My Infamous ‘Gettysburg Address’

On 9 March,2002, I was invited to attend a farewell gathering at Convent Secondary School,Bukit Mertajam.In my farewell speech I was hoping to emulate President Abraham Lincon’s famous Gettysburg Address by making it short and to the point.

Gettysburg Address:"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
But, when I took over the rostrum, I could not help but to speak like General Lee, the defeated commander in the decisive Battle of Gettysburg, as I was among the sacrificed lambs in the transfer exercise manipulated by an inner circle of the Education Department where cronyism and nepotism took the realm of the day. In that particular exercise I had to vacate my post as the Senior Assistant to “beri laluan”[give way] for the wife of the District Educational Officer.
My speech was addressed in Malay language, the gist of which was as follows:
“Thank you for organizing this farewell gathering.
The news of my transfer came as a shock to me and a surprise to all of you. Nobody expected it to happen. Yet, it happened, too soon,and too sudden.
All the while I thought I would retire in this school as I did not anticipate change. Change did happen. I was wrong in my past perception which contradicts the Buddhist teaching of Impermanence; things or events keep on changing all the while. Realizing this is very crucial and useful. It will put us in a better footing to face any uncertainties and irregularities ahead. We should always remind ourselves to accept and accommodate changes. Once we can do that, there is no sea of turbulence that we cannot sail through.
I accepted my transfer,though not without pain, as just another phenomenon of the reality of life.
As a Chinese adage says, ‘Any feast under the sky will eventually come to an end’(天下无不散的筵席),implying that no matter for how long we gather, in the end, we still have to say good bye to one another. To me, feast can end, but our friendship will prevail.
Thank you.”