What do you think?
Rate this book
Bangsa Melayu: Konsep Bangsa Melayu Dalam Demokrasi dan Komuniti, 1945-1950
Tempoh selepas Perang Dunia Kedua amat kritikal dalam pembinaan semula masyarakat Asia Tenggara. Bangsa Melayu merupakan kajian baru berkenaan ideologi politik dalam dua masyarakat Melayu yang berkongsi persamaan dan perbezaan sewaktu mengalami pergolakan politik ini, iaitu di Tanah Melayu dan Sumatera Timur.
Sebelum ini, kerajaan – monarki yang diketuai sultan-sultan – memegang kuasa utama dari segi budaya politik dan identiti Melayu. Dengan perkembangan nasionalisme, persoalan terhadap kewarganegaraan dan kemunculan negara-bangsa, jalan alternatif baru mula tersedia bagi masyarakat Melayu.
Di Tanah Melayu, bangsa Melayu timbul sebagai tumpuan kesetiaan dan kemasyarakatan yang mula diutamakan lebih daripada kerajaan. Sementara itu, kedatangan satu republik Indonesia yang lengkap telah menyebabkan kejatuhan sistem monarki di Sumatera Timur.
Dalam edisi baru buku klasik ini, Ariffin Omar menumpukan perhatian kepada perbezaan asas dalam pemikiran dan sikap antara kedua-dua kumpulan Melayu yang telah membawa kepada hasil politik yang amat berbeza. Buku ini akan menarik para peminat sejarah idea dan politik perkauman.
Tentang Penulis
Ariffin Omar lahir pada tahun 1949 dan menerima pendidikan sekolah menengah di St Xavier’s Institution, Pulau Pinang. Beliau menerima Doktor Falsafah di Australian National University pada tahun 1990, mengajar di Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Utara Malaysia dan National Defence University of Malaysia, dan pernah menjadi pelawat Fulbright Fellow di University of Utah, USA pada tahun 1998. Beliau juga merupakan salah seorang daripada ahli-ahli pengasas Aliran Kesedaran Negara, satu gerakan reformasi yang berbakti kepada nilai-nilai keadilan, kemerdekaan dan perpaduan. Beliau adalah penulis buku Revolusi Indonesia dan Bangsa Melayu (1999) dan penyunting satu jilid The Bumiputra Policy: Dynamics and Dilemmas (2004). Beliau sekarang berpusat di Penang Institute dan kajian penyelidikan beliau menumpukan negara, nasionalisme, perhubungan kaum dan kebebasan agama. Pada masa yang sama, beliau adalah seorang ahli senat yang mewakili Pulau Pinang di parlimen Malaysia (2012–2015).
Sebelum ini, kerajaan – monarki yang diketuai sultan-sultan – memegang kuasa utama dari segi budaya politik dan identiti Melayu. Dengan perkembangan nasionalisme, persoalan terhadap kewarganegaraan dan kemunculan negara-bangsa, jalan alternatif baru mula tersedia bagi masyarakat Melayu.
Di Tanah Melayu, bangsa Melayu timbul sebagai tumpuan kesetiaan dan kemasyarakatan yang mula diutamakan lebih daripada kerajaan. Sementara itu, kedatangan satu republik Indonesia yang lengkap telah menyebabkan kejatuhan sistem monarki di Sumatera Timur.
Dalam edisi baru buku klasik ini, Ariffin Omar menumpukan perhatian kepada perbezaan asas dalam pemikiran dan sikap antara kedua-dua kumpulan Melayu yang telah membawa kepada hasil politik yang amat berbeza. Buku ini akan menarik para peminat sejarah idea dan politik perkauman.
