The Thesis That Shook Malay Minds
The Thesis That Shook Malay Minds
M. Bakri Musa
It is symbolic that on this anniversary of Malaysia’s merdeka that I should be posting on the Internet (www.kassimahmad.blogspot.com) the thesis that shook the thinking of Malays and liberated their minds.
Kassim Ahmad’s Characterisation in Hikayat Hang Tuah began as an academic exercise. It was an honor’s thesis in partial fulfillment for the Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Malay Studies at the University of Malaya, Singapore. Kassim Ahmad ended up shaking the very foundation of Malay society. Not many academic or other writings can claim to have such an impact!
Kassim’s brilliant insight makes Malays alter fundamentally how we view our sultans and society. We now can clearly differentiate between loyalties to principles versus personalities.
As a free, civilized and law-abiding society, we remain true to our values and principles. Leaders come and go, but our values remain firm. Those who deviate from our values do not deserve our loyalty. That is the essence of Kassim’s message.
Sultans, like fashion, change with the seasons, but the enduring values of our society remain true, to guide and save us.
Personal loyalties are also notably fickle. We can buy those loyalties; each of us has our price. Some can be had with mere wealth, others by fancy titles or simple flattery. Only the price varies.
The problem with bought loyalty is just that; thus others can offer a much better price. This can lead to the downfall of a society.
The British bought Malay sultans by giving them the impression that they were on par with His Majesty. Just to be sure, the British also gave those sultans impressive royal titles and the perfunctory visit to Buckingham Palace, full of pomp and ceremony of course. Oh yes, there were also the meager royal allowances and the occasional Roll Royces. With those, the British effectively controlled those kampong potentates and successfully colonized Malaysia. Malay sultans’ loyalty was to their British lord and not the rakyats. In effect, the sultans had betrayed their loyalty to Malay society.
Following Kassim’s thesis, remaining blindly loyal to the sultans would mean pledging our loyalty to the British. Those who rebelled against the sultans for betraying society would then be our heroes, not the sultans. These heroes were loyal to the values and principles of our society.
Today UMNO politicians can be bought through “money politics.” Right now only corrupt Malay businessmen are doing the buying. It would only be a matter of time before others, meaning non-Malays and foreigners, more corrupt and more generous would have these UMNO politicians, and by proxy, our nation.
Kassim’s ideas are truly revolutionary. He did not know this, but Kassim is a genuine reformer or reformis, as we say in today’s Malay. He was one long before that bastardized English word entered our lexicon. Unlike today’s “reformers,” whose antics and ugly demonstrations resulted in nothing but endless traffic jams and disruptions of businesses, the reform initiated by Kassim is more enduring.
A century from now, our grandchildren would have forgotten today’s leaders and sultans, but thanks to Kassim’s genius, the debate on who is worthy of emulation, Hang Tuah or Hang Jebat, will still be vigorously pursued. That is the lasting tribute to Kassim Ahmad.
It is tempting to compare Kassim’s thesis to Martin Luther’s famous Ninety-Five Theses that he posted on the church doors of Medieval Europe. Luther frontally challenged the excesses of the entrenched Catholic establishment and went on to start a new religious movement; Kassim let his words do the challenging.
Even though he was doing his degree in Malay Studies, Kassim Ahmad wrote his thesis in English. This dissertation would have remained an obscure academic exercise known only to the few Malays literate in that language except that the newly established Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Literary and Language Agency) was desperate to publish works in Malay and thus translated Kassim’s work.
My first introduction to this seminal work was in my Malay class during high school. Our regular teacher, a Malay-educated individual, was sick and his substitute was our geography teacher, himself Malay, who had taught us in English. His literacy in that language enabled him to read Kassim’s thesis and thereby passed on the wisdom to us. I do not remember anything he taught me in geography, but in that one substitute class, he ignited a spark in me.
