Assalamualaikum and peace be upon you…
Day of the Mundane
13th dawn of the Festival of Purifications,
Year of the Caminus Canis,
Day of the Mundane
13th dawn of the Festival of Purifications,
Year of the Caminus Canis,
Errrmmmmph……MELAYU
(NO OFFENSE INTENDED PART 2)
(NO OFFENSE INTENDED PART 2)
(This is going be a long boring one as I might have unintentionally offended some people when I posted a comment in Bergen’s blog. This entry is intended to state my opinion of my race which many have regarded me to simply label them as not being Malay by the questions and/or argumentation that I have so unintelligently gave. Forgive me if this post bores you to death. [Note: I’ve hyperlink the segment title to the source it was taken from])
The Demon is much than more proud to be Malay. Although, the Demon might not wear the traditional clothing, be so very conversant in Bahasa Melayu, be as cultured and as knowledgeable and learned many of the other Malays out there, the Demon is proud to be one of the back-stabbing, lazy, backwards, and not-so-bright Malays. During the past few instances that he has visited the beautiful realms of Master(s) Gukita, Bergen, Abedid, Pok Ku and a few others, the Demon’s mind begins to wonder why is it many of us (including himself accept for a few such as the mentioned masters) takes so very lightly of this language of ours and its traditional medium. Maybe, just maybe, thought the Demon, that the language and its medium have become obsolete and so lacking in vibrant that he and most people sees no importance in taking the matter seriously. The Demon IS, by the way a TYPICAL MALAY.
But, if the language and its traditional medium has become obsolete and so lacking in vibrancy, why is then, trough his TYPICAL MALAY reading , he has found such lengthy and in-depth meaning of these two words – AKAL and BUDI?
But, if the language and its traditional medium has become obsolete and so lacking in vibrancy, why is then, trough his TYPICAL MALAY reading , he has found such lengthy and in-depth meaning of these two words – AKAL and BUDI?
Akal is an Arabic - origin concept ('aql in Arabic) that is of central importance among Malays and other Muslims in Southeast Asia and beyond. The term denotes ‘reason’, ‘intelligence’, and ‘rationality”, the ability to evaluate alternative courses of action and render informed judgments, and is widely used in Malay culture in connection with ‘passion’ and ‘shame’. As mentioned earlier, it is often said that akal (hereafter ‘reason’) distinguishes humans from the rest of the animal world and is our special gift from God; and that ‘reason’ ‘works together’ both with the hati (or liver, the seat of emotions) and with iman (faith, strong belief or trust in God, resoluteness, sincerity) to guide the individual along the proper path(s). ‘Reason’ and ‘passion’ forever struggle against one another within the individual, and that ‘good behavior’ (budi baik ) is evidence of the preponderance, however temporary or qualified, of ‘reason’ over ‘passion’, just as ‘bad behavior’ (budi jahat ) reflects the dominance, however short-lived or partial, of ‘passion’ over ‘reason’. ‘Shame’ (malu) is relevant here as well, for it, too, acts as a ‘brake’ on ‘passion’ and its expression or realization in social action.
Diligent observance of Muslim prayer procedure and other religious strictures is one way to help develop one's ‘reason’. Conversely, the cultivation of ‘reason’ through concentration and various types of mental and spiritual exercises entailing studied restraint facilitates proper prayer and other forms of religiously valued and morally virtuous behavior. Compared to children and adolescents, adults tend to take more seriously their (and to have more extensive) obligations as Muslims. This is one reason why adults are typically regarded as having more ‘reason’ than children and adolescents. Other reasons include their superior abilities (relative to children and adolescents) to make informed judgments based on experience in the world; their demonstrated capacities to perform the myriad tasks and activities associated with domestic maintenance, production, and the like; and, more generally, their greater control over their ‘passions’ and their more systematic internalization of and behavioral adherence to the moral norms of Malay culture; hence (given the explicit link between being Malay and being human), their stronger commitment to being human.
The word ‘budi’ originated from the Sanskrit word ‘buddhi’, which means wisdom, understanding, or intellect. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary defines the meaning of buddhi as ‘the power of forming and retaining conceptions and general notions, intelligence, reason, intellect, mind, discernment, judgment…’ (Monier-Williams 1956:733). However, once this word was accepted as part of the Malay vocabulary, its meaning was extended to cover ethics as well as intellect and reason, in order to accommodate the culture and thinking of the Malays.
