Taman Tugu’s ‘human library’ brings public closer to history

KUALA LUMPUR – Taman Tugu brings out a ‘storytelling’ concept between the veteran armies and the public at the Veteran Human Library Event, Taman Tugu, here this morning.

It aims to approach the younger generation to learn more about the history and the struggle of the generation before them.

Its coordinator’s representative, Johan Abdul Razak says, Taman Tugu had a different theme for every month and they intended on recognising the veteran armies’ sacrifices for this month’s theme.

“Today, we have 12 speakers from the veteran armies and what we do is every hour, four speakers will be sharing their stories at the same time.

“The concept is like a ‘kopitiam’, we sit down and no loudspeaker, just like a book reading session,” he told Sinar Daily.

The event had scheduled three sessions at 9am, 10am and 11am for four different speakers for each session.

As for this morning, Johan said they received good outcomes from the public and the speakers themselves whereby people who came to exercise could also learn at the same time.

He added this was the second time they organised such event for the veteran and the first time was in 2019.

“We received good feedback the last time and now we are repeating it, and as Taman Tugu was named after Tugu Negara, we are taking this chance to recognise the sacrifices of our armies,” he said.

One of the speakers, Major Datuk Sallehuddin A Muttalib, who joined the military from 1960 until 1983 says, he decided to retire early from his service at the age of 33.

Retired army Major Datuk Sallehuddin A Muttalib showed old pictures of him during his service.

“During my time, I got blood on my hands as I was assigned to apprehend and kill the enemies

“Until one time, I was ordered to end the life of this particular enemy leader and his wife, and that was when I suffered Post Traumatic Syndrome Disorder (PTSD),” he said.

In regard to today’s event, he said it was a good move to make people recognise veteran armies and acknowledge their struggles before.

Meanwhile, Datuk Paul Kiong who served with the police force was also directly involved in the second Malayan emergency involving the communist from 1968 until 1989.

“My task was to infiltrate the enemy’s organisation, get their intel and either we capture them or kill, however, my concern is not to murder since the dead body is useless to the headquarters.

“If anything, we wanted the intel and information to rescue them (communist) back to society and help them to contribute back to the nation,” he said.

Kiong added from the current generation really enjoyed the peace, but somehow they need to know and have knowledge of how Malaysia reached peace and prosperity that we have now.

On top of that, Kiong said the ideology of communism in Malaysia was very illegal and we could never survive with the ideology.

Other speakers invited were Captain Dr Wong Ang Peng, Lieutenant General Datuk Nawi Alias, Lieutenant Colonel Ajaya Kumar, Superintendent Amidon Anan, Inspector Ratnam Subramaniam, Lieutenant Colonel Tan Siew Soo, Brigadier General Datuk Mohd Arshad Raji, Lieutenant Colonel Ahmad Ghazali Abu Hassan, Ingenieur Lieutenant-Colonel Raymond Goh Boon Pah and Brigadier General Datuk Goh Seng Toh.