I am honored and privileged that Kassim has entrusted me to disseminate his writings. With his kind permission, I have created a website for him to serve as an electronic repository for his essays and books. In future, I will also post the Malay translation (Perwatakan Hikayat Hang Tuah) with its modern Malay spelling.
My future projects include posting Kassim’s Hadis: Satu Penilaian Baru in its original Malay. Currently there is a link to the entire translation in English on Kassim’s website.
I believe very strongly that Kassim’s views deserve a wider audience. That is my mission. It is also my modest contribution to and acknowledgment of this great intellectual in our midst. It is symbolically appropriate that I start the project today, on Malaysia’s 48th anniversary of independence. Kassim’s ideas opened my mind; they liberated me and gave me my intellectual merdeka. I hope they will do the same for you.
The installment begins in a few days. I will be posting a few thousand words at a time, a length that is easily readable at one surfing of the webpage.
Please visit Kassim’s website at: www.kassimahmad.blogspot.com or simply click on the link on the side bar (blogroll) of this webpage. Happy reading!
M. Bakri Musa
August 31, 2005
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:14 am
Truly happy for Malaysians for the generous and patriotic Merdeka Day gift from Kassim Ahmad and M. Bakri Musa.
Hope your visitors will help to direct many new rural and urban readers to your new website to make it a success to reform and liberate the thinking of all Malaysians of all generations.
Good that you acted constructively and positively. At least, you will not be classified as one of those inconsequential bloggers of articles to be easily lost and forgotten, preachers to their choirs, dogs barking at the roadside, old men grousing at the eating places.
Thank you and wishing you every success in your endeavour.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:29 pm
bloggers like jeff ooi?
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:04 pm
if hang jebat is still around today, i would like to ask him how he sees himself vis-a-vis james dean of the ’50s - the rebel without a cause. was hang jebat a rebel without a cause?
brother dean merican i think has something to say about that - for he too sees himself as a rebel without a cause. he went to cambodia to look for a cause but instead returned with a cambodian beauty.
September 2nd, 2005 at 6:57 pm
keris-always,
You are back. Bagus lah.
I went to Cambodia after I married my wife, an French national, in Paris. We went to Phnom Pemh in 1992, and invested in the establishment of a Montessori School and an International School offering British National Curriculum based education in English. That is a point of clarification.
You talked about identity crisis before. It was a stage in my youth when I was grappling with “Siapa Aku”. I wanted to be free from social constraints, especially from the binds of a very strict and dominant mother. I think, I am now more self-confident person with some strong views about life, religion, politics, etc. I am a liberal-conservative, always seeking new perspectives.
I am not sure, however, whether I have completely resolved the identity problem. But I am slightly more fortunate than you. You are still at the identity crisis stage. Better resolve that soon, keris_always, while you have time.
I used to be upset when my friends called me a “mamak”. But I now I regard it as an honour, a kind of a badge of courage, or a mark of distinction. I know my family history. My ancestor is Qadeer Mydin Merican aka Kapitan Keling, the head of the Indian Muslim community in Penang, with a mosque in his honour as his final resting place. He was originally from Pondicherry, near Chennai, Tamil Nadu. There then is the French connection!!
Today, I still consider myself rebel but with many causes, an optimistic one at that as I believe Malaysia and the Malays can and must change. I feel that the Malays need to be provoked, or pushed to wall before they can respond. But there is always the clear and present danger: they could run amuck, if the pressure is too much to bear. So we have to tread carefully.
Thanks.
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:02 pm
just wanted to tell you that the link to kassim ahmad’s site in the blogroll has a typo
September 3rd, 2005 at 12:06 am
Yes, there is a typo. Instead of “http://www.kassimahmad.blogspot.com”, it should be “http://kassimahmad.blogspot.com”, sans the “www.” bit.
I’m very grateful for the link to Mr Ahmad’s website, though. I was looking for a copy of his thesis in English but could not find it. Is there some way I can get a hold of it?
Please email me at the address provided, if possible. Thanks!
