Malaysian-born Bakri Musa writes frequently on issues affecting his native land. His essays have appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review, Asiaweek, International Herald Tribune, Education Quarterly, SIngapore's Straits Times, and The New Straits Times. His commentary has aired on National Public Radio's Marketplace. His regular column Seeing It My Way appears in Malaysiakini. Bakri is also a regular contributor to th eSun (Malaysia).
He has previously written "The Malay Dilemma Revisited: Race Dynamics in Modern Malaysia" as well as "Malaysia in the Era of Globalization," "An Education System Worthy of Malaysia," "Seeing Malaysia My Way," and "With Love, From Malaysia."
Bakri's day job (and frequently night time too!) is as a surgeon in private practice in Silicon Valley, California. He and his wife Karen live on a ranch in Morgan Hill.
This website is updated twice a week on Sundays and Wednesdays at 5 PM California time.
The Halus (Subtle) Way Datuk Onn Aborted the Malayan Union M. Bakri Musa www.bakrimusa.com
In an earlier commentary I gave high
marks to our leaders for their enlightened ways and sophisticated
strategies in the pursuit of our independence. Malaysia could have
easily gone in a very different direction following the Japanese defeat.
It could have just as quickly been turned into a permanent British
Dominion.
The man responsible for sparing the
country that terrible fate was Datuk Onn Jaafar. He was a former senior
civil servant, a significant and rare achievement for a native. Had he
been a Hang Tuah, ever loyal to his sultan and the British, there would
be no limit to the height of his personal achievement within the
colonial civil service. He could have been the first native
Governor-General of the Dominion of Malaya.
Instead, in the tradition of
Jebat, Onn saw the grave injustice perpetrated upon Malays by the
colonialists in cahoots with our sultans. They had sold out our country,
repeating what their brother Sultan of Johor did with Singapore 127
years earlier.
The pathetic aspect to the
Malayan Union Treaty, like the earlier ceding of Singapore to the
British, was how easy it was to make those Malay sultans capitulate. Sir
Harold MacMichael, the British point man, needed only a few months to
secure the agreement. There was not even a whimper of protest from the
sultans.
Some, like the Johor Sultan,
enthusiastically signed the treaty within a day or two, and were proud
of that fact! The few who had flashes of courage quickly backed down
under threat of being replaced or prosecuted for presumed collaboration
with the Japanese during the war.
It turned out that those Malay sultans – Allah’s representatives on earth – also menurut arahan (follow direction), as per the mantra of the civil service, not from Allah but from Sir Harold.
Thanks to Datuk Onn, the Union
treaty was rescinded. He took on the mighty British and prevailed, with
no help from his sultans. Onn did it without being biadap (treasonous) to the sultans or resorting to armed insurrections.
It is ironic that Onn would be
instrumental in this endeavor. Earlier the Sultan of Johor had banished
Onn for daring to criticize him. If Onn had been consumed with settling
old scores and at the same time endear himself to the British, he would
have let the treaty be, and those Malay sultans would today be reduced
to the status of the Sultan of Sulu.
Onn’s accomplishment was even more
remarkable considering that by the time he mounted the challenge,
Malayan Union was already a fait accompli. The sultans had
already signed the treaty, ceding all their authorities to the British.
Essentially Malayan Union made what was hitherto “indirect” British rule
into a direct one, with no pretense to the contrary.
The open but peaceful opposition to
the Malayan Union (and also indirectly, the Malay sultans) was truly a
transformational cultural phenomenon. It was a genuine mass movement
made even more remarkable considering the speed with which it was
planned, organized and executed. Consider that up until a few months
before the event there was not a single national Malay organization;
there were plenty of little ones each with its own parochial agenda. Onn
changed all that with UMNO.
The other remarkable aspect was that
up until that time it was the accepted wisdom that Malays were an
apathetic lot, not in the least interested in politics; hence the
British overreaching attempt at railroading the treaty. Onn changed that
too. Today, Malays are obsessed with politics to the detriment of
everything else. Who says we cannot change Malays? Onn did it
successfully, and in a matter of years, not decades or generations.
