By Malik Imtiaz Sarwar     August 12, 2008      Categories: Opinion

THOUGH I was initially going to write about the debacle at the Bar Council auditorium on Saturday,

I decided against it. What more is there to say that we do not know already. It comes as no surprise

that radical and extremist elements exist in our society or that political opportunists will seize

every perceived advantage where it benefits them to do so, even when it is completely against reason.

What is crucial to understand is that all things said and done, the extremist is the exception and

does not define the norm. One has just to look around to appreciate the truth that all

our lives are the sum of a collective of varied experiences in which no one person is more significant

than the other.

From the durian seller on Jalan Alor in Kuala Lumpur to the elderly Indian Muslim junk shop

owner off Chulia Street in Penang, and everyone in between, we all add hue and colour

to the rich tapestry that Malaysia is. That is something that can never be taken away from us.

This was however not the principal reason I chose to leave aside the events of Saturday.

Early this morning, fellow Penangite and friend, Azmi Sharom, informed me that

a former teacher of ours, Mr Tan Har Yong, had passed away at the age of 54.

I wish I could present a glowing eulogy of the man, his life and triumphs.

The sad truth is that I cannot. I cannot recollect the last time I saw him.

I cannot tell you about the paths his life took him on nor the journeys he made.

Periodically, friends had relayed our greetings to each other.

Through this, I came to know only of his having become a pastor

and that he was apparently, and somewhat mysteriously, satisfied with

what he had managed to achieve with those of us he had tutored.

I cannot tell you whether he was happy or fulfilled, though blogs

I checked this morning suggested that he was, for the fact that he had given

of himself to the bigger cause of shepherding those who were guided to him.

And that he did.

Like many others, I first met Mr Tan when I was 12. I was in Form One

and his was the comforting presence that allayed my concerns and anxieties about

being in a new school, with new people. It was his smile ready and quick, mildly

bemused and the deadpan expression, that said it all: we were not to take ourselves

too seriously but it was perfectly acceptable, natural even, to feel nervous and

uncertain as everything would sort itself out.

I remember that smile principally because there was a photograph, a close up, of it.

Some of us in the first and second forms had decided to present a photo-feature

spoofing the school at a dinner. Apart from a slide of Azmi Sharom stripped to the

waist looking like he had just been severely caned, tomato ketchup smeared across

 his back to emulate blood, there was this slide of Mr Tan.

Under it there was a caption that read: Why is this man smiling? The next slide

offered a wider angle, revealing three students pushing his car, faces contorted by the strain.

The caption on this one read: He saves petrol.

Over time, we learnt of his uncompromising adherence to fairness and right over wrong.

He was rigid at times but for all the correct reasons. His even temperament,

compassionate nature and sometimes strange sense of humour ameliorated what few effects

there were of this characteristic. He reinforced what many of us were being taught at home.

To him, it did not matter that we were Chinese, Indian, Malay or of any other ethnicity.

He made us see that though each of us was unique and different, we were all the same

for each of us being deserving of the respect of the others.

And so, when we laughed, we laughed together. And when one of us felt pain, all of us felt it too.

He made us see that we were family to each other and that even though some of us did not really

get along with some of the others sometimes, there were times that we did, all of us.

I would like to think that this had a profound impact on those of us who came to consider

him a friend and mentor. He touched our lives and showed us in his own inimitable way that

we could achieve anything that we set our minds and hearts on.

It is no coincidence that there are a string of lawyers, activists and professionals,

all contributing to the shaping of a better Malaysia in which race, religion or creed do not matter,

whom Mr Tan nurtured as a teacher.

And as I write this, I find myself wondering whether those who decided to disrupt

the proceedings on Saturday would have done things differently if they had had a Tan Har Yong in their lives.

Perhaps so.

God speed, Mr Tan. You were a towering Malaysian.

● Malik Imtiaz Sarwar is the current President of the National Human Rights Society (HAKAM).

He blogs at www.malikimtiaz.blogspot.com