Persatuan Khairat Kematian Telok Kurau
Magdalena Liendo
The book launch of Khairat Kita took place on 25 September 2022. You can watch the livestream above and access the full transcript of the programme on this page. Portions of the transcript have been edited for clarity.
A collection of interviews, photographs, essays and personal reflections, Khairat Kita: A History of Malay/Muslim Mutual Aid is a project documenting the last few remaining Malay/Muslim Mutual Benefit Organisations (MMBOs) providing aid and charity to their deceased members' families. Known as badan khairat kematian, they are volunteer, community-led initiatives based on a centuries-old tradition of mutual aid.
Yahaya: Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi ta'ala wabarakatuh. How we started: The establishment was within the customs and excise department, of the ministry of finance. So we started off in the government department. That was on 10 July 1965. We had the recognition and support of the comptroller of customs and excise, he was our patron.
Later on in 19 July, we have this body known as Lembaga Khairat Kematian Pekerja Islam Kastam Singapura, it was registered under that name - the name shows that the purpose was for khairat kematian, for death. We started with that.
With this name change came a change in purpose - the association introduced two additional benefits - study grant and hospitalisation benefits. So you have death benefits, hospitalisation, and the study grant.
I think in 2015 we started our modernisation process of the association and we had the first website created. Again in 2017, we revamped the website. We have a new website, it is slightly different. This happened when Registrar of Societies approved our application for expansion of bond among the Malay community.
In 2021, we renamed our association to the current name, registered under MMBOs. There's a lot of changes. We created a new website that really helps all the members. We have a lot of members of the public joining us; we have about 85 members today. I think it is a very good sign. This website is to enhance automations. At the same time we have a forum page which is interactive. This is different from what we had last time. This change and registration under the Singapore Muslim Community Benevolent Association was because the members aspired to reach out to more members, or the wider Muslim community.
Hidayah: Thank you. So if i may summarise, Khairat started for the sole purpose of kematian, to support members with funeral expenditures, so that it will lighten the burden of families. You mention now Khairat has expanded services to include study grants, hospitalisation benefits, and also to help members when they are having financial difficulties?
Yahaya: It was not direct financial support, but indirectly, we help to support and ease the financial burden. There is a a system of benefits where we give out (money) to the members, and also their dependents. Last year we put in another benefit, where any of our current members who are incapacitated do not have to pay any fees, whilst keeping the benefits.
Dan role, sebenarnya untuk wanita ini, adalah multitask. As you know, wanita ini, nombor satu: sabar. Nombor dua: kalau ada sesuatu, mereka cuba menyelesaikan masalah itu sampai tak boleh tidur. Walapun inilah adalah volunteers. Kerana pada kita, itu adalah satu yang perlu kita lakukan. Once you are involved, you must do it, all out.
So dari situ, saya lihat yang kebanyakan members, ataupun kebanyakan jawatankuasa, adalah yang peringkat umur dah agak lanjut lah. Jadi pada saya, kenapa kita tak ambil lebih wanita yang mungkin berpelajaran, dan juga yang muda. Jadi mereka menjadi pelapis untuk kita, nanti kemudian hari. Jadi dari situ, Alhamdulillah, saya dapat mengambil a few jawatankuasa. Yang paling mudah hari ini adalah 36 tahun, dan beliau adalah principal sekolah, walaupun sekolah childcare lah. Tapi Alhamdulillah, bermakna apa yang saya nak kan sudah tercapai. Wanita harus juga bekerja pung dalam persatuan khairat. Kerana, nombor satu, kita akan dapat memberi ideas ataupun menenangkan kepada ahli ataupun dependent yang kematian suami, jadi kita boleh kedepan untuk memberikan nasihat dan sebagainya.
Hidayah: (translating for Milah) Basically puan Milah said that the office of PKKI is the same office where she worked and people would come to her crying about their son and all that, so she started to comfort and talk to them.
Total number of MBOs is 65, inclusive of non-Malay organisations. The Malay MBOs consist of 22. If the younger generation is not coming forward, then most likely Malay/Muslim Benefit Organisations will be forgone. Today, every mutual benefit organisation will likely have five hundred thousand (dollars) in the bank if not a million dollars. Why don't we unite and start an mutual benefit bank in Singapore? We can talk with the non-Malay mutual organisations which form a larger group in Singapore. Sit together and discuss forming an MBO bank in singapore. It is possible if you really want to work together. With these MBO bank in Singapore, it will help more younger people to come forward, and more professionals to share ideas. How will it work? Maybe MCCY can play a role in inviting everyone together to sit and brainstorm how we can share the benefits. Maybe it can be a form of insurance where the subsidiaries will have a certain amount of money, those with bigger shares will have more benefits to their members. It's possible if we discuss together, if we really are sincere, it will happen if we make it happen. Insya Allah.
