Articles

Dedication

To the late Boonliang and Kum Canning Sudham

I did not choose to leave you and our land only to pursue knowledge but also to become a thinking person. I must rebuild my mind that has been maimed and stunted during the formative years by a feudal education, aimed at inducing subservience and mindlessness. We were supposed to become unthinking, obedient, silent and submissive so as to be governable, exploitable and harmless. We were not to have inquiring minds and critical thinking. We must not be opinionated, forthright, opposing the authorities in any way.

Therefore my personal revolution was an attempt to overcome a famished mind and to be far away from the despots through a learning process at a new school in another country so as to mend and develop my damaged mind. Like a pregnant woman safeguarding the foetus, I took great care of the seed in my head till it could germinate and evolve. But all the while a consuming force was relentlessly driving me to deliver an end result, a book originally called The Shadowed Kingdom, on an agenda that belonged to the force of destiny.

Thus I hope you would understand now why all those heart-breaking departures had to be made. Though this explanation came too late, I pray that your enduring spirits would forgive me.
Your son,
Pira Canning Sudham