By Hazlin Hassan
Malaysia Correspondent
hazlin@sph.com.sg

 

I WENT to watch the new Malaysian musical Natrah on opening night on Monday.

The main subject is Natrah, a Dutch girl who was left in the care of a Malay woman after her father was captured by the Japanese during the second World War.

Born Maria Hertogh, she became the subject of bloody riots in Singapore in 1950, following a highly-publicised legal dispute over her custody.

Her biological parents Adrianus Petrus and Adeline Hertogh said that they never meant for Aminah Mohamed to adopt Maria, and that it was only supposed to be for a few days. Aminah alleged that Adeline had given Maria to her for adoption in 1942. Aminah brought Maria up as a Muslim.

When the High Court in Singapore awarded custody of the 13-year-old girl back to the Hertoghs, the ruling ignited three days of riots. Eighteen people were killed and 173 injured.

Being born nearly three decades after the incident, I will probably never know what really transpired. There are various versions and interpretations, depending on who you want to believe.

My mother who went to watch with me, who was a child at the time, says that the musical seemed to stay true to events, as far as she can remember. She recalls that every house in then-Malaya seemed to have photos of Maria and Aminah, so huge was the issue back then.

It must have been tricky for the musical's director Erma Fatima, to try and strike a fine balance between fact and interpretation.

In 1950, Maria was married briefly to an older Malay man named Mansoor Adabi, right in the middle of the legal wrangle. Some have suggested that it was a ploy to prevent her from being sent back to the Netherlands with her parents.

Though she was apparently a willing bride, the two reportedly never consummated the marriage. But the musical chose to play up the contentious "love story" between them from the very first scene. It showed them very much in love, with several romantic scenes.

But it also revealed how a parental custody battle exploded into a tense and bitter tussle between Islam and Christianity, between Malayan nationalists and colonialists.

One line which struck me was uttered by Natrah/Maria, played by Malaysian actress Maya Karin, to Adeline and Aminah: "Both of you are just defending your own egos."

The musical left me with much fodder for thought.

The story of Ms Hertogh still resonates today, as Malaysia continues to struggle with maintaining multiracial and multireligious harmony.

There are still many high-profile cases these days involving religious conversions. Some involve husbands who have converted and converted the children without the wife's consent.

In April, the Malaysian government said it would amend civil marriage laws to ensure that children be raised in the religion that both their parents shared at the time of their marriage. If one spouse converts after the marriage, he or she will not have the right to have the children converted.

The musical, in my opinion, tried to strike some balance. The Malay-Muslim director of Natrah, it seemed to me, had not tried to demonise the Christians — in fact, I did not expect to see a large statue of the Virgin Mary wheeled out onto the stage, in a faithful reenactment of the sensational headlines coming up during the custody battle.

And this was done in a country where religious tolerance has seemed to dive to record lows. A large cross was also displayed in one scene.

The musical didn't, however, show what happened to Maria after she returned to her native Netherlands. She died of leukaemia in Huijbergen, the Netherlands in July. She was 72.