Liew Kung Yu/Anthony Milner

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The prominent issue derived from this article, at least for me, is the sole purpose of understanding our Malaysian history. This article has mainly touched on the essence of nation-building, of how foreign influence came into our Tanah Melayu during the British control, and of how Malaysia came to be under the guidance of our very first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman. I was very much intrigued at how much effort Anthony Milner has put in into researching materials from other writers concerning nationalists of yesteryears. To quote from his article, he mentioned this towards the closing of chapter six, “The narrators need to be able to refine or modify their formulations to account for the often changing data at hand(the “social realities”). Their ideological work must be sensitive to context – especially, to the different types of alternative and competing projects that are specific to the would-be “national” community.” (page 156). From this statement alone, he encourages authors not only to put effort into discovering truths about the history, but also to be able to link it to our ever-growing society evolving many areas. His article does not just reveal history, but is intended to relate it to our existing community. Chapters in the article which illuminate this fact includes ‘Building Ethnic Understanding’ in which he discussed on the issue of British’s role to play in our nation building during the late 80’s and early 90’s, ‘A Malay Nationalist Version’ that touches on the issue of how our nation was formed by different races, yet the irony of the name Tanah Melayu being used as a reference to this country, and also ‘Accommodating Monarchy’ which explains how monarchy was brought as a ruling system in Malaya back then.

Therefore, after having said all those above, the matter of racial integration in this new Malaysia can be linked to Liew Kung Yu’s work of art titled ‘Cadangan-cadangan Untuk Negaraku’, (Proposals for My Country) as it touches a little on how our community is tied up by many notes represented by various races into a single thread of life. A little bit of introduction to his recent work, he did a photomontage of several elements of Malaysia, to be exact four areas. The similarity between all four of these collages is that it shares the same measurement of a photo frame-like border with red flowers covering the outer layer of the border as well. Moving on from there, one of the four photo collages is ‘Bandar Sri Tiang Kolom’ which arranges vary of building and houses into a pentagonal arrangement. However, despite the separation between these buildings, they are still connected by a bridge that interlinks with one another. Finally, the third cluster of buildings on the right links to the two foreigners gesturing as tourists in our country. Somehow, when I view this picture, it looks common as we see foreigners about and everywhere as not a single Malaysian couple would go around in the street talking openly about foreigners visiting our country. It appears to be something which is part of our everyday life. Just like in our history, how British became the prominent figure in bringing our country to independence as well, our ancestors are already used to being with British influence. Now it applies to us of when we used to view our history, most of the things that exist now, was influenced by our history. Second collage is ‘Konkrit Jungle’. Really, this work of high kitsch sparks a tiny thought in my mind as how he used various animals to form buildings and humans live in harmony with them. As I was looking at this piece of work, building represents something which is the foundation to our daily life. Without a place to stay, it is very detrimental. This collage also reveals the common truth that our country is multi-ethnic.

This country does not belong only to one race, but various races. That is why, in the chapter of ‘Hearing Malay Radicalism’, Anthony Milner says that, “In later years Tunku Abdul Rahman wrote memoirs, seeking to restore his own reputation as a player in the gaining of Independence. In the tradition of “the bargain”, when he described the “men who helped to shape the nation” he took pains to include Chinese and Indian leaders as well as Malay ones” (page 147). This goes on to tell that without each other, there would not be a country to call our own today; Malaysia. Without the work of these ideologues for fought for their ideals during the olden times, we would not be viewing what is present here in our sight. History indeed plays an important role in character building and nation shaping. If not, why would there be a saying that goes, “If you don’t know history, it’s as if you were born yesterday. If you were born yesterday, then any leader can tell you anything.” by Howard Zinn, an American historian, political scientist and activist.