Pudu Jail's Death Sentence

~ This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper ~

If Pudu Jail had a voice. If those historic walls could speak. If those forbidding iron gates were allowed a final death rattle. They may have very well quoted T.S. Eliot.

After all, that was exactly how the iconic century-old prison's world had ended. After a lifetime of keeping the city safe from evildoers, after more than a 100 years of drama, intrigue and controversy, the jail's landmark mural-adorned walls came tumbling down in a bulldozer attack carried out in the dead of night. The reason for this ignominious end? It had to be demolished to make way for wider roads.

It's the tragedy of Malaysia that as we put on our blinkers and stolidly march towards the stated aim of becoming a developed nation, we seem to be more intent on imitating nouveau riche Dubai's crass materialism and uncouth notion of modernism than in aspiring towards the beautiful blend of space-age wonders and historic, cultural and environmental preservation one sees in Europe and America.

The sad story of Pudu Jail, built in 1891, is not an alien one here however. After all, it wasn't so long ago that the Information, Culture and Communications Ministry (A misnomer if there ever was one!) tore down Bok House, one of the most beautiful buildings to have ever stood in Kuala Lumpur.

Then, as now, the government bulldozed its way past public opinion as thoroughly as it did through the lovely old house. Read the story here.

What makes the Pudu Jail case more annoying however, is that there are so many things that can be done to turn the disused prison into a money-spinner for the Tourism Ministry and a host of other spin-off industries. Unlike Bok House, which was mainly a private residence, Pudu Jail was a place where a multitude of historically fascinating events occurred.

It housed Allied soldiers during the Japanese Occupation around World War II. Some of Malaysia's most notorious criminals once called the place home. It was the centre of international dispute when two Australians were executed there in the 1980s for drug trafficking. Not so long ago, Hindu Rights Action Force activists were held there following their organisation of a massive public protest.

With a history like that, only a fool would say it could not be turned into an income-generating tourist attraction.

For examply, let's take two of the most famous prisons in the world - Alcatraz Island in San Francisco and the Tower of London in, well, London.

Alcatraz Island, according to a Viamagazine report, draws 1.3 million tourists a year. Its minimum ticket price for adults is US$26. The maximum is US$58, making the average ticket price for an adult US$42. Multiply that by 1.3 million and you get a staggering US$54 million, or RM175 million, in income every year.

The Tower of London, on the other hand, draws 2 million visitors yearly and has an average ticket price of 16 Pounds. Thats a yearly income of 32 million pounds, which is RM155 million.

Bear in mind that these figures don't factor in elements like merchandising and such. And don't forget that such tourist attractions give rise to an army of subsidiary businesses like tour operators, food vendors, maintainence companies, transport operators, etc.

Merely keeping Pudu Prison open as a tourist hotspot could have brought the city more benefits than a hundred Berjaya Times Squares, just across the road from the prison, will in a thousand years.

But of course the geniuses charting our nation's course have decided that Pudu Gaol is not something worth remembering. (MIS)Information Minister Rais Yatim in fact went on record to insist that Pudu Jail should NOT be made a national heritage.

In the eyes of these leaders (and I use the term "leaders" in the loosest possible sense of the word), only the salubrious things, only the things that we did right, are worth remembering.

We are none of us supposed to remember the darker aspects of our history.

Going by that logic, the world should not remember Jack the Ripper. Auschwitz should be flattened. All traces of the Incan empire, which practiced human sacrifices, should likewise be eradicated. The world should only retain bright shining examples of our triumphs so we can blisfully repeat the mistakes of history over and over again.

To put the icing on the cake, Rais told the media that the bright lights at the National Art Gallery dismissed the jail's 394-m long wall as unsignificant. They apparently said the wall, painted by inmates and once the world's longest mural, was "graffiti with lots of scenery".

It seems that everybody but the Barisan Nasional government is able to see the significance of the prison and its wall. Foreign publications and civil society, opposition politicians and ordinary Malaysians all voiced bewilderment at the government's actions.

And in the end, when the dust from the wrecking balls has settled, what'll be left? Well, according to Rais (again), only the arched gate of the prison will be retained as a memorial. The wall and everything else will probably be considered detritus and treated as such.

