Postponing Postcoloniality?

Being back in the academic conference circuit, albeit as a participant, brings with it opportunities to confront the enduring issue of identity in postcolonial societies. One such opportunity is the Colloquium on Southeast Asian Postcoloniality held last Saturday, 9 September 2006, at Eastin Hotel. Jointly organized by the Department of English at the University of Malaya and the Malaysian Association of Commonwealth Languages and Literature (MACLALS), speakers include distinguished academics like Professor Khoo Kay Kim and creative forces like Yasmin Ahmad and Amir Muhammad (http://english.um.edu.my/seap/index.html).
I missed the morning session which featured imminent scholars - Profs Wang Gang-wu and Khoo Kay Kim. Prof Wang, I was told, posited a fascinating theory of postcolonial SEAan identities via the 'mandala' metaphor - solid yet in a state of flux, stratified, layered and satellitic, with multiple centers and tiers of cultural influences that shaped our 'hybridized' identities. Prof Khoo, who I 'interrogated' (this being a term popular among postcolonial scholars), intended to criticise Marxist historians for 'evacuating' the notion of the cultural but instead diverted to delivering anecdotes as an informal approach to enliven the session on theorizing historical-cultural identities. Isabela Banzon Mooney and Lily Rose Tope, speakers from the University of the Philippines at Los Banos and Diliman, expressed their 'natural' affinity with their Malaysian Malay counterparts and posed the vexing question of Malay-Muslim identity in SEA, and, to me, the more intriguing question of post/pre-colonial Malay identity in SEA.
In an earlier posting, I briefly mentioned the sense of pride, pleasure, nostalgia and probably deja vu at discovering during my visit there that the ruler of Manila at the time of the Spanish Invasion was a Raha Sulayman. And the feeling of sadness as the native tour guide, Victor, manifested his strong identification with Spanish-American and Roman Catholic cultural icons (such as the Conquistadors, the crucifix, the Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Perpetual Hope, aka Siti Maryam ali Imran) that emphasized the marked differences in the colonial experiences of the Philippines Malays and Malaysian Malays, as well as Indonesian Malays for that matter. An eternal optimist, my spirits were uplifted by Prof Shirley Lim's reiteration that the future of SEA lies in the realization of a unitary post-colonial entity (identity?), ASEAN in particular ("Singapore being an accessory to crime in terms of consumer ethos"). Her statement reminded me of my late Baba's habit (radical or subversive to supporters of the so-called 'Colonial Construct') of quoting Bung Karno's vision of a Maphilindo (Malaysia-Philippines-Indonesia)*, and lo and behold, the processes of globalization and postmodernization (which heralds the withering away of the nation-states, political boundaries and national identities) are gradually paving the way to a post/pre-colonial geo-political and identity formation (Long Live Nusantara!)
As a final note, I will take great pleasure in mulling and reflecting on Prof Lim Chee Seng's argument that the Sejarah Melayu, a mythic text written a week after the Fall of Melaka, as a "psychic compensation in the face of defeat ... a power that was overwhelmed" as exemplified by claims to Alexander the Great's genealogy, and Kris Mas' Rimba Harapan (Jungle of Hope) as a repressive text in the theme of nation-building which exhorted the Malays to retreat into the jungle, a pristine condition or 'cultural purity'.
*My late father tended to evoke strong emotions of either awe or contempt by people around him, including members of our own family, who perceived him as a "Rebel Without a Cause", the Quintessential Prodigal Son. An ardent advocate of Sukarno's vision of postcolonial Malaya/Nusantara, he was detained when I was in my mother's womb for allegedly smuggling firearms from Indonesia into Singapore (truly the greatest test for my Sidi who was the Mufti of Selangor at that time). In the early 1950s, he and a group of friends set up a printing press (Ra'ayat Trading) opposite the Ipoh Padang, which was subsequently confiscated for publishing anti-colonial materials. There he befriended the late Norizan, whom he adviced to marry the Sultan and she did after being challenged; I never asked if she sought his advice before marrying P. Ramlee. In the early 1960s, he gathered a group of unemployed Indonesian and Singapore Malays, including a Chinese youth that he adopted and converted to Islam, to embark on a major padi plantation project in Kahang, Johore, which unfortunately failed. Our house in Kampung Melayu Kaki Bukit, Singapura, at that time was teeming with Indonesian versions of Che Guevara on Harley motorcycles. I bet Harry Lee (Kuan Yew, a Fabian Socialist defector) and the Singapore government were glad to see the back of him and his "comrades" when we moved to Kuala Lumpur a year after the Prophet Muhammad Birthday Riots. In the mid and late 1960s, he had an office at Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman (close to Globe Silk Store), where I believe he met my step-mother who was his secretary, and another at Roger Street (near the Klang Bus Station). By the 1970s and 1980s, he had spent his family fortune, revolutionary spirit and boundless energy. Born in Makkah al-Mukarammah, he became a sailor at 17 to return to Malaya (Tanah Jawi/Tanah Melayu) and went to Singapore where he met and married my mother. He died in 1992 when I was in Madison, WI, and buried by the sea at my stepmother's kampung, Kuala Sungai Baru, Melaka. Learning to love and accept him, warts and all, had been the greatest lesson of my life, made more arduous by controversial assertions such as "There is God, it is Allah" (Ada Tuhan, ialah Allah) and not "There is no God, except Allah" (Tiada Tuhan, melainkan Allah). Now I could see that he had a valid point; too late, but better than never. That's the way life is, very much like The Living Years by Mike & The Mechanics:
Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door
I know that I'm a prisoner
To all my father held so dear
I know that I'm a hostage
To all his hopes and fears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years
Crumpled bits of paper
Filled with imperfect thought
Stilted conversations
I'm afraid that's all we've got
You say you just don't see it
He says it's perfect sense
You just can't get agreement
In this present tense
We all talk a different language
Talking in defence
Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It's too late when we die
To admit we don't see eye to eye
So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
It's the bitterness that lasts
So don't yield to the fortunes
You sometimes see as fate
It may have a new perspective
On a different day
And if you don't give up, and don't give in
You may just be o.k.
Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It's too late when we die
To admit we don't see eye to eye
I wasn't there that morning
When my father passed away
I didn't get to tell him
All the things I had to say
I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I'm sure I heard his echo
In my baby's new born tears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years
Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It's too late when we die
To admit we don't see eye to eye
(Thus, in my personal quest for closure, I would like to see an amicable solution to a protracted 'struggle' between opposing political consiousness, gender ideologies and cultural identities, to quote my horoscope: "There's a time to stand and fight, and that time is now. This endless cycle of push-me-pull-you was fine for a while, but now you need a resolution -- and fast. State your demands and then take action." My way or the high way - hit the road, Jack! Seriously, I'm open to 'civilized' dialogue. That's the only solution to this decade-long deadlock)