Ketuanan Melayu Rebutted

According to PSM's Nasir, the implementation of the NEP which focused on one race soon gave currency to the ketuanan Melayu rhetoric. But he says ketuanan Melayu is just a red herring. "Name me one Malay who is a pure Malay. There is virtually none — all Malays are mixed-blood to some degree."

By Shanon Shah, The Nut Graph

"IF you live in Malaysia, you cannot have ketuanan Melayu. The word 'ketuanan' is alienating. Malaysia has Eurasians, Indonesians, Chinese, Indians, and so on. If anyone deserves to be called the 'tuan' of this land, it's the Orang Asli."

Most Malaysians would be forgiven for thinking that it was a non-Malay Malaysian politician speaking out against ketuanan Melayu. But these sentiments were articulated by Nur Farina Noor Hashim, the People's Progressive Party (PPP) Puteri bureau head.

"I just had no interest to join Umno," Farina, who joined PPP in 2004, tells The Nut Graph. PPP is a component party of the Barisan Nasional (BN), of which Umno is the dominant party.

Farina is, of course, referring to the position taken by Umno leaders that suggests ketuanan Melayu is synonymous with Malay rights, and that Malay rights are under threat. Or rather, any questioning of ketuanan Melayu is tantamount to threatening the Malay race.

The consistent message from these Umno leaders of late seems to be that only Umno is capable of defending Malays. Or that Umno is the Malay race. And their currency is ketuanan Melayu.

Farina is not the only Malay Malaysian politician to view with some amount of circumspection Umno's position as defender of the Malays and their supremacy.

"I love Malays and I love Malaysia," says Gerakan central committee member Dr Asharuddin Ahmad. "But this country cannot survive without non-Malays. We are all Malaysians. The future of Malaysia lies with multiracial parties," he tells The Nut Graph.


Future of Malaysia lies with multiracial parties, says Asharuddin

Interestingly, Asharuddin is a former Umno member. He joined Umno in 1988, but left to join Gerakan 10 years later. He says he has been branded a traitor to Malay Malaysians, but asserts that joining Gerakan does not make him "any less Malay or more Malay".

"Umno's struggle is not wrong, but I prefer Gerakan's multiracial approach," Asharuddin says.

"Ketuanan" alienates

Umno leaders' defensiveness around the ketuanan Melayu rhetoric is not new. Their recent rancour in attacking dissenters within the BN, such as former Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Zaid Ibrahim and Gerakan Wanita chief Datuk Tan Lian Hoe, was therefore alarming yet unsurprising.

The question, however, is whether Malay Malaysian politicians have a future outside of Umno, especially if they want to remain within the BN.

In that sense, the case of Gerakan's Asharuddin is interesting, having crossed over from a party that champions ketuanan Melayu to a multiracial one.

But Asharuddin is not alone. Another ex-Umno member who jumped ship to join a multiracial BN component party is Datuk Nik Sapeia Nik Yusof from PPP.

Nik Sapeia was invited by party president Datuk Dr M Kayveas to join, even though he is still facing court proceedings for the charge of attacking former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 2006. Nik Sapeia is now the party's Kelantan chief.

"Before I came along, nobody believed PPP had any supporters in Kelantan," Nik Sapeia tells The Nut Graph. "Now in Kelantan, every time I organise an event I get thousands of people attending and supporting it. The Kelantanese are ready and they want change to happen in the political scenario here."

He says the Kelantanese are increasingly seeing that PPP will bring about this much-needed change.


Malaysians are very open-minded and
intelligent, says Farina

Asharuddin and Nik Sapeia are undoubtedly minorities among the BN's multiracial component parties. However, they are slowly coming out of the woodwork, especially since the BN's unprecedented losses in the 8 March 2008 general election.

Farina feels that Umno's outbursts and threats will only backfire in the long run.

"Malaysians are very open-minded and intelligent now," she says. "Our politicians must be on par with the rakyat's intelligence, because it's the rakyat who want change and will eventually change this country."

Multiracial politics

The voices of these non-Umno Malay Malaysians within the BN join those in the Pakatan Rakyat that have also been upping the ante against Umno's ketuanan Melayu rhetoric.

As part of its election campaign, PAS launched its "PAS for all" tagline. The Islamist party also continues to aggressively recruit non-Muslim support via Kelab Penyokong PAS.

Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) leaders, such as Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Dr Syed Husin Ali, have been promoting "ketuanan rakyat" instead of "ketuanan Melayu". And the DAP also scored a coup when it recruited Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim as the party's vice-chairperson. He was formerly vice-chairperson of Transparency International's board of directors.

The Pakatan Rakyat parties are therefore, in varying degrees, grappling with their respective multiracial futures. The previously monoreligious, monoracial PAS is trying to appeal to a wider section of Malaysians. In an interview in the November 2008 issue of Off the Edge, even party spiritual advisor Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat said, "[I]f there is a Chinese person in Kelantan who is good, pious and clean, I will campaign for him to become chief minister. As long as he is qualified, as long as he is a Muslim, I don't care what ethnic background he comes from."


Nik Aziz Nik Mat (© Murdfreak)

The Chinese-dominated DAP is trying to increase its appeal to non-Chinese Malaysians, specifically Malay Malaysians. And high-level Malay Malaysian leaders in PKR are trying to consolidate the party's tentative multiracialism.

A little-known fact is that two other opposition parties, albeit non-Pakatan Rakyat members, are multiracial and led by Malay Malaysians. They, too, are vocal in their opposition to the ketuanan Melayu rhetoric.

Historical miscalculations

Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) national chairperson Dr Nasir Hashim says Umno's racial outbursts are rooted in historical miscalculations.

"We made a mistake, even after Merdeka, when we were emerging as a nation. We should have talked about helping the poor among all races and not just zero in on one race," he tells The Nut Graph.

Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) president Hassan Karim concurs. He tells The Nut Graph: "The NEP (New Economic Policy), being capitalist and race-based, only benefited a minority of Malays. What about analysing it from a class perspective? Not all Chinese are rich either, you know. There cannot be ketuanan Melayu or ketuanan bukan Melayu. There must be justice for all."


Nasir: Ketuanan Melayu is just a red herring

According to PSM's Nasir, the implementation of the NEP which focused on one race soon gave currency to the ketuanan Melayu rhetoric. But he says ketuanan Melayu is just a red herring. "Name me one Malay who is a pure Malay. There is virtually none — all Malays are mixed-blood to some degree."

Rather, Umno's outbursts can be seen as the increasingly desperate acts of a party frustrated by its loss of power, he argues. "Umno is frustrated by its losses during the general election, and continues to use race and religion to divert the anger of poor Malays," adds Nasir.

"Because as so-called leaders of the Malays, Umno has failed. It has not even been able to help poor Malays and Malay entrepreneurs," he asserts. Therefore, the ketuanan Melayu rhetoric conveniently redirects the frustration and anger of disenfranchised Malay Malaysians towards other races. Herein lies the danger of Umno's rhetoric, says Nasir.

"In times of economic difficulty, the ketuanan Melayu rhetoric will likely give rise to fascist tendencies. When people are feeling the pinch and they are frustrated, you just need to cucuk them and then they'll meletup. Umno knows this only too well," he says.


Hassan: We cannot move forward if we follow Umno

Again, PRM's Hassan concurs. "Ketuanan Melayu will destroy our country. I'm a Malay too, you know, but I believe that what Umno is fighting for is feudalistic. We cannot move forward if we follow Umno."

The Malay Malaysian leaders interviewed all say that interest in their respective parties, both in the BN and opposition, has risen since 8 March, especially among Malays.

It is definitely heartening that there is a diverse and growing number of Malay Malaysian political leaders speaking out against supremacist rhetoric and for an inclusive society. But it is even more encouraging that they are gaining support.

Perhaps this, then, is the most encouraging indicator yet that racial politics is losing currency in Malaysia.

The Renaissance as a Historical Period

The new age began in Padua and other urban communes of northern Italy in the 14th century, where lawyers and notaries imitated ancient Latin style and studied Roman archaeology. The key figure in this study of the classical heritage was PETRARCH, who spent most of his life attempting to understand ancient culture and captured the enthusiasm of popes, princes, and emperors who wanted to learn more of Italy's past. Petrarch's success stirred countless others to follow literary careers hoping for positions in government and high society. In the next generations, students of Latin rhetoric and the classics, later known as humanists, became chancellors of Venice and Florence, secretaries at the papal court, and tutors and orators in the despotic courts of northern Italy. Renaissance HUMANISM became the major intellectual movement of the period, and its achievements became permanent.

