Rereading Usman's Poems A lifelong concern for justice and fairplay By Dr Wong Soak Koon
Usman Awang’s life-long concern for the poor, the oppressed, the marginalised is found not only in his poems but in his short stories, essays and drama as well as his novel. Some of his closest friends may feel that he was a socialist at heart but it is unnecessary to attach a label to a concern for social justice that was culled from lived experiences and not from a political manifesto or party politics. Usman Awang’s “politics” were born of a deep empathy for the suffering of a poor farmer like Pak Utih, or a rebel in the jungle awaiting violent death, or an ice-cream seller hawking his wares in the heart of a busy metropolis. In fact the idealism and, in some poems, the romantic sentimentality, is the very opposite of the hardened practicality which must guide politicians, government and opposition alike.
A master of the well-selected detail and the sharpest metaphor, Usman Awang continues the “protest” tradition which, for some, began in the Sejarah Melayu, or Malay Annals, where injustice was not passively endured by the rakyat. In clever language usage (innuendoes and sarcasms), in subtle acts of defiance or outright accusations (e.g. the peasant women who protested loudly when their cooked rice was stolen by members of the defeated King’s retinue after the fall of Malacca), the people in The Malay Annals, aristocratic or common folk, indict injustice.
In the oft-recited poem, Pak Utih, (Father Utih, 1954) Usman Awang uses simple language to expose unfulfilled promises of “freedom” under the newly-independent nation state. Pak Utih still waits for better medical care while he pays the medicine man (or Pak Dukun) from the meagre store he has earned by the sweat of his brow. The juxtuposition of the rural citizenry with those in towns who too readily wave their hands as leaders pass in their limousines thematises the poet’s recurrent concern with the rural-urban divide. Banquets, feasting are activities of urban, bourgeois citizens who have forgotten the contribution of the peasant (petani yang berjasa), and thus do not care to know of his suffering.
An independent nation with such uncaring leaders and citizens is really directionless beneath its surface progress and development. The final line: “Where are the leaders going in their limousines?” aptly sums up the general lack of a political will to effect change for the likes of Pak Utih. No wonder then that 20 years later in 1974 when Usman Awang wrote Pak Utih (2), Pak Utih is in a worse state with his land mortgaged, his grandchildren, very likely, destined for the lock-up, either because of their own criminality or, more likely, because of their agitation for reform as a younger generation impatient for justice so long denied. The poem ends poignantly with the images of death and decay as the starving grandchildren die from feeding on the ubi gadung, but there is an ominous warning of future unrest in the final lines:
Rereading Usman Awang’s Bunga Popi, 1955 (Poppies) in this season of violence and war as the war-mongers fan emotions in America and other places and the blood of both the innocent and combatants in places like Palestine and Afghanistan colour the soil, we are reminded of the horrors unleashed by men:
In Salam Benua, 1970, (“Greetings to the Continent”), Usman Awang’s ability to transcend political and ethnic boundaries so as to respond to a common humanity resonates like a clarion call to us to ask important questions. Who gains from the division, the boundaries erected? Who dictates the borders of the so-called new world order? With characteristic insight, he says:
Usman Awang’s views on the role of the intellectual or the literate person in societies where many are still illiterate centres on the role of the public intellectual. The intellectual must immerse himself in the daily lives of the poor, the oppressed, rural folk and not simply enjoy the bourgeois comforts of an urban milieu. (See Peranan Intelektual or The Role of the Intellectual). All too often, the bourgeois’ intellectual can be co-opted and so becomes complacent or even indifferent. Usman Awang repeatedly counsels them to experience in person the hardship of the oppressed, the poor and allow their five senses, mind and heart to learn lessons not learnt in the universities. The reference to learning from the poor, the oppressed is very important for it necessitates humility; we must realise that our book-learning, our myriad economic theories are not the only answers. In speaking of the writer’s movement, Angkatan ’50 (The 50s Group), for example he says:
I
He has one wife - whom he embraces until death
The skin of his hands is taut and calloused
II
1954
(Translated by Adibah Amin)
From blood, from pus that rots in the soil,
Those who live on are remnants of life, full of sufferings,
Others lost children, husbands and sweethearts,
The war maniacs have killed all love!
Poppies are the flowers of fallen soldiers,
1955
(Translated by Adibah Amin)
I
They separate us
II
Friend, you have chosen guns and bullets
III
You squeeze cactus and grind stones
IV
We strive in drying rice fields
we shall consolidate the May eclipse
V
Greetings
1970
(Translated by Muhammed Hj Salleh)
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It is sad that very often we are impelled to reread a poet’s works because he is no longer with us, when the best accolade one can give a writer is to read his creations, enjoy them as well as critique them while he is with us and can give us fresh feedback. In rereading some of Usman Awang’s words, I was first drawn to a paragraph in his acceptance speech when he was awarded the “Anugerah Sastera Negara” (National Literary Award) in 1983, which reads: