The Maria Hertogh Saga...part 4

The large crowd outside the Court on 11 Dec 1950

In the weeks prior to the Final Court Hearing to consider the appeal against the earlier N0vember 20 verdict tensions were starting to rise day by day. The increasingly sensational news stories and reports by various newspapers added more fuel to the already over-heated atmosphere. Many of the stories did nothing more than incite anger and hatred among the Muslims against the Europeans who were largely Christians. The stage was set for a final showdown. Everything depended on the outcome of the Court hearing.

Above: The news and pictures published in foreign papers

The Final Hearing - 11 December 1950

Long before the Court session started,the large crowds gathered. They were mainly Malays, Indian Muslims and Indo-Muslims, many carrying flags and banners bearing the crescent logo. They were well-organised and were prepared for a long session.

The Hearing began sharp at 12 noon....and within just 5 short minutes, it was OVER! The legal appeal was completely thrown out....just like that! Everyone outside was shocked.The brevity of the hearing convinced the crowd that the colonial legal system was biased against Muslims.

The uncontrollable crowd erupted. The seemingly peaceful crowd broke up into mobs of rioters who began to attack Europeans and Eurasians on sight. They were reportedly joined by Chinese secret society gangs. Buildings were torched and vehicles burnt. The rioting spread to various parts of the island. The police had a difficult time trying to contain the violence. One reason, as later mentioned in the official findings, was that the lower ranks of the force consisted largely of Malay policemen who were sympathetic to the rioters' cause...being fellow Muslims.

The British Military Commander, Major-General Dunlop had to request for urgent help from his Malayan counterpart. The military and police reinforcements came the next day Dec 12 and by noon on December 13 the situation was under control.

What was the damage like?

18 people were killed. They were 7 Europeans, 9 rioters and 2 police officers.

173 people were injured, many seriously.

119 vehicles and 2 buildings were burnt.

To further contain any attempt at violence or revengeful attacks, a 2 week curfew was imposed.

Mansor Adabi and Maria (Nadrah)...part3

During the months before the scheduled Court Hearing on 20 November 1950, Maria was mostly kept away in seclusion, away from the gathering storm clouds outside. News of this dramatic case had circulated worldwide. The media coverage was on a global scale with several countries pledging financial and moral support for those on Mansor and Aminah's side. They saw the saga as part of the historical struggle between the Christian and Muslim world. In fact, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and others declared that, " any further move by the Dutch Government to separate the couple will be regarded as an open challenge to the Muslim world."


The Court Hearing - 20 November 1950
Again, a large crowd had formed outside the courthouse. The session was presided by Justice Brown ( I think he was the Chief Justice T.A. Brown ). Justice Brown had to consider 2 major points of contention:-
1. Was there a proper and legal adoption in the case of Maria ?

2. Was the purported marriage acceptable under the law?

Maria's natural mother Adeline Hertogh flew over from the Netherlands to attend the hearing. All the parties were present including Mansor Adabi, Che Aminah and Maria herself...and their counsels.
Under Dutch laws, the minimum age for a girl for marriage was 16 years.
However, our colonial English law in Singapore then recognised the marriage laws of the subjects' country of domicile. So, Maria being still a 13 year old minor of Dutch citizenship was under Dutch laws.
In the case of Mansor Adabi, an exception to the above could not be made out because Mansor was born in Kelantan and whether he was domiciled in Singapore could not be established. As for Maria the Court could not consider her a Muslim by law, since she was still a minor and therefore her father who had the legal right over her, had the same right to control her religion.
Her father, who was a Roman Catholic, had stated that he would never have allowed her to convert to Islam.

The Court Verdict
1. The short-lived marriage was overruled.
2. The Court awarded custody of Maria to the Hertoghs. Maria was ordered to be returned to
her natural parents with immediate effect.

Below....from the pages of Wikipedia...a detailed account describing the scene from the Court verdict of 20 November 1950 to early December 1950, before the Final Hearing and the riots.