By the 15th century intensive study of the Greek as well as Latin classics, ancient art and archaeology, and classical history, had given Renaissance scholars a more sophisticated view of antiquity. The ancient past was now viewed as past, to be admired and imitated, but not to be revived.

In many ways, the period of the Renaissance saw a decline from the prosperity of the High Middle Ages. The Black Death (bubonic and pneumonic plague), which devastated Europe in the mid-14th century, reduced its population by as much as one-third, creating chaotic economic conditions. Labor became scarce, industries contracted, and the economy stagnated, but agriculture was put on a sounder basis as unneeded marginal land went out of cultivation. Probably the actual per capita wealth of the survivors of the Black Death rose in the second half of the 14th century. In general, the 15th century saw a modest recovery with the construction of palaces for the urban elites, a boom in the decorative arts, and renewed long-distance trade headed by Venice in the Mediterranean and the HANSEATIC LEAGUE in the north of Europe.

The culture of Renaissance Italy was distinguished by many highly competitive and advanced urban areas. Unlike England and France, Italy possessed no dominating capital city, but developed a number of centers for regional states: Milan for Lombardy, Rome for the Papal States, Florence and Siena for Tuscany, and Venice for northeastern Italy. Smaller centers of Renaissance culture developed around the brilliant court life at Ferrara, Mantua, and Urbino. The chief patrons of Renaissance art and literature were the merchant classes of Florence and Venice, which created in the Renaissance palace their own distinctive home and workplace, fitted for both business and rearing and nurture of the next generation of urban rulers. The later Renaissance was marked by a growth of bureaucracy, an increase in state authority in the areas of justice and taxation, and the creation of larger regional states. During the interval of relative peace from the mid-15th century until the French invasions of 1494, Italy experienced a great flowering of culture, especially in Florence and Tuscany under the MEDICI. The brilliant period of artistic achievement continued into the 16th century--the age of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, and Michelangelo--but as Italy began to fall under foreign domination, the focus gradually shifted to other parts of Europe.

During the 15th century, students from many European nations had come to Italy to study the classics, philosophy, and the remains of antiquity, eventually spreading the Renaissance north of the Alps. Italian literature and art, even Italian clothing and furniture designs were imitated in France, Spain, England, the Netherlands, and Germany, but as Renaissance values came to the north, they were transformed. Northern humanists such as Desiderius ERASMUS of the Netherlands and John Colet (c. 1467-1519) of England planted the first seeds of the Reformation when they applied critical methods developed in Italy to the study of the New Testament.

Philosophy, Science, and Social Thought

No single philosophy or ideology dominated the intellectual life of the Renaissance. Early humanists had stressed a flexible approach to the problems of society and the active life in service of one's fellow human beings. In the second half of the 15th century, Renaissance thinkers such as Marsilio FICINO at the Platonic Academy in Florence turned to more metaphysical speculation. Though favored by the humanists, Plato did not replace Aristotle as the dominant philosopher in the universities. Rather there was an effort at philosophical syncretism, to combine apparently conflicting philosophies, and find common ground for agreement about the truth as did Giovanni PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA in his Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486). Renaissance science consisted mainly of the study of medicine, physics, and mathematics, depending on ancient masters, such as Galen, Aristotle, and Euclid. Experimental science in anatomy and alchemy led to discoveries both within and outside university settings.

Under the veneer of magnificent works of art and the refined court life described in BALDASSAIC CASTIGLIONE's Book of the Courtier, the Renaissance had a darker side. Warfare was common, and death by pestilence and violence was frequent. Interest in the occult, magic, and astrology was widespread, and the officially sanctioned persecution for witchcraft began during the Renaissance period. Many intellectuals felt a profound pessimism about the evils and corruptions of society as seen in the often savage humanist critiques of Giovanni Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459) and Desiderius Erasmus. Sir Thomas MORE, in his Utopia, prescribed the radical solution of a classless, communal society, bereft of Christianity and guided by the dictates of natural reason. The greatest Renaissance thinker, Nicolo MACHIAVELLI, in his Prince and Discourses, constructed a realistic science of human nature aiming at the reform of Italian society and the creation of a secure civil life. Machiavelli's republican principles informed by a pragmatic view of power politics and the necessity of violent change were the most original contribution of the Renaissance to the modern world.

