Addressing 'sensitive topics' in Malaysian literature

 

Literature can be an uneasy field, especially when it comes to sensitive topics.

Of these, May 13th looms significantly over our collective memory, maintaining a prominent position over the other upheavals of that fraught decade and the one to come.

Some time ago, I came across Hanna Alkaf’s The Weight of Our Sky, set against the backdrop of the riots.

Nearly 50 years on, it now seemed more permissible to begin dissecting its traumatic effects, even if the government remained silent on the actual anniversary of the occasion.

It appeared that there was not much in the way of “truth and reconciliation”, at least not officially.

But this also raised the question of the literary atmosphere in the immediate aftermath of 1969, and the state of high paranoia that characterised the decade to come.

The subject of May 13th, among other things, came up in a conversation I had with Monash Malaysia’s Abdul Majid Nabi Baksh, who, incidentally, began his academic career in the wake of the riots.

Having returned from the United States, his career would include a stint at the University of Malaya.

Lecturing on English proved a challenge, not just in terms of translating cultural baggage into a local context, while also circumventing restrictions on the medium of instruction. In this case, he hosted extended lectures for his students before classes officially began.

On campus, there was the need for circumspection and careful treading across potential minefields, a sense of caution that immediately concerned him and members of his generation.

Literature stood at an uneasy crossroads, operating in a deeply policed environment that regulated not just the language to be used in teaching but also the nature of the topics open to debate.

In the post-May 13th milieu, where the possibility of books being banned or one being investigated under the Internal Security Act was feared, the need to be circumspect was particularly salient.

“I think that was a very real threat in those days, not only for the writers but also the critics,” he reflected.

“But even if you weren’t picked up, just the fact that you were tarnished with the brush – that you were an agitator, troublemaker – that would have been bad enough.”

Yet this did not stop two particular writers he admired, who proved inspirational to their fellow practitioners.

Two particular writers (among others) alluded to the riots in their work, scholar and novelist Lloyd Fernando, who was also admitted as an advocate and solicitor of the High Court of Malaya.

The second was solicitor Lee Kok Liang, who “often represented oppressed minorities and the underprivileged in Penang society”.

To Abdul Majid, Fernando “did not seek refuge in the higher realms of literature. He wanted to talk about, and did talk about, the problems that afflicted our society”.

Both men did not dwell in deep detail on the actual riots – Lee seized upon a small moment, a point of view, in Flowers in the Sky, while Fernando went back to the 1950 Maria Hertogh riots in Singapore.

In their own way, both men asked troubling questions of racial relations and the nation-in-progress and the old certainties that were shattered.

And they were not the only ones to touch upon the topic, of course – in the English language, Malachi Edwin Vethamani noted that writers from across the ethnic spectrum based at home or abroad have, over the decades, cautiously explored the legacy of the riots in their work, “because they write to come to terms with it and to see ways forward for the nation to heal from this wound”.

Literature a reflection of society

The overlaps between literature and society are fraught. Across the former colonial world, the position of English-language literature is tied in with the exercise of power – from Kolkata to Singapore and Manila, a logical continuation of the denigration of non-English literature during the colonial heyday.

As Swapan Chakravorty observed in English studies in Asia, “one of the charges against oriental literature was that its language was fuzzy, that its meaning was obscured by a pre-scientific lack of rigour which encouraged uncritical faith”.

Then, of course, there’s always the ongoing unease of privileging the voices of the former colonial master over those of the newly independent people.

“Literature is basically a reflection of society,” Leonard Jeyam, associate professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, remarked in an interview.

Literature and language take a certain pride of place here in Semenyih – the campus is known for pioneering a creative writing programme locally, the sort that first went into vogue in North America, taking advantage of the greater possibilities available for literary practitioners.

“Although this relationship is sometimes perceived as somewhat tenuous, literature or the writings of a certain society, state etc., has always had a connection to society.”

In an academic environment that grows increasingly concerned with data, statistics and key performance indicators, literature remained seemingly anomalous.

It remained more concerned about the need to, as Jeyam said, “empathise with people, situations and society in general, and it also opens our eyes quite quickly to the areas of society which need true mediation”.

Risk of defamation

The intersection between law and literature is a particularly interesting one. Besides Lee and Fernando, other lawyer-writers abound.

Cecil Rajendra continues to practise while writing bruising political poetry in Penang, while Tash Aw and Tan Twan Eng both read law – the latter also practised before attaining literary success.

Returning to Abdul Majid, his career ultimately saw a switch to the practice and teaching of law.

Regardless, literature always remained within his purview, which he revisited in a journal article, Satire and the Malaysian Law of Libel.

He and his co-authors noted how satire falls into two broad categories – literary satire, which is directed at general “human failing”; and political satire, which, among others, is directed at “an easily identifiable special target”, thus easily opening it up to claims of defamation.

A famous court ruling meant that “future satirical works (would not necessarily be protected) from claims in defamation”.

Therefore, for writers, aiming at specific and recognisable targets meant taking a particular risk.

While it is fairly safe to take aim at a man among the masses (such as the army or the government in general), the moment a particular individual is identified, the risk of defamation exists.

Such is the dilemma faced by satirists, most notably the cartoonist, Zunar.

Despite the vast setbacks, Abdul Majid still believes in literature’s importance in addressing social issues, even if some decades have passed since his separation from his literary roots.

He recalled the old argument at the heart of art: should it be produced just for its own sake?

To him, one should not adhere solely to the traditional, elitist school of thought, with its focus on truth, goodness and beauty – in other words: philosophy, ethics and aesthetics.

This refined philosophy has deep roots in the leisured, slave-owning classes of classical Greece during the time of Aristotle and Plato, when the upper classes were exclusively concerned with the development of a liberal education (bearing in mind Plato’s assertion that any education for the sake of earning a living was decidedly illiberal).

And so, while Lee and Fernando were deeply concerned with contemporary society, writing about its problems and condition, he noted that “they still had enough of the old school to have the discipline in the art, which comes from training and education”.

Here, the concerns and techniques of a pair of deeply concerned writers stood out, steadfast in their defence of the links between and importance of literature to broader society. - Mkini

---

WILLIAM THAM WAI LIANG is an editor at large for Wasifiri. His new novel, The Last Days, is set in 1981 and covers the continuing legacy of the Emergency. His first book, Kings of Petaling Street, was shortlisted for the Penang Monthly Book Prize in 2017.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.