E Contrario

I feel like I have come home!
- Said Kim Quek to the MPT

Famous political writer Kim Quek decided to be involved in active politics. For us who have been baptized by Reformasi, Kim Quek is not a unfamilar name.His name, viz. his pen name, initially frequently appeared in Harakah and Reformasi websites. What motivated him to write so passionately and prolifically I don’t quite know. Probably, like me and many other Malaysians, he felt he must speak up against the brutal and blatant injustices witnessed by everyone.Though I had read a lot of his articles, I only met Kim Quek personally about 2 years ago. He approached my old friend Pak Chong (Ton Sin), who is the most dedicated non ‘conformist’ political publisher when he was planning to publish a book. If I am not wrong, it was early 2005, I received a call from Kim Quek and he invited me to have a meeting together with Chong to discuss the book.

This discussion eventually resulted the publication of “Where to Malaysia?”. I recalled in the first meeting Kim Quek already conceived the layout of the book cover.

His thesis centred on who will lead Malaysia forward. We had 20 years of Mahathir, is there anyway to revert back to his reign? Abdullah is now in power, how far he could take us?

What’s our future? The key issue is: Najib? or, Anwar?

His book takes the readers through a series of thoughts over these polemics. I later found out that this title was the best seller by published by Chong’s SIRD in the last 10 years.

After the book, he became even more concerned with the latest political development. He also became more active in participating KeADILan’s program in Johor.

We became much closer. We found out more about each other. I also got to know that he had once resided in Melaka, near Machap and Selandar for a long time. But I never knew his real name.

With his membership application, I only knew now his name is Yong Thye Chong.

Now, Kim Quek, a writer, analyst and intellectual, has casted his choice:

Where to? My beloved fellow Malaysians.