Tentang Penulis
Ariffin Omar lahir pada tahun 1949 dan menerima pendidikan sekolah menengah di St Xavier’s Institution, Pulau Pinang. Beliau menerima Doktor Falsafah di Australian National University pada tahun 1990, mengajar di Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Utara Malaysia dan National Defence University of Malaysia, dan pernah menjadi pelawat Fulbright Fellow di University of Utah, USA pada tahun 1998. Beliau juga merupakan salah seorang daripada ahli-ahli pengasas Aliran Kesedaran Negara, satu gerakan reformasi yang berbakti kepada nilai-nilai keadilan, kemerdekaan dan perpaduan. Beliau adalah penulis buku Revolusi Indonesia dan Bangsa Melayu (1999) dan penyunting satu jilid The Bumiputra Policy: Dynamics and Dilemmas (2004). Beliau sekarang berpusat di Penang Institute dan kajian penyelidikan beliau menumpukan negara, nasionalisme, perhubungan kaum dan kebebasan agama. Pada masa yang sama, beliau adalah seorang ahli senat yang mewakili Pulau Pinang di parlimen Malaysia (2012–2015).
318 pages, Paperback
First published September 30, 1993
2 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 21, 2026
This book brilliantly explores the period where the consciousness of kerajaan among the Malays in the Peninsular and East Sumatra transitioned to the consciousness of kebangsaan.
More importantly, it also examines the factors why the kerajaan in the Peninsular survived the transition, but not in East Sumatra. Firstly, the kerajaan in East Sumatra, as shown by the author, were more economically connected to the Dutch and profited from the interaction, to the point that the sultans became the primary tradesmen in the country and grew increasingly economically significant. At the same time, these economic practices brought forth population changes and perceptions of inequality among the people. In contrast, the sultans in the Peninsular did not actively seek economic advancement for themselves; rather, the kerajaan erupted into instability either through foreign incursions such as by the Siamese or through internal strife such as dynastic conflicts or breakdowns of order due to kongsis, etc.
Secondly, the rising voice for self-determination post-Japanese occupation was brilliantly supported by the kerajaan in the Peninsular (even despite the initial inertia and other issues), while in East Sumatra, as shown by the author, the kerajaan still sought to establish contact with the Dutch for whatever reasons they had. This, of course, incited the already smouldering disillusionment of the people.
Thirdly, at 1945 the two counterparts of the Malay people are in two different political situations. The Peninsular Malay emerged directly from the vacuum post-Occupation and the momentum carried on culminating with the unison voice rejecting the Malayan Union. Flushed pink with victory and optimism, the Malays advanced with unitary voice. The PKMM with their dream for combining the Peninsular and Indonesia shattered when the Indonesians declared independence first, thus necessitating them to revise their core propaganda and in turn held them back.
On the other hand, the Malays of East Sumatra already found themselves surrounded by the republicans. The inertia by the kerajaan is meted with worsening agitations from the disillusioned people, which eventually culminated into the bloody social revolution.
Due to this multiple factors, the understanding of bangsa and kebangsaan, and eventually the form of government each communities of Malay ended up differed from one another. In Indonesia, the jump from kerajaan that is exclusive for the Melayu bangsa to the Indonesia bangsa is not entirely unpremeditated. The Indonesia bangsa consists from communities that shared the same geographical and cultural region experienced as the Nusantara. Even the migration into East Sumatra involved communities from the Java island and Sumatran inlands.
On the other hand, the composition of people in the Peninsular consists of different people with different cultures and religion. The author mentioned that the Malay psyche has accustomed to term these communities as anak dagang, even including the descendants of Muslims with Arab or Indian blood. Thus, PKMM’s suggestion to include the non-Malays as part of the Melayu bangsa is awkward and unprecedented. The author noted that this suggestion was even met reluctantly by their AMCJA allies.
