17 March 2012

Wacana Facebook: Polimik Persejarahan dan Jati Diri Melayu...

Selang beberapa hari yang lepas, saya dan beberapa rakan Facebook membahaskan perihal pensejarahan dan jati diri Melayu. Di sini saya lampirkan beberapa jawapan balas daripada pelbagai sudut pandang untuk perkongsian bersama para pembaca sekalian. Saya lampirkan secara verbatim jadi maaf kalau ada bahasa rojak dan juga singkatan perkataan.


Permulaan thread/status Facebook:
"Jijik sangat ke perjuangkan nasib bangsa sendiri? Tanah air ini bukan wujud lepas zaman pasca-kolonial. Kita meneruskan sejarah lampau yang panjang. Biarpun perjuangan Melayu itu tercemar dek kezaliman gol. bangsawan tak kira UMNO etc., bukan hakikat perjuangan itu kotor sendiri.


  •         M. Rafiq: "man 'arofa nafsahu faqod 'arofa RABBahu"..inilah keyword bagi kekuatan sesuatu bangsa..siapa yg mengenal dirinya maka dia akan mengenal RABBnya..bukankah sekuat mana kita bergantung pada RABB maka sekuat itulah pertolongan RABB pada hambaNYA..bila bangsa(baca : melayu) meninggalkan makna dirinya maka Tuhan pun akan meninggalkan hambaNYA...



  •         Wan Aimran: "Kita meneruskan sejarah lampau yang panjang."

How far back in history do we want to go? Will it involve an erasure and re-writing of our past?

God knows best.



  •         Wan Rausyanfikir: We should choose our datum when Islam reaches here. That's it. The rest are not as important as Islamic historical impact that lasted very much here.



  •          M. Rafiq: Banyak berbeza pendapat tentang teori sejarah buat ape..yg rugi org awam..aku setuju dgn Wan.."The rest are not as important as Islamic historical impact that lasted very much here."..ada yg lebih penting patut kita sedari bukan bermaksud denying the other historical fact..takkan dgn sejarah bangsa pun nak liberal kot? aneh2



  •          Nik Azmi: "...We should choose our datum when Islam reaches here. That's it..." In my opinion, that's exactly what Wan Aimran's question was trying to extract, although what he intended to extract is up to him. The history of nation cannot be conveniently cherry-picked, not can a cut-off date be arbitrarily decided, lest we impair our own objectivity.... See MoreI am certainly against introducing such a cut-off date for the reason stated above.           "...The rest are not as important as Islamic historical impact that lasted very much here..." And that depends on what is "Islam" that's been discussed here. If Islam does not allow us to disown our father, can we then disown our father's father, and their fathers before that? (figuratively) Did the Prophet himself disown his own history prior to Prophethood?          If, for example, we can rely just on "Islam" or "Islamic history" to guide us into the future, one wonders if that can be sufficient for mankind to reflect, especially Muslim history itself is riddled with many un-Islamic events. Given the chance, would we place reliance on "pre-Islam" history which is good, or do we rely on "post-Islam" history which is bad?
    Why did the Quran bother to repeat the stories of the crushed nations were it not for us to learn from the "un-Islamic" history?As such, I am of the opinion that "pre-Islam" history is as important as the post one. Lest we forget that the Quran is full of stories so that we may reflect.Verily, Allah knows best



  •          Imran Mustafa: Bismillahirrahmanirrahim,
"We should choose our datum when Islam reaches here."
When actually did Islam 'reached' the Archipelago? What does 'reach' mean, anyway? Surely one cannot say that Islam has 'reached' the Archipelago if there's only a few hundred conversions in a very specific geographical area, or could one? The idea itself is just wrong, as the development and spreading of religion cannot be traced as easily as, say, the spreading of empires.... And I am quite troubled by this notion of cherry picking, as Azmi said. If any previous identity and practices were washed clean, then surely in the modern world we would not have any cultural practices that are similar to that practiced by Hindus. One might say that Malays have been 'Islamised' and things like this, but that does not negate the fact that some of the practices are from local influences that are not strictly 'Islamic'.
This idea simply compartmentalised history, which is wrong as human beings do exchange things during their historical interactions. By saying that, you simply show that you are not interested in anything that is not within your agenda. That, as Azmi said, impairs objectivity, which is, quite simply, the search for truth.
Without objectivity, how can one be a public intellectual? How can one educate people when one is not interested in the truth, rather, puts a line arbitrarily on the ground?
"takkan dgn sejarah bangsa pun nak liberal kot? "
Fakta adalah fakta. Liberalisme adalah satu ideologi. Tak ada kena mengena fakta yang liberal. In fact, tak masuk akal pun ayat tersebut.
Wallahua'lam



