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Opening of UKM's Kolej Ibrahim Yaakub E-Fest 2002 By Datuk Amar Leo Moggie on 18/1/2002
Terlebih dahulu saya ingin mengucapkan terima kasih kepada para siswa-siswi Kolej Ibrahim Yaakub, UKM kerana telah menjemput saya untuk sama-sama meraikan e-Fest sempena Hari Keluarga kolej pada malam ini. Aktiviti-aktiviti sebegini yang dilaksanakan untuk mempertingkatkan kefahaman warga kampus mengenai teknologi informasi dan maklumat atau ICT serta juga untuk membantu membudayakan penggunaan ICT dalam aktiviti harian dan proses pembelajaran pelajar, adalah amat dialu-alukan. Ini adalah kerana kemajuan negara dan masyarakat kita bergantung kepada keupayaan kita untuk menguasai ilmu dan pengetahuan.
Oleh itu, sebagai pemimpin masa hadapan negara, para pelajar perlu serius menimba pengetahuan, di samping memberi tumpuan kepada usaha-usaha untuk menguasai pelbagai cabang ilmu. Di dalam hal ini, kita sedia maklum bahawa dalam era digital ini, proses pembelajaran dan pencapaian ilmu dan pengetahuan tidak lagi terhad kepada dewan kuliah atau bilik darjah semata-mata. Kewujudan ICT sebagai suatu alat atau saluran strategik membolehkan kita memperolehi pelbagai bentuk informasi dan maklumat tanpa batasan masa dan sempadan. Contohnya, komputer peribadi atau PC sebagai alat pendidikan dan pembelajaran kini dianggap sebagai ejen perubahan. Selain PC, begitulah juga dengan peranan Internet di dalam memberikan akses kepada informasi, contohnya kepada sekolah-sekolah dan juga komuniti-komuniti di dalam masyarakat. Hasilnya, pada hari ini, kita dapati bahawa konsep pembelajaran telahpun berubah dan berkembang untuk meliputi kaedah-kaedah baru seperti e-learning, distance learning, video conferencing, smart school, cyber university dan sebagainya. Begitulah juga dengan usaha kita di dalam membangunkan program-program Internet Desa dan projek-projek e-community di negara kita ini.
Sehubungan ini dan selaras dengan tema e-Fest 2002, iaitu ‘Informasi Teras Kemajuan Masa Depan’, kita berharap aktiviti sebegini akan dapat memberi pendedahan serta pengetahuan berguna kepada para siswa tentang peranan dan kepentingan ICT di dalam menjayakan usaha kita untuk mewujudkan para pelajar yang berilmu bagi menghadapi cabaran-cabaran era globalisasi. Di dalam hal ini, penguasaan kemahiran teknologi maklumat serta kepantasan dan kecekapan menyaring dan menilai maklumat serta mengambil tindakan yang sesuai adalah amat penting.
Ini adalah kerana teknologi hanyalah merupakan alat. Berdasarkan hakikat ini, kita perlu sedar bahawa teknologi sebagai alat bukan sahaja mengandungi maklumat dan informasi yang baik atau positif, tetapi boleh juga disalahgunakan oleh pihak-pihak tertentu untuk menyalurkan informasi yang negatif, tidak tepat, menghasut dan memfitnah bertujuan untuk memudaratkan keharmonian dan kestabilan negara kita.
Oleh itu, adalah penting bagi para siswa kita sebagai pengguna ICT untuk dapat membezakan “antara kaca dan permata” - antara informasi yang benar dan informasi yang negatif dan berbentuk fitnah. Ini sudah tentunya, antara lain, memerlukan kebijaksanaan, kematangan serta rasa tanggungjawab dan kasih kepada diri sendiri, masyarakat dan negara.
Ke arah ini, e-FEST 2002 juga boleh menjadi suatu saluran yang baik untuk mendekatkan warga kampus dengan wawasan Kerajaan untuk menjadikan Malaysia sebuah negara maju dalam bidang komunikasi dan multimedia. Ini termasuklah memahami tumpuan dan kepentingan yang diberikan kepada projek Koridor Raya Multimedia atau MSC sebagai catalyst di dalam menggerakkan halatuju kita untuk mnjadikan Malaysia negara maju sejajar dengan Wawasan 2020.
Sebagai sebuah “green area” yang kaya dengan insentif-insentif bagi menggalakkan percambahan kreativiti dan inovasi, kejayaan projek MSC ini bergantung bukan sahaja kepada pelaburan asing, tetapi juga kepada penyertaan, penglibatan dan pembinaan kepakaran tempatan yang berpotensi untuk bersaing di pasaran antarabangsa. Dan kita yakin bahawa di negara kita ini terdapat ramai di kalangan para pelajar kita yang berpotensi untuk mengharumkan negara di dalam bidang komunikasi dan multimedia atau ICT, melalui penghasilan ciptaan yang inovatif dan kreatif.
Tuan-tuan dan Puan-puan,
Agenda ICT negara adalah bertujuan untuk mewujudkan masyarakat berpengetahuan, bermaklumat dan berbudaya ICT. Bagi memastikan agenda ini mencapai kejayaan, berjuta-juta Ringgit telah diperuntukkan khas untuk program-program ICT. Ini dapat kita lihat berdasarkan Belanjawan 2002 yang telah dibentangkan oleh Y.A.B. Perdana Menteri kita. Ini termasuklah untuk melaksanakan Aplikasi Perdana Kerajan Elektronik, Sekolah Bestari, Teleperubatan, Kad Pintar, Integrasi Aplikasi serta juga untuk meningkatkan program pengkomputeran di kementerian dan jabatan kerajaan serta untuk pegkomputeran sekolah-sekolah. Ini menunjukkan betapa seriousnya Kerajaan di dalam merealisasikan objektif menjadikan negara kita negara yang maju berasaskan pengetahuan.
Kita pasti komuniti kampus boleh membekalkan kepimpinan yang diperlukan di dalam membantu merealisasikan objektif Kerajaan untuk menggalak dan membudayakan penggunaan ICT secara yang positif dan berkesan di kalangan warga kampus khususnya dan rakyat secara amnya.
Akhir kata saya berharap agar e – FEST 2002 berjaya mencapai objektifnya dan seterusnya merealisasikan hasrat negara dalam melahirkan graduan yang berinformasi demi kemajuan negara pada masa hadapan.
