I REMEMBER a black car coming to our home in Kuala Lumpur to pick my late father and that the appearance of this car shocked the neighbourhood in Kampung Baru. Later on my brother told me it was a Bentley.

My father later said it was a personal car of Tunku Abdul Rahman, the country’s first prime minister. Why his car came to my home, according to my father’s brother, was that my father was called on a “special mission” to counter Indonesia’s belligerent stance towards Malaysia.

Who my father was and what he did for a living or how he served his country I do not know, but I do remember
how they congregated at a place called the New Hotel, and at this hotel he met Tunku, Senu Abdul Rahman,
Khir Johari and Tun Razak among others. It is sad that I did not know what he did for the country, but I do know later on in life that I received a generous scholarship from Lee Foundation and this much my father told me before he died.

“I met Datuk Senu and told him about your difficulty in continuing with your studies in Canada and Datuk Senu took a napkin and wrote something and told me to take it to someone at the Lee Foundation, and that is how you got your money,” he said.

This week is not about my hardship, but about camaraderie, friendship and sacrifices that people make so that they can live proudly and with dignity. I stumbled upon a website from Canada’s National Film Board (NFB) with a story by a renowned Canadian film-maker Jari Osborne.

She made a film about her father, a Canadian-born, Canadian-Chinese man, who had to fight discrimination throughout his life. In his story, he had to be dropped in the jungles of Malaya just so he could claim a place in Canadian society and be recognised as a Canadian patriot who was willing to sacrifice his life to defend Canada.

This week is about man’s greatest folly that we call discrimination. It is a bane to any society, so Malay- sia be aware.

Back to the story, even though these Canadian-Chinese were born in Canada, they were not accepted as full-fledged Canadians because they were of Chinese descent.

When I watched the film clip on YouTube about the exploitation of about 15 Canadian-Chinese who were thrown behind enemy lines in Malaya during World War II, I was seething with anger and quietly shed tears when I watched these gallant young Canadians having to endure hardship just trying to prove they were worthy of being Canadian.

One was quoted in the film as saying how they were not allowed to join the army to fight the Japanese and Germans during the war because they were Chinese, even though they were born and bred in Canada.

“It’s like if you are riding in a ship and the ship caught fire, you want to help put the fire out, and Canada was that ship,” he said.

He added that he and the rest of the Canadian-Chinese were not allowed to join mainstream society because they were Chinese!

Politicians at that time were afraid if they fought for Canada in the war they would be asking for full voting
rights as ordinary Canadians.

Only in recent times have Canadian-Chinese been allowed to vote.

These men got their wish when the Allied powers, namely the British at that time, thought the best way to fight the enemy was to be thrown behind enemy lines and to inflict damage, so 15 Canadian-Chinese were dropped into Malaya to help organise Force 136…..you heard it correctly, Force 136.

I am a war buff, especially the exploits of Force 136. When the subject of Force 136 came up, names such as Tan Sri Ghazalie Shafie or the late Datuk Yeop Mahiddin would always pop up in my mind.

In light of this new information, I am proud and happy that Canada’s NFB decided to set the record straight.
Imagine the Canadian connection with Malaya since “time immemorial” and imagine a brave 15 specially trained young Mandarin and Hokkien speaking Canadian-Chinese flown in from Poona, India to Nicobar Island and then to Pahang to help organise the famous Force 136.

However, the battle, for them, was not over. After the war, they were sent back home to find they were not even allowed to join or open a Canadian-Chinese chapter of Veterans in the Canadian Legion.

Finally, the law not to allow Canadian-Chinese to vote was repealed and common sense prevailed; people do learn and Canadian-Chinese were allowed to vote, and slowly they were accepted into the Canadian way of life.

The first Canadian-Chinese Member of Parliament was Douglas Jung, who later represented Canada at the United Nations. So for those of you who are curious to find out more about the story, Google “Unwanted Soldiers by Jari Osborne” and maybe we Malaysians can learn a lot about being 1Malaysia, eh.

Who knows we might even learn how to laugh at ourselves and to live as one family happily ever after.

Actually, I would like to see that before I die. This is such a great country but I am saddened by a lot of psychological and political baggage we have as a country.

Maybe we have to remember the 15 daring, desperate and proud Canadians who had to go to great lengths to prove they were as loyal as the rest of the white Canadians at that point in time.

What has my father to do with the exploits of the 15 Canadian-Chinese? Well, the Canadian-Chinese were made to swear not to tell their story to the world. Theirs was a secret project, or perhaps it was that their contribution should not be made public. I wonder what secrets my father held close ‘til the grave.

Footnote:
THIS NFB documentary tells the personal story of film-maker Jari Osborne’s father, a Canadian-Chinese veteran. She describes her father’s involvement in World War II and uncovers a legacy of discrimination and racism against British Columbia’s Canadian-Chinese community.

Sworn to secrecy for decades, Osborne’s father and his war buddies now vividly recall their top-secret missions behind enemy lines in Southeast Asia (namely Malaya). Theirs is a tale of young men proudly fighting for a country that had mistreated them. This film does more than reveal an important period in Canadian history.

It pays moving tribute to a father’s quiet heroism.