Before Datuk Onn, the Malay
nationalist movement was slow to develop because of our separate
political identities in the various states. Some of the “Federated”
states felt that they were better off with British “protection.” The
“un-Federated” states meanwhile felt very proud of their “independence,”
even though that was more illusory than real.
Even among the “un-Federated” states
there were significant variations. Johor’s sultan was an unabashed
Anglophile; his Kelantan counterpart was notorious for his insularity.
Their subjects in turn followed the patterns set by their sultans.
Even as late as the 1950s and 60s
Malays still lacked a sense of common national identity, with Kelantan
Malays considering themselves separate from those in Johore. Even
government jobs and quarters were restricted to “anak Johore” (the
children of Johore) or “anak Selangor.”
Thanks to Onn, the formation of UMNO
was the first time Malays began to have a sense of national
consciousness, at least politically. It would be a few more decades
before that sentiment would truly be felt by the masses, and then spread
beyond politics.
One undisputed but not widely
acknowledged fact to the successful opposition against the Malayan Union
was that Malay sultans were of no help. They were in fact very much
part of the problem with their earlier capitulation through British
flattery. The pathetic part was that the sultans’ price for their
agreement was so ridiculously cheap: a modest stipend and the knightship
of some ancient English order. Regardless whether it was the sultans’
collective stupidity or British perfidy, the result was the same.
The surprise was that there was
minimal republican or anti-sultan sentiment expressed during all those
mass protests against the Malayan Union despite the obvious sellouts by
the rulers. On the contrary, the Malay masses reacted in exactly the
reverse and counter-intuitive fashion; they expressed their unreserved
affection and loyalty to their sultans.
This display was no more
dramatically demonstrated than on that one day in Kota Baru, Kelantan,
where all the sultans were gathered for the formal installation of the
first British Governor-General. The rakyats packed the palace grounds such that the sultans could not leave to attend the ceremony.
On the surface it was a show of
massive public loyalty; on the subtle side, it was nothing more than the
mass kidnapping of the sultans by their subjects. The Malay masses had
in effect “CB'ed" (confined to barracks) their sultans.
I doubt whether those sultans
received the subtle message that day. That would require some degree of
subtlety, intelligence and sophistication for which they had not
demonstrated thus far. The British on the other hand heard the message
loud and clear, and the Malayan Union treaty was rescinded.
Had it not been for the rakyats intervening, Malay sultans today would have been all titles and tanjak (ceremonial headgear symbolizing the sultan’s power) but little else.
So when former Prime Minister
Mahathir lamented that he could not change Malays, and by implication we
cannot be changed, I bring forth this dramatic example of our
remarkable transformation in response to the Malayan Union threat.
An enterprising soul, Fahmi Reza,
has collected all the file pictures and cartoons of the anti-Malayan
Union protests into his award-winning documentary, “Sepuloh Tahum
Sebulum Merdeka” ("Ten Years Before Merdeka"). It is truly inspiring to
see those Malays, young and old, male and female, in sarongs and in
suits marching calmly and peacefully in the streets. Their only uniting
feature was the defiance and resolve that shone bright on their faces.
Fahmi Reza has done a remarkable
public service in producing this documentary. To his credit, he has also
made it freely available on the ‘Net.
Much has been written about the
aborted Malayan Union, both from the perspective of the natives as well
as the colonials. I have yet however, to see anyone portray those mass
rallies against the treaty as expressions of our rebellion against the
sultans. That was a measure of Onn's subtlety and sophistication.
Onn was attuned to the halus ways
of our culture and used that to bring out the best in us. He united us
towards a shared and noble objective - to kill off the existential
threat posed by the Malayan Union Treaty.
In contrast, today Malaysia is
cursed with a leader who revels in the crass aspects of Malay culture,
in particular our propensity to berlagak (conspicuous
consumption). Najib's jetting around in his luxurious jets and his
wife's Bollywood gaudy tastes are expressions of this ugly and
destructive trait. His underlings only too willingly ape him with gusto;
monkey see,monkey do. Onn united the rakyats; Najib polarizes Malays, as well as Malaysians.
Onn's legacy is a free Malaysia; Najib's will be a Malaysia that is corrupt, divided, and mired in debt.
Adapted from the author’s latest book, Liberating The Malay Mind, ZI Publications Sdn Bhd, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia , 2013.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home