Pilgrim's Progress

Malayan Schoolboy Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz read the article with mounting anger and made his vow. To defend the honor of newly independent Malaya, and prove the hardy spirit of its citizens, he would hitchhike around the world in ten years, giving the lie to the libel and leading "a wandering life of privations." His pilgrimage tipped politicians off to the article, and they howled hard and loud at the "yellow" journal that printed it--oddly enough, the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The EB's pukka sahib summing up, written when few Malayans were able to read it (69% of the population is still illiterate) and carried in every edition since that of 1910-11: "The Malays are indolent, pleasure-loving, improvident, fond of bright clothing, of comfort, of ease, and dislike toil exceedingly. They have no idea of the value of money, and little notion of honesty where money is concerned . . . They are addicted to gambling, and formerly were much given to fighting, but their courage on the whole is not high if judged by European standards. The sexual morality of the Malays is very lax . . ."

Last week Pilgrim Ahmad, 18, had made progress. Editor in Chief Leslie C. Hoffman of the Straits Times Press, Ltd., which publishes a string of newspapers in Malaya, wrote to the Britannica: "While not doubting the author's qualifications, I feel that he has neglected to do justice to his own intelligence . . . You would surely never permit a sentence such as 'Englishmen are addicted to gambling' or 'the sexual morality of Americans is very lax' to appear . . . I do hope that you will agree that the passage is not becoming to the Encyclopaedia . . ."

From Chicago, EB Managing Editor John V. Dodge wrote an abashed reply: "I wish to say that we are embarrassed by the paragraph you quote . . . It obviously should have been dropped long ago--and I cannot say why it was not." Dodge added that "as an assignment of first priority," Asia Expert Sir Richard Winstedt will revise the passage, written in part by the late Far East Hand Sir Hugh Clifford. For the laundered article, Editor Hoffman's Singapore Sunday Times dryly suggested an addition--a learned footnote on footsore Schoolboy Ahmad.

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