Rethinking the Nation Have we been schooled to accept only one way of identifying with the "Nation", that is, through the official, state-led perspective? by Wong Soak Koon
Almost all postcolonial nations have had to deal with multiculturalism and multiracialism. Some still use the divide-and-rule baggage inherited from the colonial masters but have masked this to suit new economic and political agendas. Thus the architects-of-state in postcolonial, developing nations unceasingly create and then reinforce a unitary story of “Nation” which can contain the diverse voices straining to tell other stories. In Malaysia’s past, there are layers of stories, for example those of the migrant, both Malay and non-Malay, of the colonial subject and of the national subject of the nation state in the making. In the case of the struggle for independence, the point-of-view of the so-called left-wing elements has been rendered almost invisible. Lim Chin Siong’s story, for example, has been reduced often to a mere footnote or a paragraph while the memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew will run into volumes. But my focus here is not on the divergent voices of the 40s and 50s such as those of Chin Siong, Ahmad Boestamam, Dr Burhanuddin al-Helmy which I shall reserve for another occasion. My focus is on a fascinating group of contemporary Malay writers who write in English such as Che Husna Azhari (she hails from Kelantan), Karim Raslan, Rehman Rashid and Salleh Ben Joned. Well-educated, cosmopolitan, writing in English, they are often accused of being elitist. The uneasiness of the puristic, or worse, chauvanistic citizen may in fact stem from the fact that these writers pose disturbing, if pertinent, questions. Eschewing an unthinking acceptance of fenced-in cultural identity, they see identity as always in flux and constantly emergent. Thus, “Malayness” itself isn’t monolithic or fixed. Cultural identities change in accordance with changing social, economic, political conditions both locally and globally. Whether we admit it or not, the Malay national subject is a highly-conflicting personage straddling adat (a more animistic layer) and hyper-Islamicized discourses; feudal followership and the autonomous individualism of the go-getting entrepreneur of the NDP (National Development Policy) mould. In fact, in Malaysia, all of us, whether Malay or non-Malay should readdress the ethnic notion of “purity” and critique it. The claims to exclusivity make us elide or make invisible the differences within our own ethnic community, i.e., intra-ethnic variations. In this essay, I would like to examine “splits” in the Malay-Muslim identity as portrayed in the writings of Che Husna, Karim Raslan, Rehman Rashid and Salleh Ben Joned. “Nation” is complex if even within one ethnic group we have diverse voices. Che Husna, Karim Raslan and Salleh Ben Joned write about identity (“Malayness”) and “Nation” in such a way as to break down stereotypes. For example, on the issue of the pendatang or migrant, Karim Raslan questions whether only the non-Malay should be seen as such. In a sense, Malaysia itself is a land of immigrants from the start. He writes: Malaysia is a nation that is built on the sweat, determination and ingenuity of its immigrants … when I use the word “immigrant”, I don’t mean just those of us who came from China and India. Because by using the word “immigrant”, I am also referring to the many Malaysian Malays who came from Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi …Che Husna similarly thematizes Malay-Muslim hybridity by referring to the Islamic merchants of Kabuli-Khorsani stock as well as the Islamic scholars from the Indian sub-continent and the Middle East who advanced Islamic learning in Kelantan and elsewhere in the Peninsula. Such Muslim “immigrants” from further afield than the Nusantara regions and their hybrid progeny both complicate and enrich the significance of the slogan Ketuanan Melayu. In surveying the history of the area in Kelantan called Melor, Che Husna also mentions the divide between the Kaum Muda - Kaum Tua groups with the younger set foregrounding ijtihad or individual judgement against taqlid or unquestioning faith and loyalty. Through characters in her short stories, such as Mak Teh (Mother Teh), and Pa de Samad (Father Samad) Che Husna evokes a rural, more adat-based and animistic layer in the Malay psyche which, she suggests, still haunts the urban, Islamicized Malay. I find it very interesting to compare her two women characters, namely Mak Teh (the older, more “traditional” woman) and the young, “modern” Inayah in the story, Ustazah Inayah. Inayah is the typical Malay-Muslim woman professional who is first a civil servant in the Economic Planning Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department and then a politician. Mak Teh, begins her “career” as a bangsawan dancer, then becomes the Penghulu’s (village chief’s) wife. Although both have to juggle gender roles and Islam, Mak Teh is arguably the more autonomous. Inayah is “trapped” between the agendas of Islamic political forces, both state-led and opposition-led who are each trying to up-the-ante with regard to women’s roles. Mak Teh, on the other hand, still retains a surreptitious “power” linked to her sorceric skill which is based on animistic beliefs. On the hybridity in the psyche of the Malay-Muslim national subject, Salleh Ben Joned refers to the Malay pantun or four-line quatrain where there is an earthiness and sensuality that the hyper-Islamicized national image of Malayness is trying to suppress. The pantun, however, continues to reveal the Malay’s love “of this world with all the pleasures it has to offer” and in language which “vibrates with sensuous openness”, through images very often drawn from the natural world. In the short story, Mak Teh, the Mak Andam, Che Husna begins her tale by using folk-similes so as to activate a more earthy, animistic dimension in the Malay-Muslim consciousness. Some examples are: Bibir bagai delima merekahIdentity and “Nation” are therefore continually subject to tensions and contestations which resist state-proffered categories. Julia Kristeva refers to a dimension in the human being which finds borders, rules, positions simply unsatisfactory and de-humanising. In using the phrases, “the people” of “the Nation”, many statesmen have tried to repress divergent views on identity, community and belonging. The postcolonial architects-of-state need a unitary, linear tale of “Nation” - one neat enough to suit their economic-political agendas. But as living, experential, complex human beings, “the people” of any nation in their everyday, existential experiences will continue to make choices and to express desires that will unseat the tyranny of imposed ideas. The people’s knowledge of “Nation” culled from lived experiences as well as from excavations of histories other than official history will continue to question the pedagogical, official notion of “Nation.” “Nationness” and “Identity”, says Franz Fanon, is never static; it is a “substance which itself is continually being renewed.”
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In last month’s AM (Vol. 22.2) , Anil Netto reported on some interesting issues raised by Dominic Puthucheary’s excavation of other historical perspectives on the struggle for independence and the formation of the “Nation” in “Who Is The Nation?”. It made me ask if we have been schooled to accept only one way of identifying with the “Nation” that is, through the official, state-led perspective. Literary workshops, conferences, seminars, continue to trot out the theme “Literature and Nation-Building” as if the idea of “Nation” is fixed, indeed, sacrosanct and thus not open to debate. A corollary to this fixity of the “Nation” is the belief that cultural identity is similarly fixed and unchanging, and that there is a pristine, pure origin to this identity. Wars, ethnic violence, genocide, etc. have been caused by this myth of purity. “Borders”, both physical and mental, have been erected to keep things “pure”, to fix the “we” and the “they.”
Perhaps we should have seminars and conferences (the recent Aku Janji or Pledge of Loyalty for civil servants and academics notwithstanding) in which we shall not merely accept “Nation” as a given but shall instead bravely and constructively address “The Paradoxes of Nation-Building.” Writing about identity and nation the way the writers I have discussed do may seem unpatriotic to some. But surely the most meaningful patriotism is that which allows us to lift the wraps which cover problems so as to pave the way to a more meaningful, more confident and more honest embrace of difference. I end with a note of hope and optimism by quoting Rehman Rashid who believes that a new vision of Malaysia may yet emerge: “it would be devised by the new generation of Malaysians for themselves, in all their blessed arrogance and freedom, and not be imposed upon them by the need to atone for the sins of their fathers.”By “arrogance”, Rehman Rashid means a quality which is the very opposite of that egotism which is born of insecurity and chauvanism. “Arrogance” here refers to a confident awareness of self-worth which allows one to transcend ethnocentric notions and so value justice, fairplay and compassion for all, regardless of race, religion or creed.