak to the young, in their language. He understood their dreams and hopelessness.

Soon, his lively usrahs began to attract more and more villagers. He was the 80s version of popular contemporary ustazs such as Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin and Juanda Jaya. His popularity soon reached the city centre of Kedah, and word reached federal level. At that time, Dr Mahathir Mohamed (now a Tun) was the prime minister of Malaysia. (Tun became Prime Minister of Malaysia in 2018 and resigned in 2020. Malaysian politics, never a dull day.)

Ibrahim Libya’s rising influence coincided with the early 1980s resurgence of Islam throughout Malaysia. While everyone danced and bopped to the beat of Madonna, Top of The Pops, and punk culture pervaded fashion and politics in the UK, Iran, and young, optimistic Malaysian professionals lived it up at the Hilton’s Tin Mine, the tudung (hijab) and Al Arqam entered into the Malaysian landscape. Stories of Hantu Kum-Kum (a tudung-ed female ghoul who was once a beauty but cursed) spread like wildfire. PAS was a bogeyman and an affront to forward-thinking Malays.

There were also other Muslim separatist movements in countries like Thailand (and not necessarily Iran per se), which may have influenced the then Islamic revival in Malaysia.

‘To the south of Thailand in Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim and other student activists inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood formed the Islamist movement Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM) in 1971. In 1974 ABIM rallied the impoverished rural youth in Baling to protest conditions also experienced by the Malay-Muslim separatists in Thailand — poverty, government discrimination, lack of political representation. The 1979 Iranian Revolution may also have inspired Islamist ideology within the Malay-Muslim separatists, as this was the first successful Islamist movement that would later inspire many more around the world.

‘The encroachment of traditional Malay-Muslim territory by Northern and Northeastern Thai farmers at the insistence of the central government coupled with disenfranchised, well-educated youth helped to spawn the second wave. The Islamic identity of the second wave was not initiated in the southern provinces but introduced and encouraged by the external actors and events described above. Education abroad allowed Malay-Muslim students to network with other students in these predominantly Muslim countries to which they traveled. Through these networks links were formed with Islamist groups such as the Arab League, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, Islamic Secretariat, and Partai Islam.’ (‘Framing the violence in Southern Thailand: Three Waves of Malay-Muslim Separatism’, Sarah A. Jones, June 2007. A thesis presented to the faculty of the Center for International Studies of Ohio University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts.)

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November 8, 2020

I am going through all my previous notes and writings on the Malay identity; yes, I'm writing a small collection of essays based on interviews conducted during Covid-19. I truly wonder what the late Ibrahim Libra would say of how Malay-Muslims are now even more divided by not just political lines, but ideologies, class, geography and Islamic leanings (Sufi? Salafi? Malay?)

This time around, I'm fretting as my previous writings before saw me out in the field, and this time, everything is conducted by Zoom. I don't know how this book will turn out to be, really. I'll tell you more about this book, but back to my story...

Ustaz Marzuki was the first person I was to meet. He was the current headmaster of the madrasah Ibrahim Libya nee Mahmood had founded: Madrasa Islahiah Diniah Kampung Memali. The school was painted a cheerful yellow and green, and classes were being held when we arrived.

Ustaz Marzuki was nursing a bad cough and cold when we met him in the office. In between gasps for air, he coughed. The coughs grew more and more violent.

‘The medicine (cough) the doctor gave doesn’t work (cough),’ he apologised.

It was when he racked up his phlegm that I opened my bag and reached for my stash of medicine. I gave him my Rhinocort, Polaramine pills and menthol crystals. Damned if I allowed the old man to cough and keel over dead on me during an interview.

‘Do these work?’

‘Yes.’

He grabbed the Rhinocort and sprayed the medication into his nose. After a few seconds, be looked at me, eyes wide. ‘It really does work!’

Marzuki wasn’t there when everything happened. He was younger than Ibrahim, but they knew each other. When ‘… the tragedy happened, I was on my way back to Memali, because I was on a school break, I was teaching in another district and wanted to come home for a while… we are related somewhat, but I don’t know the details.’

Ibrahim Libya wasn’t a tall man but he was ‘…tegap…’. He liked young people and children, but he was firm. What was haram, was haram, and he saw the world in black and white. There was no grey with him. He originated from Kampung Carok Putih, but settled down in Memali.

He was also a very frustrated man. See, Marzuki told me, Ibrahim had studied abroad in Muslim countries that saw and witnessed true Islamic renaissance. When he came back and served the government, he was disillusioned by what he saw.

Ibrahim worked for Pusat Islam, and ... his dream was to spread the message of Islam, and working in Pusat Islam did not give him the freedom to preach and do what he wanted.

Malaysia was supposedly a Muslim country, but the way people conducted their lives was not. What was the use of professing to be a Muslim then? He tried to change things in KL, but he gave up after a while. He quit his job and came back to Memali. People didn’t want to be true Muslims. Even his colleagues who once welcomed him turned against him, because they felt that he was too radical.

His friend Ibrahim and his family had come home to Memali in 1978. ‘Honestly, he wasn’t a politician or political. But he was passionate about Islam, and the deterioration of Muslim life in Malaysia. And he also observed the kids around the village, and their hopelessness and unemployment. Orang Memali bukan kaya (Melai people are not rich). Life before and now is the same. Nothing has changed.’ Ibrahim really started preaching about 1982.

Like many ustazs in kampungs and cities in Malaysia, Ibrahim started his new career as the village preacher. He talked about fardh ain (the basics of Islam and the practises of Islamic faith). He dazzled the village folk with tales of Islamic history.

‘This was all a misunderstanding, I think. There was another ustaz in Baling who was sort of popular, but arwah (deceased) Ibrahim Libya’s popularity eclipsed his. And that ustaz just happened to be an Umno man. This whole thing was politicised! You know, rivalry. At least this is my observation. One’s an Umno member, the other represented PAS. Arwah wasn’t a violent man. I think it was jealousy. He could talk, and he had such a huge following among the young. And he was a joker. He’d joke with everyone, men, women. So, I think the other guy must have complained to the Umno head of Baling then, and all this happened.’

There was a lot of mud slinging involved, claims that Ibrahim Libya was a fanatic. People from far and wide heard about Ibrahim, and sometimes about 1,000 people attended his ceramah.

Marzuki was away in another district teaching when the incident happened.

(Photo from the personal album of the family)

By then, Ibrahim’s fame had reached the authorities. Slowly, the villagers saw an additional one or two policemen coming to the village. Nothing happened, but the people of Memali sensed something was amiss. The police were silent observers at first, and about a month before November 19, 1985, there was a big ceramah which attracted many people. There were more policemen surrounding the kampong. There were roadblocks.

‘One time a van full of villagers carrying their cangkul, axes, was stopped by the police. Didn’t help that the villagers were fed-up of the police! The police asked the villagers to explain themselves. Orang kampong explained that they were going to the fields to farm, to the kebun. They were let go by the police. However the hatred towards the police grew. There was also a lot of anti-Umno sentiment. Imagine, orang korek tanah nak buat bendang, and they said kita buat kubur nak bunuh orang. The stories!’ They picked on the villagers.

There were no real, true skirmishes between the two factions. However, there were people who were responsible for the made-up stories.

‘And then... that happened.’

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As a frustrated-could-have-been researcher (I had to give up a potential post graduate careeer, to run IMAN for six years!), and observer of Malaysia politics, I wonder when identity politics would end in the country. The country is a goldmine for research, but its citizens are taxed by the circus, fatigued by the impact of Covid-19. Personally for me, I need a long holiday. Sometimes I toy with the idea of becoming a Zumba or English teacher!

(According to the residents of Memali, they were promised a road after the incident. The road to wealth, development, but it kind of stopped here.)

I mentioned in an earlier article about how people who became violent were so because of the lack of social capital. But sometimes I wonder too, whether it's more than just that; that it would be just one idea of salvation. And when I read about Memali again, I ask whether this really was a public relations tragedy or truly a security threat. Am I romanticising this, I wonder too?

To read the rest of the chapter, please buy Holy Men Holy Women from Gerakbudaya. Unless you'd like me to reprint the whole chapter here!