Once when walking briskly back from the stall with a soul the play of sun and shadow on a tree snared my attention.

I had glanced at the tree earlier as I passed by. But this time the juvenile Royal Palm was dressed to kill.

There had been a heavy downpour the very early morning. Now the sun’s rays were at just the right angle for the palm to show off.

A tear shaped nut with a vivid splash of red on its lower half of thin green nestled among its budding siblings encrusted with drops of rain that sparked like diamonds. The rain, the sun and time had all conspired to cast a net of enchantment over me. And my eyes lapped up Mother Nature’s gift.

The tree looked so happy; it drew a smile from me. To me, the Royal Palm had always been special.

I first made its acquaintance when the family moved from Bagan Ajam, Butterworth to the government quarters in Green Lane on the island. The island was unbelievably green those days.

I was 13 then. And quite mobile on my Hercules bicycle. George Town was a cyclist’s paradise. We could go two or three abreast with impunity. The year was 1957.

Francis Light's tree

Once I was on an exploratory trip and reaching the end of Hospital Road at the confluence of McAlister Road and Peel Avenue, I stopped, entranced. Straight ahead was a roundabout and at 12’oclock was the Avenue, both sides of which sported majestically tall trees crowned with green fronds.

And right smack at the centre of the roundabout was a strange apparition of a tree with its straggly limbs. It was the Baobab from Africa planted there by Captain Francis Light who founded the island in the 18th century. This particular kidnap victim was encircled by barbed wire.

It was such a joy to pedal down the avenue and finally to Gurney Drive where casuarina trees stood in parade formation all along the beach. That used to be one of my favourite hangouts especially in the cool of the evenings; just sitting on one of the benches there enjoying the whistling of the wind through the needle-like leaves.

Quite often I would be with my classmate Lau Chin Khow. We still keep in touch. He’s a grandfather twice over. Me? A father twice over.

His story is also the story of how the nation’s electric power system in the peninsula grew – a massive multi-racial effort. I’ll leave his tale for a later date. Fast forward to 1992 and I’m back from Bangkok, where I’m working, to attend to an urgent matter. I’m staying with my brother’s family and one day they take me to Gurney Drive and my heart hurt.

The casuarinas were all messed up. There was no more hope for them. Development in the form of land reclaiming had done them in.

Fast forward again, to couple of years ago and Chin Khow phones me outraged. "Sugu, they’ve chopped down Francis Light’s tree." I could have burst a blood vessel. There seems to be in this country a black hole where respect or concern for nature as well history is concerned.

As far as I can remember that bit of vandalism didn’t come to public attention. One can only hazard a guess at the reason for that callous treatment of the tree. The perpetrators could have done it in a frisson of patriotism to do away this symbol of colonisation; quite forgetting that at that time there was no such thing as Malaya – the peninsula was split into various sultanates.

The British pulled most of them together to facilitate exploitation of the land. And so Malaya was introduced to the atlas as a country albeit a colony.

That tree marked the British toehold on the peninsula if my recollection of history is right.

Link this with the authorities’ attempts to get both Malacca and George Town on the world heritage list and the contradiction becomes obvious.

You need proper historical artifacts to get aboard that particular list. And Light’s tree was a living testimony of our history.

In the same light, rubber and oil palm trees were also introduced by our ex-colonial masters, the former from Brazil and the latter, Africa. But they’ve won easy acceptance as they are invaluable as the nation’s top money spinners. You just google Baobab be enlightened on what value that tree holds for humans.

Timber temptation

Which leads to another and latest example of the low esteem nature held in certain quarters.

The Pakatan ruled Kedah’s Mentri Besar Azizzan Abdul Razak of PAS stirred up quite a hornet’s nest by announcing possible logging in gazetted water catchment areas as the Federal Government had not paid the RM100 million compensation for protecting them.

Why he is even willing to shake hands with the handmaidens of his party’s foes - Barisan Nasional linked logging companies based in Sarawak. Reportedly there is a mouth-watering RM16 billion worth of timber waiting to be harvested there.

Syaitan himself could be tempted by that kind of dough.

Pakatan’s Penang partner, let out howls of protest as that move would badly affect its water supply. Perlis would also be similarly affected. Kedah itself would stand to suffer, particularly her padi fields, which should cause the Federal Government a good deal of concern. However, so far there has been no word from that direction.

Latest bombshells

As I was writing this along came two bombshells to rock the nation.

On June 27, a report was lodged against de facto PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim by a so-called former aide, one Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan,23, at the Damansara Heights police station accusing the former of alleged sodomy.

Anwar has already filed a defamation suit against him

Three days later Anwar sought safe haven in the Turkish Embassy from an alleged assassination plot against him and left the following day after huddling with his lawyers. The sodomy charge was generally greeted with skepticism by the public as they recalled the fiasco of 10 years ago and described by Anwar as an attempt to derail his return to Parliament via by-election.

He also claimed to have evidence that the Inspector General of Police Musa Hassan and the Attorney General Abdul Ghani Patail framed the sodomy charges against him when they were the investigating officer and the chief prosecuting officer respectively during 1998-99.

The country has just about getting used to the Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu’s horrendous murder and then these double hits.

There’s a public perception that March 8 has let loose forces that appear to be spinning out of control. Decades of information control and misinformation have nurtured a dark culture, elements of which are fighting for survival.

Resistance to change arises when the power structure is threatened. Such resistance is in itself self-defeating in a democracy where the public is highly critical and more demanding of their wakil rakyat.

In this naked wrestling for power few would emerge unscathed.

There is a palpable sense of public nervousness as politicians continue to be absorbed in whatever games they are playing. Akin to Emperor Nero fiddling on the roof as ancient Rome was burning.

Everything has its time

And what has all this got to do with the Royal Palm? A fair bit I would venture to say.

Nature has decreed that everything has its time; her children come into being, express themselves in various ways, grow old, wither and die off, only to bloom again. This applies also not only human beings but also to organizations.

Contrary to the popular notion that with age comes wisdom it’s more likely to be atrophy of the brain accompanied by the unwelcome attention of Alzheimer. The other long-held belief about the survival of the fittest, always taken to mean the superior beings, has also taken a beating. It is the survival of the most adaptable say scientists. Viruses and microbes are held up as fine examples of this skill.

So now the country is in the grip of the birth pangs but is hard to predict how long the labour will last or the shape of the newly minted nation. Hopefully, the period would be short and the new nation would have all its major public institutions restored to their former integrity to regain public confidence.

The rakyat have the delivered the message. Political chiefs need to follow the lead they have set or face the consequences. They are the paymasters after all.

And back to my juvenile Royal Palm. The splash of red spread to the whole fruit but that brief moment of delight has so far not repeated itself. Nevertheless it’s still treasured. That’s nature for you. She giveth and she taketh away at her pleasure.