Dengan itu, saya dengan sukacitanya merasmikan e – FEST 2002.
Oleh itu, sebagai pemimpin masa hadapan negara, para pelajar perlu serius menimba pengetahuan, di samping memberi tumpuan kepada usaha-usaha untuk menguasai pelbagai cabang ilmu. Di dalam hal ini, kita sedia maklum bahawa dalam era digital ini, proses pembelajaran dan pencapaian ilmu dan pengetahuan tidak lagi terhad kepada dewan kuliah atau bilik darjah semata-mata. Kewujudan ICT sebagai suatu alat atau saluran strategik membolehkan kita memperolehi pelbagai bentuk informasi dan maklumat tanpa batasan masa dan sempadan. Contohnya, komputer peribadi atau PC sebagai alat pendidikan dan pembelajaran kini dianggap sebagai ejen perubahan. Selain PC, begitulah juga dengan peranan Internet di dalam memberikan akses kepada informasi, contohnya kepada sekolah-sekolah dan juga komuniti-komuniti di dalam masyarakat. Hasilnya, pada hari ini, kita dapati bahawa konsep pembelajaran telahpun berubah dan berkembang untuk meliputi kaedah-kaedah baru seperti e-learning, distance learning, video conferencing, smart school, cyber university dan sebagainya. Begitulah juga dengan usaha kita di dalam membangunkan program-program Internet Desa dan projek-projek e-community di negara kita ini.
Sehubungan ini dan selaras dengan tema e-Fest 2002, iaitu ‘Informasi Teras Kemajuan Masa Depan’, kita berharap aktiviti sebegini akan dapat memberi pendedahan serta pengetahuan berguna kepada para siswa tentang peranan dan kepentingan ICT di dalam menjayakan usaha kita untuk mewujudkan para pelajar yang berilmu bagi menghadapi cabaran-cabaran era globalisasi. Di dalam hal ini, penguasaan kemahiran teknologi maklumat serta kepantasan dan kecekapan menyaring dan menilai maklumat serta mengambil tindakan yang sesuai adalah amat penting.
Ini adalah kerana teknologi hanyalah merupakan alat. Berdasarkan hakikat ini, kita perlu sedar bahawa teknologi sebagai alat bukan sahaja mengandungi maklumat dan informasi yang baik atau positif, tetapi boleh juga disalahgunakan oleh pihak-pihak tertentu untuk menyalurkan informasi yang negatif, tidak tepat, menghasut dan memfitnah bertujuan untuk memudaratkan keharmonian dan kestabilan negara kita.
Oleh itu, adalah penting bagi para siswa kita sebagai pengguna ICT untuk dapat membezakan “antara kaca dan permata” - antara informasi yang benar dan informasi yang negatif dan berbentuk fitnah. Ini sudah tentunya, antara lain, memerlukan kebijaksanaan, kematangan serta rasa tanggungjawab dan kasih kepada diri sendiri, masyarakat dan negara.
Ke arah ini, e-FEST 2002 juga boleh menjadi suatu saluran yang baik untuk mendekatkan warga kampus dengan wawasan Kerajaan untuk menjadikan Malaysia sebuah negara maju dalam bidang komunikasi dan multimedia. Ini termasuklah memahami tumpuan dan kepentingan yang diberikan kepada projek Koridor Raya Multimedia atau MSC sebagai catalyst di dalam menggerakkan halatuju kita untuk mnjadikan Malaysia negara maju sejajar dengan Wawasan 2020.
Sebagai sebuah “green area” yang kaya dengan insentif-insentif bagi menggalakkan percambahan kreativiti dan inovasi, kejayaan projek MSC ini bergantung bukan sahaja kepada pelaburan asing, tetapi juga kepada penyertaan, penglibatan dan pembinaan kepakaran tempatan yang berpotensi untuk bersaing di pasaran antarabangsa. Dan kita yakin bahawa di negara kita ini terdapat ramai di kalangan para pelajar kita yang berpotensi untuk mengharumkan negara di dalam bidang komunikasi dan multimedia atau ICT, melalui penghasilan ciptaan yang inovatif dan kreatif.
Tuan-tuan dan Puan-puan,
Agenda ICT negara adalah bertujuan untuk mewujudkan masyarakat berpengetahuan, bermaklumat dan berbudaya ICT. Bagi memastikan agenda ini mencapai kejayaan, berjuta-juta Ringgit telah diperuntukkan khas untuk program-program ICT. Ini dapat kita lihat berdasarkan Belanjawan 2002 yang telah dibentangkan oleh Y.A.B. Perdana Menteri kita. Ini termasuklah untuk melaksanakan Aplikasi Perdana Kerajan Elektronik, Sekolah Bestari, Teleperubatan, Kad Pintar, Integrasi Aplikasi serta juga untuk meningkatkan program pengkomputeran di kementerian dan jabatan kerajaan serta untuk pegkomputeran sekolah-sekolah. Ini menunjukkan betapa seriousnya Kerajaan di dalam merealisasikan objektif menjadikan negara kita negara yang maju berasaskan pengetahuan.
Kita pasti komuniti kampus boleh membekalkan kepimpinan yang diperlukan di dalam membantu merealisasikan objektif Kerajaan untuk menggalak dan membudayakan penggunaan ICT secara yang positif dan berkesan di kalangan warga kampus khususnya dan rakyat secara amnya.
Akhir kata saya berharap agar e – FEST 2002 berjaya mencapai objektifnya dan seterusnya merealisasikan hasrat negara dalam melahirkan graduan yang berinformasi demi kemajuan negara pada masa hadapan.
Dengan itu, saya dengan sukacitanya merasmikan e – FEST 2002.
3
Absent Founders: Ibrahim Yaakob and the Rise of the Malay Left. (Part 3 of 3)
...
Under such turbulent and variable circumstances, Ibrahim Yaakob felt that his best course of action would be to leave Malaya and join his fellow Nusantara counterparts in neighbouring Indonesia.
...
But while Ibrahim Yaakob was afforded relatively more freedom in Sukarno's Indonesia, the same could not be said for the other radical leftists left behind in Malaya itself.
...