The turn to bangsa Melayu is born from the shifting of orientation from purely kerajaan-based and bangsa as previously understood as “berwangsakan” to each rajas and sultans (see below) into a bangsa Melayu transcending the earlier understanding, uniquely without the need to discard the kerajaan as in the East Sumatra. The spirit of Independence allowed the bangsa Melayu to further transcend into a kebangsaan which include the non-Malays who agreed to the social contract. Their ability to agree into the social contract necessarily arises from their shifted experience of living viewing the Peninsular as their “place” (see below). This dynamic transcendence by the Melayu, I believe, arises from their secure attachment to the satisfactory united voice in defining their own bangsa. Blue must be blue, for it to allow the understanding of a color red.
The prose and the development of the arguments in the book are crisp and beneficial, highly recommended for its elucidation of the history of ideas of community (bangsa–kerajaan to kebangsaan) among the Malays in the Peninsular and East Sumatra.
It also makes me wonder why there are not more scholars in Malaysia who discuss the history of the nation at the level of ideas, instead of merely arguing back and forth at the level of interpretation.
I personally feel that if the discussion were at the level of ideas, there would be more substantial and systematic discourse, which could lead to expansion, revision, or dismantling of those ideas in a more academically and civilizationally appropriate manner. At the level of interpretation, most discussions are merely rhetorical or semantic debates, often plagued with blatant revisionism and eventually scepticism.
What I also learned through reading this book is to finally form a preliminary idea of bangsa–kebangsaan. I argue that bangsa–kebangsaan is not a biological nor purely objective historical concept, but rather a mode of being and existence of a community.
⸻
Many confusions revolve around the overlapping notions of “bangsa” and “kebangsaan”. Due to their apparent shared domains, some even deny the existence of “bangsa”. Some argue that Malays as a “bangsa” did not exist until colonizers began using the term in their records. But this is a gross simplification, akin to denying the existence of a group of people and culture already occupying the land simply because they did not have a name to represent “all of them.” For example, it would be like denying the existence of “American Indians” because “America” as a continent was only “discovered” in the 1500s, or because the “American Indians” consisted of confederations of peoples who called themselves by their own unique names.
In reality, this confusion arises from misunderstanding “bangsa–kebangsaan” in at least two ways. Firstly, it arises from understanding “bangsa–kebangsaan” strictly in objective historical or biological terms, rather than existentially. Secondly, it arises from mixing up significations at different levels: existential and concord.
Many deny the existence of bangsa, and thus kebangsaan as a fictitious entity, after observing how little biological difference exists between groups of people. While these biological differences are indeed negligible, we cannot deny that differences exist between an Englishman and a Frenchman, or between a Simalungun and a Karo, just as there are many types of “hammers” with specific functions and shapes. In fact, the voluminous literature defending or rejecting the notion of bangsa likely arises because they are “seeing” from a fundamentally mistaken perspective.
I would argue that the signification of “bangsa” arises from the existential and lived experiences of people who share the same idea of the “place” they inhabit. As beings, we do not occupy “spaces” like hammers or stones. We find meaning in the areas we settle, or more accurately, we view the “spaces” we occupy as having specific existential qualities for us. While I may be “occupying” a “unit” similar to others, I am “dwelling” in “my” “home”. We do not experience “space”, but rather “place”.
As a consequence, “place” provides a context through which I define myself, just as your home—consciously built—reflects your existence as a person. Translated into a historical perspective, at the most basic level, the place we dwell in gives rise to our consciousness as a “person” or “people”. That is perhaps why certain names representing people simply mean “people”; e.g., the Inuit (Inuk = person), Ainu (person), Diné (the people), Deutsch (diutisc = of the people), and Slavs (slovo = those who speak our language).
There are also other ways people refer to the place they dwell in, while simultaneously reflecting the places they share. As they share the same places of dwelling, they refer to the same “place”. We have the Romans, who identify the place they dwell in as within the seven hills of Rome, and the Canaanites with the land of Canaan, etc.
On another level, there are people who identify the “place” they share through a common extent defined by shared mythological understanding. For example, the Greeks named themselves Hellenes, from Hellen. Each sub-group of the Hellenes further identified themselves with the mythological sons of Hellen: Aeolus, Dorus, and Ion.
