March 29, 2012
Nuraina Samad Recalls: 'This is a Communist's Daughter!'
by Aidila Razak@www.malaysiakini.com
"It was really early, about 2a.m. you was sleeping as well as you listened a rapping upon a gate," pronounced maestro journalist Nuraina Samad, looking into a distance, as if returning to her 20-year-old college girl self, asleep as well as safe in her parents' home.
Her comparison brother went out to examine as well as found group saying they were from a military Special Branch, demanding to be let in as well as who later ransacked their father's room.
"I recollect saying a single of them pulling out a book by Pearl S Buck. you recollect thinking 'Why is he picking which book?'" pronounced a camera-shy New Straits Times Managing Editor.
At a end of dual hours "I recollect it being a long time" a group pronounced they were receiving her father, A Samad Ismail, afterwards deputy editor-in-chief of a New Straits Times, divided underneath a Internal Security Act.
It would be about dual months before she saw her father again. But this time, customarily upon television, upon a 13th building of a Mass Communications wing during a afterwards Institut Teknologi Mara (ITM, right divided UiTM), in a room where she was ostensible to have a night lecture.
"Inilah manusia bernama Samad" (This is a male called Samad) The gall! you was so indignant which they were treating Bapak similar to that. And when my father spoke he didn't customarily speak similar to that," Nuraina said.
It was a single of dual televised confessions whi! ch Samad would be forced to have during his five years underneath a ISA.
Nuraina has given realised which her father put upon a opposite accent to "put a number" upon his interrogators as well as to let his desired ones, whom he was not authorised to meet, know which it was all a show.
Taunts as well as tears
But recalling which day in her blog, which she began penning in 2007 to arrange out dark memories spilling out "like ribbons", Nuraina wrote which she stormed out of a harangue room, incensed with afterwards Home Affairs Minister Ghazalie Shafie.
In a same post, she would recall a day she was called an anak komunis (communist's daughter) by a foreigner upon campus, as well as how she gave chase, wanting to sock a person who had taunted her in a face.
"Would they be calling Lalin as well as Nina which too? Azah as well as Kamal?" she wrote in a post, recalling how protecting she was of her younger siblings.
Nina, a youngest of a lot during customarily 6 during a time, too, was a plant of such taunts."She was in Standard One She took a propagandize train as well as in a train somebody said, "Ini anak komunis!" (This a communist's daughter!) as well as she roughly punched which boy.
"She was crying. So my mom took her out of a train as well as proposed promulgation her to propagandize by car. My mom told her it's okay. you always reason this is how a single should insist (things) to children: 'Some kids have been just not nice'," she said.
"Normal upon a outside", Nuraina vented out in her own ways, writing term papers advocating a repeal of a ISA since it could be abused by politicians, desiring which her father's "set up" was justification of such abuse.
"They pronounced he was a mastermind. His dual friends were arrested! in Sing apore as well as declared him as a mastermind. Wow, he must have been a little arrange of a mastermind.To cut a story short, it was a lot of bull. (Then Singapore budding minister) Lee Kuan Yew, well, right divided you can contend he was during a behind of it. you can contend which Ghazalie Shafie (left) was during a behind of it.It was connected to a Malaysian domestic intrigue you can tell you it was set up," she said.
Nuraina, who proposed operative for a NST when her father was in detention, was so indignant with Ghazalie, additionally well known as King Ghaz, which she never lonesome any eventuality where a apportion was present.
"I told my bosses, 'Don't send me to any of his assignments since you could do a little rapist thing.' you do not know if they really believed me, though maybe they suspicion you was so indignant which you might," she said.
But which was as distant as Nuraina would go in describing her loathing for King Ghaz, out of respect for a dead. He died in 2010, dual years after Samad.
Letter to a PM
According to an obituary created for Samad by his ? la mode Lim Kean Chye, a dual friends were Singapore's Berita Harian editor Hussein Jaiddin as well as a daily's reporter Azmi Mahmud.
The duo were arrested in Singapore in Jun 1976 as well as confessed to being part of a comrade tract to criticise a governments of Singapore as well as Malaysia, as well as had implicated Samad. Lim additionally wrote which Samad's apprehension was linked to Dr Mahathir Mohamad's appointment as Deputy Prime Minister, sidelining afterwards DPM hopeful Ghazalie, who reason a absolute post of Home Minister as well as sought to use a ISA arrests to criticise his pass rival.
It would be DPM Mahathir who se! aled a m inute allowing Nuraina as well as her family to visit their father during a Jalan Bandar Police Station, months after his arrest. The meetings took place every Tuesday after that.
Mahathir had responded to a "heartfelt" minute created by family crony as well as laureate Usman Awang ("we called him Pak Cik Tongkat") requesting which a family be authorised to meet Samad. It was addressed to afterwards budding apportion Hussein Onn.
Samad (far left) was not reason during a Kamunting apprehension camp though during a house, a location of which he never disclosed to his children, even after his release.
"When you saw a minute you thought, 'That's it. If you still can't see Bapak after this, they have been really cold hearted.' The minute was so touching, in Pak Cik Tongkat's own way. He was similar to a father to us," Nuraina said.
Samad's friends as well as neighbours in Section sixteen of Petaling Jaya, people similar to Syed Hussein al-Attas as well as Melan Abdullah, became a family's await group. Unlike today, she said, families of those reason underneath a ISA afterwards had no await from lawyers or polite society, as well as were mostly left to their own resources.
"The incident was such which nobody dared (to do anything). There were no likes of Ambiga (Sreenevasan) or Haris (Ibrahim) or Malik Imtiaz. There were no advocates to await us. People have been luckier now. If they were arrested underneath a ISA, a whole nation would behind them up. You could see which in 2006," she said.
Learning to forgive
So "fatalistic" was a mood of a family upon Samad's detain underneath a ISA which Nuraina pronounced there was even a time when she suspicion her father would be sealed up forever. It was her mother, Hamidah Hassan who was during a single time a face during a behind of Berita H! arian's long-running agony aunt mainstay Cik Sri Siantan who kept a family grounded.
"My sisters were working. If they weren't, you cannot suppose what my mom would have left through.My father's EPF could barely compensate for a house Journalists have been terrible monetary managers. We realised afterwards which my father's monetary accounts were in a mess," she said.
Looking back, Nuraina pronounced she could not suppose how her mother, who had stood by her father when he was incarcerated, could have survived a experience.
Her mom did not pierce for a long while after her father was taken divided though when she did, she told her immature kids which their father would be home soon.
"When you have been young, you do not see. She's a mother, she's ostensible to be strong. Now you consternation how she could have done all that, left by all that," Nuraina said.
While she as well as her siblings coped by art, song as well as dance Nuraina is a trained dancer it was their mom who taught them a power of forgiveness.
"It's just similar to as you go by life as well as she would talk about great things. This happens, though let's not suffer. Believe which they done a mistake, my mom would say," she said.
Hamidah would tell her immature kids to reason which those who were wronged would be "saved by God" as well as those who did wrong will humour more.
"It wasn't about hate, hate, hatred as well as anger. No. Or else you would have left crazy.We were so immature as well as there was still time to learn us about alternative things which you could reason upon to," Nuraina added.
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