MBOs act is under Parliament Act. We cannot go over the required Act that is already in parliament, it has never changed since day one. Imagine 100 years of parliament rules and regulations. It is obsolete today. We have to sit together, discuss, and amend what is necessary. Maybe it is time to consider other activities for MBOs, not only to wait for people to die and thinking every day 'Siapa nak mati? Siapa nak mati?'. You should pray for people to live longer. This is something we all need to look into. Then MMBOs will survive and flourish and maybe out of the 66, more MMBOs will grow. From over a hundred MBOs before, there's only 65 or 66 left. Where have they all gone to? Most of the non-Malay MBOs are clan types, and some are organisation types like police MBOs, Customs and Excise MBOs and all that. If all those are no longer relevant, then where will the MMBOs go to? We will become part of the history of MBOs in Singapore written in this book by our friends. That will be the only thing that remains. We have to look beyond 50, 100 years. We have to think wisely if we want MMBOs to survive. I apologise if this hurts anyone. Bahasa agak terlajak sikit, terkasar, saya minta maaf. Terima kasih. Assalamu'alaikum warahmatullahi ta'ala wabarakatuh.
Hidayah: Maybe before I let you answer, there is an Association of Muslim Professionals Convention coming up in the middle of October, there is also a panel about senior citizens. You may all want to attend the convention and bring this up? As it is very relevant to the Malay-Muslim community. That is one platform that you can do.
Kerana apa, kita duduk di Singapura sebagai sebuah negara. We need to work together regardless of race, religion and beliefs. And I think ini kita boleh work out. We can work it out if MCCY is willing to assist us in this matter. Thank you.
Okay there are many factors as to how we all can survive as an association. I think one of the most important things is that we must have very good team work: a team that is dynamic and always looking forward to changes. Before I came here, yesterday I was thinking that the decline in the number of associations is of concern. Today we only have 22 registered MMBOs. Of course there are many unregistered associations as well, but for the registered ones it fell from a big number to only 22. Before I came here I was thinking of bringing this up with Fauzy. Maybe we can do another round of work to find out why many of the registered MMBOs closed down, and maybe reach out to them.
Today we have about 85 new members. A lot of them came from when we registered our name as Muslim Community. They do not come from the Customs and Excise officers. Although we still have that pool (of members), the aspiration of our association is to expand to the wider Muslim community.
We are also concerned about the same matter Mr Ibrahim has mentioned, to collaborate with all the other MMBOs. It could be a good idea, though there could be some constraints. It could be a good move to have a similar activity like this to encourage expansion. Maybe researchers like Fauzy, Zakariah, Zaki could also help us.
Fauzy: One of my inspirations is Hidayah, of course. When she produced her Gedung Kuning book, I used it for my thesis, it was quite revolutionary for a Malay author to write something so personal about her life and sell it. For me what started this project was when I was working at Singapore Registrar society, I was sick of Chinese people talking about clans. Always about clans and more clans. When they started to explain about their structure, I realised that this is something I used to experience in my life.
Hidayah: I think it's also interesting that you learned agama from religious classes from Khairat. So this shows that Khairat not only looks after your well-being upon death, but also nurtures and gives pelajaran agama to the younger generation.
Hidayah: Thank you Zakaria. Maybe we will just go to Zaki. As Zakaria mentioned, when you received the grant it was in the height of the pandemic. So what are some of the challenges you faced?
Zaki: I think the main difficulty was our primary sources. We could only start researching once we got the grant money. A number of individuals and organisations we approached had to decline because a lot of the people with knowledge were ill or in poor health. We couldn't access their wealth of knowledge when it came to understanding these histories. Practically speaking, when it happened, the library was closed so I couldn't access archival material. I was going to the digital archives and newspapers in Singapore. We were lucky 'cos they digitally archived mostly all the roman Malay newspapers like Berita Harian. I found lots of articles and materials. Finally when the library opened, I could access the rare materials and films. Ultimately what we found was there was a lack of contemporaneous material relating to the histories of these organisations.