And of course, there are people who identify the place they dwell in with the royal houses that rule them. People who identify themselves in this way are not merely subjected to it, but actively participate in the labelling of their existence through it. Hence, we have the Habsburgs, the Carolingians, the Achaemenids, the Hashemites, the Umayyads, the Abbasids, etc.
Belonging to this category would be the Malays, as they identify themselves as belonging to the royal house descending from the Hills of Siguntang Mahameru and bound through the covenant of Demang Lebar Daun. While one may sneer and say that this entire narrative is merely mythological, one cannot deny that people lived, fought, and died through such a “mythos” way of experiencing life.
The binding of existence to such abstract entities as mythological founding is similar to how we call ourselves by certain identities or even sacrifice ourselves for the bonds of “family” or “humanity”—things that science can describe but cannot fully explain. The “mythos” way of referring to oneself in existence is as real as the “logos”; the only difference is that the latter is rational, while the former is non-rational (not irrational) in its mode of understanding life.
Perhaps “bangsa” as we understand it belongs to one way of referring to the place we exist; “bangsa” as “berwangsakan” (paying homage to) the noble house of Siguntang Mahameru. This forms the basic consciousness of existence in the kerajaan of Palembang–Malacca and its subsequent successor kerajaan of Johor, Perak, and Pahang. The same consciousness of “bangsa as berwangsakan” is also shared by the people of Kedah under the House of Merong Mahawangsa, the people of Negeri Sembilan under the House of Pagar Ruyung, the people of Selangor under the House of the Daengs, and the local founding dynasties in the East Coast.
Through this, it can be said that the basic consciousness of the Malays is that of kerajaan—of being conscious of having a raja, in the sense of experiencing their communal space as one ruled by the same raja. This way of signifying oneself is therefore not biological nor entirely historical; it is existential.
The second mistake lies in conflating the idea of “bangsa as berwangsakan” with kebangsaan. The former refers to the basic consciousness of the people, while the latter refers to another layer of consciousness formed through concord. Kebangsaan refers to the active and dynamic layer experienced collectively by the people of the kerajaan, beyond their basic ideas. Kebangsaan exists because human consciousness is dynamic and integrative, without needing to shed prior layers. In fact, in the case of the Malays, the experience of kebangsaan is only possible through the experience of kerajaan.
As this book shows, the transition from kerajaan to kebangsaan was spurred by many factors, among them the practices of self-determination through community services and education, ironically introduced during the Japanese occupation. The reason why kerajaan in Malaysia continued to exist, unlike in East Sumatra, is because the raja in Malaysia continued to assert relevance and participate in this process. We see how the Sultan of Kedah was among the first to boycott the coercive methods of MacMichael in securing signatures for the Malayan Union, and how the Sultan of Selangor officiated one of the earliest major conferences that led to the formation of UMNO—signalling recognition of the people’s voice without abandoning the institution of kerajaan. In Malaysia, the self-consciousness of the Malays is existentially supplemented by this prior fabric of having a raja.
Only through this lens can we understand why national schools, which also included non-Malays, are termed kebangsaan. Even before the formal naming of Malaysia, the inclusion of non-Malays into kebangsaan at the eve of Independence was possible because many of them, excluding certain radical elements, also came to identify the “place” they inhabited as one already shaped by the experience of kerajaan and its people. The facticity of their presence in a land already historically experienced by another civilization did not negate their participation; rather, their participation enriched and expanded the space, allowing kebangsaan Melayu to develop into kebangsaan Malaysia without erasing the former—made possible by the persistence of a dynamic kerajaan.
This dynamic expansion and continuity of kebangsaan was first carried by the founding generation and then sustained by those who shared the same existentiality. When this shared existentiality erodes over time, revisionist interpretations emerge that attempt to supplant the original lived experience of the people of the Federation of Malaya.
