May 1988: Kee Thuan Chye's play on the ISA crackdown was staged. In England. With a cast comprising mainly whites who even declaimed some pantun. The address, setting and content of The Big Purge was resolutely Malaysian. It had elements of wayang kulit too.

Singaporean dramatist Robert Yeo reviews: "by telling all, in The Big Purge spilling, albeit artistically his most secret thoughts and not holding back at all, Kee knew that there was no way a Malaysian audience would get to hear what he has to say". To this day at home, the play remains in the Shadowlands, unstaged.

Yeo describes 'Purge' as "a savage political satire", "scurrilous and very funny". It begins with wayang kulit storytelling: "In the kingdom of Equaland, the Chief Minister is king."

This you-know-who CM, Sran Ti, is asking himself: "What to do about those people who have been criticising the Government? Especially the Opposition buggers. Want to know whether the people's money is going into the right pocket. Left pocket cannot meh?"

A play should be an engagement, not an experience partaken in book form. But since we can't have the one, we must make do with the other. I'd read 'Purge' recently with some pleasure but with a greater measure of pain.

Pleasure to see the themes Kee tackled which we're earnestly exploring in Malaysiakini and cyberspace creatively expressed in art. 'Purge' articulates the same anxieties currently confronting us, and does so with a relevance and immediacy that's still palpable today.

Pain because Purge is almost 20 years old and yet the issues it raised have not been resolved or significant headway made. More pain because it captured the Malaysian milieu in freeze frame; the picture 'Then' was as it is 'Now'.

The protagonist Rong (a thinly veiled Chinese) in Purge despairs of reform: "Sometimes it seems like a hopeless cause. I don't think people give a damn for our ideals. Social justice, racial integration, equality it doesn't even measure up to a bowl of rice. And that's what people care about: their pot of rice. Or, in some cases, their pot of gold. If that's endangered, then they'll fight. Or they'll leave. Otherwise, they can't be bothered. Meanwhile, the system remains as it is."

Rong's speech is something like what I lament. Most painfully for me, my cousin wrote it all of two decades ago.

Getting the truth out

"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of a king," from Shakespeare's Hamlet exemplifies Kee's mode of political writing.

Yeo's take on his Malaysian counterpart is: "The politicisation of his theatre, which began with 1984 Here and Now and The Big Purge, has led him to the conclusion that there is no one truth but many truths and much depends on who conveys and receives these truths."

In his programme notes for the first production of 1984 Here and Now, Kee wrote " self-censorship is one of the greatest diseases we have come to regard as health". This plastering of our mouth and bandaging of our brain is, needless to say, in direct correlation to the frequency and intensity that ISA is invoked.

Rong who is part of a reform movement H.O.P.E. harbours a hidden fear stoked by the HSA (the play's version is Homeland Security Act), admitting: "But in my darker, low-spirited moments, I imagine myself ending up in a cell five feet long and three feet wide, burning hot in the day and freezing cold at night."

Purge's world of Equaland is one where three major ethnic groups Equas, Chingchongs and Inayahs ostensibly live in harmony; but it's a negotiated peace that the authorities intimate can only be kept through HSA.

Beneath the surface of the state-fabricated and fake bonhomie, it's a world of seething rumours, fear of Special Branch, agent provocateurs and 'wayang sulit' (covert machinations). It's where the mob squad agitate for Inayah dance 'wadata makyam' to banned and the non-Equa is told "Ei, if you're not happy here, you can go back to Chingchongland".

It's where Woeful Wednesday (the play's May 13) is always looming on the horizon and the conniving Sran Ti goes on television to say that the big purge (Ops Lalang) is preventive action to save the country from a similar disaster.

In her introduction to Purge, writer-poet Shirley Lim says: "In the play's classification, the Chief Minister represents the power of the state to manipulate religious and social divisions to contain the segmentation of Malaysian society into a hierarchical caste system where the Equas rule over the non-Equas".

Lim writes: "The puppetry scenes stage a performance of a political world, in which the buffoonery of a Chief Minister who cannot shit is enacted simultaneously with his treachery in manipulating a racial crisis to provide an excuse to imprison dissenting opponents and to strengthen his dictatorial regime."