By the year 1948, Ibrahim was no longer a figure in Malayan politics.Having been absent from Malaya since 1945, Ibrahim (like many of the other radicals) was not able to contribute during some of the most critical episodes of its newly-emerging history such as the Malayan Union crisis of 1946 which gave the new Conservative nationalists the window of opportunity that they had been looking for so long.
...
Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmy and Ibrahim Yaakob had thus managed to save what little was left of the PKMM by their decision to relocate it to Indonesia.While in Indonesia the PKMM was based at Jogjakarta, under the leadership of Ibrahim Yaakob.The movement was renamed the Kesatuan Malaya Merdeka (Independent Malaya Union) and Ibrahim Yaakob spent much of the years to come helping the Indonesians in their campaign to discredit the newly created Malayan Federation under Tunku Abdul Rahman as a neo-colonial entity.
...
But this transition could only be achieved via the declaration of Emergency, from which would emerge a Malaya that Ibrahim could scarcely have imagined possible.
On the 31st of August, 1957, under a state of National Emergency, the Federation of Malaya was born.
...
In time President Sukarno whom Ibrahim and the Malay nationalists had once admired so began to show his true colours by declaring the need for 'guided democracy' and the concentration of power at the centre.Sukarno's own ambitious nature manifested itself in time when he elevated himself to the position of President for life with the somewhat grandiose title of Pemimpin Besar Revolusi Doktor Engineer Haji Ahmad Sukarno.
...
In the midst of these upheavals, the different political factions in Indonesia had little time or concern for Ibrahim Yaakob and his band of Malayan nationalists who wanted to struggle for the reunification of Malaya and Indonesia.
...
During the period of confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia (1963-65), Ibrahim Yaakob aided the Indonesian effort as a propagandist for the Indonesian cause, calling for the reunification of Malaya with the rest of Indonesia.
...
At a time when the Malay masses were still largely locked in a feudal mind-set which made them cling to their rulers and the British as their protectors and patrons, Ibrahim was one of the few Malay radicals who had come to realise that they were not only traitors to the Malay people, but that they were in fact the enemy.In the Sedjarah, he would describe the age of Colonial-Capitalism as the darkest period of the history of the Indon-Malay peoples.
...
Ibrahim would conclude his account in his Sedjarah by returning to the beginning: that Malaya was always part of a broader geo-cultural entity known as the Indon-Malay archipelago, Nusantara, Malaya Raya (Greater Malaya) and that there was where her future lies as well.
...
But Ibrahim was no longer in Malaya to put these plans into action.
...
Exile and Absence: Ibrahim Yaakob as one of the forgotten founders of the Malayan Project.
Ibrahim Yaakob would spend the rest of his days in exile in Indonesia, leading the tattered remnants of what was left of the PKMM after its leadership felt that no more could be done in Malaya.
...
Under such turbulent and variable circumstances, Ibrahim Yaakob felt that his best course of action would be to leave Malaya and join his fellow Nusantara counterparts in neighbouring Indonesia.
...
But while Ibrahim Yaakob was afforded relatively more freedom in Sukarno's Indonesia, the same could not be said for the other radical leftists left behind in Malaya itself.
...
By the year 1948, Ibrahim was no longer a figure in Malayan politics.Having been absent from Malaya since 1945, Ibrahim (like many of the other radicals) was not able to contribute during some of the most critical episodes of its newly-emerging history such as the Malayan Union crisis of 1946 which gave the new Conservative nationalists the window of opportunity that they had been looking for so long.
...
Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmy and Ibrahim Yaakob had thus managed to save what little was left of the PKMM by their decision to relocate it to Indonesia.While in Indonesia the PKMM was based at Jogjakarta, under the leadership of Ibrahim Yaakob.The movement was renamed the Kesatuan Malaya Merdeka (Independent Malaya Union) and Ibrahim Yaakob spent much of the years to come helping the Indonesians in their campaign to discredit the newly created Malayan Federation under Tunku Abdul Rahman as a neo-colonial entity.
...
But this transition could only be achieved via the declaration of Emergency, from which would emerge a Malaya that Ibrahim could scarcely have imagined possible.
On the 31st of August, 1957, under a state of National Emergency, the Federation of Malaya was born.
...
In time President Sukarno whom Ibrahim and the Malay nationalists had once admired so began to show his true colours by declaring the need for 'guided democracy' and the concentration of power at the centre.Sukarno's own ambitious nature manifested itself in time when he elevated himself to the position of President for life with the somewhat grandiose title of Pemimpin Besar Revolusi Doktor Engineer Haji Ahmad Sukarno.
...
In the midst of these upheavals, the different political factions in Indonesia had little time or concern for Ibrahim Yaakob and his band of Malayan nationalists who wanted to struggle for the reunification of Malaya and Indonesia.
...
During the period of confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia (1963-65), Ibrahim Yaakob aided the Indonesian effort as a propagandist for the Indonesian cause, calling for the reunification of Malaya with the rest of Indonesia.
...
At a time when the Malay masses were still largely locked in a feudal mind-set which made them cling to their rulers and the British as their protectors and patrons, Ibrahim was one of the few Malay radicals who had come to realise that they were not only traitors to the Malay people, but that they were in fact the enemy.In the Sedjarah, he would describe the age of Colonial-Capitalism as the darkest period of the history of the Indon-Malay peoples.
...
Ibrahim would conclude his account in his Sedjarah by returning to the beginning: that Malaya was always part of a broader geo-cultural entity known as the Indon-Malay archipelago, Nusantara, Malaya Raya (Greater Malaya) and that there was where her future lies as well.
...
But Ibrahim was no longer in Malaya to put these plans into action.
...
Exile and Absence: Ibrahim Yaakob as one of the forgotten founders of the Malayan Project.
Ibrahim Yaakob would spend the rest of his days in exile in Indonesia, leading the tattered remnants of what was left of the PKMM after its leadership felt that no more could be done in Malaya.
next of 2
Back in the opening stages of the 20th century, when the fever of nationalism had taken hold of the younger generation of Kaum Muda reformers, Malaysia's pioneering nationalists like Burhanuddin al-Helmy, Ibrahim Yaakob, Ahmad Boestaman et al were adoring members of the Sukarno fan club.
...
