The (Malay) Malaysian Writer’s Dilemma (1992)

Portrait of the Writer as a Young Colombo Plan Scholar in the Land Down Under (1963)

An intelligent and morally sensitive Malaysian of Malay origin to whom self-respect and the dream of the brotherhood of man are as vital as the air he breathes is not an enviable creature in the age of NEP (New Economic Policy). The Government’s attempt to get his fellow Malays out of the “Malay dilemma” has put him in a new one – the Bumi Dilemma. Bumi is short for Bumiputera, literally, “son” or “prince” of the soil, i.e., the Malays and other natives. It can be somewhat pejorative term, at least when used by non-Bumis especially in the post NEP era.

               

The “Bumi Dilemma” afflicts only a tiny minority among the Bumiputeras. Under certain circumstances, or at its most acute, it can be in some ways almost Hamlet-like in its neurosis. To be or not to be part of a “protected species”: that is the question.  Whether it is nobler in the mind to “opt out” for the sake of necessary pride and independence and fidelity to ideas that transcend barriers of ethnicity – that, or to commit some kind of moral suicide by accepting unquestioningly those convenient pieties about ethnic survival and dominance. The Bumi afflicted with this dilemma may accept the rationale of the NEP as a time-bound historical necessity. And he may be able to see and acknowledge how, like other similar good-intentioned “correctional” policies, it can be abused. He may even be willing to admit that, though he as an individual doesn’t need the protection of such policies, directly or indirectly, whether he likes it or not, he is beneficiary. But, because of the kind of individual he is, the situation he can find himself in as a result of being a member of a “protected species” is not an enviable one. It is especially unenviable if he is a writer.

               

As I see it, the most serious problem for the Malaysian writer of Malay origin has to do with the question of fidelity or loyalty. And this question, because of its peculiar implications and of the pressure of certain stubborn ethnic realities, raises the question of a proper audience for the writer. The phrase “Malaysian writer of Malay origin” that I use here refers to a tiny, very tiny minority within a much bigger group. The majority of this group can’t be bothered with fine semantic distinctions between “Malaysian writer of Malay origin” and simply “Malay writer”. In fact, it’s a matter of pride and ideological principle with many of them the latter is used without question, just as they hardly ever question the givens of ethnicity and religion that make an innocent term like “Malay writer” bristling with divisive connotations. And what is truly, chillingly disturbing is that these givens seem to be becoming more and more set, more shrill. The shrillness is the most immediately disturbing; it’s the shrillness of ideological atavism that, I believe, is death to the creative principle.

               

The vast majority of Malaysian writers of Malay origin are, I believe, untroubled in any serious way by the question of audience. They just know who constitutes their audience, and they don’t have the slightest doubts about it. One sometimes gets the feeling that they deeply believe and rather like it that things will remain unchanged, the solidarity of their audience guaranteed, written into the Constitution as it were, which, in a sense it is. Similarly, the question of aesthetic, intellectual and moral fidelity doesn’t trouble them. Fidelity to them is mainly a question of being true to certain ethnic pieties; truths and ideals not narrowed by the myopia of race and religion don’t concern too many of them. The best way to make the problem of audience and the issue of loyalty something that can be concretely felt is for me to talk about it from my own personal experience.

               

SBJ: bright young lad from Malacca

I feel, in fact, I know in my blood and my bones that I belong to the tiny minority. Every time I sit down to write, I am bugged by these troubling questions: who am I writing for, in actual fact and ideally speaking? What am I supposed to be loyal to? In my pessimistic moments, I even wonder if I have any audience to write for; if the element of stubbornness in my notion of loyalty and fidelity have not condemned me to a no-man’s land. It’s quite easy for my conscious self, the self moved by the will and governed by intelligence, rationality and ideals of common humanity, to say that as a writer I recognize only one loyalty: loyalty to truth and beauty, justice and freedom as I perceive them with all the honesty I can muster, with an informed mind and an informed heart.

               

But in this country, “loyalty” is a very difficult business, and if, like me, you happen to be a writer somewhat alienated by your education from the dominant values of your ethnic kind, a writer who stubbornly persists in trying to see through and beyond the inherited blinkers of race and religion, what you call “loyalty to truth and beauty, justice and freedom” can be considered a betrayal. And for the Malays, this “betrayal” is a form of apostasy. People like me, bilingual and untroubled by sentimental pieties, are particularly vulnerable to the damning charge of “apostasy” – apostasy from the religion of race, which can be a worse charge than apostasy from the religion of the race.