Budi now carries many nuances of meanings in the Malay world view and plays a pivotal role in every aspect of Malay life. It can mean intellect, as shown by the phrase akal budi, meaning ‘common sense’ or ‘healthy mind’. It can also carry the meaning of kindness or virtue, as shown in the last two lines of the famous pantun:
Pisang emas bawa belayar,
masak sebiji di atas peti,
hutang emas dapat dibayar,
hutang budi dibawa mati
(‘Sail away with a bunch of bananas/ one ripe fruit remains on the box/ Debts of money we can repay/ Debts of kindness, we take to the grave’).
Commonly, however, it can be denoted as ‘moral behaviour’ or ‘moral character/action’, like budi pekerti. It can also be understood as ‘discretion’ or ‘good judgement with flexibility’, when used in conjunction with akal (mind) and hati (feelings) and as reflected in budi bicara. Budi should also contribute to the practical aspect, in the form of budi daya. Overall, when we deal with the mind of the Malay, it is the ‘budi and its networks’ that determine their thinking (judgement), their moral attitudes, their goodness, and how an argument should be presented.
Pure budi can be led astray if not guided by the ethical aspect of budi. It should be noted that budi can also mean akal (mind) (dl arti kecerdikan menipu atau tipu daya) (Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia 1991:150), as in bermain budi, ‘to deceive’ by using the intelligence of mind, which is rather rhetorical in terms of argumentation. Rhetorical, in this context, refers to the common and popular meaning of rhetoric, which is normally considered as empty and abstract, flowery without content.
The Malay mind develops through a spectrum of akal budi and hati-budi, which encompass ‘mind-emotion-moralgoodness- practicality’ in their scales of decision-making. A wise person, budiman, should be thoughtful, considerate (berhati perut, literally means ‘has liver and stomach’, normally means ‘not cruel in decision’), and of good conduct, and his decision should be an enlightened and practical one that helps society towards prosperity. In order to understand the Malays’ thinking and their argumentation, we should, therefore, bear in mind that their purpose of argumentation is to ultimately search for truth, goodness, and beauty.
As early as 1891 Clifford, in his article ‘A New Collection of Malay Proverbs’, observed an interesting trend in Malay rhetoric: ‘In discussions among Malays, too, it is the man who can quote, and not he who can reasons, that bears away the palm’ (Clifford 1891:88). Clifford had a point in terms of dialectical argumentation. The Malays must have their reasons as to why they choose not to reason. As usual, reasons demand argumentation in return, which will perhaps bring the two parties (rhetor and opponent) into a state of confrontation. Compared to reason, quotations bring the opponents into a state of agreement, in terms of their cultural memory and the budi of their ancestors and cultural wisdom.
Budi is an entity which is non-dialectical and, therefore, hinders the true spirit of dialectical argumentation. It is the lack of dialectical argumentation that distinguishes the Malays from the Greeks. No doubt the application of budi in human affairs and human relationships is more humane, as we have seen earlier, but budi is something situational.
Compared to rationality, which is more confrontational, competitive, forceful, aggressive, and hostile, where attaining ‘truth’ and ‘winning’ is the purpose, budi encourages the opposite, which is non-confrontational, non-competitive, gentle, friendly, and succumbing (in the sense of giving in or giving way), because its final goal is consensus and compromise. Hence, I believe that it should be our responsibility to have a real understanding of rationality, budi, or even emotion, and their employment in our everyday affairs. The culture of budi, as I see it, should be adjustable to two different spheres, viz. rational-public sphere versus emotional-personal sphere.
Since the concept of budi has taken root as the middle path of argumentation, it is rather hard to fit it into the rational-public sphere, where the purpose of argumentation is the achievement of truth through rational persuasion and the search for knowledge is based on the concept of truth or falsehood, white or black. It cannot accommodate a synthesistic nature of both truth and falsehood, both black and white at the same time, or a positioning between these two polarities, or something which we could call a spectrum of truth. Budi, however, is something synthesistic and a-rational, which tends to compromise between both polarities as long as consensus and compromise can be achieved. Nonetheless, there are many realms of human communication which are a-rational. A-rational is used to differentiate it from irrational: whereas something which is non-rational may either be irrational or something that cannot be explained from the perspective of rationality (i.e. a-rational). In order to handle this irrational sphere, we should not be carried away by pure emotions.
The champion of truth through rationality might accuse the Malay budi of being two-faced, hypocritical, deceitful, or insincere in telling the truth. This claim is valid in one sense, but in another sense, we perhaps need more philosophical scrutiny and argumentation. For example, in the heat of the moment of a conflict, dialectical forcefulness will bring harm (that is, claim a life), and therefore one should ‘lie’ in order to preserve harmony. But this ‘lie’ should be untangled when the heat is over. This is the true spirit of ‘budi and its networks’.
4 comments:
I enjoyed reading this. Although I have to admit that I skipped a few parts.