As students studying at the Sultan Idris Training College, the younger generation of Malaysian activists like Ibrahim Yaakob not only read the writings of Sukarno, but also joined the PNI in secret.Other leaders like Burhanuddin al-Helmy travelled to Sumatra to meet with their Indonesian counterparts; nationalists, leftists as well as Islamists, and plans were made on both sides to struggle against both British and Dutch colonial rule simultaneously.Our history books don't really remind us of these facts, but the reasons for such historical erasures seem obvious as they are commonsensical.Men like Ibrahim Yaakob and Burhanuddin al-Helmy were left-leaning nationalists who did not couch their ideology in the language of race-based ethno-nationalism.They were also among those who were inclined to sympathise with the Malayan Communist Party and were among the first who stated that Malayan citizenship should be extended to all who had been born in Malaya then , which naturally included the descendants of Chinese and Indian migrants.
When Ibrahim Yaakob and Burhanuddin al-Hemly founded the Partai Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM), it was the first organic Malayan nationalist party and its inspiration came from Sukarno and Hatta's PNI.
The Broken Dream of Malaya-Raya: Ibrahim Yaakob and the Rise of the Malay Left. (Part 2 of 3) By the 1930s the Malay archipelago was swept by the fervour of anti-colonialism and ethno-nationalism.
...
To an extent, their Malayan counterparts in the peninsula were likewise influenced by these ideas and in the writings of men like Ibrahim Yaakob, Ishak Haji Mohammad, Ahmad Boestaman and Burhanuddin al-Helmy we encounter numerous references to the Malay world of the past.
...
The Japanese occupation gave Ibrahim Yaakob and his fellow radicals the opportunity to develop and disseminate their ideas as never before, even though it was obvious that Japanese military rule was as harsh and restrictive as British colonial rule had been.
...
Having already tried to work with the British as well as the Malay royalty and aristocracy, Ibrahim Yaakob found it easy to co-operate with the Japanese out of political necessity.
...
Ibrahim himself had also agreed to help the Japanese by purchasing the Malay newspaper Warta Malaya (with the help of Japanese funds) in August 1941 in order to launch a sustained anti-British campaign in the Malay press.
After the Japanese had consolidated their hold on the Malay peninsula, Ibrahim and the other ex-leaders of the KMM such as Ahmad Boestaman were invited to join and lead the Japanese-sponsored native militias and armed forces, the Giyugun and Giyutai.
...
As the commander of the Malayan Giyugun, Ibrahim deliberately chose to refer to it as PETA, hoping to strengthen its ties with its (stronger) Indonesian counterpart.Meanwhile other radicals like Ishak Haji Mohammad returned to their careers in journalism when given the opportunity.Together the Malay radicals worked to promote a sense of common pan-Malayan identity amongst all their followers and supporters in all the movements and institutions that they found themselves working in.
Betrayed by the Japanese
However, it soon became obvious to radicals like Ibrahim that the piecemeal efforts by the Japanese to accommodate their demands were cosmetic at best.Despite Ibrahim's constant reference to the Giyugun as ,PETA', it was obvious that the Malayan defence units were in no way comparable to their Indonesian counterparts, either in terms of size or ability.
Furthermore, the Japanese Military authorities themselves had made it quite clear that the Malayan civil and para-military organisations were meant to play only a supporting role behind the Japanese military administration, and that the Malays themselves were not to be given any real chances to prove themselves or work towards their political independence.The different treatment given to the Burmese, Indian and Indonesian military units made it painfully obvious to them that the Malay civil and para-military bodies had no real power or influence at all.Thus while serving in these organisations, the radicals covertly tried to further their political goals despite the pressure from the Japanese Military authorities to conform to the official pro-Japanese line that they had established. (In his work ,Sedjarah Dan Perdjuangan di Malaya' (1948), Ibrahim described how he and the KMM activists managed to set up ,socialist cells' and co-operative communes within the militarised state structure.One such co-operative venture was the ,Malay Farm' of Geylang, where the ,Kesatuan Melayu Muda memperaktijkan Sosialisme dan mengadakan peladjar2an kepada orang muda sebagai kader Sosialist, meskipun perkataan Sosialist tidak pernah disebut2nja tetapi praktijnja di Malay Farm Geylang itu adalah Sosialist').
Despite the constant monitoring of their activities, the Malay radicals tried to promote the interests and goals of the radical Malay nationalists during the period of occupation: They continually spoke of the need for the Indon-Malay peoples to unite together and they tried to negotiate with the Japanese authorities in Japan itself for the unification of the Malay Peninsula with the rest of Indonesia, and for their eventual independence.When such overt means of negotiation did not bear fruit, Ibrahim and his colleagues were also prepared to resort to more covert methods as well, a reminder of his earlier days in the political underground.
In July 1945, under the watchful eye of the Japanese military command, the Malay radicals were given the chance to form the Kesatuan Rakyat Indonesia Semenanjung, KERIS (Union of Indonesian and Peninsula Malay peoples) under the leadership of Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmy.But KERIS never managed to get very far in its activities, due in part to the decline in fortunes for the Japanese army.
By 1944 the strained Japanese High Command was already contemplating the prospect of granting independence to Indonesia.The Malay nationalists were keen to see that independence was granted to the Malay peoples of the peninsula as well.In July 1945 KERIS was formed and during a brief meeting in Taiping, Perak, the leaders of the Indonesian nationalist movement Sukarno and Hatta met with the leaders of the Malay radicals, Ibrahim Yaakob and Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmy.
...
Caught up by the internal politics of the Malay nationalist groups at the wrong place and at the wrong time, on his own account Ibrahim had missed his opportunity to leave Malaya with Sukarno and Hatta who had been flown back to Indonesia just in time to proclaim her independence on August 17, 1945.
...
Ibrahim Yaakob's exile and the gradual eclipse of Malaya-Raya.
...
Its author was known simply as I. K Agastja, but a cursory glance at the list of biographical details in the introduction immediately made it clear to all who the mysterious author was: Ibrahim Yaakob.
By 1948 Ibrahim was living in exile in Indonesia, under the name Iskandar Kamel.
...
Once again, Ibrahim would put his frustration into words and turned to his pen, but this time his writings would be lent an even more radical character by the changing geo-political circumstances in the Indon-Malay world which would pit the student of the SITC not only against the British colonial powers but also against a gamut of new foes and adversaries.
...
