Ho Weng Toh

 

"Said Mr Yeo: “In the past, we tended to neglect history not connected with the founding of Singapore as an independent country... many of these streams flow into the river which is now Singapore…without these streams, there is no Singapore river. Captain Ho is one such river, and there are many others who have contributed to Singapore’s eventual independence and development.”

the sheltering sky

 

“When I was young” … “Before I was twenty, I mean, I used to think that life was a thing that kept gaining impetus, it would get richer and deeper each year. You kept learning more, getting wiser, having more insight, going further into the truth” – she hesitated. 

 ... “And now you know it’s not like that. Right? It’s more like smoking a cigarette. The first few puffs it tasted wonderful, and you don’t even think of its ever being used up. Then you begin taking it for granted. Suddenly you realize it’s nearly burned down to the end. And then’s when you’re conscious of the bitter taste.”

I wanted to comprehend my own position in tune so I could use my evolving self as completely and as usefully as possible

“Living in a dream of the future is considered a character flaw. Living in the past, bathed in nostalgia, is also considered a character flaw. Living in the present moment is hailed as spiritually admirable, but truly ignoring the lessons of history or failing to plan for tomorrow are considered character flaws. 

I still needed to record the present moment before I could enter the next one, but I wanted to know how to inhabit time in a way that wasn’t a character flaw. 

Remember the lessons of the past. Imagine the possibilities of the future. And attend to the present, the only part of time that doesn’t require the use of memory.” 

Ongoingness

“The goal being a form no one notices, the creation of what seems like pure feeling, not of what seems like a vehicle for feeling. Language as pure experience, pure memory.”  

Simple as this

I been in search of stones 

Making up the pavement

Of less traveled roads 

Mining for treasure deep in my bones 

That I never found 

Went looking for reverence 

Tried to find it in a bottle 

Came back again 

High on a hash pipe of good intent 

But it only brought me down 

Tried institutions of the mind and soul 

It only taught me what I should not know 

Oh the answer well 

Who would have guessed 

Could be something as simple as this?

The Multicultural Archipelago in History and Story

Dr J. Casey Hammond and Dr Nazry Bahrawi

"JCH: The idea for this course sprung from a series of conversations between Nazry and myself. We are both interested in understanding how groups of people in Singapore and elsewhere in this region identify themselves and relate to each other. 

 NB: The course can also be seen as an epistemological experiment that is designed to create, in the spirit of SUTD’s motto, ‘a better world’. I refer to ‘epistemology’ in order to indicate how our knowledge of the world is constructed. Specifically, this module is an invitation for our students to think of maritime Southeast Asia not as the Malay Archipelago, but as a Multicultural Archipelago. In the real world, a literal interpretation of the adjective ‘Malay’ has led to the creation of some pressing issues in terms of race relations in these parts. The anti-Chinese sentiments punctuating the recent Ahok case in Indonesia come to mind. Even the C-M-I-O (Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others) social policy in Singapore can be said to be influenced by the prominence of ethnicity in the idea of the Malay Archipelago. Our focus is not to deny the Malay character of the region, but in fact to outline that even this Malayness has been negotiated throughout the history of the region. We start with the premise that ‘Malay’ is a permeable ethnicity, whose borders are constantly changing according to the times.

 JCH: Returning to Singapore in 2012 after a fourteen-year absence, I was struck by the changes that marked that intervening period. Although the Singaporean state’s engagement with Malaysia and Indonesia has grown broader and deeper, the typical Singaporean citizen’s familiarity with the two larger countries that surround their city-state has not kept pace. One might even say that it has declined. This observation pertains especially to the post-independence generations, of which there are now two. How time flies!

B: I can concur with Casey’s observation. Having lived most of my life here, I have noticed that members of my generation, the first post-independence generation so to speak, are a lot more familiar with the social, cultural and political developments in America and to a lesser extent, Britain than they are with developments within Singapore’s neighboring countries. In fact, I am reminded of a survey commissioned by the ASEAN Commission back when I was a journalist in 2008 indicating that Singaporean youths were the least enthusiastic about being part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This is a shame because we could do a lot better if we were to be plugged into our wider community – our fate, identity, and rice bowls cannot be divorced from what is happening in our immediate vicinity. Yet it is also important to us that our students do not just see our neighbors as charity cases, or as economic opportunities. We want them not to look down on others, but rather to understand and internalize the interdependence of peoples living in the region.  

