In February 1982, Belgium agreed to take Isham in as a resident. He spent the next two years in Brussels, studying at the University of Leuven La Nauve and getting back into a semi-normal routine.

"I started writing letters again, stopped forging my travel papers and sneaking into foreign countries illegally. Friends started to visit me "

In 1984, Isham moved to London as he wanted to study film-making. By now, he admits, he had lost touch with the issues in Malaysia and so stayed out of politics.

He managed to finish a film-making degree at the Central London Poly ("It got pretentious and now calls itself the University of Westminster") in 1991. "My graduation film was called 'A Malaysian Werewolf in London'," he laughs. "It was so bad I had to pay people not to ask questions about it".

The trendy activist in Malaysia had then embarked on yet another trendy cause - film-making.

The return

The process of Isham's return to Malaysia began during the London years. "It was Jomo and Syed Husin Ali who convinced me to return."

Jomo agrees: "I had been telling him that he should return for years. As I had persuaded him to go into films, I felt personally responsible for him."

When the Communist Party of Malaya and the Malaysian government signed an official peace agreement in 1990 and the 'communist threat' ceased to exist, Isham thought that the time had come for him to return. He had, after all, never taken up arms in Malaysia. Only the matter of the Tasik Utara charges remained unresolved.

In 1993, he wrote a letter to the deputy home minister and got a positive response. However, he was told in London by an officer in the PM's Department that he would be arrested if he returned to Malaysia.

In March 1994, his old friend Kamarazaman Yacob visited him in London. "He helped me draft letter and took it back with him to Malaysia to meet with Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar said, 'Everything's okay, come back.'

"Zaman came to London in November and took me home." After just about two decades away, Hishamuddin Rais returned to Malaysia on November 19, 1994.

'I had hoped that time would grant me new clarity of vision. I had wanted to shed my youth, a moulting of sorts, and during the interim, I would trim my sails to the winds of circumstance, trusting to time the exulpation of youth's inadequacies - the impotent rage and humiliation that had clouded its spectacular, evanescent joy.' - Rehman Rashid, A Malaysian Journey (1993).

Pyrrhic victory

When Hishamuddin Rais returned in November 1994, comparisons to Malaysia's 'other' trendy exile, Rehman Rashid, who had returned two years earlier, seemed inevitable. Both were MCKK old boys, both were slightly large-than-life cultish figures in their time (though for different reasons), both were asked their opinion on the Hang Tuah-Hang Jebat issue by the Special Branch and both left the country in the month of October. (The reasons for the last coincidence remain a mystery to me).

When Rehman left Malaysia, he was a boy. Isham spent 20 years away; Rehman, two. Isham returned in a flurry of government negotiations. Rehman? To quote his book, he says, "When the time came to go home, then, it seemed appropriate that I should want to do so in a shadow, slipping back across the border self-effacing as a thief." It seems ironic that Rehman's re-entry to the country resembled Isham's leaving.

Rehman Rashid, of course, was never a fugitive fleeing police charges, and so, could slip "back across the border self-effacing as a thief" anytime he wanted. Isham was technically still a fugitive from the law. In a way, he is still 22, as far as Malaysia is concerned. His leaving in October 1975, he tells me, 20 years on, was a "matter of principle".

The long journey back to the town of his birth and his Ulysses-like adventures might seem, to the ordinary Malaysian, a rather big sacrifice to pay just to prove a point. In retrospect, the right-wing backlash that immediately followed the student demonstrations in 1974 made the aftermath look like a Pyrrhic victory.

There were many times during his recounting of those 20 years when I wondered if it would have been so much easier for Isham to have just returned, done the Kamunting stint and continued the 'struggle' here. At the end of the interview, I ask him this, side-stepping the larger question of 'worthiness'.

"No, I couldn't. I believed I was responsible for a generation. I represented students who trusted me. I couldn't give in so easily," he replies, vehemently. One wonders what would have happened if Isham did not make that border crossing, if he stayed behind, got caught and was sent to Taiping with Anwar, Zaman and Adi Satria.

He interrupts my "What if" musings impatiently, "What's the point speculating? I'm back and that's all there is to it. I will make my life as exciting as possible. I will never regret what I did before."

Heroes or villains

Later, I will read in a Malay political newspaper of the rumor that Isham was invited to join Umno Youth.

Later, Jomo will tell me, "I don't think Isham would have gone into politics. Now that he's back, he will probably go into film. I see him becoming a cultural figure of some significance if he gets the support."

Later, lawyer Dominic Putucheary, who represented Anwar Ibrahim during the latter's Kamunting years, will tell me, "I saw quite a lot of myself in them (the student activists of '74) and their idealism."

Later, my father, an ex-UM man himself, will tell me, irritably, "It's you, the media, who turn people into heroes or villains. This man is a just a runaway who's come back."

Later, a friend will ask me, "So, did you ask him if it was all worth it?"

I never did ask Hishamuddin Rais that question. The answer would have been too obvious. Unlike other exiles, unlike Rehman, there is no regret in his voice when he tells his story, and there is no fear for the future. No excuses.

He throws me off by this lack of regret and fear. It is now for me to decide if I should continue tagging my own vicarious aspirations on his experiences; to preserve the myth, or to tear it down and expose him as the "glorified runaway" my father dismissed him as.

