Dying for your country
Opinion
It’s an unlikely association at first glance. Some form of human sacrifice did exist in almost every major civilization in the past. Those sacrificed were sometimes forced, although others went willingly.
They were offered as gifts to the gods, or to the rulers, earning those who offered the sacrifices power, protection or bounty in return. Sacrifices were also made as acts of appeasement to destructive natural forces such as the spirit of the sea, a volcano or river.
The loss of one, or a few human lives, in order to save the majority. Such barbaric behaviour is an artifact of a more primitive time, no longer of our world.
Today, when the rare report of a human sacrifice or ritual killing breaks the news, we read them as aberrations, the isolated acts of a mad-man and their lemming-like followers, or the consequences of societies still gripped by ignorance and superstition.
Alternatively, we seek them out within the safety of lurid Hollywood movies, where sacrificial scenes featuring scantily-clad young women terrify and titillate us.
But what is an army other than a mass commitment to death in service of a higher order? As Hyde succinctly puts it, “... when the state replaced the god-king, male life is no longer baked in earth ovens, it is sent to the trenches.”
Young men and women either voluntarily, or upon compulsion by the state, put themselves in a position to lose their lives. They do so compelled by a belief in the sovereignty of nationhood, in pursuit of power for their leaders, to protect their fellow-citizens, or to gain territories or resources to enrich the nation. Personally, they have little to gain, and, literally, all to lose.
Where we once sacrificed humans to the intangible, unseen supernatural, we now have whole armies willing to die in the name of political ideology and causes that are, upon close analysis, as insubstantial as the river spirit.
The scale, ritual and tools of sacrifice may differ, but the underlying rationale of giving up a small number for the betterment of the majority remains the same.
This December marks the 69th anniversary of the fall of Malaya to the Japanese in WWII. Singapore fell two months later, leaving the British Empire’s reputation as an invincible force in tatters. The four-year occupation was a time of great suffering for the people of Malaya. The Allied forces finally triumphed over the Axis but with immense loss of lives.
In the Malaya/Singapore campaign, men and women from Britain, Australia, India, as well as local Malayans — Chinese, Malays, Indians and others — gave their lives, either as part of the formal forces or through clandestine groups such as Malayan Anti-Japanese People’s Army.
My father’s brother fought in WW2. I still have a couple of medals he received for his services. My mother lost a step-brother in the war. He was involved in anti-Japanese activity, as many young Malayan-Chinese were at the time. Another brother betrayed him to the Japanese, thereby clearing his own way to the family inheritance. Or so goes the family lore.
Hari Pahlawan, the national celebration to commemorate those who fought in the two great wars as well as in the communist insurgency, is held on July 31 every year. It has, for decades, taken place at the Tugu Negara.
Rituals of memory are performed — the laying of wreaths, a moment of silence, and the playing of the Last Post — with the Agong, the prime minister and the heads of the armed forces in attendance.
This year, in compliance with a fatwa issued by the Majilis Fatwa Kebangsaan (MFK) in April 2009, the ceremony was moved to Dataran Merdeka. According to news reports, the fatwa centres on the specific form of the Tugu Negara.
The five soldiers, sculptured in bronze, flout the Muslim prohibition of graven images. The Mufti of Perak, a member of the MFK, further dismissed the laying of wreaths, the observance of a moment of silence, and bowing to the Tugu Negara as “tradisi orang putih (penjajah)”. In his words, “Mengapa harus kita mengekalkannya? Kita boleh melakukannya dengan cara kita”.
It’s hard to argue with this. Why not find our own ways of commemorating those who have sacrificed their lives for the country? Let us not be hung up the form remembrance takes, so long as we do remember. The abandonment of the Tugu Negara however bears further interrogation.
Benedict Andersen begins his seminal work on the process of nationhood, Imagined Communities, with a discussion on how the symbolic power of national monuments and cenotaphs lies in the fact that they are void.
There are no actual soldiers entombed within and they are often dedicated to the “Unknown Soldier.” The anonymity allows these monuments to encompass a myriad of meanings and identities. Specifics of individual identity, ethnicity, religion would breed exclusion.
The Tugu Negara is a child of Malaysia, birthed in the early years of nationhood. The original national monument, the Cenotaph, was built by the British Administration before Merdeka.
In 1963, Bapa Malaysia himself commissioned a new monument, the Tugu Negara, which was launched by the Agong in 1966. The circumstances of its creation are clearly an assertion of an independent Malaysia over its colonial past. The monument narrates the nation: Malaysia was built on the sacrifice of young virile men (women are excluded as usual) who triumphed over enemies from without and within the country.
Its dedication reads simply “Dedicated to the heroic fighters in the cause of peace and freedom, May the blessing of Allah be upon them.” It is a perfect epitaph for the fallen but also one that can speak to every living Malaysian, regardless of race, gender, generation or religion.
The Tugu Negara, within sight of Parliament, is a concrete manifestation of the idea of the nation, and it has, by and large, been a successful visual symbol of Malaysia.
Generations of Malaysian school children used exercise books with the image of the Tugu on the back. Tourist brochures feature it, and RTM’s patriotic songs often show the Tugu in the background.
Its potency as a symbol of Malaysia can be attested to by the fact that in 1975, the Tugu Negara was bombed, allegedly by the Communist Party of Malaya. Graven images do indeed take on a significance that goes far beyond the material.
This most recent attack on the Tugu Negara by the MFK is certainly less dramatic than that 1975 bomb but it has long been in the works. To the MFK, the Tugu Negara’s sculptured form of five men gives it a specificity that excludes Islam.
According to news reports, the MFK has been trying for over a decade to have the fatwa recognized by the State. A member for the MFK is quoted as saying that previous prime ministers “tidak berani mematuhi fatwa.” Prime Minister Najib Razak has gone where our past prime ministers have refused to go.
Symbols of the nation must fit the identity of the nation. When the country changes, the symbols either become re-inscribed with new meaning, or they are abandoned. The Tugu was once a fitting symbol of Malaysia, but is now out of step with the narrative of our country, as told by its new storytellers.
By abandoning The Tugu on the specific grounds of being unIslamic, any replacement becomes at once caught in a reverse cycle of being identifiably Islamic.
We have Islamic elements in other visual symbols of the nation, such as in the flag, the National Mosque, the Agong, the Petronas Twin Towers, and these have been embraced with pride by Malaysians of all religions. In and off itself, it should not present a problem.
The circumstances surrounding the Tugu Negara, however, seems unlikely to win wide support, coming as it does at a point where non-Malays/Muslims are often dismissed as immigrants.
Sacrificing oneself for the nation comes from a sense of belonging, a sense of being a stakeholder, of having something to lose if that country is in danger. Our forefathers, the actual “pendatangs”, gave their lives willingly. Perhaps they had what we Malaysians, born and raised, seem to be fast losing.
| Kathy Rowland has been writing about the politics of arts and culture for the past nine years. A native of Petaling Jaya, she currently lives in Chengdu, China. |
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