The dalang performs all the parts of the puppets that represent major state functionaries such as the Minister of Information, Minister of Home Affairs, etc. Interwoven with wayang kulit (as a distanced representation of Malaysian politics) is a second human drama "that draws upon the oppressive racial tensions of Malaysian everyday life".

As with Kee's other plays, Purge has a "ringing multicultural thrust" and Lim observes, "The plot in this play-within-a-play begins with the controversy raised by the position of an Inayah, Ravinen, who plans to leave the country should his deserved promotion go to an Equa."

Chingchong-ed by circumstances

Non-Equas giving up on Equaland is a central theme. In the aftermath of the big purge, Sran Ti proclaims: "So, more Chingchongs and Inayahs are emigrating, flocking like sheep to Australia. Let them, lah. We don't need them Who cares as long as I can shit in peace."

Kee examines the dilemma faced by the non-Equa and why these marginalised communities idealise 'the Elsewhere' of equal opportunities.

"Chinese Malaysians have been frequently imaged as avaricious, materialistic, unreligious, and so forth; but at the same time the dominant Malay population has been also urged to emulate them in their industry and competitive work ethic. The contradictions between culture/race competition and capitalist corporate ethics are manifest in these opposed formulations," writes Lim.

"Kee's play dramatise these contradictions as conflicts contained through a political craft of separatist racialisation and disempowerment of one caste for the special privileges of another".

The playwright himself observes: "The contradictions stem from the practices that do not cohere with the aim of forging a new world. Like the privileging of the dominant Malay race over other races in the country. Like the curbing of free and open debate on the 'sensitive' issues of race, language and religion. Like the pre-empting of the growth of a genuine multiculturalism."

The Chingchong's subordinate class position makes a character say: "We are like dogs begging and at the same time wagging our tails". This environmental conditioning breeds prejudiced views as well "When these Equas go crazy, they just run amok" which feeds the vicious circle of distrust and discord.

In Rong, Kee created a character that opts to stay put and make a go of things. In this, the husband is at odds with his Chingchong wife who desires to emigrate. There is one scene where they discuss what to call their baby. Joan says, "I've been thinking, if it's a boy, a good Christian name like David would be nice. Or maybe Joseph. Joseph Thang."

Rong replies, "I don't think it's a good idea to give the baby a Western name." Joan: "What have you got in mind?" Rong: "Sriva Daros Thang. And if it's a girl, we could call her Srita Dara Thang."

He explains, "The baby would have names from the three major races in the country More parents should name their children this way. Then maybe one day we can do away with being categorised as Equa, Chingchong and Inayah. Or Others. I hate that, it's dehumanising How can people be labelled as Others?"

In real life, Kee's children are named Soraya Sunitra Kee Xiang Yin and Jebat Arjuna Kee Jia Liang.

Appealing to sense of justice

Lim writes: "The play refuses the essentialising, stereotyping, demonising and division of Equaland (Malaysian) society into religious, raced and classed groups. It insists instead that social and national solidarity must be performed on an intercultural, interracial field".

Rong finds unexpected allies in Runid and Mawiza, a tolerant and liberated Equa couple who join in the efforts to rid Equaland of racism and injustice.

The playwright assigns the play's most passionate lines to Runid.

Speaking at a H.O.P.E. meeting, Runid declares: "The Government should be accountable to the public. Right now, racial tension is threatening our society. Is the Government doing anything to ease that tension? Or is it nurturing the seed of fear that it planted among us long before this?"

There is both applause and boos from the audience to his speech: "The various races need to come together to foster common understanding. If we leave it to the politicians, it may never come about. It must begin with us individuals, each with our sense of justice, our sense of humanity. We must do our bit for the future with a place for everyone, regardless of race and religious belief."

Kee's idealistic race dynamics is one that roots for multiculturalism and corrective endeavours. His characters in 'Purge' hold that "We have the right in a democracy to speak up against what the Government is doing wrong."

"You know more Equas like you should speak up "

Writer's note: An Equa, Haris Ibrahim, speaks up in The People's Parliament, which is a civil society initiative something like The Big Purge's H.O.P.E. movement.

Next: Interview, Kee Thuan Chye speaks his mind on politics today