Meanwhile, in Germany, 2 to 4-inch fragments of the Berlin Wall are going for between US$55 to US$290. Makes it pretty obvious that the brains drained out of good ol' Malaysia a long time ago, doesn't it?

What's Neither Useful, Nor Good and Often Not Even True?

I got a lovely email from Dharshini Balan recently. It's about how this dude approached Socrates with a juicy piece of gossip that he couldn't wait to spill.

The philosopher stopped him before he could talk, telling the man that he would be put through a Triple Filter test before being allowed to share his salacious story, which was about Socrates' student.

The first filter was whether or not the man, let's call him Bob, knew if the story was true. He didn't.

The second filter was whether Bob's story was something positive about Socrates' student. Bob's answer was, unsurprisingly, no.

The third and final filter was whether or not the news would have been of any use to Socrates. Bob again replied in the negative.

So, old man Socrates said, "If the story is neither true, nor good, nor useful to me, why would I want to hear it?"

And with that, the eager beaver rumour-monger slunk quietly back to the hole he had come from.

Looking around us today, it would seem like we could all do with a good dose of Socrates' common sense.
Society seems to thrive on gossip today. Scratch that. Society seems to WORSHIP gossip. We have blogs, websites, TV shows, newspaper articles, even entire magazines, devoted to the fine art that gossip has become.

How long does it take for a dirty little Hollywood secret to graduate from low whispers to a gleeful blow-by-blow account on Perez Hilton's Twitter feed?

How quickly does the New York Times or Washington Post jump on the case of a philandering politician?

Closer to home, how often do we come across SMSes that make the most outrageous of claims, stirring us up into a fine frenzy, often for no good reason at all.

Remember the "case" of the Muslims being converted into Christianity in Silibin? Or how about the alacrity with which Chua Soi Lek's sex video was distributed by anybody who had access to email?

Do people even ask themselves anymore what, if anything, this kind of gossip brings to their lives? How does it affect us if Lindsay Lohan is caught snorting coke for the millionth time? Or if some American senator takes a dirty weekend off in South America? Or if Chua Soi Lek is getting some tail on the side?

We pretend that it is important that our politicians and movie stars and sports heroes be good role models. But the truth is we will still continue voting for them, watching their movies and seeing them play if it suits our purposes and our interests. At that moment, it's morals be damned. Who cares if all this is neither good, nor useful nor true? It's fun. Yee haw! Fact is, it's almost impossible to find a person with Socrates' sense of decency these days.

But even as I write this, I realise the hypocrisy of my words. I, more than most others, relish gossip, especially if it's about people I dislike. There's a malicious kind of satisfaction in hearing and re-telling stories that are embarrassing and negative about them, even if the stories may not necessarily be true and even if they may be irrepairably damaging. But the evil troll in my heart takes over and decides that the consequences don't really matter because the story is too much fun not to broadcast.

It's interesting to note that in Dante's nine circles of hell, sowing discord - which is often the ultimate result of malicious gossip - warrants one a lengthy sojourn in the ninth bolgia of the eighth circle of hell.

Its "esteemed" placing is bad enough, considering there are only nine circles of hell altogether. But when you consider that pimps, thieves, sodomites and even corrupt politicians are considered less evil, you begin to realise that the sowers of discord are considered scum even in hell.

The punishment meted out to them is also stomach-churningly dire. In the ninth bolgia, a sword-wielding demon hacks them, dividing parts of their bodies as in retribution for the way they divided others.

As the damned make their rounds there, the wounds heal, only to have the demon tear apart their bodies again. Not a fate one would wish even on one's worst enemies. Well, maybe on the very worst of enemies. You know, characters like evil ex-girlfriends, bitchy relatives, sadistic bosses and backstabbing friends...

Ultimately, to gossip is to indulge in one of the basest of human instincts. Like all other perverse pleasures, it gives the gossiper a twisted sense of satisfaction and joy. But it does nobody any good and neither the gossiper, nor his listener, nor his victim comes out smelling of roses.

That being said, the saintly Socrates never found out that his student Plato was also having an affair with his wife.



NOTE: I am extremely sleepy and tired as I'm writing this, so pardon me if my grammar sucks and I don't sound entirely coherent.