               

When I came back to Malaysia after a decade in a foreign country, I made a conscious attempt to recover my lost cultural self. Being a man of words, the attempt naturally took the form of repossessing my mother tongue. But, as everyone who has gone through it knows, such attempts can at best be only partially successful. So was mine – and I don’t regret it. Quite frankly, I didn’t want to recover my original cultural identity in its fullness and purity. The idea of recovering something of the “purity” of Malay language itself might appeal to the poet in me, but not those values whose “purity” or “Malayness” cannot be distinguished from atavism. I am aware that I am in some ways quite Westernized, and I am not embarrassed by it. In fact there are some elements in my Westernization that I am quite happy about it, which I’d like to believe have made me a better human being and hopefully a better writer. But I also feel I am still, in some things, incorrigibly Malay. And I don’t regret that either. In fact, there are things about “Malayness” (not to be confused with “Bumiputeraness”) and in the cultural heritage of my race that I am terribly proud of it. That’s why like Lin Yutang’s unusual definition of patriotism as love for the good things one ate in one’s childhood. I am quite certain that these things, in my case sambal belacan (Malay delicacy) and cincalok (Malay delicacy), both literal and metaphorical, inform my writing, especially the poetry. Directly or indirectly, they give much of whatever energy my writing can claim to have.

               

Because this energy is inevitably life-affirming, its source cannot be “exclusively Malay.” The streams that water my being, my life, my dreams, my writings are many and various, though the central one is no doubt Malay. I am a human being as much as I am a Malay Malaysian; Malaysia is my country and so is the world. Actually, my true country is not the world, but world literature. I am told that in Tagalog, a cousin of Malay, the word “malaya” means freedom or consciousness. Well, that’s the “Malaya” I love to inhabit and feel terribly loyal to, a country that has no border with that other one – the country called World Literature.

               

An Austrian friend once gave me a poetry book called Song of Malaya by Ugandan poet Okot p’Bitek. No it’s not about our country; it’s about a prostitute, for the word “malaya” means that in Swahili. When I get depressed or angry because of the atavistic fantasy of “Malaya” and “Melayu” befogging the already blinkered minds of our sasterawans (writers). I think with bitter cynicism of that Swahilli word. There are many forms of prostitution. To me, the worst is when the writer uses his talent to prostitute a collective ideal. It is made even worse by his conviction that no prostitution is involved; it’s all in the name of bangsa (race) and semangat kebangsaan (Spirit of ethnic nationalism), you see. (We must really do something about that kebangsaan word; as long as we use it to mean nationalism or nationality, we’ll continue to be trapped in the dark alley of atavism).

               

The Austrian satirist Karl Kraus (a Jew, of course) once ringingly announced his crusade as a writer by describing language as “a universal whore” which he must “turn into a virgin.” It’s a big dream, a mammoth crusade, that one. But I believe every writer worth his/her salt must commit himself/herself to it. Otherwise, he/she might as well resign from the community of writers – and of human beings. 

In other words, commit literary hara kiri.

               

1 January 1992

Be Sophisticated and Silly All the Way (1994)

Gabungan Persatuan Penulis Nasional
or National Writers Association

It was a use of words that an alert observer would call ambiguous, if not confusing. A political scientist would probably call it skillfully ambiguous. This is the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement on the language issue after a meeting with members of the Kongres Cendekiawan Melayu (KCM), or Congress of Malay Intellectuals last Friday: “I have explained (to the KCM delegation),” said Anwar Ibrahim, “that while existing policy with regard to the use of the National Language will be continued, there will be greater emphasis on English.” (My italics.) Some people wouldn’t consider “greater emphasis” the same as allowing the use of English as the medium of instruction in the limited area specified. Emphasis would merely suggest that the generally accepted status of English as an important second language would be given a fuller practical meaning, and that more strenuous efforts be made and more effective methods used to ensure that our students acquire a better command of the language. I wouldn’t have thought that Anwar’s words of assurance would satisfy those Malay nationalists who had earlier opposed the limited return of English as announced by the Prime Minister of December 27 and reconfirmed after last Saturday’s meeting of the Umno Supreme Council.

I don’t know whether those words of Anwar as quoted in the New Straits Times (January 8) reflect what he actually said to the Malay intellectuals at the two-hour closed-door meeting. In any case it’s good news that the delegation of anxious intellectuals including the President of Gapena, were satisfied with Anwar’s assurance that there would not be any change to the Government’s “policy”. Which must mean they’ve dropped their earlier opposition to the Government’s move. Move is, I think, more accurate here than “change of policy,” however slight or peripheral that alleged change may be.  The decision to allow a return to English for the limited area specified was probably meant to be taken (though Dr Mahathir didn’t say so) as a stop-gap measure – that is, English would be used until there are enough lecturers fully-qualified to teach science and technology in the Malay Language, and enough text and reference books on those technical subjects have been competently translated into that language. I hope the reported acceptance by the KCM of the Government’s assurance will be followed by similar acceptance by other groups, academic and intellectual. But it is just a hope, probably without much basis.

The curious case of the KCM aside, I’ve been led to believe that, in my column last Wednesday, I’d underestimated the resistance to the Government’s move. This was after learning that my passing reference to the group of UKM (University Kebangsaan Malaysia) lecturers who wrote a letter to NST was not quite accurate; one of the signatories to the letter told me I was wrong in saying that those lecturers were “not opposed” to the apparent “policy shift.” (He did acknowledge, however, that I can’t really be blamed for the error; due to editorial cuts, the letter was not crystal clear on the issue and could easily be read the way I read it.) It seems that there are not a few academics and intellectuals who either remain suspicious of the Government’s intention or are simply opposed to the return to English, temporary or otherwise, for the teaching of science and technology.

