This End of The Rainbow by Adibah Amin

Adibah Amin:
A wonderful author, journalist, translator, columnist and teacher, Adibah Amin is flexible, progressive and brave as she strive for nation building and friendship across races. Best known as Sri Delima for her “As I Was Passing” column which was a regular feature of the New Straits Times in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Adibah Amin has produced a number of novels and general reading materials such as 'Seroja Masih Di Kolam' in 1968, followed by 'Tempat Jatuh Lagi Dikenang' (1985), 'As I Was Passing 1' (2006) and 'As I Was Passing 2' (2007). As a translator, Adibah Amin had translated a book of national laureate Shahnon Ahmad's 'Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan' (No Harvest But Thorns) in 1972 as well as Keris Mas' 'Rimba Harapan' (Jungle of Hope) in 2000 and on 2012 at the age of 76, she was awarded with National Translation Personality Award 2012.

This end of the rainbow:

Adibah Amin’s first English novel with the early 1950s Malaysian settings, This End of The Rainbow is about the experiences and spirit of the students of University of Malaya, Singapore. “Amidst the frolic, the exam fever, the friendships and romance, the camaraderie and conflicts of college life, they were awakening to issues such as colonialism, social injustice and racial prejudice. Unable to isolate themselves in ‘ivory tower’ as some of their college mates did, they were acutely aware of the independence movement in Malaya (now Peninsular Malaya) and Singapore, and of the sort of society that might emerge afterwards” (Adibah Amin, 2006, p.vii).

Analysis of Adibah Amin’s This End of the Rainbow from postcolonial theory:

            This End of The Rainbow centers around the issues of colonialism, effects of war, social injustice, racial segregation, racial prejudice, racial discrimination, friendship across races and nation building. Using the postcolonial theory, we can see that how the natives were feminize, dehumanized, discriminate and marginalized in both, representations and real life in the period of colonialism.

In the page 36 and 37, from the excerpt “Husna asked for help from the British authorities but all they were interested in was whether the missing persons had connections with China or ‘the underground’. Again a friend warned Husna that further inquiries might get the Lims blacklisted by the British”, Adibah Amin illustrates how the colonial power mistreat the people who resides in Malaya. As the colonizers, the British did not assume the responsibilities of a full functioning government which provides for its citizens, rather they are using the circumstances to suit their preferences and offer benefits to them. Other examples are:

• ·         That year, Husna was pensioned off her on her forty-fifth birthday though there was no one to fill her positions as supervisor of Malay girls’ schools in Johor. Recommendations that her service be extended were politely but adamantly rejected by the colonial authorities, as her freedom fighting activities hardly endeared her to them. The family had to move out of the government quarters that was their home (p.60)
• ·         The British colonial authorities feared communist infiltration of political parties, trade unions, student bodies and cultural groups even more than the terrorist activities of ‘the jungle people’. Was the arrest of the student editors a sign that ‘the Brits’ had decided freedom of speech was too dangerous to uphold? (pp.99-100)

The British government held Malaya as its colony for hundreds of years and the brutal forces that were applied results in psychological effects on the colonized. As a healthy, adventurous child, Ayu grew up to be an aspiring writer and teacher and she loves to gain new experiences and insight about the world. However, the effect of war proved to take its toll on her. There are many instances in the novel that depicts the psychological effects of colonialism on the colonized such as:

• ·         She had a nightmare. She was a ‘freshie boy’ being ragged. The seniors were in army uniforms with heavy boots. On top of the ‘nose hockey’ and the ‘royal flush’, there was going to be ‘water torture’. A scream stuck in her throat and she woke up frozen with terror. Perhaps the ragging stories had dredged up horrors from her childhood when war brutalized man (p.9).
• ·         Ayu’s generation had been children during World War II. Some had escaped by a hair’s breadth when their little siblings were caught and thrown into the air, to fall on bayonet points. Others had seen older family members dragged away, to return total wrecks or to vanish forever. Some children, like Ayu, experienced trauma through overhearing stories whispered among adults. In their minds they were the children impaled on bayonets; it was their fathers’ heads that were exhibited on spikes; they and their loved ones were the victims of torture (pp.16-17).
•       Ayu’s Form Six classmate, P.S., never recovered from the pre-teen experience of seeing the victims of brutal killings. He had style and wit but Ayu and a few other friends knew he had lost faith in all things human and divine (p.17).
•     Often in the early hours of the morning Ayu woke up screaming, ‘Run, Lin! Hide! Bayonets! No! No! Her parents tried to comfort her every way they could (p.36)

Apart from physical forces, the imposition of British dominion, power and influence can be seen through English literature, art and architecture. The instruments of colonial domination are significantly noticeable in the education system including the syllabus. For example:

• ·   The students were a motley crowd: of various races, religions and social backgrounds, their ages ranging from seventeen to late twenties, depending on the school years the war had robbed them of. They were products of a ‘colonial’ education where subjects are taught in English, often by teachers from Britain, and maths problems used pounds, shillings, pence and involved working out how long it took to fill a British-style bathtub (p.1).
• ·         Like many other girls of their age, they led sheltered lives. Beyond their protective family circles, they learnt of love and yearning, joy and heartbreak, strength and frailty, from novels and films. Their heroines in the books they shared were Jo of Little Women and Elizabeth of Pride and Prejudice; their heroes, Elizabeth’s Mr Darcy and Rhett Butler of Gone with the Wind (p.24).
• ·         Being a year older, Ima had gone to kindergarten. ‘Standard Nought’, earlier than Ayu. In the English-medium school, however, they were put in the same class and managed to sit side by side. They practiced English words at every opportunity, oblivious to amused glances of people around them; did their homework together and got their fingers rapped for making the same mistakes; drove their singing teacher round the bend by coming in loud and clear half a second too soon; won parts in a class performance of the tea-party scene from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderful, Ima as the March Hare and Ayu as the Mad Hatter; sneaked up to the floor to see the awesome view and narrowly missed getting caught and punished (p.27).
• ·         In Standard Four she had been told to stand behind a cupboard as punishment for placing them River Rhine in Siberia (p.40).
• ·         After four years in Malay school, Ayu entered the remove class of the English-medium school in the Government Offices building and learnt to say ‘goose’, ‘gosling’, ‘duck’ and ‘duckling’ and soon after. ‘The watch in the picture belongs to Hashim. Hashim is a schoolboy…’ (p.47)
• ·         … Then came Enid Blyton’s boarding school stories and Richmal Crompton’s William with his innocent mischief (p.48).
• ·    In class there was poetry with elegant Mrs Ali and fervent Mrs Olaff of the Spanish eyes; abridged and simplified Dickens, George Eliot and Janes Austen with vivacious Miss Pillai; and bowdlerized Shakespeare with gentle Mrs Smith from Ireland (p.48).
• ·         English nursery rhymes with their catchy tunes came into the children’s lives after the war, when Ayu entered an English-medium school and Fatin and Shah just picked up the words and melodies from her. Ayu’s favourite was ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’. Fatin preferred ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’ with its satisfyingly naughty ending, ‘and pecked her on her nose’. Shah sang ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’ exultantly, identifying with the little boy drown the lane who got a bagful of wool. Ayu never outgrew the nursery rhymes but added to them school songs such as ‘Whispering Hope’, ‘Loch Lomond’, ‘La Paloma’ and ‘The Raggle-Taggel Gypsies’ (p.83)

Adibah Amin. (2006). This End of the Rainbow. Penang: MPH Group

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Rosamond, B. (May 17). Hegemony. Retrieved from https://global.britannica.com/event/postcolonialism