September 3rd, 2005 at 3:40 am
brother dean merican,
it’s good to know that you are at peace with who you are. very few of us are that fortunate. like you said i am still in the throes of yet a new crisis. disappearing into the sunset is but a journey everyone takes in life. that’s the easier part of it. it’s how we do it. do we ride on horseback or on the back of a water buffalo?
talking about ancestry, the malays are not a homogenous lot - and malaysia is something like a melting pot. we have our brothers from sumatra, aceh and from rhiau, from as far as sulawesi selatan. some are descendants of pirates (they say those from sulawesi, like the ancestors of sultan pahang, tun razak and sultan of johor) who once terrorised the seas. to say that malays are descendants not of slaves but terrorists is not far from the truth. some are like yourself - from a distinguished like of indian muslim traders who, it would not be an exaggeration to say, introduced islam to pulau pinang. i would like to believe that the term ‘mamak’ today is not used in a derogatory sense like it once was.
i can trace my ancestry some 500 years back - to the time when kedah was a southern province of thailand, until the british changed all that. and your family came and settled down in bakaq bata.
how is your brother malek?
the truth is the malays are still looking for themselves. they know not who they are. they are in the middle of a massive identity crisis if you will. but let’s not intellectualise too much over this one issue - lest we miss the bigger picture, missing the wood from the trees.
speaking of identity crisis, the babas and nyonyas from and of malacca have yet to resolve their own. there is a real identity crisis. dont you think they have a stronger right to be called natives or malays even. they speak malay at home, follow malay customs. can they be said to profess the malay religion? yes, in some cases”. you dont think they fit the constitutional definition of a ‘malay’?
when we say, “malay minds”, do we know what we are talking about? i would like to believe so. as to whether we do, that is another matter.
cheers
September 3rd, 2005 at 3:44 am
correction
“to say that malays are descendants not of slaves but terrorists is not far from the truth.
pls substitute “terrorists” for “pirates”.
thank you.
September 3rd, 2005 at 3:18 pm
dear all,
about the two personalities, hang tuah and hang jebat. it is not important whether they are legendary figures whose existence cannot be proved, whether they once walked the earth or whether they are figments of our imagination etc (people like baju argues that it is all dongeng, cerita cerita melayu lama etc putting down kassim ahmad, calling him names just because he chooses to express his opinion - but clearly he misses the point).
they are symbolic of the kind of change we want for our community. do we work for change from within or from without. one favours a slow orderly process and the other a more tumultuous type of change in the form of a popular movement.
how many times have we heard so and so says it is better to accept the status quo but work to change the system from within. only to be betrayed in as many times by these people.
how do you think these people came to occupy leadership positions within UMNO, only to betray the very people who put them there?
we have given a chance for the likes of hang tuah to work to bring about change within our malay community. they failed. they only succeeded in bringing change to their lives - and those of their mistresses.
it is time we call out the hang jebat in all of us, to spearhead the kind of change we look for. the appearance of hang jebat on the scene is never too late.
but note the keris wielded by a certain personality recently. it is gold in colour and is diamond studded. he is hang tuah. make no mistake about it.
September 3rd, 2005 at 6:24 pm
Dear Haris:
Thanks for pointing out the typo in the link to Kassim Ahmad’s website. I have corrected it.
Bakri Musa
April 9th, 2006 at 7:20 am
Great article. I am just sad I dont know how to reply properly, though, since I want to show my appreciation like many other.
June 29th, 2006 at 2:30 am
Thank you for all the articles. I really appreciate it though I found it a bit late. I just feel free to be a truly muslim.
July 10th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
A lot of poets carry a wee notebook in their pockets to jot down ideas and lines and even a verse or two. I never do that.
January 14th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
James Dean…
In case you don’t know, 20 hours of battery life refers to music…
January 15th, 2007 at 8:19 am
James Dean…
I see you have some nice information about music and entertainment….