But the transformation of Ibrahim Yaakob to I.K Agastja and the Malay activist to the nasionalis progressive was not merely a nominal metamorphosis: In the Sedjarah we find Ibrahim at his most critical and incisive, where the gentler style of the past gives way to sharper and more explicit condemnation of the machinations of the British colonial powers.
...
Such instances of betrayal have been documented even in his earlier Melihat Tanah Air, where Ibrahim condemns the British for their propensity to label the Malays as lazy and backward according to their racist stereotypes of ,native' races.This observation, which would be echoed by many postcolonial social scientists (such as S. H. Alatas) who have argued that the economic and developmental policies of the British were in fact instrumental in the construction of the myth of the lazy Malay and thus intrinsic to the process of marginalising the Malays from the economic, social and political arena of Malaya, makes another appearances in Ibrahim's later polemic:
...
But Ibrahim does not look at the economic and political condition of the Malays as if they were existing in a cultural and political vacuum.In the Sedjarah, he locates his analysis in the context of a plural economy that has been constructed artificially by a foreign imperial power and where cleavages of race, class and national interests are clearly visible.
The net effect of this imperial policy of divide and rule is, as Ibrahim correctly points out, the construction of a political hierarchy in a cosmopolitan colonial context where the interests and welfare of the British colonial-capitalist class is held paramount and the rights of the non-white colonial subjects (be they the native Malays themselves or the migrant communities) are systematically compromised or played off against each other.
...
As students studying at the Sultan Idris Training College, the younger generation of Malaysian activists like Ibrahim Yaakob not only read the writings of Sukarno, but also joined the PNI in secret.Other leaders like Burhanuddin al-Helmy travelled to Sumatra to meet with their Indonesian counterparts; nationalists, leftists as well as Islamists, and plans were made on both sides to struggle against both British and Dutch colonial rule simultaneously.Our history books don't really remind us of these facts, but the reasons for such historical erasures seem obvious as they are commonsensical.Men like Ibrahim Yaakob and Burhanuddin al-Helmy were left-leaning nationalists who did not couch their ideology in the language of race-based ethno-nationalism.They were also among those who were inclined to sympathise with the Malayan Communist Party and were among the first who stated that Malayan citizenship should be extended to all who had been born in Malaya then , which naturally included the descendants of Chinese and Indian migrants.
When Ibrahim Yaakob and Burhanuddin al-Hemly founded the Partai Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM), it was the first organic Malayan nationalist party and its inspiration came from Sukarno and Hatta's PNI.
The Broken Dream of Malaya-Raya: Ibrahim Yaakob and the Rise of the Malay Left. (Part 2 of 3) By the 1930s the Malay archipelago was swept by the fervour of anti-colonialism and ethno-nationalism.
...
To an extent, their Malayan counterparts in the peninsula were likewise influenced by these ideas and in the writings of men like Ibrahim Yaakob, Ishak Haji Mohammad, Ahmad Boestaman and Burhanuddin al-Helmy we encounter numerous references to the Malay world of the past.
...
The Japanese occupation gave Ibrahim Yaakob and his fellow radicals the opportunity to develop and disseminate their ideas as never before, even though it was obvious that Japanese military rule was as harsh and restrictive as British colonial rule had been.
...
Having already tried to work with the British as well as the Malay royalty and aristocracy, Ibrahim Yaakob found it easy to co-operate with the Japanese out of political necessity.
...
Ibrahim himself had also agreed to help the Japanese by purchasing the Malay newspaper Warta Malaya (with the help of Japanese funds) in August 1941 in order to launch a sustained anti-British campaign in the Malay press.
After the Japanese had consolidated their hold on the Malay peninsula, Ibrahim and the other ex-leaders of the KMM such as Ahmad Boestaman were invited to join and lead the Japanese-sponsored native militias and armed forces, the Giyugun and Giyutai.
...
As the commander of the Malayan Giyugun, Ibrahim deliberately chose to refer to it as PETA, hoping to strengthen its ties with its (stronger) Indonesian counterpart.Meanwhile other radicals like Ishak Haji Mohammad returned to their careers in journalism when given the opportunity.Together the Malay radicals worked to promote a sense of common pan-Malayan identity amongst all their followers and supporters in all the movements and institutions that they found themselves working in.
Betrayed by the Japanese
However, it soon became obvious to radicals like Ibrahim that the piecemeal efforts by the Japanese to accommodate their demands were cosmetic at best.Despite Ibrahim's constant reference to the Giyugun as ,PETA', it was obvious that the Malayan defence units were in no way comparable to their Indonesian counterparts, either in terms of size or ability.
Furthermore, the Japanese Military authorities themselves had made it quite clear that the Malayan civil and para-military organisations were meant to play only a supporting role behind the Japanese military administration, and that the Malays themselves were not to be given any real chances to prove themselves or work towards their political independence.The different treatment given to the Burmese, Indian and Indonesian military units made it painfully obvious to them that the Malay civil and para-military bodies had no real power or influence at all.Thus while serving in these organisations, the radicals covertly tried to further their political goals despite the pressure from the Japanese Military authorities to conform to the official pro-Japanese line that they had established. (In his work ,Sedjarah Dan Perdjuangan di Malaya' (1948), Ibrahim described how he and the KMM activists managed to set up ,socialist cells' and co-operative communes within the militarised state structure.One such co-operative venture was the ,Malay Farm' of Geylang, where the ,Kesatuan Melayu Muda memperaktijkan Sosialisme dan mengadakan peladjar2an kepada orang muda sebagai kader Sosialist, meskipun perkataan Sosialist tidak pernah disebut2nja tetapi praktijnja di Malay Farm Geylang itu adalah Sosialist').
Despite the constant monitoring of their activities, the Malay radicals tried to promote the interests and goals of the radical Malay nationalists during the period of occupation: They continually spoke of the need for the Indon-Malay peoples to unite together and they tried to negotiate with the Japanese authorities in Japan itself for the unification of the Malay Peninsula with the rest of Indonesia, and for their eventual independence.When such overt means of negotiation did not bear fruit, Ibrahim and his colleagues were also prepared to resort to more covert methods as well, a reminder of his earlier days in the political underground.
