The banishment Act in 1959 (Act 79) could banish a person from the state or expulse from the country. This law is only applicable to aliens or persons who had acquired citizenship by registration or by naturalization and not for Malaysians who are born here.
It was fairly common in earlier days of Malaya States that people got caught involving with communism or related activities were "Buang Negeri"! There were incidents where the early Chinese settlers were deported back to China once convicted of such illegal involvement.
Do you know that Malaysia also could banish a person from a town and then be sent into "exile" in another city or village? It was common then the Chinese would refer such punishment as " Uang Fou", because the local Chinese could not pronounce the word "Buang" well enough while "Fou" refers actually to town! People committed offences in gangsterism or illegal lottery jockeying when found guilty were banished from their residential township and transferred to another far away town or village as an act of punishment by the police. They have to report to the local police station at specific intervals of time to indicate their presence and physical confinement in that particular area as specified by the police or the Home Ministry!
I remember those days while my family was still staying in the house of my grandparents, a family of "Cheong Goh" or the "Taikoh Cheong" was banished from Ipoh for involving in gangsterism and rented a room in my grandparents' home. The renting was made possible because the wife "Wan Jie" of "Cheong Goh" was related to a neighbor of us next door otherwise nobody would want to rent a room to convict or gangster! But this person and his family were nice people and you would not be able to see a trace of gangsterism in them because they were soft spoken and behave well like any other normal people. Only those people knew the background would know he was actually the head of gangsters in Ipoh area. We befriended his children, one by the name of "Monkey Ying" while another younger sister of her, I could not remember her name, but she spoke in a stammering manner and could not pronounce her words clear enough as normal kid of her age, as though her tongue got sticky and stucked somewhere . The family ran a curry mee store selling in the market place to earn a living. Probably from earning big illegal money earlier and now downgraded to a mee hawker in the village.
They had been staying with us for a period of about 1-2 years when the banishment period expired and then they returned to their original residence in Ipoh. The last time my friend Seng Meng and a few others including I had visited them in Ipoh in a massage parlour operated by "Cheong Goh" somewhere in Pasir Putih. That was the last time in years 1977-78 that I visited them as friends.
I remember another person by the name of "Ah Gone" who involved in the illegal lottery was banished from the village to somewhere else, but I did not see him anymore after so many years. The irony is that the biggest tycoon in illegal lottery is still in town though everyone knows who he is. Somehow he is able to gather all his wealth, send his children to study overseas, buy a few houses and shops, own expensive cars, live happily but never get caught. This is the wonder of money that could do a lot of things and you know what I mean!
Illegal lottery is simply too lucrative a business and I would say it is rampant in many small places even far away from cities and towns. Most village folks wanted a windfall very much because of their meagre income earned the hard way, and this lottery scheme fits into their life style and is probably the only way out in a village setting for these poor folks to fulfill their dreams! This has now become an addiction for many villagers and even women, how sad is this!
Very informative. Thanks for sharing. I can only imagine Malay men making own "buang negeri" or exile so that the state syariah cannot get to them!!
ReplyDeleteThank you for visiting!
ReplyDeleteAdding to this, my uncle had beaten up someone for owing him money I think. That drew in the involvement of gangsters from the get beaten up party.
Taikoh Cheong helped him to settle the problem!
Wo...can't imagine how lives can be affected by these gangsters. We still have them and thugs and terrorists, mat rempits...Another window to life.
ReplyDeleteMy hubby says these early gangsters we also people banished from China. So my opinion is banishment is only transplanting the problem elsewhere.
When a country was poor and a lot of people then turned to gangsterism. A lot of the early immigrants are poor farmers or fishermen from the coastal areas of China while the more well-to-do remained behind but unfortunately the country fell to communism.
ReplyDeleteIt is therefore important for us to filter all those foreigners entering Malaysia from Indonesia and Philipine and a lot of these could be convicts or gangsters banished from their own countries. During my time in the village, our gangsters after killing someone normally fled to Thailand!
In the earlier days, most of the gangsters and secret societies in Malaysia were run by Chinese. But nowadays most of them seem to be from the Indian community!