Malay language and the communists

THE MALAYSIA PLAN: Indigenous concept of ‘togetherness’ was to silence the communists

THE spectre of the “Killing Fields” in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 was unspeakably gruesome for comfort. Pol Pot’s Communist Party of Kampuchea, known as the Khmer Rouge, turned the country into a mess, perhaps worst than the Gulag. Their means was genocide.

The Domino Theory, had it been realised, would have overturned the narrative on Malaysia and Southeast Asia. But it never happened.

In Malaysia, the communist militancy officially ended in 1989. But its ideology lingers on.

The Malaysia Plan, conceived in the 1950s, was to silence communists. One of the methods used by its architect, Tan Sri Muhammad Ghazali Shafie, was to induce indigenous concepts and cultural attitudes during the formative years.

Ghazali recalled this in his memoirs (published 1998) during a meeting in December 1959 between Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka and the Indonesian Language Implementation Committee in Jakarta to work out a new spelling system for both countries.

Tunku Abdul Rahman, in the late 1950s, encouraged by the good relationship among the newly independent countries of Southeast Asia, had begun to think of development opportunities, growth and stability.

But Ghazali’s approach resonated language and thought. He was thinking of the word “kampung”, which means a village. Another word is “desa”, denoting a collection of dwellings in the interior.

Malays have been a pesisir (coastal) people for more than 2,000 years of recorded history in the Malay world, except in Madagascar, where they are found in the mountainous interior. They were sea-faring folk who had evolved into a riverine people.

Ghazali asserts that no matter how remote the desa is, there is always a river or a stream. The word “desa”, through usage, has been equated with kampung and this translated into “village”, which a desa is.

Often, the root word kampung has been used in derogatory terms, such as balik kampung or kampungan, to express class differences between urban folk and the people in the desa. However, the spirit of a desa is berkampung, that is, to be gathered together.

For example, one should not translate “kita berkampung dirumah Pak Ali” to mean to turn Pak Ali’s house into a desa or a village. What it means is that we assemble at Pak Ali’s house. The root word “kampung” had the original meaning of getting people together, not mere houses.

While promoting the Malaysia Plan, Ghazali noticed the cultural habit of togetherness from the word “rumpun”. In English, this would mean a clump or a cluster.

“Rumpun”is the word to express a cluster of bamboo and the Malay sages of yore had decided only Malays should be berumpun. He argues that rumpun Melayu would denote the cluster of ethnic Malays in the Malay archipelago.

Even Diosdado Macapagal, the ninth Philippine president, saw the “togetherness” of the Malay peoples as the way of the future.

Ghazali then proceeded to structure the Malaysia concept. If “togetherness” is postulated as a feature in Malay society, then there has to be a ketua, or elder, to keep the sense of “togetherness”.

The root word “tua” denotes age and experience. The leader among the elders would be the one with age, experience and intellectual capacity. Hence, a penghulu, where the word “hulu” means head, referring to cerebral capacity.

The choice of a penghulu or ketua depends on the adat (customary law) and not mere “custom”, as practised in the peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo.

In the Philippines, the president is a pangulo, the same word and meaning as penghulu.

The penghulu is to lead, to pimpin, hence kepimpinan. The nearest translation in English would be “leadership”. The Malay pemimpin is from “pimpin”, meaning “holding hands and walking together”, not walking alone and by himself.

The kepimpinan, according to Ghazali, seeks to establish a sense of direction. The demand on integrity would be high. There can be no relationship based on coercion and militancy.

The very nature of pimpin, implies human relations in constructing society, not otherwise.

The ketua or penghulu or pangulo, as the pemimpin may be called, is expected to develop close interaction through dialogue based on the principles and practice of mushawarah and muafakat (consultations leading to consensus).

The moment the pemimpin walks alone in front, he ceases to be one. In the Malay world, the concept applies to all levels in the hierarchy of kepimpinan.

In the same vein, Tunku’s proposal for the Association for Southeast Asia (ASA), resisted by Sukarno but welcomed by the Philippines, the predecessor for Asean (Association of South-East Asian Nations), was based on the Malay cultural impulse.

Ghazali had warned the Tunku that communist elements would use all means to prevent it from being actualised. ASA was to have been a competition with the communist concept of internationalism (Comintern). ASA was based on togetherness (berkampung) to obviate communist subversive plots.

Ghazali anticipated that the most violent resistance to the idea would come from the Soviet-inspired Partai Komunis Indonesia and Communist China.

It was the same impulse before that formed the United Malay National Organisation (Umno), transcending loyalties and sultanates. This in turn initiated the Alliance Party, which brought Merdeka for Malaya. The idea forming and sustaining the federation is “Bersatu Bertambah Mutu.” It is the same for Asean.

The Malaysian federation entity was to thwart the influence of Communist China over mainland Asia. As a young diplomat in the 1950s, Ghazali, who later served as home affairs and foreign minister until 1984, had seen a map drawn by Communist China.

Indonesia was excluded from China’s hegemony. But the peninsula and Singapore were part of that entity.

Malay language and the communists