In July 1945, under the watchful eye of the Japanese military command, the Malay radicals were given the chance to form the Kesatuan Rakyat Indonesia Semenanjung, KERIS (Union of Indonesian and Peninsula Malay peoples) under the leadership of Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmy.But KERIS never managed to get very far in its activities, due in part to the decline in fortunes for the Japanese army.
By 1944 the strained Japanese High Command was already contemplating the prospect of granting independence to Indonesia.The Malay nationalists were keen to see that independence was granted to the Malay peoples of the peninsula as well.In July 1945 KERIS was formed and during a brief meeting in Taiping, Perak, the leaders of the Indonesian nationalist movement Sukarno and Hatta met with the leaders of the Malay radicals, Ibrahim Yaakob and Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmy.
...
Caught up by the internal politics of the Malay nationalist groups at the wrong place and at the wrong time, on his own account Ibrahim had missed his opportunity to leave Malaya with Sukarno and Hatta who had been flown back to Indonesia just in time to proclaim her independence on August 17, 1945.
...
Ibrahim Yaakob's exile and the gradual eclipse of Malaya-Raya.
...
Its author was known simply as I. K Agastja, but a cursory glance at the list of biographical details in the introduction immediately made it clear to all who the mysterious author was: Ibrahim Yaakob.
By 1948 Ibrahim was living in exile in Indonesia, under the name Iskandar Kamel.
...
Once again, Ibrahim would put his frustration into words and turned to his pen, but this time his writings would be lent an even more radical character by the changing geo-political circumstances in the Indon-Malay world which would pit the student of the SITC not only against the British colonial powers but also against a gamut of new foes and adversaries.
...
But the transformation of Ibrahim Yaakob to I.K Agastja and the Malay activist to the nasionalis progressive was not merely a nominal metamorphosis: In the Sedjarah we find Ibrahim at his most critical and incisive, where the gentler style of the past gives way to sharper and more explicit condemnation of the machinations of the British colonial powers.
...
Such instances of betrayal have been documented even in his earlier Melihat Tanah Air, where Ibrahim condemns the British for their propensity to label the Malays as lazy and backward according to their racist stereotypes of ,native' races.This observation, which would be echoed by many postcolonial social scientists (such as S. H. Alatas) who have argued that the economic and developmental policies of the British were in fact instrumental in the construction of the myth of the lazy Malay and thus intrinsic to the process of marginalising the Malays from the economic, social and political arena of Malaya, makes another appearances in Ibrahim's later polemic:
...
But Ibrahim does not look at the economic and political condition of the Malays as if they were existing in a cultural and political vacuum.In the Sedjarah, he locates his analysis in the context of a plural economy that has been constructed artificially by a foreign imperial power and where cleavages of race, class and national interests are clearly visible.
The net effect of this imperial policy of divide and rule is, as Ibrahim correctly points out, the construction of a political hierarchy in a cosmopolitan colonial context where the interests and welfare of the British colonial-capitalist class is held paramount and the rights of the non-white colonial subjects (be they the native Malays themselves or the migrant communities) are systematically compromised or played off against each other.
history
Fine Young Calibans: Ibrahim Yaakob and the Rise of the Malay Left. (Part 1 of 3)
...
For among the many other sides of the Malaysian story that we seldom discuss there happens to be the forgotten legacy of the pioneering Leftist-nationalists of the early twentieth century, led by men like Ibrahim Yaakob.
Fine Young Calibans: Ibrahim Yaakob and the Sultan Idris Training College.
It is perhaps ironic to note that the man who would one day become one of the leaders of the Malay anti-colonial movement was himself a product of British colonial education.Ibrahim Yaakob was a student of the Sultan Idris Training College (SITC), which was set up by the British colonial authorities with the simple aim of creating a class of Malay functionaries and educationists who would help them maintain and manage the lower rungs of the British colonial educational system in Malaya.
...
Among them was Ibrahim Yaakob, who proved to be more than just a difficult student when he turned away from basket-weaving classes at the SITC.Being denied the opportunity of being taught something really useful, Ibrahim opted for radical student activism instead.
...
Ibrahim Yaakob was certainly not indifferent to these trends.As one of the founders of a student group called the Belia Malaya ('Malayan Youth'), Ibrahim and his colleagues began subscribing to Indonesian periodicals like the Fikiran Rakyat ('People's Thought') and they individually joined Sukarno's Nationalist Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia, PNI) which was based in the neighbouring Netherlands East Indies.
It was also at the SITC that Ibrahim Yaakob met some of the friends and compatriots who would accompany him in the nationalist struggle in the years to follow like Abdul Karim Rashid, Hassan Manan and Isa Mohd.
...
After a somewhat lacklustre start, Ibrahim Yaakob eventually found himself in Kuala Lumpur, the newly-created capital of the British-ruled Federated Malay States.By then the heated climate of the inter-war years was ripe for the emergence of radical thinkers and socio-political movements all over the country.Along with Abdul Rahim Kajai and Othman Kalam, Ibrahim later came to serve as one of the editors of Majlis, a metropolitan newspaper of some prominence based in the capital in the year 1938.
...
Radicals like Ibrahim were an unstable phenomenon: they were the indigenous vernacular intelligentsia who clearly were not impressed by the ameliorating claims of colonial-capitalist discourse, but they were not about to return to their villages with their heads bowed in disappointment and disillusionment either.
Rejecting both the paternalistic gestures of the British imperialist power as well as the reactionary and defensive posture of the conservative Malay traditional elite, these emerging radicals occupied the intermediary space between the two spaces that had been allotted to them: the urban colonial administration (entry to which required a familiarity with eurocentric discourses of modernity, colonial-capitalism as well as the English language) and the rural traditional administration (entry to which required the precisely opposite: the return to colonial constructions of nativism, traditionalism and religious conservatism).Ibrahim and his colleagues were not prepared to enter either.
Ibrahim Yaakob was but one of thousands of Malays who were displaced and alienated thanks to the epistemic (as well as political and economic) injury exercised via the ideological reconstruction of the image of the native Other.His personal experience of migration to the metropolis was but one of thousands, which eventually led to the emergence of a previously unknown constituency: the urban-based Malays of the colonial metropolitan centres, who for the first time found themselves freed from the shackles of court and tradition of the Kerajaans and in an environment where they, too, were foreigners.