  •          Wan Rausyanfikir: @Imran and Nik:
          T kasih kerana sudi bagi komentar yang kritis. Tapi aku rasa kamu berdua agak tersasar dalam menilai ma'na hujah aku yang sebenar.
Pertama, premis yang aku berikan tiada bermaksud untuk disown mana-mana sejarah pra-Islam sebagai satu yang nihil. Seperti mana fakta-fakta lain, rentetan peristiwa itu masih merupakan fakta selagi mana ada pembuktian. Tetapi, fakta tiada boleh disamakan dengan hakikat. Fakta sejarah dan hakikat sejaah berbeda dari segi ontologi. Kita boleh lontarkan indeks fakta sejarah ribuan tahun tapi tiada semua fakta itu boleh diberi kebenaran yang sama darjat....
         Bertitik tolak dari inilah para pemikir Barat dan Islam bersikap memusatkan datum masing-masing pada titik yang paling signifikan dalam merangka jati diri bangsa masing-masing.
Bagi Barat seperti yang dikatakan Heidegger, mereka harus bermula mendefinisikan jati diri mereka sebagai satu hakikat daripada Tamadun Yunani purba.
In our case, the Malay-ness of Malay has a very intimate ontological connection with Islam thus could best be described the Malay-ness and Islam as "isi dan kuku".
            Sudah tentu kita perakui akan kewujudan pengaruh Hindu dan Buddha dalam the Malay-ness of our Jati Diri tapi telah diIslamisasikan dengan jayanya oleh para ulama' mutahaqqiqun. Kita masih lagi menerima konsep budi dan jiwa yang bukan asal daripada bahasa Arab Islami tapi MA'NA kata kunci tersebut tiada mencerminkan HAKIKAT MA'NAWIYYAH-nya yang asal sebelum Islam datang.
           I guess my last piece of advices are do read Islam dalam Sejarah dan Kebudayaan Melayu carefully. You might disagree now but perhaps if you get clear understanding of Prof. Al-Attas' elucidation of everything from the historical facts of Islamization process, its empirical evidences, its context etc. Insya-Allah wou will be able to understand my line of thoughts in this matter. Some people have read it but they have not read it carefully or ignorantly (yes, reading great works requires some preparation) due to the epistemological error they have in their worldview (this is where liberalization of Historical facts could happen from MISLED INTERPRETATION) thus leading to erroneous conclusion EVEN being presented with CORRECT FACTS.
         Once you are back in Malaysia, perhaps we can pay a visit to some Attasian scholars for a better explanation.
        I'm just a student. Not an authority.
By the way, I have not go deeper into 'Assabiyyah yet. Later.
Wallahua'lam.



  •          Nik Azmi: I understand all that you have said above, except for that I disagree with the "pre-Islamic... not as important".
And I am familiar with what Al-Attas elaborated about Malay history before I came to know him.
It is the "Islamisation" part which I have "issues" with. I will not say disagreement, but I must state that this is open to contest, as I do not see how "Islamisation" changes things in the way that Al-Attas asserted....
Having said that, I am also aware (as you have also said) that the "Islamisation" as proposed by Al-Attas has yet to be completed. This is the point of contention, I may argue, as the idea of "Islamisation" per Al-Attas seems to be something novel. Is it not "completed" or is it something that cannot be completed i.e. a continuous process of evolution, as Islam really is?
I have also questioned before if this means reinventing the wheel, or is it a continuation, or an upgrade of the works of Al-Ghazali (and those before and after him)? I have also asserted that reinventing the wheel would be something at a different level altogether, although I cannot be sure unless I read more.
I can only form my opinion if a few questions around this area is satisfactorily answered. Until then, I will have to leave it where it is now.
To relate to the topic above, as you have clarified, it is not about disowning history literally. Yet again, I must re-emphasise that pre-Islam history is yet ever as important if we want to ensure that objectivity is not in any way compromised, as you have yourself said, "fakta tiada boleh disamakan dengan hakikat".
However, allow me to also quote from your own line, "Fakta sejarah dan hakikat sejaah berbeda dari segi ontologi".
What is the truth?
A muhaqqiq, as I understand it, cannot afford to impair his objectivity by doing a selective examination. This is different, of course, if a discourse has been qualified in the very beginning, where the outcome of a discourse is expected to be partial. However, as far as a claim to the truth is concerned, nothing can be left out.
When quoting Heidegger, I assume that you also recognise that he can be as wrong as we are, if not worse, and vice versa. If he choses to anchor his identity to ancient Greece/Greeks, that is simply a matter of choice, although the current Pope's official stance is that Europe's identity and root is in Christianity.
As far as the Malay identity is concerned, I cannot come to comfort myself that "Malayness" lie in Islam, when many others, whether Indonesian, Filipinos or Cambodian, has yet to move on to embrace Islam. Whether that is the truth or not, I cannot say, although that is a fact.
That does not mean that Malayness and Islam are mutually exclusive, as we in Malaysia are aware that the two are interwoven within our social fabric. What I am trying to get at here is that there are many parts of the Malay world, which gives us the Malay identity, still fall outside the circle of Islam, and to ignore that is a great injustice to our own history, and our own self.
My proposal is that to recognise that there is a Malay-Muslim identity that we have now in Malaysia, and also in the greater part of Southeast Asia, and at the same time do not deny our pre-Islam heritage, and recognise the non-Muslim Malay's claim to the Malay heritage.
Islam is, afterall, a universal religion, a "din" which goes beyond all boundaries, social, cultural or otherwise.
To anchor the Malay identity to Islam is not wrong, but to detach the non-Islamic, to the point of rejecting what is alive and in existence, does not seem to be something that a man of truth would do.
Verily, Allah knows best.



Pada saya masalah yg timbul bila kita mahu menyamaratakan keutamaan semua peristiwa sejarah.Para sejarawan muslim bercanggah kesimpulannya ada beberapa kemungkinan.Kalau mereka merujuk rekod yg sama tetapi berbeza kesimpulannya sudah pastilah kesan dari kesalah fahaman salah seorang dr mereka. Ini pun mungkin salah satu kesan dari ideologi yg menjadi dasar pemikiran mereka.Jika sumber rekod yg berbeza pastilah juga berbeza kesimpulannya.
Sesungguhnya, Allah sahaja yang Maha Mengetahui :)

No comments:

Post a Comment