Influence

The Renaissance lived on in established canons of taste and literature and in a distinctive Renaissance style in art, music, and architecture, the last often revived. It also provided the model of many-sided achievement of the creative genius, the "universal man," exemplified by Leonardo da Vinci or Leon Battista ALBERTI. Finally, the Renaissance spawned the great creative vernacular literature of the late 16th century: the earthy fantasies of RABELAIS, the worldly essays of MONTAIGNE, the probing analysis of the human condition in the plays of William SHAKESPEARE.

Sejarah Melaka

Melaka diketahui sebagai sebuah negeri bersejarah yang kaya dan dikenali sebagai lambang semangat perpaduan kebangsaan yang telah ditempa hasil ukiran dan tenunan sejarah yang unik. Melaka telah diasaskan oleh Parameswara (atau Raja Iskandar), pemerintah Melayu Temasik yang terakhir (Singapura pada masa dahulu) pada tahun 1396 apabila baginda dan pengikut-pengikutnya mengundurkan diri ke selat menuju ke Muar, dan kemudiannya ke Sungai Ujung sebelum singgah di Bertam iaitu berdekatan dengan muara Sungai Melaka.

Setelah mengetahui akan kedudukannya yang strategik, baginda memutuskan untuk menetap di situ dan menamakannya sebagai “Melaka” sempena nama sebuah pokok tempat baginda bersandar. Kesultanan Melaka adalah kedudukan yang istimewa dan penting dalam sejarah Malaysia. Perlantikannya menandakan permulaan baru kepada pemerintahan baru Melayu. Sebagai tempat kelahiran Kesultanan Melayu dan sejarah bandar Malaysia, Melaka merupakan tempat di mana Portugis, Belanda dan juga British memainkan peranan dalam melakar sejarah.

Melaka muncul sebagai sebuah kuasa perdagangan maritim hasil kerja keras Parameswara dan pengikut-pengikutnya. Melaka mula dikenali oleh pedagang-pedagang Islam dari Asia Barat dan India yang pada waktu itu menumpukan aktiviti mereka di Aru, Pedir, Pasai dan sepanjang perjalanan ke Timur, terutamanya Cina. Disebabkan kedudukannya yang strategik di Selat Melaka, ia telah berkembang sebagai pengkalan kapal dan pusat pertukaran barang dagangan dari Cina, Jepun, India, Arab dan Afrika Selatan.

Pada tahun 1511 ia telah jatuh ke tangan Portugis, dan kemudianya Belanda pada tahun 1641 dalam peperangan yang sengit. Pada tahun 1795, Melaka telah diberi kepada British untuk menghalangnya dari jatuh ke tangan Perancis apabila Netherland dijajah semasa Peperangan Napoleon. Selepas itu ia telah dikembalikan semula kepada Belanda pada tahun 1818 di bawah Perjanjian Vienna, tetapi akhirnya menjadi milik British, hasil pertukaran Bangkahulu, Sumatera kepada Belanda. Semenjak tahun 1826, Melaka bersama-sama Singapura dan juga Pulau Pinang diperintah oleh Kompeni Hindia Timur British di bawah pentadbiran Perjanjian Selat di Calcutta. Belanda, sebuah kuasa yang telah memerintah Melaka selama lebih satu kurun telah banyak mendirikan bangunan-bangunan yang melambangkan tinggalan mereka. Stadthuys adalah bekas tinggalan yang terunggul semasa zaman pemerintahan Belanda. Dewan bandar yang berwarna merah jambu ini adalah bangunan tinggalan Belanda yang tertua di Timur Jauh. Bersebelahan dengannya pula adalah Gereja Christ yang berwarna merah terang yang dibina dengan bata merah yang diimport dari Holland yang disalut dengan laserit. Kini, bangunan-bangunan, bersama-sama dengan tinggalan Portugis seperti A’ Famosa dan Gereja St. Paul telah menjadi ingatan yang terunggul melambangkan kehadiran kuasa-kuasa Eropah pada masa lalu di Melaka.

Selepas Perang Dunia ke 2, sentimen anti-koloni telah merebak di seluruh negara di kalangan nasionalis hingga terhasilnya Perisytiharan Kemerdekaan oleh Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, Perdana Menteri Malaysia yang pertama di Padang Pahlawan di Bandar Hilir Melaka pada 20 Februari 1956.

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