Working as a journalist and editor for Majlis in the late 30's, Ibrahim Yaakob would produce some of his own critical commentaries on the condition of the Malays under colonial rule which would show that he was indeed the inheritor of a critical tradition going back to the Kaum Muda radicals of the 1920s.The critical articles and editorials that Ibrahim wrote in Majlis were largely concerned with the condition of the Malays under colonial rule and the failure of the British to ,protect' the interests of the Malays in an increasingly lopsided plural colonial economy.
In 1938 Ibrahim Yaakob helped to form (and lead) the Kesatuan Melayu Muda.The KMM was made up of like-minded young Malay radicals, was ,vaguely Marxist in ideology' and ,reflected both a strong anti-colonial spirit and opposition to ,bourgeoise-feudalist' leadership of the traditional elite'.Opposed as they were to both colonial rule as well as the petty despotism of the Malay Sultanates, they called for the creation and return to the Indon-Malay world of precolonial past, the dream of Malaya-Raya, (,a Greater Malaya') and a unified anti-colonial struggle which brought together all the peoples of the Indonesian-Malay world and Asia.The members of the KMM engaged in meetings and discussions amongst themselves, comparing the condition of the colonised Malay lands to that of other colonies caught in the throes of anti-colonial struggle.They argued for an end to colonial rule as well as a challenged to the corrupt and enfeebled traditionalist order of the feudal Malay elite.Yet as a fledgling youth grouping without the means to appeal directly and openly to the masses, the KMM's activities, though ambitious in its scope and radical in temper, were nonetheless comparatively muted in their effect.This proved to be both productive and frustrating for Ibrahim himself.
In the end, the stifling environment of Kuala Lumpur itself would force Ibrahim to take to the road once more.And it was here, on his journey across his homeland, that Ibrahim would come to see the glaring inequalities and injustice of colonial rule laid bare.
The Itinerant Gaze of the Colonial Subject: Ibrahim Yaakob's Melihat Tanah Air.
After his impromptu expulsion from the editorial board of Majlis thanks to the manoeuvrings of its new conservative editor Tengku Ismail, the Malay radical was forced to take to the road once more.Ibrahim decided to take the opportunity to travel across his homeland in order to assess the political and economic condition of the Malays of all the states, while also engaging in a number of covert underground activities such as negotiating with the Malay rulers while preaching his ideology of radical nationalism to his supporters.
In 1941, with the tentacles of Imperial Japan slowly easing their way southwards between the islands of the Pacific, Ibrahim Yaakob completed the first volume of his work, Melihat Tanah Air (,Surveying the Homeland').In it we find for the first time a comprehensive exposition of Ibrahim's political philosophy and strategy, which served as the basis of his dream of establishing the long-awaited Malaya-Raya.
In Melihat Tanah Air, Ibrahim's own account of how and why he decided to embark on his tour of the homeland gives us an insight into the way in which he perceived the problem of the Malay people and his emotional response to the Malay condition under colonial rule then:
,...hak kebangsaan orang Melayu jadi sangat lemah.Orang-orang Melayu menjadi bangsa yang tersingkir di luar bandar tidak ada di daerah perniagaan di tanahairnya sendiri.Hal inilah yang menimbulkan kesedihan hati saya melihat tanahair saya dan bangsa saya yang menjadi bangsa yang ditakluk dikuasai orang asing.Menjadi bangsa yang miskin tenggelam didalam kekayaan tanahairnya sendiri.Tak ubah seperti ayam mati kelaparan di kepuk padi.Perasaan hati inilah yang membawa saya berjalan melihat tanahair menjelajah Malaya yang belum dilakukan oleh orang-orang yang dahulu'.
He ended his travels in Singapore, where with the help of the Japanese funds he would resume his career in journalism.He then intended to commit his thoughts and opinions to writing, but unfortunately only the first volume of his work would see the light of day.The second would be stopped by the British Internal Security services who decided to detain the errant Malay journalist-activist during the opening stages of the Second World War (October 1941), just before the unwelcomed arrival of the Imperial Japanese Army which would bring to a hasty conclusion the penultimate chapter of Britain's story of Empire.
Melihat Tanah Air was Ibrahim Yaakob's first serious attempt to understand and describe the economic and political malaise that had come to grip the Malays of his homeland.It offered precisely what the title of the book claimed it to be: a survey from the point of view of a Malay journalist of decidedly radical political complexion.But Melihat Tanah Air was written at a time when Ibrahim's frustration had to be restrained to avoid attracting the gaze of the colonial censor, and his narrative had to be written with care.The socio-political circumstances surrounding the writing of Melihat Tanah Air also account for its two most outstanding features: (1) Ibrahim's tendency
...
For among the many other sides of the Malaysian story that we seldom discuss there happens to be the forgotten legacy of the pioneering Leftist-nationalists of the early twentieth century, led by men like Ibrahim Yaakob.
Fine Young Calibans: Ibrahim Yaakob and the Sultan Idris Training College.
It is perhaps ironic to note that the man who would one day become one of the leaders of the Malay anti-colonial movement was himself a product of British colonial education.Ibrahim Yaakob was a student of the Sultan Idris Training College (SITC), which was set up by the British colonial authorities with the simple aim of creating a class of Malay functionaries and educationists who would help them maintain and manage the lower rungs of the British colonial educational system in Malaya.
...
Among them was Ibrahim Yaakob, who proved to be more than just a difficult student when he turned away from basket-weaving classes at the SITC.Being denied the opportunity of being taught something really useful, Ibrahim opted for radical student activism instead.
...
Ibrahim Yaakob was certainly not indifferent to these trends.As one of the founders of a student group called the Belia Malaya ('Malayan Youth'), Ibrahim and his colleagues began subscribing to Indonesian periodicals like the Fikiran Rakyat ('People's Thought') and they individually joined Sukarno's Nationalist Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia, PNI) which was based in the neighbouring Netherlands East Indies.
It was also at the SITC that Ibrahim Yaakob met some of the friends and compatriots who would accompany him in the nationalist struggle in the years to follow like Abdul Karim Rashid, Hassan Manan and Isa Mohd.
...
After a somewhat lacklustre start, Ibrahim Yaakob eventually found himself in Kuala Lumpur, the newly-created capital of the British-ruled Federated Malay States.By then the heated climate of the inter-war years was ripe for the emergence of radical thinkers and socio-political movements all over the country.Along with Abdul Rahim Kajai and Othman Kalam, Ibrahim later came to serve as one of the editors of Majlis, a metropolitan newspaper of some prominence based in the capital in the year 1938.