This explains both the richness and fragility of kebangsaan as a dynamic entity of concord. It is not purely biological; arguing from that perspective leads to confusion and misinformation. As shown, it is a signification of existentiality and must therefore be continuously lived and experienced. All people breathe, eat, and reproduce—but not all exist in the same way as their forefathers.
Hence, as I argued preliminarily in A Vision of Unity, there is a need to continually recreate the same existential space to sustain the feeling of concord through kebangsaan, or risk decay through separatism, revisionism, and parochialism, as we are witnessing today.
In summary, bangsa–kebangsaan is an existential property signifying the place we dwell and exist. It does not refer solely to biological or objective historical reality, just as we are not purely objective and passive entities like stones or hammers. Stones and hammers possess purely objective historical existence—we can point to them and determine when they appeared or were made. But the existence of human beings is as much a communally lived subjective experience as it is partly biological and historical.
Our mistake in grounding bangsa–kebangsaan purely in biological or historical terms creates confusion and unnecessary layering without addressing its true nature as an existential property. Neglecting this existential dimension leads to a failure in cultivating and sustaining shared lived experience, resulting in decay within a multicultural society such as ours.
More importantly, it also examines the factors why the kerajaan in the Peninsular survived the transition, but not in East Sumatra. Firstly, the kerajaan in East Sumatra, as shown by the author, were more economically connected to the Dutch and profited from the interaction, to the point that the sultans became the primary tradesmen in the country and grew increasingly economically significant. At the same time, these economic practices brought forth population changes and perceptions of inequality among the people. In contrast, the sultans in the Peninsular did not actively seek economic advancement for themselves; rather, the kerajaan erupted into instability either through foreign incursions such as by the Siamese or through internal strife such as dynastic conflicts or breakdowns of order due to kongsis, etc.
Secondly, the rising voice for self-determination post-Japanese occupation was brilliantly supported by the kerajaan in the Peninsular (even despite the initial inertia and other issues), while in East Sumatra, as shown by the author, the kerajaan still sought to establish contact with the Dutch for whatever reasons they had. This, of course, incited the already smouldering disillusionment of the people.
Thirdly, at 1945 the two counterparts of the Malay people are in two different political situations. The Peninsular Malay emerged directly from the vacuum post-Occupation and the momentum carried on culminating with the unison voice rejecting the Malayan Union. Flushed pink with victory and optimism, the Malays advanced with unitary voice. The PKMM with their dream for combining the Peninsular and Indonesia shattered when the Indonesians declared independence first, thus necessitating them to revise their core propaganda and in turn held them back.
On the other hand, the Malays of East Sumatra already found themselves surrounded by the republicans. The inertia by the kerajaan is meted with worsening agitations from the disillusioned people, which eventually culminated into the bloody social revolution.
Due to this multiple factors, the understanding of bangsa and kebangsaan, and eventually the form of government each communities of Malay ended up differed from one another. In Indonesia, the jump from kerajaan that is exclusive for the Melayu bangsa to the Indonesia bangsa is not entirely unpremeditated. The Indonesia bangsa consists from communities that shared the same geographical and cultural region experienced as the Nusantara. Even the migration into East Sumatra involved communities from the Java island and Sumatran inlands.
On the other hand, the composition of people in the Peninsular consists of different people with different cultures and religion. The author mentioned that the Malay psyche has accustomed to term these communities as anak dagang, even including the descendants of Muslims with Arab or Indian blood. Thus, PKMM’s suggestion to include the non-Malays as part of the Melayu bangsa is awkward and unprecedented. The author noted that this suggestion was even met reluctantly by their AMCJA allies.
