I was inspired after visiting M. Bakri Musa’s blog where he discusses the work of Kassim Ahmad, a man I do not know, but whose ideas I am now begining to read about. Mr Ahmad’s seminal work, it appears, is an honours thesis on the characterization of two Malay heroes, that of Hang Jebat and Hang Tuah. He basically turns the common interpretation of that legend on its head, in an analysis of principles and loyalty in these two giants of Malay myth and legend.

Check out M. Bakri Musa’s blog here.
En Kassim Ahmad’s blog is here.

Do visit them, you will find yourself pleasantly surprised by the insights therein.


At the moment, only the preface and introduction to the above-mentioned thesis has been published on En Kassim’s blog, and I’m waiting with bated breath for the rest of the chapters. En Kassim’s blog also contains a very, very interesting interview with The Sun, featured on 19 August 2005. I’ve been able to read from M. Bakri Musa’s write-up and En Kassim’s interview.

A short excerpt:

When I was in Malay school, there was a teacher who liked to tell us stories from the old Malay literature. One day he brought to me the Hikayat Hang Tuah - in three volumes and in Jawi. This was the first time I read the story. I think it was the Shellabear edition. I was especially taken up by the characters of the four friends who grew up together and became warriors of Malacca. But I was especially interested in the characters of Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat - their bravery, their skills as fighters and their sense of adventure. The tale inspired me. So much so that when I had to write my thesis in university, I chose to dwell on the Hikayat Hang Tuah. But the central idea of what I wrote had already been formed when I first read the Hikayat.

There were several things about Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat that drew me to them. First of all they were very close friends like they were close friends with the other two. They did everything together and they went to seek knowledge together. For some time, they studied together in the sanctuary of mountain caves in Malacca and Java under the guidance of several gurus known for their spiritual knowledge and skills in martial art. They came back to serve as warriors of the Malacca empire. One day, Hang Tuah was accused of having an affair with one of the Sultan’s concubines and condemned to death without so much as an inquiry into what happened. Hang Jebat, the loyal friend that he was, refused to believe that the upright foremost warrior of the land was guilty of such a charge. When the Sultan gave him Hang Tuah’s position, he accepted. But he was already planning to avenge his friend’s death ordered by the Sultan on trumped up charges. And then he rebelled. He forced the Sultan and his family out of the palace and took it over. He made the Sultan’s concubine his. The warriors, including Javanese courtiers who had schemed to get Hang Tuah to fall out of the Sultan’s favour, sent to capture and dislodge him, were killed or chased away by him. All that he did was his way of avenging the unjust execution of his friend. More than that it was his way of rebelling against the system which required absolute and blind loyalty to the ruler. And then Hang Tuah came back. Instead of putting him to death, the bendahara had hidden him away in some remote part of the empire until the Sultan’s anger had subsided somewhat. And now Hang Tuah, ever the loyal subject of the ruler and servant of the system was ordered to kill Hang Jebat. They fought and after fatally stabbing his friend, Hang Tuah walked away from the scene. Hang Jebat also staggered out of the palace and went amok killing several hundred people who had gathered around the palace.

Hang Jebat had rebelled against an unjust system. He blamed the people for allowing the system to prevail over them. And that’s why he killed them. To him, people must be responsible. They must speak up against injustices. They must protest by words or deeds. It is their responsibility.

Self-determination
The essential question: principle and loyalties to who? When you have feudal lords who, in their own interests, have sold your birthright to strangers, who do you rail against? The invaders or the traitors, the very rulers we support?

It appeared that Hang Tuah was loyal to his Sultan, but Hang Jebat was loyal to his people. Loyalty to an idea of a nation has a stronger hold on a person, don’t you think? The idea of being a stakeholder in the collective consciousness that forms our own nation strengthens and confirms our implicit ideas of our own Malaysian identity — there is no government without the people, and there is no people without the nation.

Brought to extremes, we have fascism, wherein the State and the nation is identified as the sole reason for being. It’s dehumanizing in the extreme, but fascism is one end of a spectrum where on the other side lies a kind of a kind of socialism, a dictatorship of the proletariat. Both are totalitarian systems we must reject.

This, however, shouldn’t dissuade us from the fact that we should, as Malaysians, bracket our egos for the “collective good”. I don’t want to sound too populist here, because this has its own dangers as well. And it is, anyway, too wide a discussion for this post.

I maintain, however, that our very own situation in Malaysia is such that entrenched communal interests would do well to heed the curative of a truly nationalist impulse.

No more feudal lords!

Why does a kris-wielding UMNO delegate still evoke so many emotions? Yes, I’ve asked the same questions here, but my post was focused on the negative connotations of holding aloft a weapon. We should examine the flipside more carefully: why does brandishing a weapon still yield so much emotional and political capital amongst some of the Malays of our country who find such feudal displays so evocative?

En Kassim gives a valuable insight:

Kassim: [Vision 2020] was launched by former PM Tun Mahathir Mohamad.With due respect to Mahathir - I like him and agree with many of the things that he did and said - but when he first unveiled this project Vision 2020, a major national plan, he presented it to a group of business people. This was in 1991. He should have presented it to Parliament or even to the Umno general assembly first. This is a major political programme which should involve everyone - everyone’s input. For it to be really successful, it must involve everyone’s effort.

the Sun: You mean we should have all been consulted?

Kassim: Absolutely. But no. Why? Because this country is still feudal. We have feudal leaders who prefer to talk down to the rakyat. Top down. Everything is done through rulings from the top. It should be both ways - top down and down up, or down up and top down. Consultative. In the case of Vision 2020, there was no consultation at all. I think for all major programmes, the people must be consulted. Thus today - after 15 years - we are still not quite sure what we mean by maju or what the government means by maju.

En Kassim’s last reply above is very telling, and it’s something I’ve always felt about Malaysian politicians: they are too entrapped in a feudalistic mode of thought. They have become the Sultans and bendeharas and Temengongs. Characterized this way, it should worry people all over Malaysia when our titular potentates will sell us out to the highest bidder, if it isn’t happening already.

On the flip side, the lesson should be learned from Hang Jebat’s lament: we are the ones who have put these “rulers” in place. We have surrendered our hard-won birthrights to them. There are some of us also still entrapped in the feudal mode of thought.

What do you think?