...
Radicals like Ibrahim were an unstable phenomenon: they were the indigenous vernacular intelligentsia who clearly were not impressed by the ameliorating claims of colonial-capitalist discourse, but they were not about to return to their villages with their heads bowed in disappointment and disillusionment either.
Rejecting both the paternalistic gestures of the British imperialist power as well as the reactionary and defensive posture of the conservative Malay traditional elite, these emerging radicals occupied the intermediary space between the two spaces that had been allotted to them: the urban colonial administration (entry to which required a familiarity with eurocentric discourses of modernity, colonial-capitalism as well as the English language) and the rural traditional administration (entry to which required the precisely opposite: the return to colonial constructions of nativism, traditionalism and religious conservatism).Ibrahim and his colleagues were not prepared to enter either.
Ibrahim Yaakob was but one of thousands of Malays who were displaced and alienated thanks to the epistemic (as well as political and economic) injury exercised via the ideological reconstruction of the image of the native Other.His personal experience of migration to the metropolis was but one of thousands, which eventually led to the emergence of a previously unknown constituency: the urban-based Malays of the colonial metropolitan centres, who for the first time found themselves freed from the shackles of court and tradition of the Kerajaans and in an environment where they, too, were foreigners.
Working as a journalist and editor for Majlis in the late 30's, Ibrahim Yaakob would produce some of his own critical commentaries on the condition of the Malays under colonial rule which would show that he was indeed the inheritor of a critical tradition going back to the Kaum Muda radicals of the 1920s.The critical articles and editorials that Ibrahim wrote in Majlis were largely concerned with the condition of the Malays under colonial rule and the failure of the British to ,protect' the interests of the Malays in an increasingly lopsided plural colonial economy.
In 1938 Ibrahim Yaakob helped to form (and lead) the Kesatuan Melayu Muda.The KMM was made up of like-minded young Malay radicals, was ,vaguely Marxist in ideology' and ,reflected both a strong anti-colonial spirit and opposition to ,bourgeoise-feudalist' leadership of the traditional elite'.Opposed as they were to both colonial rule as well as the petty despotism of the Malay Sultanates, they called for the creation and return to the Indon-Malay world of precolonial past, the dream of Malaya-Raya, (,a Greater Malaya') and a unified anti-colonial struggle which brought together all the peoples of the Indonesian-Malay world and Asia.The members of the KMM engaged in meetings and discussions amongst themselves, comparing the condition of the colonised Malay lands to that of other colonies caught in the throes of anti-colonial struggle.They argued for an end to colonial rule as well as a challenged to the corrupt and enfeebled traditionalist order of the feudal Malay elite.Yet as a fledgling youth grouping without the means to appeal directly and openly to the masses, the KMM's activities, though ambitious in its scope and radical in temper, were nonetheless comparatively muted in their effect.This proved to be both productive and frustrating for Ibrahim himself.
In the end, the stifling environment of Kuala Lumpur itself would force Ibrahim to take to the road once more.And it was here, on his journey across his homeland, that Ibrahim would come to see the glaring inequalities and injustice of colonial rule laid bare.
The Itinerant Gaze of the Colonial Subject: Ibrahim Yaakob's Melihat Tanah Air.
After his impromptu expulsion from the editorial board of Majlis thanks to the manoeuvrings of its new conservative editor Tengku Ismail, the Malay radical was forced to take to the road once more.Ibrahim decided to take the opportunity to travel across his homeland in order to assess the political and economic condition of the Malays of all the states, while also engaging in a number of covert underground activities such as negotiating with the Malay rulers while preaching his ideology of radical nationalism to his supporters.
In 1941, with the tentacles of Imperial Japan slowly easing their way southwards between the islands of the Pacific, Ibrahim Yaakob completed the first volume of his work, Melihat Tanah Air (,Surveying the Homeland').In it we find for the first time a comprehensive exposition of Ibrahim's political philosophy and strategy, which served as the basis of his dream of establishing the long-awaited Malaya-Raya.
In Melihat Tanah Air, Ibrahim's own account of how and why he decided to embark on his tour of the homeland gives us an insight into the way in which he perceived the problem of the Malay people and his emotional response to the Malay condition under colonial rule then:
,...hak kebangsaan orang Melayu jadi sangat lemah.Orang-orang Melayu menjadi bangsa yang tersingkir di luar bandar tidak ada di daerah perniagaan di tanahairnya sendiri.Hal inilah yang menimbulkan kesedihan hati saya melihat tanahair saya dan bangsa saya yang menjadi bangsa yang ditakluk dikuasai orang asing.Menjadi bangsa yang miskin tenggelam didalam kekayaan tanahairnya sendiri.Tak ubah seperti ayam mati kelaparan di kepuk padi.Perasaan hati inilah yang membawa saya berjalan melihat tanahair menjelajah Malaya yang belum dilakukan oleh orang-orang yang dahulu'.
He ended his travels in Singapore, where with the help of the Japanese funds he would resume his career in journalism.He then intended to commit his thoughts and opinions to writing, but unfortunately only the first volume of his work would see the light of day.The second would be stopped by the British Internal Security services who decided to detain the errant Malay journalist-activist during the opening stages of the Second World War (October 1941), just before the unwelcomed arrival of the Imperial Japanese Army which would bring to a hasty conclusion the penultimate chapter of Britain's story of Empire.
Melihat Tanah Air was Ibrahim Yaakob's first serious attempt to understand and describe the economic and political malaise that had come to grip the Malays of his homeland.It offered precisely what the title of the book claimed it to be: a survey from the point of view of a Malay journalist of decidedly radical political complexion.But Melihat Tanah Air was written at a time when Ibrahim's frustration had to be restrained to avoid attracting the gaze of the colonial censor, and his narrative had to be written with care.The socio-political circumstances surrounding the writing of Melihat Tanah Air also account for its two most outstanding features: (1) Ibrahim's tendency
Monday, February 9, 2009
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masalah d DIGI
masalah tar...yg mn berlaku pemendapan tnh di kwsan ini..
masalah lonkang d kwsn tangga
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