'Toni lives!' - Memories of a model M'sian

A book published by Suaram to commemorate the first anniversary of the passing of Toni Kasim will be launched at 8pm tomorrow, at the Central Market Annexe in Kuala Lumpur.

I decided to undertake this project of compiling a tribute to Toni, our beloved comrade, friend and sister as her anniversary loomed.

I felt I hadn't properly grieved over her passing since her illness had occupied us in a way that didn't leave much space for grieving.

Many of us did not get a chance to say a proper goodbye to her and the ramifications of that can be seen in Arul's piece: 'A great activist with remarkable character'.

Still, Toni was mortal and the illness had left her devastated and weak. She was not in a state to accept a stream of visitors and well-wishers during those harrowing last days, so nobody need feel slighted in any way - Toni loved us all unconditionally.

Her memorial at the Annexe, Central Market, soon after her passing on June 4, 2008 left us in no doubt that Toni had friends and admirers from the entire spectrum of our community, irrespective of age, gender, occupation, religion, ethnicity or sexuality.

Suaram, the human rights organisation to which Toni belonged, had raised some funds for the treatment of her illness and we thought that a ;Tribute to Toni; by all her friends would be a fitting contribution to her memory.

But not one single contribution alone would be enough to capture the qualities, the energy, the love, the humour, the witticism, the joy, the humanity, the activism, the diversity that Toni embodied. She was so many things to so many people...a many splendoured being, you could say.

"A little clichéd maybe, Soong?" I can hear Toni's cheeky riposte.

Reading through these loving contributions by all who had known her, worked with her, struggled with her, laughed with her, loved her has given me the space to properly grieve the passing of this unique shooting star.

I remember searching the night sky for shooting stars when I was a kid. Their sudden appearance and momentary passage through the sky never failed to leave me breathless.

What brilliance! What a tail of stardust!

Despite the short burst - what a lasting impact it made on me! I would never be the same again...

We have all been starstruck by one so radiant in her character, as Seng Guan has pointed out in 'Like a Star'. We were left gasping when this shooting star was gone in a flash, leaving us to pick up the stardust she left behind...

But do be sparing with our superlatives - Kathy Rowland reminds us, that above all, Toni was a good person. She was the epitome of "many different shades of good".

'Something exemplary '

I thought that was such a fitting description of Toni's attributes and deserved to be the title of this tribute.

Far from being an unreachable star, Kathy has made a most poignant observation: "In Toni, we saw something exemplary. We found in her many parts, what was lacking in ourselves. But rather than feelings of inadequacy, she filled us with a sense of the achievable, because she was not 'awesome', or 'fantastic' or 'amazing'..."

She attracted good people. Thus, among her friends are good people like us!

Anne (Munro-Kua) and I have known Toni for quite a few years. She would come over to our place for dinner and we would sometimes have singing sessions. Those of you who heard her sing at the Suaram dinner in 2007 will know what a wonderful voice she had. If you haven't, you can still view it on Youtube .

We invited her to join the Suaram secretariat in 2001 and she proved to be a valuable asset to the organization as a coordinator, facilitator and spokesperson. It was fun to have her to banter around with to take the edge off secretariat meetings.

She shared her more private thoughts about people and things during the rides home I provided her after Suaram meetings.

But I had the opportunity to really observe her in action when we were part of the fact-finding mission to Bakun, Sarawak in 1998.

We had gone to investigate the conditions at the Sungei Asap resettlement scheme to which 10,000 indigenous peoples from the Bakun area had been resettled.

Toni's empathy with the indigenous peoples affected by the Bakun hydro-electric power plant was plain to see.

At the same time, her rapport with the indigenous peoples was wonderful to watch. I took some pictures of her in situ as you can see.

The ease with which she could relate to the longhouse folk was remarkable. As Arul has also observed, her rapport with the kampong folk during the struggles at Bukit Berembang, Ampang in 2007 was obvious and the kids there still miss her.

So it wasn't just NGO activists and young people that Toni could relate to. From her stories every time she came back from abroad, she rapped just as easily with ustaz -es in the Middle East or Turkey, transsexuals and sex workers alike.

A model Malaysian

She was, above all, our model Malaysian. Observing her, you could see how well she integrated with all ethnic groups in Malaysia.

Her capacity for Malaysian languages, even Mandarin and Cantonese, was impressive and from talking to her about her childhood, she revelled in Malaysia's rich multi-cultural setting.

Mindy ('So eloquent, so knowledgeable') and Aishah ('If there's any living left undone'), Toni's loving sisters give us a glimpse of their childhood, a delightful childhood and their school life.

I can understand their pain on seeing Toni leave for Australia at that tender age. Like Toni, I had the urge to see the world after my secondary education and I must have caused such pain to those I left behind, especially my mother.

Like Toni, I had to face the sorrow of my mother's premature passing. Conversations with Toni especially during her last days of illness revealed the deep impression her mother's death had on her. Toni's sisters write about this bind of familial love and the pain of separation.

