Mak Minah would have celebrated her 94th birthday...

Video footage featuring the Chiling, Luit and Selangor rivers in Ulu Selangor, Malaysia edited to the song 'Sungai Makao' by Akar Umbi. This video officially launches the Ecowarriorz blogspot and is my personal tribute to Mak Minah who was a true guardian of the environment and an inspiration to many. ~ Mary Maguire

A Tribute to Mak Minah

(14.9.1930 ~ 21.9.1999)

Ceremonial singer... noblewoman... cultural representative of the Temuan tribe... free spirit and a friend to all.

Mak Minah (Menah Kuntom) was born in Pertak, Ulu Selangor, between the First and Second World Wars. Those who remember her in her youth report that she was extremely feisty and perhaps even a little wayward. But her second husband, Batin Angong of Gerachi, was a mature tribal leader who groomed Minah for the important role of Batin’s wife, and taught her all the songs he knew. They had a daughter and five sons – the eldest of whom, Ramsit, is now Batin of Gerachi.

When Batin Angong died, Mak Minah moved back to Pertak to live with her sister Indah. It was around this time that Minah befriended Antares and Rafique, two musicians seeking sanctuary in Kuala Kubu Bharu from the clangor of the Klang Valley. Before long a musical collaboration began which led to the formation of Akar Umbi – a “trance-ethnic” fusion group – and widespread acclaim for Mak Minah as a cultural representative of her tribe. Her goodnatured willingness to be a friend to all made her an ideal ambassador for the marginalized Orang Asli community.

Audiences everywhere were uplifted by Mak Minah’s soulful voice. Her songs reflected the love and reverence indigenous peoples feel for the land. They were a powerful antidote to the cynicism and myopia of a “modern” worldview centered on money and power.

Offstage, Mak Minah was a fearless and outspoken advocate of cultural and spiritual autonomy for the Orang Asli. She fiercely opposed the State government’s plan to relocate two Temuan villages for a dam project on Sungai Selangor which would destroy the wild beauty and sanctity of the Pertak area.

“I will fight the dam as long as I live,” Mak Minah repeatedly said. But it is a heart-rending fight that has set brother against brother, mother against son, neighbor against neighbor. The psychological conflict and uncertainty exhausted her.

Mak Minah’s passionate love for the rainforest where her tribe has lived for countless generations is an inspiration to all of us who share an alternative vision – one where mutual respect for all tribes and the healing of the earth take precedence over economic and political
expediency.

POSTSCRIPT

The last time I saw Minah alive was around midday on the 21st of September, 1999. The day before I had taken her to the clinic because she was complaining of aches all over her chest and back, and she had no appetite. The doctor said Minah had a viral infection and prescribed some medicine, suggesting that she drink lots of Glucolin to get her energy back. I was on my way to Kuala Lumpur and told Minah I'd look in on her the next day.

At 3 a.m. I received a phone call informing me that she had died in her sleep at 7:03 p.m. at the Kuala Kubu Bharu hospital.

Her granddaughter Sembo and another friend were by her side. A week ago she turned 69 and three weeks earlier she had returned happy and fulfilled from Sarawak, after performing with Akar Umbi at the 2nd Rainforest World Music Festival.

Mak Minah had a very sweet smile on her face when they buried her on a hill we shall henceforth call Bukit (Mount) Minah. Ironically, she was the first to be interred in a virtually inaccessible new tribal gravesite allocated to Gerachi Villagers in view of the government's determination to inundate the old Temuan burial site with the proposed Selangor Dam. Minah swore to resist the dam to her last breath and she did.

[Reposted 14 September 2011. Source: Magick River website. Listen to Mak Minah's musical legacy here!]

Interviewed about mixed marriages for a children's book... (repost)

From my email archives, a request from Jim Holmes - author of a children's book on "mixed marriages" - for an interview that may never have seen the light of day...

Anoora, Ahau & Antares in Tanjong Malim, 1998

----- Original Message -----
From: jim@jimholmes.co.uk
Date: Tuesday, February 4, 2003 9:08 pm
Subject: Re: A Children's Book.