Myths are created by perception - just as villains are. We make ourselves out to be martyrs, oppressed by unseen oppressors, afraid of the dark. We mythify our experiences, using people like Hishamuddin Rais as vehicles like a ritual of sacrifice, to redeem our own insecurities.

With this insight, I realise now that it is not up to me to judge the worthiness of his exile. I will now tell my friend, "Read his story. And decide yourself".

Universiti Malaya's Class of '74

June 1971

Anwar Ibrahim's public protest against the Universities & Colleges Act 1971 at a MLSUM meeting. This incident is to be cited in his 1975 ISA detention order under "allegation of fact #5" as a call to "militancy." Anwar's response, through his counsel Dominic Putucheary: "It is not unnatural for students to desire that there is student unity, as, undoubtedly, by being united, students have a certain power; and it is unjustified to attach (to) this desire a motive to incite students to militancy or violence during a so-called planned demonstration that did not even materialize."

July 1971

The Anwar-PKIM-led demonstration against the visit of the Thai premier to KL at the Federal Highway. The issue: the mistreatment of Thai Muslims in Southern Thailand. Among those arrested is Anwar, who is released without charge three days later.

1972

The taking over of the leadership of the Majlis Belia Malaysia by Anwar. The incumbent, Tunku Abdullah, does not contest Anwar's bid for the post of president.

October 1973

The Seven-Day War and the PLO issue. The first demonstration on the 13th involves just under a thousand UM students led by Anwar. They are tear-gassed. The second is a much bigger demonstration organized by MBM involving 3000 protesters at the American Embassy and the Lincoln Centre. An American flag is burned, rocks are thrown at the Lincoln Centre and the students call for the centre to be closed. Home Affairs minister Ghazalie Shafiee convinces Anwar to pacify the crowd and defuse the tension. Anwar leads the students to the national mosque nearby for prayers.

September 1974

The Tasik Utara incident. The arrests of Isham and other student demonstrators in JB spark off a protest in UM. The students under the leadership of PMUM president Kamarazzaman Yacob demonstrate for three days in front of the prime minister's office before taking over the campus and chancellery. By night, there is a "counter-coup" of sorts by, according to Kamarazzaman, the president of UM's Malay Language Society Aziz Shamsudin, who hands the university back to Ungku Aziz. The student union is officially banned - and the student union building is sealed.

December 3, 1974

The Baling peasant issue. The demonstration in front of the Selangor Club. Anwar is arrested at the National Mosque, freed by students and then arrested again when he goes to the Jalan Bandar police station to post bail for students.

December 4, 1974

The students of UM and UKM gather at the roundabout just outside the KL gates of UM to demonstrate in protest of Anwar's arrest. A rapat umum is held at the DTC. Among the speakers are UM academic staff including Dr Syed Husin Ali and Tunku Shamsul Bahrin.

December 5, 1974

Syed Husin Ali, Tunku Shamsul, KS Jijhar and Lim Mah Hui of UM and Sabiha Abdul Samad from ITM are detained under the Internal Security Act. The protests heat up around Pantai Valley.

December 6, 1974

The police field force take over operations and station M16-armed men around UM and UKM. Tear-gas masks become everyday accessories for the blockaded students.

December 8, 1974

Operasi Mayang . Adi Satria, Ibrahim Ali (president of ITM's student union), A.Rahman Rukaini (UKM) and Selamat Ahmad Kamal (USM) are among those arrested. Isham Rais, Kamarazzaman Yacob, Abu Zer Ali and Yunus Ali slip out of campus to a middle-eastern 'safe-house'. In the following weeks, more arrests are made. The UCA 1971 is amended. Kamarazzaman is detained in Seremban and joins Anwar, Syed Husin Ali, Adi Satria and others in Kamunting, Perak. Abu Zer disappears into the jungle. He is officially still at large. Isham stays underground until October 1975 when he slips out of the country through the Thai border. Yunus goes back to the university, but escapes arrest.

The End

Footnote: On April 10, Isham was arrested under the Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial, for seeking to overthrow the government via "militant means". Today is his 52nd day in detention.

SHERYLL STOTHARD is vice-president of Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM). She originally wrote the above article for the Men's Review in February and March 1995. The above is the last of a five-part series.

DOTMAI

Hishamuddin Rais

Penulis kolum ini sedang dinilai oleh polis sama ada akan dibawa ke kem tahanan lanjutan atau dibebaskan. Beliau telah ditahan selama 52 hari sejak 10 April lalu.

Hishamuddin Rais dibenarkan menerima lawatan anggota keluarga Rabu lalu.

Penulis kolum 'Dotmai' di malaysiakini kini sedang menjalani soal siasat secara intensif oleh unit-unit khas pasukan polis Cawangan Khas (SB).

Selepas 60 hari dikurung seorang diri dalam bilik kecil dan gelap dalam keadaan rehat yang tidak mencukupi, Hishamuddin akan dibawa ke kem tahanan lanjutan selama dua tahun di Kemunting, Perak jika Menteri Dalam Negeri Abdullah Badawi menurunkan tandatangan sebagai persetujuan.