The turn to bangsa Melayu is born from the shifting of orientation from purely kerajaan-based and bangsa as previously understood as “berwangsakan” to each rajas and sultans (see below) into a bangsa Melayu transcending the earlier understanding, uniquely without the need to discard the kerajaan as in the East Sumatra. The spirit of Independence allowed the bangsa Melayu to further transcend into a kebangsaan which include the non-Malays who agreed to the social contract. Their ability to agree into the social contract necessarily arises from their shifted experience of living viewing the Peninsular as their “place” (see below). This dynamic transcendence by the Melayu, I believe, arises from their secure attachment to the satisfactory united voice in defining their own bangsa. Blue must be blue, for it to allow the understanding of a color red.
The prose and the development of the arguments in the book are crisp and beneficial, highly recommended for its elucidation of the history of ideas of community (bangsa–kerajaan to kebangsaan) among the Malays in the Peninsular and East Sumatra.
It also makes me wonder why there are not more scholars in Malaysia who discuss the history of the nation at the level of ideas, instead of merely arguing back and forth at the level of interpretation.
I personally feel that if the discussion were at the level of ideas, there would be more substantial and systematic discourse, which could lead to expansion, revision, or dismantling of those ideas in a more academically and civilizationally appropriate manner. At the level of interpretation, most discussions are merely rhetorical or semantic debates, often plagued with blatant revisionism and eventually scepticism.
What I also learned through reading this book is to finally form a preliminary idea of bangsa–kebangsaan. I argue that bangsa–kebangsaan is not a biological nor purely objective historical concept, but rather a mode of being and existence of a community.
⸻
Many confusions revolve around the overlapping notions of “bangsa” and “kebangsaan”. Due to their apparent shared domains, some even deny the existence of “bangsa”. Some argue that Malays as a “bangsa” did not exist until colonizers began using the term in their records. But this is a gross simplification, akin to denying the existence of a group of people and culture already occupying the land simply because they did not have a name to represent “all of them.” For example, it would be like denying the existence of “American Indians” because “America” as a continent was only “discovered” in the 1500s, or because the “American Indians” consisted of confederations of peoples who called themselves by their own unique names.
In reality, this confusion arises from misunderstanding “bangsa–kebangsaan” in at least two ways. Firstly, it arises from understanding “bangsa–kebangsaan” strictly in objective historical or biological terms, rather than existentially. Secondly, it arises from mixing up significations at different levels: existential and concord.
Many deny the existence of bangsa, and thus kebangsaan as a fictitious entity, after observing how little biological difference exists between groups of people. While these biological differences are indeed negligible, we cannot deny that differences exist between an Englishman and a Frenchman, or between a Simalungun and a Karo, just as there are many types of “hammers” with specific functions and shapes. In fact, the voluminous literature defending or rejecting the notion of bangsa likely arises because they are “seeing” from a fundamentally mistaken perspective.
I would argue that the signification of “bangsa” arises from the existential and lived experiences of people who share the same idea of the “place” they inhabit. As beings, we do not occupy “spaces” like hammers or stones. We find meaning in the areas we settle, or more accurately, we view the “spaces” we occupy as having specific existential qualities for us. While I may be “occupying” a “unit” similar to others, I am “dwelling” in “my” “home”. We do not experience “space”, but rather “place”.
As a consequence, “place” provides a context through which I define myself, just as your home—consciously built—reflects your existence as a person. Translated into a historical perspective, at the most basic level, the place we dwell in gives rise to our consciousness as a “person” or “people”. That is perhaps why certain names representing people simply mean “people”; e.g., the Inuit (Inuk = person), Ainu (person), Diné (the people), Deutsch (diutisc = of the people), and Slavs (slovo = those who speak our language).
There are also other ways people refer to the place they dwell in, while simultaneously reflecting the places they share. As they share the same places of dwelling, they refer to the same “place”. We have the Romans, who identify the place they dwell in as within the seven hills of Rome, and the Canaanites with the land of Canaan, etc.
On another level, there are people who identify the “place” they share through a common extent defined by shared mythological understanding. For example, the Greeks named themselves Hellenes, from Hellen. Each sub-group of the Hellenes further identified themselves with the mythological sons of Hellen: Aeolus, Dorus, and Ion.