JCH: The course is a sort of ethnographic history of the local Archipelago, including the Malaysian Peninsula.  Each group that has sojourned or settled here has called the region by a different name.  Hence, we look at the Archipelago as Nusantara (for the various Malay groups), as Nanyang (for the various Chinese groups), and as The Indies (for the various European groups).  My favorite name for this region is Tanah Air (land and water) because it captures the geographic essence of this region through which people from near and far have sailed and landed for millennia – certainly much longer than Indonesia, Malaysia, or Singapore have existed as sovereign nation-states.

NB: History is important, as is the ‘story’ aspect of the course too. The fact that we have asked our students to read literary narratives such as Hikayat Abdullah or The Rose of Cikembang outlines the contestability of how we view history. I believe this helps our students to consider carefully the ways in which the past is constructed, to see beyond the idea that that history is defined by cause and effect, a thing to be studied factually, to be studied as a science. Our use of literary narratives postulates another view of history, namely, that it can also be analyzed as a narrative that taps into our imagination, that it need not just look backward but can also look forward, that it can be speculative and consider the ‘what ifs’. What if the region had not been colonized? What if the Buginese did not want to be considered Malays? What if Chinese traders had decided not to settle in the region? In doing so, I think we encourage our students to think critically and creatively about how they come to know what they know.

JCH: Students become quite animated when we discuss what it means to be ethnic Chinese in the archipelago.  Most students enrolled in the course identify as Chinese from Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. They realize that “Chinese” is an extremely fluid category that changes from generation to generation, from place to place, from gender to gender, even from person to person.  Everyone who is Chinese seems to have his or her own experience of being so.  The identity of every other ethnicity in the archipelago is similarly complex. Each of us carries his or her own bundle of history and meaning, both inherited and self-made.  Ethnic labels and racial categories are unable to explain that. Yet we remain dependent upon categories for certain types of thinking.

NB: It is invaluable that reductive ethnic labels are challenged so that our students are able to understand the difference between racism and racialism. Racism is borne out of sentiments of cultural supremacy, and is informed largely by malice. Racialism is the assumption that ethnic difference is the natural state of affairs in the world, that people act a certain way because they belong to a certain ethnic group. This is done without malice. Our course teaches them two things. The first is that racialism matters more than racism in the region. The second is that racialism works on the assumption that race is a socio-cutural construct. Here, the module is replete with examples of how different groups of people negotiate their identities, hybridizing them on many occasions, so as to lead viable, productive lives.

In terms of cross-cultural understanding, we have got our students reading texts they would not normally read. It is fascinating that “Chinese” students read an old text about Islam in Java in the form of Serat Centhini, and even more intriguing to hear that they actually drew some parallels between it and their modern, contemporary lives.

JCH: Everyone is aware that Muslims form a majority population in the archipelago, but fewer are aware of the degree to which Hindu culture permeated local kingdoms long before their conversion to Islam, or the degree to which vestiges of this ancient permeation still persist.  Our course raises questions related to this history.  Why were the regions where Hindu culture had greatest impact the same regions that later converted most thoroughly to Islam? Why is the pre-Islamic history of Java preserved and promoted by the Indonesian state, yet ignored nearly to the point of denial by the Malaysian state?  What accounts for the cultural rivalry between Malaysia and Indonesia?  And why should Singaporeans be interested in this?

NB: Cross-national spats have occurred because of the archipelago’s Indic past. Both Malaysia and Indonesia claim ownership over the pendet dance, a dance that is Hindu in origin. So there is urgency in getting our students to understand the early influence of Indianized cultures in this region. In truth, the region’s Hindu past suggests that the nations are more similar than they would like to admit, rendering these culture wars moot. It is also notable that Malay kings claim their legitimacy through the lineage of Alexander the Great. We know that Alexander, a Greek, went as far as India to conquer lands. He did not however travel further to Southeast Asia. Yet Malay kings know about him, and have in fact used him. This, to me, suggests the centrality of Indic mythology in shaping Malay identity.

JCH: Another thing that struck me about the “new” Singapore to which I returned in 2012 was how much the locals have become loosened from older cultural ties that used to connect people on this island with the rest of the archipelago.  One example is the loss of competency in basic Bahasa Melayu.  In the meantime, the location Singapore has not moved one inch.  It sits in the middle of a region populated by nearly 300 million people who speak a common Malay-based language.

