WE REGRET TO REPORT
the death of Professor Syed Hussein Alatas. He was a great thinker who
dissected the mind of colonialism and its numbing effect on the colonised,
advocated that we should be guided by high morals in our work, the progress
of Malay-Islam in the 21st century, analysed and castigated corruption.
His paper, 'Some Fundamental Problems of Colonialism', which
appeared in 1956 in "The Eastern World" led to his enduring classic,
"The Myth of the Lazy Native," (1977), written before Edward Said's
"Orientalism," pioneered the investigation into the colonial mind's perception
of "Orientals". It unmasked the colonial ideology and castigated the Winstedt
syndrome which has been the bane of this country's intellectual life.
A preacher of non-racial politics he did not pontificate in the ivory tower but in 1968 founded Gerakan with Dr Tan Sri Tan Chee Khoon and V Veerapan of the Labour Party, MMA president Dr JBA Peter, Dr Lim Chong Eu, then an MP and Prof Wang Gang Wu of the University of Malaya. A man of principle he walked out of Gerakan angrily for personal reasons. Several others left with him which led to the collapse of the original Gerakan.
He was a highly moral person if by that term we mean a person who cares about the effect of human endeavour on human beings. "There is no such thing as objectivity without morality. We can have objectivity, but the research cannot be without morality," he wrote. "However, a certain trend has developed in the West to separate science from morality." Scientists made land mines not caring if they maimed women and children. Malaysia did 'development', without investigating the kind of development we needed; the agrarian structure was neglected.
He was vice-chancellor of the University of Malaya from 1988. No boot licker he was not the darling of the powers that be. In 1991, the pigmies who run such institutions got rid of him by an ignoble manoeuvre.
He condemned the irrationality and unreasonableness of Malay politics
as "bebalism," a word he coined in his book " Intellectuals in Developing
Societies," - from the Malay "Bebal", a word which has entered the language.
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His last work
was a paper called "The Captive Mind" where he noted the " tendency of
our people to imitate the thinking of the West, a thinking introduced by
the colonial power." He wrote, "We are not concerned with the slaveholders.
We are concerned with the enslaved because we all know that change can be
achieved only if there is an awakening of the slave community. Without
a change in the attitude of the slave community, there can never be any change."
Always independent he criticised Mahathir Mohamad's collection,
‘The Malay Dilemma,' (1970), and UMNO's booklet, ‘Revolusi
Mental.' The criticism of ‘Revolusi Mental' was withering. "...
the book proceeds to characterize the Malays in negative
terms unexcelled in the history of colonialism. While many
British colonial writers stressed the laziness of the Malays
they did not strip the Malays of so many other qualities
which the ‘Revolusi Mental' did. " .. "It draws an image
of the Malays which is even more negative in scope than
that of colonial capitalism."
He did not spare Dr Mahathir who in 1970 in the ‘Malay Dilemma'
exhibited "the same trend of thinking." Geographic
environment produced the Malay. "Running amok was an essential
part of the Malay character". He found the Malay
adept at overcoming the enemy by stealth and cunning"; "it is not the
choice of the Malays that they should be rural and poor. It is
the result of the clash of racial traits. ...," and so on. He concluded
that Dr Mahathir and "Revolusi Mental " resemble American Negroes who believe
what white racists say about them."
However, our writers continue to nurse their colonial fancies, celebrating British "heroes," commemorating British anniversaries, celebrating one hundred years of this, that and the other. They should read Syed Hussein, particularly his ‘Thomas Stamford Raffles: Schemer or Reformer?' published as long ago as 1972.#
for related articles
go to
http://thepenangfile.bravehost.com/jul-2004/books35.htm
http://thepenangfile.bravehost.com/sep-2004/people36.htm
http://thepenangfile.bravehost.com/nov-2005/concep43.htm
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