Stay at the convent ( source: Wikipedia )
When policewomen came to take Maria away, she wept and clung to Aminah and Mansoor. Aminah fainted on the spot and a doctor standing by had to attend to her. Mansoor advised Maria to concede for the time being and promised that he and others would carry on the legal fight. Thus Maria allowed herself to be brought away into a car. Outside, the

police, including a Gurkha contingent,

held back a crowd of several hundred.

The car delivered Maria to the Roman Catholic Convent of the Good Shepherd in Thomson Road. Mrs. Hertogh stayed at another address for a few days, from where she visited Maria daily, before moving in to the convent herself. According to an official of the Netherlands Consulate-General, such arrangement was because of "greater convenience" while the stay of execution pending appeal was in effect. But it proved to be the falsest step, the spark that lit the fuse of the subsequent riots.
First and foremost, the press was not barred from entering the convent grounds. Nor were they

restricted in any way in their approach to the incident, which had been nothing shy of sensational. On 5 December, the Singapore Standard published on its front page a photograph of

Maria standing holding hands with the Reverend Mother. There were several more pictures on

page 2, under the headline: Bertha knelt before Virgin Mary Statue. The Malay press retorted.

The Utusan Melayu published on 7 December three photographs of Maria weeping and being comforted by a nun, as well as articles about Maria's "lonely and miserable" life in the convent.
These pictures, whether presenting Maria as happy or sad, mostly showed Maria surrounded by symbols of Christian faith. The Muslims, who looked upon Maria as one of their own, were deeply offended by such pictures, not to mention the sensational reports, some of which explicitly labelled the case as a religious issue between Islam and Christianity.
On 9 December, an organization calling itself the Nadra Action Committee was formally constituted under the leadership of Karim Ghani, a Muslim political activist from Rangoon.

This extreme organization solicited support among local Muslims by distributing free copies of its newspaper, the Dawn (not the Dawn, an English paper published in Pakistan). Karim Ghani had also made an open speech at the Sultan Mosque on 8 December in which he mentioned jihad as a final resort.
In the light of these potent signs of a great disturbance, the Criminal Investigation Department

sent a memo to the Colonial Secretary suggesting moving Maria back to York Hill to avoid further inciting Muslim anger. The Secretary did not agree on grounds that he had received no such representations from Muslim leaders, nor did he have the authority to remove Maria without further court orders - weak excuses since Maria could be relocated with her mother's consent. Nonetheless, it cannot be said definitively that moving Maria out of the convent at such a late stage could have averted the riots.

There were even more widespread reports in regional and newspapers around the world after the VERDICT was delivered.

Activists and nationalists in Singapore, Malaya and Burma took advantage of the situation in the hope of further weakening the colonial government as they were also fighting for independence for their respective countries.

The FINAL Hearing of the Court to consider the legal appeal by Mansor Adabi and Che Aminah's side was scheduled for December 11 1950.

It was to be a day Singaporeans and Singapore would never forget!

Mansor Adabi and Maria Hertogh (Nadrah)..part 2

For those who are keen on the nitty-gritty details of the Maria Hertogh saga and all the relevant reports, just check them out on the internet. There are countless websites and other links to occupy one for a very long time.
However what I am doing in these posts is providing a recapitulation of the main threads of this enduring story about Mansor Adabi and Maria ( Nadrah) and Che Aminah. Much later, what happened in the aftermath of the wedding, the hearings in November and December 1950, the riots and the ensuing years.

Dramatic turn of events
Mansor and Maria (Nadrah) were married on August 1 1950 as seen in this photo which included Aminah.
After the wedding, Maria returned to stay with Aminah and slightly later, was under the guardianship of the President of Muslim Association ...M.A. Majeed. The marriage was never consummated.

There were some perceptions that the wedding was a manoevre by Che Aminah to prevent the return of Maria to her natural parents...who had served legal notice to return their daughter by August 10.
When the deadline passed with no sign of Aminah or Mansor yielding an inch, the Hertoghs went to court again on 26 August and took out an original summons under the
"Guardianship of Infants Ordinance".
You will recall that Maria was then only 13 years of age...when she married Mansor Adabi. Under European laws this was not legally acceptable. But they were not married under European or even British laws ( Singapore was a British crown colony then)...but under Muslim customs which permitted marriage if the muslim girl had reached puberty by then( as was the case with Maria).
Meanwhile the Hertoghs argued that they were the legal and biological parents of Maria, their daughter, and they would never have given their permission either for her to be converted to the Muslim religion or to be married off at 13.