Toni's niece, Azmah ('The best auntie in the whole world') tells us why she thinks Toni is the best auntie in the world. Obviously, Toni had such great rapport with her nieces and nephew that they thought the world of her.

Through her affinity with children I've always thought what a great mother Toni would have made but then again, there were enough kids around for her to love and enthral...

Paul Barter ('The Toni I loved'), with whom Toni spent at least 20 years of her life, tells us that Toni was adamant about not wanting kids of her own. Many activist friends of ours have made a similar decision which can take great courage.

I am glad Paul has contributed to this collection to help to fill in a gap in our knowledge of her life that we may not be too familiar with.

From his piece, we get to know about the formative years of Toni's life in Australia as well as the time when they first came back to Malaysia.

I know that Toni was devastated by the divorce when it happened in 2003. She confided in Anne and me during that very trying time for her. Toni was someone who loved intensely, to which Paul also testifies - she was not someone who would suppress her emotions.

Shanon ('Finishing each other's sentences') gives us an insight into Toni's raw emotions.

In the incident he describes during Toni's illness when there was a lapse of judgement on his part, she tells him in no uncertain terms: "If you ever do that again, I would never forgive you for the rest of my life or death! You have to push yourself into my life. Do not ever remove yourself from my life."

Shanon obviously meant a lot to Toni toward the latter part of her life. As she told the hospital staff, "He is the love of my life".

What is interesting to note is the perception of Toni by these two special men in her life.

Paul writes: "My life has been far richer for having loved you (so imperfectly) and for having been loved by you so intensely."

Shanon writes: "(She thought) I didn't love her as much as she loved me..."

And Shanon was there to receive what was to be a meaningful farewell:"The last image I have of her is of the day before she died...It was really hard, but hard as it was, she turned around and looked at me. She smiled and blew me a kiss. That's Toni Kasim."

Many contributors in this tribute have testified to her training prowess and she has trained all kinds of people in many parts of the world about women's rights and gender equality.

She has worked with the survivors of sexual assault and domestic abuse and provided community training on gender issues.

Anne Munro-Kua ('Facilitating magic') tries to deconstruct Toni's magic as a trainer for the benefit of others who take training seriously.

Above all, Toni's passion for supporting the oppressed and the marginalised was paramount and she walked her talk. She was clearly someone who held a vision of where her practice was heading.

She held fundamental beliefs, attitudes and values about learning and about her participants' potential.

From her association with Toni, Anne notices that she was also particular about technique; she was an expert facilitator who could switch roles between first, second and third person. Toni took training very seriously.

Champion of women's rights

JJ Ray has written about 'Toni's passion for life': "She followed her heart..." But although we all know she had a big heart, Toni's defining passion was her championing of women's rights typified in this widely quoted statement:

"If women are empowered, the whole community eventually moves forward. It's that simple because as the nucleus of a family and community, it makes no sense to sideline or ignore women...Without the liberation of women, there could be no real end to oppression."

It would have been good to have seen Toni win the 2008 elections as the peoples' independent candidate and to witness her practice of a fresh new form of politics in Malaysia, based on empowerment, gender equality, environmental sustainability, peoples' participation and humanity.

From the writings in this tribute, we know that her support base is so broad and diverse that it would have been interesting to watch such a political movement grow.

She would have been "the best Prime Minister Malaysia never had", according to the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ).

A far cry from the prime ministers we have had so far, Toni had: "A gift for seeing beyond the colour and obvious conurbations of a problem, to seeing the heart of what was at stake, exposing the power imbalances implicit in the various positions and showing how they could be resolved justly.

"She saw beyond race, religion or class, to the humanity in each and every person, even those with whom she disagreed..."

From her association with the CIJ and the arts circle, there was no doubt that Toni was a stout champion of freedom of expression. She was a patron of the local arts scene. Toni loved performing, whether the stage was a workshop or a theatre, she enjoyed the activity of playing the role as a trainer, activist or a singer/actor.

And from Shanon's piece, we find that Toni's last words, even on her death bed, were a laconic dismissal of her final curtain call as she tells her tearful niece: "Please don't turn this into a bad Malay drama..."

This tribute ends with a vignette into the fantasies of two voluptuous divas; it gives us an intimate slice-of-life of Toni, obviously on one of her days off. It is a refreshing picture show of Toni - alive as you and me - to anchor all our more staid tributes.

I have included a piece of writing by Toni (I wish there was more!) and two interviews with her at the end of the book to leave us with a legacy of Toni Kasim.

Don't forget to search the sky for that shooting star...Toni lives!

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KUA KIA SOONG was principal of New Era College (2000-08). He was opposition member of parliament for Petaling Jaya (1990-95); political detainee under the ISA (1987-89) and academic adviser to Dong Jiao Zong (1983-85). He is the author of ‘May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969' and ‘New Era College Controversy: The Betrayal of Dong Jiao Zong'.