And of course, there are people who identify the place they dwell in with the royal houses that rule them. People who identify themselves in this way are not merely subjected to it, but actively participate in the labelling of their existence through it. Hence, we have the Habsburgs, the Carolingians, the Achaemenids, the Hashemites, the Umayyads, the Abbasids, etc.
Belonging to this category would be the Malays, as they identify themselves as belonging to the royal house descending from the Hills of Siguntang Mahameru and bound through the covenant of Demang Lebar Daun. While one may sneer and say that this entire narrative is merely mythological, one cannot deny that people lived, fought, and died through such a “mythos” way of experiencing life.
The binding of existence to such abstract entities as mythological founding is similar to how we call ourselves by certain identities or even sacrifice ourselves for the bonds of “family” or “humanity”—things that science can describe but cannot fully explain. The “mythos” way of referring to oneself in existence is as real as the “logos”; the only difference is that the latter is rational, while the former is non-rational (not irrational) in its mode of understanding life.
Perhaps “bangsa” as we understand it belongs to one way of referring to the place we exist; “bangsa” as “berwangsakan” (paying homage to) the noble house of Siguntang Mahameru. This forms the basic consciousness of existence in the kerajaan of Palembang–Malacca and its subsequent successor kerajaan of Johor, Perak, and Pahang. The same consciousness of “bangsa as berwangsakan” is also shared by the people of Kedah under the House of Merong Mahawangsa, the people of Negeri Sembilan under the House of Pagar Ruyung, the people of Selangor under the House of the Daengs, and the local founding dynasties in the East Coast.
Through this, it can be said that the basic consciousness of the Malays is that of kerajaan—of being conscious of having a raja, in the sense of experiencing their communal space as one ruled by the same raja. This way of signifying oneself is therefore not biological nor entirely historical; it is existential.
The second mistake lies in conflating the idea of “bangsa as berwangsakan” with kebangsaan. The former refers to the basic consciousness of the people, while the latter refers to another layer of consciousness formed through concord. Kebangsaan refers to the active and dynamic layer experienced collectively by the people of the kerajaan, beyond their basic ideas. Kebangsaan exists because human consciousness is dynamic and integrative, without needing to shed prior layers. In fact, in the case of the Malays, the experience of kebangsaan is only possible through the experience of kerajaan.
As this book shows, the transition from kerajaan to kebangsaan was spurred by many factors, among them the practices of self-determination through community services and education, ironically introduced during the Japanese occupation. The reason why kerajaan in Malaysia continued to exist, unlike in East Sumatra, is because the raja in Malaysia continued to assert relevance and participate in this process. We see how the Sultan of Kedah was among the first to boycott the coercive methods of MacMichael in securing signatures for the Malayan Union, and how the Sultan of Selangor officiated one of the earliest major conferences that led to the formation of UMNO—signalling recognition of the people’s voice without abandoning the institution of kerajaan. In Malaysia, the self-consciousness of the Malays is existentially supplemented by this prior fabric of having a raja.
Only through this lens can we understand why national schools, which also included non-Malays, are termed kebangsaan. Even before the formal naming of Malaysia, the inclusion of non-Malays into kebangsaan at the eve of Independence was possible because many of them, excluding certain radical elements, also came to identify the “place” they inhabited as one already shaped by the experience of kerajaan and its people. The facticity of their presence in a land already historically experienced by another civilization did not negate their participation; rather, their participation enriched and expanded the space, allowing kebangsaan Melayu to develop into kebangsaan Malaysia without erasing the former—made possible by the persistence of a dynamic kerajaan.
This dynamic expansion and continuity of kebangsaan was first carried by the founding generation and then sustained by those who shared the same existentiality. When this shared existentiality erodes over time, revisionist interpretations emerge that attempt to supplant the original lived experience of the people of the Federation of Malaya.