Dear Antares,

Here are the questions, think 12-year-olds. Can I call you by your old name, or should I call you Antares?

Antares applies as it has better exchange value.

There are no guarantees that the interview will be used, as we have 27 out of a possible requirement of 21.

Mine are not the kind of answers that questionnaires seek - not usually - but we'll give it a go.

1. What are your own ethnic roots, and what are those of your partner?

I was born to Chinese parents, but describe myself as primarily human. Anoora is from the indigenous Temuan tribe who live in the Malaysian rainforest.

2. Most people find a partner or get married within their own ethnic group, are there any social barriers to crossing ethnic boundaries in Malaysia?

The usual ones - but these barriers are beginning to disappear as TV brings more of the world into people's living rooms.

3. Do people think it strange that you did not find a partner from your own ethnic background? Does it make life difficult at times?

The raised eyebrows were not because I married outside my tribe - but because I wed someone perceived as socially inferior. My own mother, when shown a photo of Anoora, asked whose maid she was.

4. Can you communicate easily by language and do you find that your partner has different ideals and a differing set of social norms from your own?

Communication of abstract ideas is not even attempted, but feelings are easily understood and require no verbal language. Anoora is in the process of acquiring her own view of what or who she is. When I met her she was only a conduit for tribal customs and beliefs. Our worldviews couldn't be more different - like a dialogue between earth and sky.

5. Has being in a mixed marriage/relationship changed your way of looking at the world?

My way of looking at the world was already different from the norm. Living with Anoora has changed my way of looking at myself.

6. Do you think that mixing the races is one possible way forward for Malaysia?

There is a natural attraction between people of different skin color and perspectives. Over time I believe that at least one-third of humanity will be an exotic genetic mix. However, in Malaysia, Islam is a bit of a barrier to intermarriage. Not many would willingly subject themselves to compulsory change of belief system, even for love. This is a pity, as intermarriage is perhaps the most effective way to outgrow ethnic prejudices that lead to political tension.

Why?

In a multi-ethnic community that views people as individuals rather than as racial stereotypes, the politics of ethnic divide-and-rule would soon become extinct. Diversity would be celebrated, not feared.

Anoora, Antares & Eugenie in August 2009 (photo by Robin Tan)

[Originally published 27 June 2012 & reposted 24 March 2013, 1 October 2015 & 13 November 2018]

Grey Filastine ~ Visionary Poet, Percussionist & Prophet of the Apocalypse

A selection from Filastine's YouTube channel

Photo: Max Shay

A longtime Seattle resident, Filastine has been a part of the hammering rhythm section of anticapitalist tribal-rock/performance troupe ¡Tchkung!, conceiver and founding member of radical marching band Infernal Noise Brigade, and, most recently, a sweat-inducing club DJ and composer of wildly diverse and drrty laptop music.

In short, he has spent his artistic life heretofore straddling the line between unrelentingly political statement and action, and the lost-in-music euphoria of the broadest possible definition of pop music. His debut album, Burn It (on kindred avant spirit DJ /rupture’s UK-based Soot Records), steams with juddering hiphop/modern R&B rhythms, South American breaks, North African trance, and a grip of vocal and instrumental contributors from every corner of the world.

Recent years have seen an overwhelming influx of Asian and Middle Eastern textures in pop production, with gargantuan hits like “Get Ur Freak On,” “Baby Boy,” and “Toxic” threading undulating tablas, screeching Bollywood strings, etc. into their black-lit melodrama. While some of Burn It’s tracks mine these veins in a way just as instantly gratifying and club ready, Filastine’s appropriations are more legit.

A voracious traveler and student of various global musics, he has studied with Indian tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, spent weeks at the feet of the Master Musicians of Jajouka, and dug deep into the ancient-to-the-future music of Brazil. Like many great producers, Filastine is also a great instrumentalist, and his years of rhythmic study lend magnificent depth to Burn It’s varied and intricate programming. [Source: last.fm]

[Thanks to Gino 'Der Hammer' Galan for alerting me to this extraordinary guy, Filastine, who can magically transmute ugliness into beauty, despair into hope ~ the mark of an authentic artist-shaman! First posted 24 June 2012, reposted 19 November 2013]