IIAS_Newsletter#37 22-06-2005 14:29 Pagina 26

> Publications Contesting : the quest for the elusive Melayu The term Melayu is ancient and was first noted by Ptolemy as early as the second century CA. In current, everyday usage a Malay is someone who speaks the , practices Malay customs, and in most cases, follows the Muslim faith. The term, however, is more Raja Ali Haji before him, diplomatical- Though generally well-argued, several complex and elusive than what is usually understood. Who then are the ? What ly negotiated and legitimized the posi- ideas or points in the collection are open constitutes Malayness? When did the notion arise, and among whom? These are some of the tion of the migrant Bugis community in to contestation. These include the idea of difficult questions that give rise to the collection of stimulating essays in this volume, aptly Riau, thus gaining the needed identity the ‘colonial invention’ of terms or phras- titled Contesting Malayness: Malay Identity Across Boundaries. as Malay. es such as tanah Melayu (Malay land, traceable to William Marsden) and Md. Salleh Yaapar the terms were initially self-referent cat- Minangkabau shows that Malay ethnic- Shamsul A.B. in his essay concentrates bangsa Melayu (/people, trace- egories among people of the Archipel- ity was developing along the Straits of on the idea and practice of Malayness able to Munshi Abdullah and Stamford he collection consists of a preface, ago. Later, they were used as social labels Melaka as early as the seventh century. within modern Malaya/. He Raffles) held, for example, by Shamsul. Televen essays on Malay identity by by outsiders. After the fall of Melaka in It was a powerful concept - Malay lead- contends that Malayness as a modern Actually, prior to Marsden, the term experts in the field, a syair (a chain of 1511, the notion of Malayness developed ership was worth fighting for. In an concept is largely an Orientalist-colonial tanah Melayu was already used in Hikay- rhymed quatrains) and maps showing in two ways: to claim lines of kingship essay focusing on seventeenth and eigh- construction. To him categories such as at Hang Tuah. In the hikayat, when Hang important places discussed in the or acknowledge descent from teenth century Southwest Sulawesi, bangsa Melayu and tanah Melayu were Tuah was banished from Melaka and essays. The essays themselves are not and Melaka, and to refer to a pluralistic Heather Sutherland shows how the mainly constructed, codified, and given journeyed to neighbouring Inderapura, totally new. Half of them are elabora- commercial diaspora around the Arch- Malay commercial diaspora became a life by the British. Shamsul, however, he was asked where he would go next. He tions on papers presented at a confer- ipelago that retained the Malay lan- central element in ’s urban reminds us that Melayu is an evasive answered saying he would go wherever ence on Malay identity at Leiden Uni- guage, customs and trade practices of society. As an ethnic category, however, concept that can shift meaning accord- his feet take him, adding ‘lamun pada versity in 1998, then published in the the Melaka emporium. In the following Melayu was fluid and varied, for it ing to circumstances. In a related essay, tanah Melayu’ (as long as it is within the October 2001 issue of the Journal of essay Adrian Wickers reviews recent dis- included ‘all those who wore a Virginia Matheson Hooker focuses on Malay land). Likewise, the term bangsa Southeast Asian Studies. Most of the cussions of ‘colonial constructions of sash, such as men from , Patani, as a constituent of Malayness in Melayu was used in traditional Malay other essays have also been published. identity’. He points out the fluid and Champa, Minangkabau and Johor’. Tim- Malaysia. By referring to contemporary texts long before Raffles. Reid acknowl- However, the convergence of these overlapping concepts of Malay and othy P. Barnard then discusses Siak in developments, she interprets how Islam edges this in his contribution. However, essays in Contesting Malayness makes it Javanese that have since pre-colonial the eighteenth century as one of the suc- was reconfigured as a source of moral quoting Virginia Matheson, he contends a most welcome volume. times been interacting with other cessor states to Melaka’s heritage, show- values and as a civil religion to enhance that is the only pre- indigenous categories. Wickers con- ing how the people of Siak (orang Siak) national unity. She also discusses the modern text to use the term bangsa In lieu of an introduction, the collection tends that Malay may