Martin Khor: True revolutionary with vision, purpose and practical know-how Chee Yoke Ling

Seventeen law students and their lecturer took a train ride from Kuala Lumpur to Penang in 1980. Waiting on the platform, as we pulled into the Butterworth train station (on the mainland from where a ferry ride takes passengers to the island of Penang), was a bespectacled young man dressed in casual cotton pants and white short sleeved shirt who, in a very calm way, somehow managed to look eagerly welcoming. That was Martin Khor, then Director of Research of the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP).

That train journey actually began with Martin and his mentor, S.M. Mohamed Idris, successfully persuading the University of Malaya’s law faculty Dean to introduce a course on Consumer Law.

Malaysia at that time had only one law school with students sent overseas under government scholarships or family sponsorship. Lawyers for the people and for public interest was almost unheard of. But CAP’s ground work and research since its birth in 1970 revealed the stark gaps and even flaws in existing laws and legal system. Access to justice and protection of people and nature were as much a local issue as a global one for Martin and “Mr. Idris” as he was affectionately known.

Of the group of 17 students, there were two of us whose lives were transformed forever – myself and Meena Raman, my best friend, a community and global activist and public interest lawyer who in 2008 became Martin’s wife.

We journeyed with CAP and its sister organization Sahabat Alam Malaysia (Friends of the Earth Malaysia), and in 1984 we were part of the historic conference “Third World: Development or Crisis?” that forged the beginning of Third World Network (TWN). One pillar of TWN is the publication of the ideas, perspectives, realities and demands of the peoples of the South. In TWN’s stable of publications, SUNS always held a special place in Martin’s life.

In the last 2 years of his all too short time with us, he always impressed upon me the importance of SUNS that in spirit and letter is about the South for the South.

Martin’s impact in the global arena is incalculable – from the 1992 United Nations Summit on Environment and Development to the GATT Uruguay Round/World Trade Organization and reform of the international financial architecture, from demanding equity and justice for the South in public health, climate change actions and ecological agriculture, from defending the rights of indigenous peoples and communities to confronting myths and false claims of technologies. His intellectual and strategic brilliance was never just academic; he never left anyone in despair or cynicism but would always inspire and show the way to navigate challenges and obstacles by making the actions that we need to take appear so logical, even commonsensical. He was a true revolutionary with vision, purpose and practical know-how.

How absolutely privileged and blessed some of us are to have been mentored by him for so many years, and to be his friend and colleague.

Martin started to teasingly call me “Miss Chee” when I decided to return to teach Consumer Law and other public interest courses at the law faculty in 1984. This was because it was my turn to bring students on that train journey to Penang each year, where another generation was inspired by Martin, Mr. Idris and all the amazing people in CAP and Sahabat Alam Malaysia.

Today, 30 years after I left academia to work in Sahabat Alam Malaysia and then TWN, at unexpected moments on the street or in a restaurant I would hear a voice calling out “Ms Chee!” and there before me would be a former student. And inevitably I would hear how their trip to Penang touched and even shaped many of them.

I will always miss hearing Martin’s voice saying “Ms Chee” which he continued to do till he left us … The only way I can honour him is to follow in his footsteps – to mentor, to nurture and to care. Thank you, Martin.

(Chee Yoke Ling is Director of Third World Network.)