At 104, Poktar still remembers the day Merdeka arrived

At 104, Mukhtar Mamat can still remember the fear, hunger and uncertainty of life before independence.

Fondly known as Poktar, the resident of Kampung Teras, Kelantan grew up at a time when jobs were scarce, food could be hard to find, and travelling long distances on foot was part of everyday life.

“We would eat young shoots, and walking tens of kilometres to get somewhere was nothing unusual,” he told Bernama.

Some of his most painful memories date back to the Japanese Occupation. At 18, he was forced to help build a military fort in Pengkalan Chepa three days a week, working from 8.30am to 4pm for RM1.50 a day.

The work was hard, but the fear surrounding it was worse. Poktar recalled that labourers risked being beaten for saying or doing the wrong thing.

He still remembers being struck with a hoe on his left arm and kicked in the back until he fell. “Many of us were forced to work for them and we lived in fear,” he said.

After about a year, he fled to his family home in Padang Pak Amat, Pasir Puteh. When Japanese soldiers later came looking for him, he escaped into the forest, injuring his chest on barbed wire along the way.

The scar, he pointed out, remains to this day.

It is therefore no surprise that Aug 31, 1957 is far more than a date on the calendar to him. Poktar joined the crowds in Kota Bharu when Tunku Abdul Rahman came to the capital, gathering at Padang Bank with others eager to celebrate a country finally free from colonial rule.

“I had the chance to join the people in celebrating independence when Tunku visited. Everyone was very happy because the country was finally free.”

The cries of “Merdeka” remain strong in his mind. More than seven decades later, Poktar still measures independence against his earlier memories of long walks, scarce food, forced labour and constant fear of punishment.

That is why peace, to him, is not something abstract: it is something remembered, understood and appreciated through lived experience.

As Malaysia celebrates another Merdeka, Poktar hopes younger generations will appreciate the stability they have inherited, and remember it was shaped by hardship many of them will never have to endure.

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