Rustam A. Sani

Take the Utusan Malaysia columnist and ISIS Fellow, Rustam A. Sani. This highly vocal scholar feared that, what was described by the NST writer who interviewed him as a “peripheral adjustment in the language policy,” was perhaps “the beginning of more.” And he sadly wondered if it didn’t signify that “the cultural programme that came with the National Language policy has failed,” and that the Malay language cannot cope with progress.” (NST, January 2) In his Utusan column of January 3, Rustam elaborated on this question of double “failure.” It’s an interesting piece and quite passionately argued. And I must admit that, though I’d taken this son of a noted nationalist to task for the unfair attitude to our English-language writers he expressed, I found his article last week strangely quite moving. Yes, I did say “moving.” You see, I am not anti-Malay as some sasterawans think. (How can I be when I write in both Malay and English?)  It’s just that I’m not ideologically rigid about language and national identity, and very much an incorrigible pluralist in cultural matters. I consider it a privilege, not an ideological shortcoming, for our nation to be bilingual. Other countries not so well-blessed and not sentimental about their native languages must envy us.

I don’t suppose it’s any good to tell Rustam Sani that the Government’s “peripheral adjustment” to the language policy is not necessarily “the beginning of something more.” But I’d still like to share with him my modest thoughts about some of the reasons for the apparent “failure” of the project of modernizing BM, of transforming it into a language fit for a nation striving to be fully developed and industrialized by the year 2020. (I won’t say anything about the other “failure,” that of the “cultural programme that came with the National Language policy.” This is because the “cultural programme” Rustam referred to is not something that I as a pluralist would endorse.) First, let me say it out loud and clear that I agree with Rustam that the apparent “failure” of the project of modernizing our country through the Malay language is not due to any inherent fault of that language. Having agreed with Rustam on this general point, I must now say where and how “we” have failed. Since the “we” here includes bilinguists like me, I’d of course dismiss any contention that one of the reasons for the “failure” is the continued widespread use of English. I believe we can be bilingual and at the same time committed to the modernization of BM.

Now, why has the modernization of BM for the purpose of making it a fit medium of instruction in science and technology failed? For reason of space, I’ll only deal with this failure as it is manifested in the vital project of translation and, to a much lesser extent, as it is manifested in the current fate of the Malay language in the hands of Malay academics and writers themselves. I’ll say it bluntly: the translation project has largely failed because incompetent people, without proper training, qualification and experience, have been chosen to do most of the translations. This has been made worse by sheer bureaucratic short-sightedness and incompetence that have made the realization of the vital project incredibly slow – so slow that three-and-a-half decades after independence our university libraries can only boast a very, very tiny percentage, not a few are hopeless, either inaccurate or simply unreadable, because they are so badly translated. The responsibility for this lies mainly with Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, since it is entrusted with the translation project. I’d describe the approach to this project – that is, the attitude behind it – as cincai (a Malay word of Chinese origin, meaning, “casual, done in a shoddy manner and readily accepted, however shoddy”). This attitude, as we all know, is typically Malaysian, if not Malay.

Now this cincai attitude goes very well with another tendency of our academics, intellectuals and sasterawans. And that is the tendency to corrupt that very language whose honour they are so noisily concerned with. They are so easily seduced and befuddled by the sound of new words and jargon of English origin or old Malay words refurbished for flashy rhetorical purposes, that they end up by making Malay so ugly or unreadable or both (see my next piece). When these academic corrupters of the Malay language or their pupils do translation, God help us! If the original English is barely readable (as in books or academic articles on the latest Western literary or sociological theory, or philosophy of science), they make the translation worse than unreadable. To use a refurbished old Malay word, they are so desperate in wanting to sound canggih (sophisticated) that they sound awful and don’t make such sense. Ironically enough, the word canggih is so popular now (Rustam has “moden dan canggih” [sophisticated and modern] in that column of his,) used to mean the opposite of what it means now. Kamus Dewan (1984 edition, terribly out of date) obviously has only one entry. 

What is it? Believe it or not, that single entry saya canggih means terlalu banyak bercakap (talks too much, or in one word, “bullshit”). That’s a characteristic of intellectuals and politicians, isn’t it? Someone who knows Javanese told me that in that language it means or used to mean “gaudy” (like having too much cheap make-up). In Wilkinson’s Malay-English Dictionary (1903), there’s no canggih; but there’s chenggeh, which must be a northern dialect variation of canggih. The meaning? “Affected, dandified.” Now, isn’t that very interesting? So, scribblers and bullshitters of Malaysia, unite! In one homogeneous voice, be canggih and cincai all the way to the year 2020. You have nothing to lose but your brains. 

12 January 1994