This explains both the richness and fragility of kebangsaan as a dynamic entity of concord. It is not purely biological; arguing from that perspective leads to confusion and misinformation. As shown, it is a signification of existentiality and must therefore be continuously lived and experienced. All people breathe, eat, and reproduce—but not all exist in the same way as their forefathers.
Hence, as I argued preliminarily in A Vision of Unity, there is a need to continually recreate the same existential space to sustain the feeling of concord through kebangsaan, or risk decay through separatism, revisionism, and parochialism, as we are witnessing today.
In summary, bangsa–kebangsaan is an existential property signifying the place we dwell and exist. It does not refer solely to biological or objective historical reality, just as we are not purely objective and passive entities like stones or hammers. Stones and hammers possess purely objective historical existence—we can point to them and determine when they appeared or were made. But the existence of human beings is as much a communally lived subjective experience as it is partly biological and historical.
Our mistake in grounding bangsa–kebangsaan purely in biological or historical terms creates confusion and unnecessary layering without addressing its true nature as an existential property. Neglecting this existential dimension leads to a failure in cultivating and sustaining shared lived experience, resulting in decay within a multicultural society such as ours.
October 11, 2018
Sebuah kajian yang menarik, melihat keadaan politik bangsa Melayu sekitar tahun 1945 hingga 1950. Tahun-tahun yang genting selepas Perang Dunia Kedua kepada bangsa Melayu terutamanya kepada kepimpinan Melayu yang sebelum ini dibawah kekuasaan raja dan sultan. Penulis membuat perbandingan keadaan politik bangsa Melayu di Tanah Melayu (kini Malaysia) dan Sumatera Timur (dalam Indonesia). Kegentingan itu mewujudkan persoalan-persoalan kepada kebangsaan, institusi beraja, peranan sultan, pembesar, bangsa Indonesia, kemerdekaan, perlembagaan, kerakyatan dan kewarganegaraan, kesetiaan, peranan penjajah British dan Belanda, feudalisme, demokrasi, kuasa raja dan rakyat, keagamaan dan sebagainya.
Kesannya telah tercetus revolusi sosial di Sumatera Timur yang mengorbankan institusi kesultanannya dan seterusnya Sumatera Timur diserap masuk ke Republik Indonesia. Di Tanah Melayu pula, perlembagaan persekutuan telah diterima bagi mengiktiraf bangsa Melayu dalam perundangan selepas bergelut dengan Malayan Union dan tentangan daripada pihak politik berhaluan kiri.
Kesannya telah tercetus revolusi sosial di Sumatera Timur yang mengorbankan institusi kesultanannya dan seterusnya Sumatera Timur diserap masuk ke Republik Indonesia. Di Tanah Melayu pula, perlembagaan persekutuan telah diterima bagi mengiktiraf bangsa Melayu dalam perundangan selepas bergelut dengan Malayan Union dan tentangan daripada pihak politik berhaluan kiri.
November 27, 2021
Satu penulisan yang rapi dan tersusun oleh penulis akan sejarah orang-orang Melayu selepas perang dunia ke 2. Penulis amat menekankan akan istilah-istilah yang digunakan semasa era tersebut seperti 'kebangsaan', 'demokrasi', 'bangsa', 'bumiputera', 'kerajaan' dan sebagainya yang sebenarnya mempunyai variasi makna menerusi ucapan individu-individu yang berlainan. Paling utama ditonjolkan penulis akan perbezaan ketara dalam politik dan demografi masyarakat di antara Sumatera Timur dan Malaya walaupun kedua-dua wilayah ini diduduki oleh orang Melayu dan mempunyai rajanya sendiri.
October 5, 2025
I haven't actually read Stalingrad, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich & Sapiens. It was just silly me back then who just got interested in reading books just randomly adding those to my account. (I just removed them from the finished section)
March 2, 2016
Kesimpulannya, buku ini mahu menceritakab bahawa perjuangan etnik melayu yg sempit ialah perjuangan yg berterusan.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews