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Culture: Yours, Mine, Ours?

‘Abiding Times’, theSun, 11 September 2009

THE aggression of the small but vocal group of anti-Malaysia protestors in Indonesia is intriguing. It was yesterday reported that some activists had blocked off a road in Jakarta with the objective of ‘sweeping’ for Malaysians. You can find lashings of ‘crush Malaysia’ material in the blogosphere and on Facebook, and a T-shirt with words to that effect accompanied by a picture of recommended weapons is so popular that it has been sold out—at least on the online shops I visited (don’t get me wrong: I am fascinated by T-shirts featuring seditious slogans and mass murderers).

Claims of over cultural material—tangible or otherwise—can be epic. You can get a heated argument started by simply mentioning the Elgin Marbles in front of a Briton and a Greek, and the influences of someone as poetic as Chopin can trigger debates between Poles and Frenchmen. Assertions of cultural superiority have caused wars and justified entire empires: the Victorians concocted an elaborate pyramid scheme in which White Anglo-Saxon Protestants reigned at the top, followed by other Christians, then other monotheists, with pagans finally at the bottom, a tool which usefully conflated culture with ethnicity thus, legitimising some of the nastier aspects of colonialism.

“‘Malaysia Truly Asia’ recognises that we’re host to many different traditions.”

There is a litany of potential cultural flashpoints between Malaysia and Indonesia, so it was inevitable that these would be exploited by nationalists to buttress the portfolio of existing, perhaps more substantial, issues between the two nations. Given the divergences in our modern—or perhaps more accurately, post-1824—history, it’s perhaps not surprising. We obtained self-government in drastically different ways: Tunku Abdul Rahman always expressed pride in having achieved Merdeka through peaceful means (even though the communists took a different view), while Indonesian independence was gained after a bloody struggle. Furthermore, we still take pride in being a member of the Commonwealth—we hosted the Games in 1998, remember?—and we’ve retained so many of the institutions: the bicameral parliament, common law, the way we organise our military, and so on, not because we are romantics for empire, but because these institutions, regardless of the deficiencies which we have latterly witnessed, still by and large work better than many of the alternatives. It’s the reason why Hong Kong, Jamaica, India and Nigeria also keep them.

Given this catalogue of institutional difference, I’d like to submit a small suggestion that might enable both sides to sidestep these unnecessarily heated repartees.

And that is for both Malaysia and Indonesia to disclaim ownership of pre-independence cultural artefacts. It’s not as drastic as it sounds. The Venerable Bede, Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare are primarily described as English, rather than British, authors. When one sees bagpipes and kilts one thinks specifically of the highlands of Scotland. Thus, there are clear distinctions between what constitutes uniquely English and Scottish culture as compared to contemporary British culture (which, no doubt, is influenced by the traditions of its constituent parts and migrant communities).

Similarly, contemporary Malaysian and Indonesian culture is distinct from its pre-independence component parts. Yes, our arts continue to be influenced by our pasts—some might say it’s an amalgamation of them—but the constituent cultures, I posit, ought still to be treated as separate, lest we risk further muddling our cultural history and simultaneously suffocating our various adat. Perhaps in this regard, ‘Malaysia Truly Asia’ serves as a more accurate slogan than ‘1Malaysia’: the first recognises that we’re host to many different traditions, the latter might suggest that they have been superseded or smudged into one super-culture.

In Negeri Sembilan, we have the caklempong, while other states use the gamelan. We have upward-curving roofs atop our houses and we have many strange rituals that other states do not have. We know why and we admit it: it’s no shame to us that Minangkabau culture originated in Sumatra; after all it predated both countries by six centuries. To me, it’s ludicrous to suggest that we’ve ‘stolen’ what is ‘Indonesian’—besides, the migration then was voluntary—much as it continues to be today.

And thus, I hope that once our Minangkabau structure at the Shanghai World Expo gets filled with elements from our other component cultures, we won’t get activists trying to raze it to the ground, as happened to the original Istana Pagar Ruyong.