07

What Unity is Strength?

Abiding Times’, theSun, 25 July 2008

LIKE most people, I have many competing and overlapping loyalties. I am loyal to my family. I try to be loyal to my faith. And to my country: I recite the Rukun Negara as enthusiastically as I belt out ‘Negaraku’ (the original majestic version), and I wish the dotted quavered ‘Berkatlah Yang di-Pertuan Besar’ and harmonically simple ‘Allah Daulatkan Tuanku Sultan’ were more often sung. I have pledged some loyalty to various organisations by virtue of being employed by them, and I’m loyal to my friends with whom I have grown up.

And then I’m asked about loyalty to my race, and I hesitate. I am Minangkabau: a portmanteau derived from our buffalo calf which disembowelled the enemy Javanese bull. In the 14th century, Adityawarman established a dynasty, some of whose future subjects would cross the Malacca Straits and settle in what became Negeri Sembilan. There they would endure uneasy relations with the Bugis in Selangor and Johor around them. The situation was also volatile in my other homeland where the Batu Bersurat lay: apart from regional power plays, there were disputes such as the 1830s Civil War and 1928 Rebellion which were put down by the Menteri Besar with the approval of the British, who had finally established an Advisor there only after heroic resistance from Sultan Zainal Abidin III. Nonetheless, throughout the history of Tanah Melayu we see Malay royals, aristocrats and commoners allying variously with the Dutch, British or Japanese to fight their opponents—usually other Malays.

My point is that cultural and religious commonalities have not prevented Malays from entering political and military conflict against each other—sometimes with the help of outsiders—for eons. ‘Malay unity’ is, frankly, a relatively novel concept. Even leaving aside the millions in Indonesia or the 200,000 Cape Malays in South Africa, a foreign observer might be compelled to ask what, exactly, it is trying to achieve, and for whom? Is it not sufficient that each of us derives our identity from an individual understanding of our cultural history? The adage biar mati anak, jangan mati adat is often derided as the battle-cry of communitarian ultras, but it’s actually a maxim of liberation, enabling each successive generation of Malays to interpret and define adat in their own context: culture advances because of, not despite, the lives and deaths of children. In this way, our civilisation has been enriched since Srivijaya; but when I returned from my merantau overseas, I was struck by how much the apparatus of state—justified as sanctioned by the Federal Constitution—is intent on defining us instead, limiting our ability to contract ourselves to the nation on our terms. We are instead told that a contract already exists.

“Which ‘unity’ did they refer to? Unity within, or between, races, states, religions and classes? Or unity in a shared loyalty to the dream of a nation ‘forever a sovereign democratic and independent State founded upon the principles of liberty and justice’ as elucidated in the Proclamation of Independence?”

Odd, because it is clear that once upon a time, competition was intrinsic to the Malay psyche. It gave rise to the legend of Hang Tuah and his friends, the rivalry between the five warrior sons of Daeng Rilaga and a flourishing of highly individualistic arts like woodcarving, songket-weaving and silat. Reintroducing this heritage of competition would catalyse talent and creativity today, although instead of war, we can employ the free market and the ballot box to stage the competition of values and ideas for consumers and the rakyat to judge. In this way, the pen becomes mightier than the keris.

I own one. Emblazoned on its ivory sheath is ‘Merdeka 1957’ and the Malayan Federal Coat of Arms with the motto ‘Unity is Strength’ on the banner: apt, since our founding fathers had forged a federation of diverse races, states, religions and classes. Which ‘unity’ did they refer to? Unity within, or between, races, states, religions and classes? Or unity in a shared loyalty to the dream of a nation ‘forever a sovereign democratic and independent State founded upon the principles of liberty and justice’ as elucidated in the Proclamation of Independence?

This weekend, I’ll dust off my dendam tak sudah-folded tengkolok and tuck a keris under my Terengganu songket, and ponder how Adityawarman and Parameswara would respond if they were alive as Malaysians today: collusion in secret muzakarah or steadfast competition through the ballot box?