The first challenge to the 'appropriateness' of the marriage actually came from within the Muslim community itself. On August 10, a Muslim leader wrote to the Straits Times voicing some concerns about the marrying age of such a young girl.
However, he concluded that Muslims would have no objections to such a marriage per se.

The photos showed the scene on May 17 1950 after the High Court ruled that Maria must be returned to her natural parents pending an appeal and a stay of execution for 2 months.

Before the High Court ruling, Maria had made it very clear that she wanted to stay with Aminah and did not wish to be returned to her natural parents.
As Maria and Aminah exited the courthouse via the backdoor, a car from the consulate was waiting to take Maria away. Maria refused to enter the car and clung to Aminah...both shouting in Malay that they would rather kill themselves than be separated. A large crowd had formed outside the court.
It was only after much persuasion that the duo parted in tears and Maria was transported to the Girls Homecraft Centre at York Hill.

Next,the court hearing of 20 November 1950 to deliver its verdict about Maria's custody.
So from August, for nearly 4 months, the whole saga hung in deep suspense.
Tensions were starting to boil and they would explode and culminate in one of the darkest chapters of our history.

David Beckham's latest AGONY!

In an unexpected cruel twist of fate, David Beckham arguably the world's most recognised face of football, suddenly limped and crumpled onto the pitch during the AC Milan vs Chievo match 2 days ago. Milan won the match 1-0 but England lost much more.

What actually happened?

Without warning, the Achilles tendon of Beckham's famous left foot suddenly ruptured. He said, " I could hear the actual popping sound ", when it popped. Once the that tendon is torn, you will have no longer much control of your foot. The feeling is one of total haplessness.

I feel most sorry for poor Beckham not only that he will obviously miss playing in probably his last World Cup but that his was one of the most serious of Achilles tendon injuries. Latest reports
by his team doctors confirmed that his tendon was so badly ruptured that it was beyond repair. Instead, he will require "replacement tendon" surgery.

Those of you who have been long-time followers of my blog will know that I too had a similar experience of torn Achilles tendon in November 2005 which incapacitated me for 8 long months....of surgery, pain, rehabilitation, physio-therapy exercises and loneliness. It was a slow and long patient recovery process.

For me, that accident turned out to be " a blessing in disguise". It was during those long 8 months that I started to teach myself the computer and learnt about the internet, IT, Googling and other technical stuff by spending most of my time on the computer ...which led to my involvement with Blogging and made me a different person from what I used to be!

You can read that interesting episode right HERE and HERE.

Buy Buy American Pie...an amusing parody!

Hi folks,

It has been quite awhile since my last posting. Thanks to my dear friend Lam Chun See for taking the trouble to ask " why the silence? ". No, I have not given up on blogging lah! Just that I have been comtemplating and reevaluating a little more recently without IT factor thrown in....just yet. Don't want to bore you with all the details but for now my answer to LCS's kind concern in comments box should suffice. ( Check previous post comments) .

I have uploaded this very amusing video which is a "must see and listen" one. The video is performed by a group known as the Capitol Steps. It warns, in an exagerrated way, about the many dangers of buying cheap products made in China ( many are true as reported in the media).

I enjoyed it tremendously and hope you have a great day too! The video has garnered close to

two million hits.

Unk Dicko

Al Mansor Adabi and Maria Hertogh aka Nadrah

In my previous post on meeting up with BP's grandson and Mansor Adabi, I posed a question..."who was Mansor Adabi and what significant role did he play in one unforgettable chapter of Singapore's history?". Click HERE to read that post.