On a personal note, I think it does not matter if a Malay person fits the mould of what would normally be considered as "fundamentally Malay".
I think, and remember that this is just my meandering two cents worth, that it doesn't matter what language a person chooses to speak in, or how he chooses to live his life: if he is born a Malay, then he is a Malay.
The glaring problem I see with the Malays today (which isn't so much a recent problem, since this has been going on since the times of our grandfathers) is that as Malays, we tend to judge other Malays based on outward appearances and habits alone. We have a tendency to stereotype ourselves.
For example, a predominantly English speaking and dressing Malay person, who doesn't seem to hold much interest in what are considered as "Malay interests" (i.e. local politics, Islam, Hak Keistimewaan Bumiputra, Hasad dan Dengki, etc etc) is considered somehow "less Malay" than a Malay who doesn't speak a lick of English but is very much interested in the aforementioned "Malay interests".
It is strange to see our racial culture somehow developing into one that is actually afraid of any sort of change.
The strongest trait of our culture thus far has been our adaptability with other cultures: in ancient times, we have Hindu undercurrents in some of our social rituals (we still do now) and a decided Sanskrit sensibility in our literature and philosophy (these days we don't even have literature or philosophy to speak of). Then we adapted to Islam. And it seems subsequent to the introduction of Islam into our culture, all that we, as a racial culture, is concerned about is to appear "Islamic".
Granted, these things took decades, even centuries, to evolve. But somehow or other, it seems to me that our culture has somehow refused to adapt to change after a certain point.
A culture CAN be modern and keep its traditional sensibilities at the same time.
Take a look at the Japanese: the stereotypical Japanese image is that of samurais and geishas. But modern day Japanese culture is ultra-modern, there are no more samurais in sight and geishas have moved on, but it is still traditionally Japanese in its soul.
Japan is still traditional, but that doesn't stop it from being at the forefront of technology.
As an illustration as to how far we're left behind, allow me to submit an example:
When the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor with their aircraft carriers and Zero fighter planes, the Malays were still wearing rafia strings for belts around their trousers, dok perasap keris tiap malam Jumaat.
While the Japanese were bent towards World Domination, the Malays were still bickering amongst themselves, blaming each other for not appearing "Muslim" enough.
Now, World War Two was more than half a century ago.
The question is: is the Malay mentality still stuck there?
"The glaring problem I see with the Malays today (which isn't so much a recent problem, since this has been going on since the times of our grandfathers) is that as Malays, we tend to judge other Malays based on outward appearances and habits alone. We have a tendency to stereotype ourselves."
"The strongest trait of our culture thus far has been our adaptability with other cultures: in ancient times, we have Hindu undercurrents in some of our social rituals (we still do now) and a decided Sanskrit sensibility in our literature and philosophy (these days we don't even have literature or philosophy to speak of). Then we adapted to Islam. And it seems subsequent to the introduction of Islam into our culture, all that we, as a racial culture, is concerned about is to appear "Islamic"."
I totally agree with you on all the above. Yes its true that the problem is we malays stereotyping other malays just because there are difference that suits not our likings (in terms of the definition of malay) in others.
The japan example you gave is indeed true and interesting. But than, you have to remember one important thing - the environment and the mindsets of the race. You see, the japs, eventhough has no more samurais and geishas might not be seen physically, BUT, the spirit and soul of the samurais especially live eternally within the japs. No matter how ultra-modern they are, its still there.
This is the thing that I'm questioning here, the intangible values that define us as a race. by intangible I am referring to the wisdom that our fore fathers have left us. Not the baju kurung, the kopiah and what nots.
The thing that saddens me the most is this - MALAYS WOULD NEVER STOP TO SEE THE NEGATIVE SIDE OF A MALAYS.
Very interesting observation. After all those, the crux of the issue is what makes one a Malay; bahasanya, tingkah lakunya, pendiriannya, pakaiannya....ape dia? Where is the VALUE? or better WHAT is the value?
The next level is...after discovering Islam and be a Muslim, do we still have the need to be 'a malay' or is it all encompassed within the value and form that is Islam?
Can't we be a Muslim first and Malay second; the former giving the divine wisdom and criterion for right and wrong and the latter giving the outward identity and inner root for self expression?
ahhh, my goo...
True, what you said is true.
But for me, the essence of a malay is Islam, not the other way around. A malay is not a malay if there's not Islam in him/her. The wisdoms of our forefathers where based in Islam. Many might disagree, but if we look back at our history, all the paganistic and hinduistic culture that we adopt were upsetted by the wisdom and culture of Islam. Noted that many if not some still bind ourself the culture of the ancients, but, again i stress that, Islam has bind all the positive sides of the ancient belives that our fore fathers have.
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