Puer Aeternus

A method of throwing society into sharp relief is by looking at its heroes – the fictional protagonists they conjure for progression, reflection and introspection in their many legends and folktales. The kind of heroes a work of art or literature creates is telling of its artist’s perception of his surroundings which, in turn, is telling of the society or setting the artist finds himself in.

Take the Scot James Barrie for example. A Calvinist upbringing sets him up for restless days in the Edwardian era, a time when the poor began consolidating their power, and the rich fought to maintain the social divide. Early 20^th century Britain found their adults in an adulterated fight for – depending on which end of the financial spectrum they were in – social stagnation or upheaval. It was at this time that Barrie wrote the story of a boy who would never grow up, and his fight against the asinine adult pirates led by one Captain James Hook. A crocodile was thrown in for good measure to sway the winds of this war, a reptilian deus ex machina watching, waiting, commiserating (Hook’s unfortunate state of not living up to his surname when he had two complete hands).

Against the backdrop of a mature, pragmatic Singaporean society – one that has put aside its ethnic and ideological differences for the greater (usually economic) good – we have the stragglers. These are the ones stuck in an immature reverie of idealism, the puer aeternus, the eternal boys. You’ve seen them around – dreamers, who are never able to stick to one job, assured that there’s something better out there for them. Some have a moral courage that holds steadfast against the dog-eat-dog paper chase of today’s economy, some have a deep-seated fear of the world outside their comfort zone, most have both.

The ideal progression for these people is, of course, Peter Pan. Without giving in to the give-and-take, the compromises, and the responsibilities of adulthood, they live off their wits, with a following of other boys who refuse to grow up – heroic and brave with a tremendous unbridled joy, but ultimately defined by how Lost they are.

But how many of Singapore’s eternal boys actually live up to the lofty heights of Peter Pan? How many give up their ideals to break away from boyhood, and become a fully-fledged adult? How many of them are members of the Malay community?

As a member of both the puer aeternus and Malay communities, I write here my lament for my people, holding our heads up high against a society that says we’re making our excuses for our failures to launch, while we retort, pointing out that we never had to make excuses for larger evils.

A method of throwing society into sharp relief is by looking at its heroes – the fictional protagonists they conjure for progression, reflection and introspection in their many legends and folktales. In the Malay community, you have a slew of male folk characters, all adult with their own brand of mature wisdom. Hang Jebat and his James Potter-like loyalty to his friends, Hang Tuah and his servitude to the Sultan. Pak Pandir and his bottomless well of wit (or stupidity).

The only boy-hero in Malay mythology is the protagonist from the Legend of Bukit Merah. The story goes that sometime centuries ago, in an act that would get marine biologists rofl-ing, swordfish attacked Singapore; the Pinocchio-nosed bastards killed fishermen and just about anyone who goes too close to shore. A boy tells the Sultan to build a palisade or fence made of banana tree trunks along the shore to protect the village, and when the swordfishes attacked after, they got their sharp ends stuck, embedded in the fence. The Sultan’s soldiers proceeded to kill them like stuck...swordfish and the attacks stopped thereafter.  The boy became an overnight celebrity in the village.

In a fit of jealousy at the boy’s intelligence and newfound popularity, the Sultan had the boy killed in his sleep, in his own bed, in his own house atop what is now known as Red Hill, red as though bloodied by a dying boy stabbed in his slumber.

Playbill

We begin, as these things do, with an introduction of the setting – for without setting, there will be no stage for the dramatis personae to hold court.

The setting is Singapore, a small urban island in the South East Asian peninsula with little to no natural resources. Indeed, the city state’s best hope at mining something out of the silt of its earth is a hill called Bukit Timah, which translates to ‘Tin Hill’. However, save for a few unlawfully-placed (read littered) food cans, Bukit Timah is pretty bereft of tin, or any precious metals for that matter. Before the British colonialists misheard native phonetics and brought their inadequacies in local linguistics upon official documentation, the hill was named Bukit Temak by the locals, after the temak or Shorea trees that grew in abundance on its slopes.

But I digress. Or did I?

I did.

If you look at Singapore now, you see a thriving metropolitan city. Of the numerous nationalities and ethnicities that make up its kaleidoscopic social and cultural landscape, 650, 000 of that are ethnic Malays, totalling to less that 14% of the population. This was not always the case – the locals who had claimed Bukit Temak to be Bukit Temak almost 200 years ago were the Malays. Did I say something about digressing earlier? Moving on –

If all the world’s a stage, then, in the mainstay play of the Singaporean Malay, Act One goes as far back as the 13th century, when the Sumatran Srivijayan, the Thai Ayutthayan and the Javanese Majapahit empires fought for, and took turns controlling, Singapore and its immediate vicinities.

The Second Act takes place from the early 16th century to the late 18th century, when Malayan-based sultanates presided over Singapore. During this time, the Malay culture we see today started to take shape, keeping some traditions of the ancient Sanskrit empires, factoring in the influence of Islam and thus formulating an identity that is unique unto its own.

The Third Act opens with the onsets of European colonialism. The British Empire, keen to capitalize on the lucrative spice-silk trade in South-East Asia, found their outpost in Singapore. While the British were pragmatic trade-enablers, the Portuguese and Dutch were guilty of varying degrees of mismanagement and violent excesses, resulting in the Malays from their spheres of influence (Malacca and Jakarta respectively) to migrate to Singapore. Attracted by job and trade opportunities, immigrants also flocked to Singapore from China and India, along with a steady influx of British administrators. Migration into Singapore grew exponentially towards the end of the 19th century as it grew into a thriving port for entrepot trade. At the end of Act Three, the Malays, indigenous people of Singapore, found themselves a minority as the 20th century grew out of its infancy.

Action-packed Act Four begins with the Japanese invasion of Singapore in 1942. The different races of Singapore united together against a common enemy, and three years later, the Japanese relinquished control of Singapore back to the British Empire. The post-war bliss was shortlived, as discontent over Britain’s inability to defend and rebuild its colony gave rise to several independent movements. As self-governance became a realistic prospect, tensions arose as different groups, some outlined according to ethnicity, made their claims to be lords of the land. Racial riots erupted. Pressure from Malaysia urged the Malay people of Singapore to claim the land that was rightfully theirs. But Singapore formed its own middle path – leadership based on merit, with an inclusion in its constitution to honour Malays as the indigenous people of the land.

We are now approaching the end of Act Five, which began with an expeditious montage of Singapore’s rapid modernization. In this time, statistics pertaining to the Malay people were released, including unemployment figures, divorce rates, abortion rates, time spent in jail, average family size, literacy and average income, but not many Malays were going to be defined by mere numbers. Statistics were also released on academic performance in Mathematics.

The Malay situation now promises exciting developments. Education has equipped them well to tackle the challenges of the modern world, while a global apprehension over Islam after various terrorist activities that came to the fore beginning in September 2001, has given the mostly-Muslim race a chance to represent the elegant, peaceful face of their faith.

If Shakespeare was right, then the story of the Malay people, as the story of all peoples, will end in a strange, childish seventh act, toothless, blind, and distasteful – sans everything. Then again, many throughout the world subscribe to the notion that Shakespeare was full of shit anyway, so perhaps the Malay play is not pre-structured over seven acts. Perhaps there are no acts and the Malay people are just riding along the blasted boings of the mad capteh match of anthropology.

I can’t say for sure, and neither can any of you reading this, whether you’re a random satay hawker who googled “satay” and chanced upon this, or an ISD watchdog scouring this blog for anti-government sentiments. But in the meantime, I am your voiceover and narrator with a Malay perspective as this epic play/capteh match unfolds.