It was a challenge to maintain one's health and avoid disease

by Dr Yeoh Seng Guan

In the Malaysian public imagination, urban �squatter colonies� generally conjure up strong negative imageries. Indeed, the mass media routinely describe them as �eye-sores�, �places of squalor�, �nests for criminals�, �fire-hazards�, �death-traps� and so forth. Usually in the same breath, they are portrayed as hindrances to �development� and �progress�, particularly so when they occupy commercially lucrative space in a rapidly shrinking urban land bank.

Wooden Shacks and Modern Housing

Housing developers and public authorities typically labour to transform a haphazard congregation of wooden shacks into a panorama of symmetrical modern housing structures. To achieve this end, as numerous well-documented cases throughout Kuala Lumpur city have shown, developers and authorities have characteristically resorted to forced eviction and the destruction of these squatter colonies.

About 6 years ago, I commenced fieldwork research on a Tamil-dominated squatter colony � Kampung X - situated on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur city. Then I had vague, unfounded notions of how my �subjects of study� made sense of their seemingly abject material conditions. Nor was I familiar with the wider historical legacies that had given birth to and shaped the legal category of �squatting�. Subsequently, writing up my research after a year�s fieldwork was an agonising and convoluted experience.

Origins of Squatting

The illegality of �squatting�, as we understand it today, is a comparatively recent historical invention. In the pre-colonial period, �proprietary rights� over land took the form of human labour and were not vested in abstract title deeds.

As long as one was able to show evidence of continuous appropriation and occupation, the land was said to be �alive� (tanah hidup). Where occupation and cultivation had ceased, the proprietary right of the occupant was understood to have lapsed, and the land became �dead� (tanah mati).

This manner of land acquisition was termed meneroka or membuka tanah (�to open up land�). When it was carried out on a larger scale, the terms membuat negeri (�to open up a state�) or berbuat negeri (�to create a state�) were used.

Origins of the Squatters

Most of the older generation residents of Kampung X originated from rubber plantations around the country. They were the direct descendents of Tamils shipped over from British India to work as coolies in British Malaya. Many had decided to escape the bleakness of plantation life and migrate to Kuala Lumpur in search of the proverbial better life in the capital city.

When the earliest pioneers arrived at the locality some 30-40 years ago, the terrain was inhospitable. Decades of tin-mining activities had transformed the locality into a vast tract of barren, nutrient-depleted and sandy wasteland. Some residents even remember nicknaming the place, �The High Chapparal� after a contemporary popular cowboy TV series.

It was a daily challenge to maintaining one�s health and avoiding disease. Nearby disused stagnant pools provided breeding grounds for hordes of mosquitoes while drinking water had to be obtained from deep wells. In the absence of mains electricity supply, residents relied on kerosene lamps and car batteries for night lighting. Only years later were basic amenities secured for the kampung.

Housing and Community

Dwellings were erected with an assortment of scavenged and purchased building materials. These houses were organic in character, and had a variety of construction styles. As households grew in size through births and marriages, and when financial circumstances permitted, the houses underwent incremental extensions and renovations. By the time of my fieldwork, quite a number of houses in Kampung X had become modestly comfortable dwelling abodes although they appeared to be ramshackled to outsiders.

With the increase of Tamil households in the locality, various kinds of efforts were made to create and foster a semblance of a cohesive and harmonious traditional Indian village community. The festivities of the local Hindu temple throughout the year became an important part of this community-building activity.

But sustaining the community was also a constant uphill battle. Factional leadership disputes and inter-household tensions occasionally flared up, fuelled in part by the competing patronage of aspiring mainstream politicians building on their vote bank. Moreover, the kampung acquired a notorious reputation as groups of disenfranchised and disenchanted local youths became involved in petty crime, drugs, and inter-gang clashes.

Then Came Development

For years, the residents of Kampung X had watched apprehensively as �development� in the form of the modern housing estate (the taman) crept closer to their doorstep. They had heard about the fate of other kampungs throughout Kuala Lumpur which had to make way for commercial and residential development. The local authorities wanted to make the city �squatter free� before the turn of the new millennium.

Before I completed my fieldwork, Kampung X was demolished to make way for a mini-township that had a mix of up-market commercial, residential and recreational facilities. Many of the residents affected were relocated to two-room, walk-up, low-cost flats which were purchased at a discounted price from the developer. Others were moved to compact interim housing called rumah panjang (longhouses) situated elsewhere in the city.

Living in Flats

Moving into these flats was a mixed experience for Kampung X�s residents. They had joined the ranks of the recipients of modern housing, and now enjoyed a status that the younger generation tended to be more concerned about. The stigma of illegality lodged in �squatter houses� was now a thing of the past.

Yet the spatial design of the flats made for less than ideal dwelling places. The compact and inflexible spaces of 550-600 square feet did not allow for any extensions and even modest-sized families had to live in very cramped conditions. Growing a range of medicinal and aromatic plants was now impossible. Elderly residents seldom ventured out of their flats as they found climbing the many flights of steps a strenuous experience. In the common areas, reverberating noises that emanated from individual flats constantly jarred one�s senses. Substandard building materials saw the building aging faster than normal.

The frustrations and alienation of living in these dwellings � popularly nicknamed �pigeon-holes� or �chicken-coops� � were seen in various acts of vandalism. Graffiti, uncommon in Kampung X before, began appearing on staircase walls and other public areas. Soon the combination of apathy and neglect by flat residents and local authorities alike took a visible toll on the building.

All in all, these scars bore mute testimony to the ambiguities of modern urban living for the have-nots in Malaysian society.