Letting go of the past for a better tomorrow

I am writing this on the eve of the Gurney Drive makeover. In years to come, the Gurney Drive that we know will be no more. Transformed. As such, I have heard emotional comments on Facebook from people nostalgic for losing something they cherish. I know the feeling. I am not heartless. I feel it too. But sometimes, we have to let go of the past in order to embrace a better tomorrow.

When I was small - about eleven years old - I walked from Gurney Drive to Tanjong Tokong. Not on dry land, but along the coast. I trod through the mudflats until I was up to my thighs in mud. I saw the egrets perched on the mud flats, I saw sandy banks and rivers flowing through the estuary and into the sea. How many of you have explored that place before it became Straits Quay?

Years later, as a young man, I explored the mangrove swamp of Batu Maung, because I heard that the Government was going to clear away the swamp for development. My heart went out for the mud crabs, the monkeys, the mangroves. It was an unpopular decision of Dr Lim Chong Eu to clear the mangrove, and he made me very angry. What to do, I was a near-sighted young man back then. These are the photos I took of the area, before it became the Bayan Lepas Free Industrial Zone.

Remnants of the swamp in Batu Maung, with Pulau Jerejak in the background (22 March, 1990)


A sampan on the newly cleared swampland, with Batu Maung in the background (22 March, 1990)


River through the cleared swampland, with Jerejak in the background (22 March, 1990)


The photos were shot on 22 March, 1990. 26 years have passed since then.

How many of us miss the swampland in Batu Maung? The leadership had to sacrifice the swampland so that you and I can find a job suitable to our skillset, right here in Penang. Without the sacrifice, we might have to take a job in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, or farther away, and Penang would have lost its skilled labour.

When we got a job at the Bayan Lepas Free Industrial Zone, do we go to Dr Lim and say, "Thank you sir for giving us this job." Do we say, "Thank you for your foresight"? More likely than not, when we got that job, we regard it as due to our own competence, our skillset, our talent. It did not register in us that, without the sacrifice by our state leader, there is no job in the offing.

Dr Lim is gone from us now. What benefits him to make unpopular decisions? So that your sons and your daughters can enjoy high-paying jobs, right here in Penang. When you get your pay slip, remember that your salary comes not just from your boss or your company; it comes from the decision of our past leader to give us all a better life.

How many of us working at the Bayan Lepas Free Industrial Zone, upon reading this, will submit his resignation letter, for he refuses to work on a land reclaimed to give him the job?

Moving forward is painful, when it means letting go of a cherished past. Very soon, the reclamation at Gurney Drive will commence. When it happens, there will be angry comments tossed onto Facebook. People are like that. For a while, the wound will be raw. But over time, the healing takes place, and eventually, I assure you, we will get something worth having.

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Hello and thanks for reading this page. My name is Timothy and my hobby is in describing places so that I can share the information with the general public. My website has become the go to site for a lot of people including students, teachers, journalists, etc. whenever they seek information on places, particularly those in Malaysia and Singapore. I have been doing this since 5 January 2003, for over twenty years already. You can read about me at Discover Timothy. By now I have compiled information on thousands of places, mostly in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, and I continue to add more almost every day. My goal is to describe every street in every town in Malaysia and Singapore.