Al Mansor Adabi was the one-time husband of Maria Hertogh whom he married on 1st August 1950 in Singapore. He was then 22 years old and she was only 13. Maria, born near Bandung, Java of Dutch parents in 1937, was separated from her family during the Japanese occupation. She was brought up as a Muslim girl in Kemaman, Trengganu by her foster mother Che Aminah, a friend of her Dutch parents. Her new name was Nadrah Maarof.
After the war ended, her biological parents went in search of her, hoping to reunite the family. She was eventually traced to a malay kampong in Kemaman.
In early 1950, Che Aminah was persuaded to bring Maria to Singapore where legal representations had been made for the girl to be returned to her natural parents.
Photo: Maria Hertogh alias Nadrah 1950

On 17 May 1950, the High Court ruled that Maria must be returned to her Dutch parents. Che Aminah's side lodged an appeal and the court ordered a stay of execution pending the outcome for a period of 2 months. Maria was taken to the Social Welfare quarters of York Hill for temporary safekeeping. It was here that Al Mansor Adabi, a young school teacher then, first met Maria in person. He was engaged to tutor her in English as Maria only spoke Malay, Javanese and a little Chinese but no Dutch. It was "love at first sight" according to the young Mansor. He proposed, she accepted and the very public marriage was held on August 1 1950.

Photo credit: Fatini Yaacob
[Fatini Yaacob is the author of a new book about Nadrah and her touching life story. She's based in Malaysia.]

This photo became the most famous wedding picture from 1950 onwards. It showed a clearly young Mansor and even younger Nadrah dressed in traditional Muslim wedding attire on their wedding day.

The appeal by Che Aminah against the earlier court ruling was heard on 28 July 1950. There was good news and incredible joy for both Aminah and Maria. The court overturned the earlier ruling on "technical" grounds and custody returned to the status quo. In response, lawyers for her natural parents served a legal writ on all three ...Aminah, Mansor ( her husband ) and Maria herself that she had to be returned by August 10 or else....

They ignored the deadline. The High Court fixed the next hearing for November 20. During this period, Maria stayed with the President of the Muslim Welfare Association, M. A. Majid.
Photo: Unk Dicko's archives

The late Al Mansor Adabi in a blue long sleeved batik shirt, 3rd from right. This 1988 photo was the last picture that I had with him.
It was in that same year on 15 October that our dear, dear Mansor passed away rather suddenly of a heart attack. He was 60. If he had lived, he would be 82 today.
Read the actual 1988 Straits Times Report on his death HERE.
More to come....

Learn to play the Ukulele

If you have been wondering how you can learn to play the ukulele reasonably well and finding no ready answers so far....well, wonder no more.

All those of you who are residing in Singapore and who are interested in learning to play this most wonderful instrument can do so easily with some expert personal coaching...from Unk Dicko.

I conduct introductory beginners classes in a small group of about 10 persons. Everything is provided for including their very own ukulele, electronic tuner, songsheets, special chord sheets and refreshments.

Over 5 solid fun-filled sessions lasting more than 2 hours per session per week, my learners progress from zero to being able to identify the major chord groups, applying correct fingering for the chords, learning different strumming patterns and different techniques of strumming and picking.

By the end of the Lesson 1, they were playing the ukulele and singing away.

Naturally, since all of them are new to this, they would require more time and more coaching tips to smoothen the way.

This group of new ukulele enthusiasts are from a church group.

Most of them have very little or no musical background...but they all have one thing in common...they love

to sing and they love the magical sounds of the Ukulele!
By the end of the 5th and final lesson, they would have learnt to play and sing many different kind of songs, with different rhythm, beat and tempo.

They were truly a most enthusiastic bunch of ukulele learners.
This beginners course I had conducted is more than sufficient to start anyone on the road to playing and singing.

But there's a little more to do to build up confidence in

playing anywhere, anytime and whatever song or music is requested for.

So, most of this group or for that matter any other group should continue to Part 2 ...where I conduct another 5 week module of similar duration but the course content is more advanced, more focussed and learning to play a wider repertoire of songs in different styles.

Also solo playing will be taught, together with how to read simple ukulele tabs.
My next beginner's class starts after Chinese new Year ( Some vacancies still exist for those interested).

Beginners Part 2 ( advanced) start in March.

If you are keen to learn or know someone or some people who want personal coaching...do let me know in "Comment" box.

Leave some contact email address and I can get in touch...with details of course, cost, time and day etc.

Alternatively, leave a message in my Facebook with contact details.


Unk Dicko ( Grandpa Ukulele)