Cultural Conundrum (Riddle)

Sunday September 27, 2009
Cultural conundrum
CONTRADICTHEORYBy DZOF AZMI
Did we take our culture from other lands? Yes, says our columnist. We took what was given willingly to us over the centuries and made it uniquely our own.
IN this Raya season of forgiveness, I feel I should extend a hand to our neighbours in Indonesia.
You might have noticed that, lately, there has been a flurry of discontent in the Indonesian press. We can debate whether the media drives public opinion or vice versa, but right now the “We Hate Malaysia” group on Facebook has more than 430,000 members, so we can assume that we are definitely unpopular with some people.
Instead of “Malaysia”, the Facebook group uses “Malingsia”. This is a play on the Javanese word maling which means “thief”. This stems from the accusation that Malaysia has no culture of its own and so has taken from others and claimed it for ourselves. Thus the fight over who owns the right to “batik” is also seen as a way to claim back heritage and culture.
The historical precedence for Malaysia inheriting the culture of others cannot be ignored. The roots of Malay culture, most academicians agree, lie in the Srivijaya kingdom that encompassed present-day Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia, and was centred on south Sumatra, around Palembang.
In effect, there has been a mixed-up cultural stew in existence from 1,300 years ago; into this mix in the13th century came the conquering Majapahit empire.
Obviously, Srivijaya’s culture didn’t disappear immediately. This is a favourite topic of mine: that culture is something organic and unfixed, a conglomeration of what we see, feel and do every day. Ideas migrate and mix to create new blends, enhancing what came before.
When the famous Parameswara – whose ancestors came from Srivijaya – founded Malacca and it became an entrepôt, trade came from the four corners of the world and with it, the peculiarities of each nation.
It was this melting pot that brought Islam (and thus started the confusion that being Malay equates being Muslim), as well as created new blends, such as the Peranakan.
Add to all this the influence of the Portuguese, Dutch and English colonisers, as well as that of the indigenous inhabitants of Sabah and Sarawak ... is it such a surprise that we are such a mixed-up bunch?
My hope is that, one day, somebody authoritative will step up and say that, yes, 1Malaysia is meant to mean that between the diverse groups that make up this country, no single race stands on its own, and that there is more that binds us than separates us.
Malaysia includes Indonesians. I was told there are three million Indonesians in Malaysia at the moment – that is more than 10% of Malaysia’s population of about 28,000,000.
Most of them are here looking for work, and the economy in Malaysia is currently able to create that demand for workers.
Some of these newcomers will eventually choose to settle down in Malaysia – which is not really different from what people did 500 years ago in Malacca – and with them, they will throw into our mix their own traditions and ceremonies. Notice the recent boom in ayam penyet (flattened fried chicken, a favourite Indonesian snack) stalls in the city?
So, to the accusation that Malaysians are thieves that steal their culture from elsewhere – I have to answer “yes”, we probably owe most of what we currently have to people who came to Malaysia. I have no hesitation in saying this because I frequently share with the writers I work with a variation of what poet T.S. Eliot once said: “Great writers steal”.
The original phrase was, “Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal”. Instead of merely copying some piece of work you admire, it is so much better to take it in completely, and then make it your own and use it to create something original.
Copying is easy. Understanding something deeply to the point you innovate something better is immensely satisfying.
I think this is what we’ve done with the various cultures we’ve assimilated in this country. Food is a great cultural indicator. Malaysia has nasi lemak (rice cooked in coconut milk served with sambal) and Indonesia has nasi uduk (cooked rice added to coconut milk served with sambal). They are very similar, but I have been assured that they don’t taste the same at all.
You can see something similar in roti canai. It sounds like something that came from the Indian city of Chennai, but the local dish there is called pratha. The recipe is almost exactly the same, except that roti canai is tossed in the air to thin it out, while pratha is beaten or rolled out. This singular difference, I think, is what makes roti canai fluffier and lighter than its Indian cousin.
(Having said that, you can also get Malaysian roti canai from the Nasi Kandar Pelita branch in Chennai – a fine example of giving back in new form something we got from them a long time ago!)
So I say to my Indonesian brethren out there who criticise us so much, take a better look at what’s happening (for understanding is the flip side of forgiveness). If you want to look at it that way, you could say the culture we have here in Malaysian was stolen. We took it from those who came here in search of new opportunities and a new home. But it was given willingly, and now we have made it our own. It’s ours now, and that’s just the truth. On the other hand, if you want, we are more than willing to share it with you.
Logic is the antithesis of emotion but mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi’s theory is that people need both to make of life’s vagaries and contradictions.