PANGKOR ISLAND: Over the next 4 days 3rd Year, Landscape Architecture from KAED, International Islamic University Malaysia, are going to do various surveys to prepare a Landscape Master Plan of Pulau Pangkor. The island is famous as the locale of the Treaty of Pangkor in 1874, the first act of British intervention in mainland Malay politics. As were in many other cases all over the world, the British made themselves invited by one of contenders in a local conflict and in this case to the Perak throne as a pretext to inviting themselves in and eventually ruling the country (and one is told that it is the Arabs who have the proverb concerning the camel and the tent!) Preceding that event, in 1670, the Dutch built themselves a fort on the island to control smuggling of Perak tin over which they had squeezed a commitment from Perak sultan to sell only to them following their policy of trade monopoly. The fort was abandoned shortly after only to be rebuilt in 1743. It was finally abandoned after Panglima Kulub and his followers over-ran it. Many attributed the original name of Dinding to the Dutch but I believe the original defensive use of the island by Muzaffar Shah, a son of the defeated Malacca Sultan who went north to intercept the Portuguese at the narrowest part of the Malacca Strait in the north gave the name to island. Fishermen, pirates and traders took refuge on the island when the strait was too dangerous for their boats is another clue to its original name. Due to the presence of many monkeys in its forest and on its beaches, the local gave the name of Pulau Kera to the British. It was renamed Pulau Aman when the British secured peace among the warring Perak groups. This reminds me of when Simanggang was renamed Bandar Sri Aman by Tun Abdul Rahman Yakub, then the Chief Minister of Sarawak when he secured peace with Bong Kee Chok and his North Kalimantan Clandestine Army in 1970s. May peace sweeps it wings over all of Malaysia, Amin.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 01:22:38 +0000
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