Merdeka Musings

This is an abridged version of the editorial written by Ho Seng Ong in the August-September 1957 issue of the Methodist Message. We reprint it here as its message still speaks to important issues we face as a nation after 50 years of Independence.                          – Editor

Methodists living in the Federation of Malaya including their friends and families in Singapore and other lands will welcome gladly the coming of Independcnce to Malaya on 31st August 1957. This joy will be all the greater because Malayans will be able to celebrate the occasion with the happy thought that Independence has been won with a tremendous amount of goodwill and understanding.We specially refer to those who have been responsible for the success of the “Merdeka Mission” — the Chief Minister Tengku Abdul Rahman and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd and their associates — who have right from the start carried out their responsibilities not only with skill but also with much sympathy and appreciation of Malayan problems. In our rejoicing we do well to remember the worthy part they played in laying the foundation of our Independent Malaya.

Meaning of Freedom
Independence, Freedom and Liberty — these are concepts which have profoundly stirred and moved the hearts and souls of men throughout the ages and in all lands. At first, man’s struggle was to free himself from the limitations and restraints of nature; his progress has been very largely attained by his learning to understand his environment and thereby winning his “freedom” from the privations, difficulties and terrors of his external life. But it is good not to forget that in many ways man can never be completely free. As philosophers say, it is man’s finiteness that binds him. There is no total escape from that.

But in the realm of the mind and spirit man can win his finest victories, for freedom, in the final analysis, is a religious and not a political concept. This is not written to belittle the political freedom Malaya is obtaining this month, but because when we think of man, the most significant questions we can ask, and the only questions which really matter, are, “What are the essential and deepest needs of Man?” and closely related to that, “What are the true values of life?” For man possesses an immortal soul which explains why he can never be satisfied with only the physical necessities of this earthly life. Paul Tillich’s terse comment that “Freedom makes man man” is therefore much to the point.

The Freedom worth winning refers then to such precious intangibles as freedom of the individual to work out his salvation, freedom of thought, of initiative, freedom to worship God as you please, freedom to choose our rulers - things of the spirit and man’s inner self.

On this point, our Bible makes it quite clear that when it speaks of liberty and freedom, it refers to life at its highest and best. Recall John 8:32 — “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” To be free is therefore a moral achievement. Paul’s declaration, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” proclaims that there can be no true liberty where the spirit of Jesus is not present. We certainly will not have liberty worth talking about if there is envy, jealousy, distrust and hatred in place of tolerance, good-will, brotherhood and love. Was not John Milton saying the same thing when he wrote, “None could love freedom heartily but good men; the rest love not freedom but licence”.

Our hope and prayers are that Malayans in gaining political independence may strive to win the higher freedom, the freedom to be good and noble and right. For Freedom may lead us downward, just as it can lead us upward, to be the kind of men and women who will make Malaya the country fit for the best of ourselves and our descendants.