NB: The worsening proficiency of the Malay language (Bahasa) in Singapore is symptomatic of the alienation that Singaporeans feel about the region – as I have mentioned, more and more look to the ‘West’ for new knowledge, which is transmitted primarily in English. On the one hand, it is the gatekeepers of the Malay language who are at fault for not  translating texts and thoughts, especially taboo ones, into Malay. This has rendered Bahasa somewhat lacking as a language that can participate in global intellectual discourses. On the other hand, it is also the result of the perception that there is no worthy knowledge that can be garnered from Malay texts, which is of course not true. Historical documents in the Malay language can help us understand the context of the region, and can also inform modern disciplines. Take Undang-Undang Melaka (or Laws of Malacca), which is a good text for understanding the legal system of the region prior to colonization. In our module, we try to show some of the useful knowledge one can garner from engaging with texts that were originally written in Bahasa, though we admittedly read these texts in translation."

Dr J. Casey Hammond and Dr Nazry Bahrawi

I'm so much like you
Restless and wreckless
I need a clue
So show me a sign I feel like making a move
Real geographic, a change in mood
We'll let go of everything we know

"Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face. Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer of the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men. Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression. Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine acts. Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the fugitive. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be an ornament to the countenance of truth, a crown to the brow of fidelity, a pillar of the temple of righteousness, a breath of life to the body of mankind, an ensign of the hosts of justice, a luminary above the horizon of virtue, a dew to the soil of the human heart, an ark on the ocean of knowledge, a sun in the heaven of bounty, a gem on the diadem of wisdom, a shining light in the firmament of thy generation, a fruit upon the tree of humility."

The diary of

“I see myself and my life each day differently. What can I say? The facts lie. I have been Don Quixote, always creating a world of my own. I am all the women in the novels, yet still another not in the novels. It took me more than sixty diary volumes until now to tell about my life. Like Oscar Wilde I put only my art into my work and my genius into my life. My life is not possible to tell. I change every day, change my patterns, my concepts, my interpretations. I am a series of moods and sensations. I play a thousand roles. I weep when I find others play them for me. My real self is unknown. My work is merely an essence of this vast and deep adventure. I create a myth and a legend, a lie, a fairy tale, a magical world, and one that collapses every day and makes me feel like going the way of Virginia Woolf. I have tried to be not neurotic, not romantic, not destructive, but may be all of these in disguises.

It is impossible to make my portrait because of my mobility. I am not photogenic because of my mobility. Peace, serenity, and integration are unknown to me. My familiar climate is anxiety. I write as I breathe, naturally, flowingly, spontaneously, out of an overflow, not as a substitute for life. I am more interested in human beings than in writing, more interested in lovemaking than in writing, more interested in living than in writing. More interested in becoming a work of art than in creating one. I am more interesting than what I write. I am gifted in relationship above all things. I have no confidence in myself and great confidence in others. I need love more than food. I stumble and make errors, and often want to die. When I look most transparent is probably when I have just come out of the fire. I walk into the fire always, and come out more alive. All of which is not for Harper’s Bazaar.

I think life tragic, not comic, because I have no detachment. I have been guilty of idealization, guilty of everything except detachment. I am guilty of fabricating a world in which I can live and invite others to live in, but outside of that I cannot breathe. I am guilty of too serious, too grave living, but never of shallow living. I have lived in the depths. My first tragedy sent me to the bottom of the sea; I live in a submarine, and hardly ever come to the surface. I love costumes, the foam of aesthetics, noblesse oblige, and poetic writers. At fifteen I wanted to be Joan of Arc, and later, Don Quixote. I never awakened from my familiarity with mirages, and I will end probably in an opium den. None of that is suitable for Harper’s Bazaar.

 I am apparently gentle, unstable, and full of pretenses. I will die a poet killed by the nonpoets, will renounce no dream, resign myself to no ugliness, accept nothing of the world but the one I made myself. I wrote, lived, loved like Don Quixote, and on the day of my death I will say: ‘Excuse me, it was all a dream,’ and by that time I may have found one who will say: ‘Not at all, it was true, absolutely true.’”

Pale blue dot

a reminder:

 about how very little we and all of our striving matter in the grand scheme of time and being, and therefore how very much it matters to live with kindness, with generosity, in openhearted consanguinity with everything else that shares our cosmic blink of existence.


 We are dropped safely ashore to contemplate the fundamental fact that our lives — along with all of our yearnings and fears, our most small-spirited grudges and most largehearted loves, our greatest achievements and deepest losses — will pass like the lives and loves and losses of everyone who has come before us and everyone who will come after. Temporary constellations of matter in an impartial universe of constant flux, we will come and go as living-dying testaments to Rachel Carson’s lyrical observation that “against this cosmic background the lifespan of a particular plant or animal appears, not as drama complete in itself, but only as a brief interlude in a panorama of endless change.” The measure of our lives — the worthiness or worthlessness of them — resides in the quality of being with which we inhabit the interlude.