be part of colonial in eastern , through violence formidable task faced by the govern- Melayu. This is not quite correct, for the begins with an essay by , invention, but was not invented out of and literary texts, succeeded in becom- ment to de-emphasize bangsa Melayu to term is also used in Sulalat al-Salatin. As an excellent overview of how the terms thin air. ing a sub-group within the larger Malay promote the idea of Bangsa Malaysia such, tanah Melayu and bangsa Melayu Melayu and Malayness have evolved race (bangsa Melayu). In his contribu- (Malaysian race-nation). were not really invented by the British; from ancient times and how their In the essays which follow, Leonard Y. tion, Jan van der Putten focuses on nine- they were codified, yes, but this too was understandings have been appropriated Andaya affirms western and teenth century Riau, stressing the pre- In the next essay James T. Collins con- not something accomplished ex-nihilio. not only at the ‘center’ around the Straits southeastern Sumatra as the homelands carious position of the powerful Bugis tests the exclusive attention given to the of Melaka, but also at the ‘peripheries’ of the Melayu. His research on the his- elites within the ‘Malay heartland’. He Straits of Melaka at the expense of Bor- Another point for contestation has to do of the . According to Reid, tory of , Johor, and demonstrates how Haji Ibrahim, like neo, the prehistoric home of the Malay with the Inderapura dancing incident in language. Communities in western Bor- Hikayat Hang Tuah referred to by sever- neo, Collins points out, often share lan- al writers in relation to the issue of pure guages - either Malay or Malayic variants and hybrid Malays. Milner locates Inder- - but do not necessarily share Malay eth- apura, the land of the beautiful Tun Teja, nicity. In the next essay, however, Will in Sumatra. Reid agrees, and names the Dirks takes the reader back to the Straits state as Kampar. Both seem to be in line of Melaka, specifically Riau. Dirks with Wilkinson who much earlier affirms the notion of Malay literature, referred to it as Siak. The text itself, how- dating back to pre-colonial times, and its ever, does not allow this reading. Instead, vibrancy. Utilizing the metaphor of a it unambiguously points to a state not far mycelium, he shows how popular from Melaka, reachable by land, close to expressions of the literature sprout from Trengganu, with a coastline like the lat- time to time like mushrooms. This is ter. Kassim Ahmad, the editor of the text followed by Tenas Affendy’s ‘An Epic used by Reid, considers it to be present- Poem of the Malay’s Fate’ translated day Pahang, which is textually credible. from his ‘Syair Nasib Melayu’ written in Intertextually, this reading is supported 1995. In the concluding chapter Antho- by Sulalat al-Salatin that clearly refers to ny Milner reviews the essays and poses the state as Pahang. his own argument. Milner thinks Malay ethnicity is time-bound, primarily a Having noted the above, there is no product of the colonial period. Howev- doubt that this volume is a major and er, he takes stock of ideas and argu- significant contribution towards the ments dissimilar to his own, especially understanding of the Melayu identity on the pre-colonial period. and to Malay studies in general. It should be a recommended text in Generally, the essays reflect rigorous, departments where Malay and related nuanced and lively discussions with studies are taught. It would also be a most writers constantly problematiz- useful reading for civil servants, politi- ing Malay and Malayness. Clearly there cians and other interested parties in are contributors who support argu- countries such as , Malaysia, ments for pre-colonial origins and , , and where developments of the notions of Malay the Malays mostly reside. < and Malayness while others contest them. However, all writers agree that - Timothy P. Barnard, ed. 2004. Contesting although in everyday usage the term Malayness: Malay Identity Across Bound- Melayu is readily understood, in truth aries. Singapore: Singapore University it is fluid and elusive. Taken as a whole, Press. pp. 318, ISBN 9971-69-279-1 (Paper- the volume reflects the difficulty - or back) 9971-69-295-3 (Casebound) rather impossibility - of rigidly defin- ing Malay identity across times and Md. Salleh Yaapar is the European Chair of boundaries. It is precisely this elusive- Malay Studies at Leiden University / IIAS. ness and difficulty that keeps discus- [email protected] sions on Malay identity alive. [email protected]

26 IIAS Newsletter | #37 | June 2005