The ban on Mak Yong, Wayang Kulit, Menora and Main Puteri in 1991 by the Kelantan government triggered one of the longest debates in Malaysia on culture, religion and politics. The debate continues today.
Pusaka founder and director Eddin Khoo shares with the New Straits Times what the traditional arts collective has been doing and the way ahead.
Question: Mak Yong was declared an intangible cultural heritage by Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) in 2005. Can you describe the journey you, Pusaka and traditional artistes of Kelantan took on this issue?
Answer: Nowhere. The Unesco thing is really beside the point. We (Pusaka) have a bit of history, so my work — which is related to ritual performance — goes back some 30 years. The marker was the ban on traditions by the Pas government in 1991. I was starting out as a cultural journalist. I had a background in Islamic studies, so I was interested in how Muslim society was re-envisioning its past.
We make too much of the declaration by Unesco. They’re formal awards and recognition. I am not rejecting them, but it’s beside the point. My work is not concerned with that. The most important recognition the traditions need should come from our community, not international (bodies).
Our traditions are folk traditions. They are rooted in the community, people’s lives and their psychology. They are a form of expression. The people’s worldview is expressed through traditions. So it was not that important. It triggered international curiosity in relation to Mak Yong. In 2007, we went to France and had a major traditional festival, but my emphasis has always been on community work.
Q: Has the Kelantan government taken a step back since then?
A: I never had any argument with the state government. I got along very well with them as a journalist, up until now. But I think it is a lot of posturing. Proscription is horrifying, but a lot of it is half-hearted. Wayang kulit, Menora, Mak Yong and Main Puteri are still banned. Mak Yong, especially, because it involves women.
This (the tussle between the old and new) is nothing new. It started out in the 1970s when we tried to construct a national culture and fell back on our indigenous traditions to forge that (identity).
But culture is a complicated thing. Culture is local, diverse and we exist as a multiracial society.
Yes, traditions are banned, but there is leeway. It is important to root yourself in contradictions that exist.
When I first went (to Kelantan) in 1993 as a journalist, I wanted to look at the band in the broadest framework of religious and cultural politics, and record the lives of the people to get a sense of who and what the performers and traditions were. I found that communities are closely bound to traditions. They fall back on them as healing and therapeutic (rites) when they feel down. So there is a great deal of community support versus officials’ negativity. These are the contradictions.
Q: What is the leeway?
A: They do it and the authorities don’t disturb them. In Besut, I do Mak Yong with a community I have worked with for 30 years. The headman is a strong Pas supporter and is against it. But he comes from a Mak Yong family so he allowed us to do it. He felt he couldn’t betray his ancestors. As I said, posturing. There are contradictions you have to work with.
Many people turn to Main Puteri for healing. Main Puteri is flourishing these days. There are so many Tok Puteri. This is (part of) local knowledge — what we believe and grew up with. It’s hard for edicts and law officials to intrude into people’s lives and beliefs. Communities need cultures. The official line is also half-hearted.
But now, things have changed as communities become more ideologised. Young people have developed a real aversion to them. Terengganu now, for example, has banned Mak Yong and they are pretty serious. That is something we have to negotiate.
Q: You said that one of Pusaka’s goals is to fend off charges and edicts with true traditions and what these cultural art forms mean. Can you explain?
A: We have academic work and research on traditions, but they aren’t intellectualised. They’re not seen in the broader framework of history — journeying communities and their interaction, psychology of medicine, therapy, how communities understand themselves as collectives and the role of the dalang (puppeteer).
It’s not in our DNA. It’s in a research library somewhere and people are not talking about it as if we owned it. That’s why we try to engage in a collective level about what these traditions mean. So that you remove them from the language of jin, jembalang and hantu (spirits and ghosts) to give it depth.
Q: Is this why you’re saying that there is no mainstream or government campaign to do so?
A: The government has tried to reconstruct traditions and present them in a new way, as seen in Mak Yong performances on stage. Since the 1970s, the trend has been to try and stage these performances.
I have no problem but for me, it loses all its power. It loses everything captivating from the setting, the operation of the performance, to the personalities because they are performing in a centre according to cultural dicta.
Traditions are mostly about the performers and when you try to dress them in strange costumes and weird headdresses, it just mocks them. They must exist and thrive at the ground level and they are doing so at the moment.
When I started out in the 1990s, young people were the problem. Today, from the 28 groups, we have 300 to 400 people, and 80 per cent of them are youngsters. They’re bound to traditions and think it’s sexy to be traditional artistes. It’s very much like a hispter movement if you look at our kuda kepang performers in Johor and Urimi Melam boys (temple drum performers).
This is a very powerful expression because it means young people are claiming their traditions. In the 1990s, the greatest concern was that young people were not interested. But people are getting more interested when Pusaka brings them (performers) to Kuala Lumpur and abroad. Our Mak Yong troupes just came home from a successful performance at Singapore’s Esplanade.
So the young people are starting to realise the value of where they come from. People respect and love them for who they are — they do not have to pretend to be anybody else — and what they have contributed.
Q: How difficult is it to make traditions commercially viable and sustainable?
A: Wayang did not die during the Great Depression. It’s not about looking at it and thinking about how to make money. It is about how it fits into the economic stimulus of communities as it involves craft, tourism and the cultural economy.
We have been making so much noise about this over the past few years, but we haven’t got a clue. We set up agencies to do the most absurd things in its name. Cultural economy basically means a soft economy to complement a hard economy. It involves communities all over the country and things that are innate to them.
It’s not about paying for a show, but going for a performance, eating there and having a place to stay. Then you may want to look for what is sold and people will invest in skills which have been there for generations.
The young people are looking for this. The number is growing. I have a drummer who is 15 in my wayang troupe. Traditions give youths seriousness and discipline.
Q: How do you fund yourself?
A: We fund a lot of our projects (for now). However, Pusaka is aiming for a spin-off in all things. This is where I want to see ideas on how to make collectives or informal arts communities, which is how it existed before. Traditions are supported by communities, not kings and the like. There is an ecosystem that needs to be stimulated.
Q: How do informal groups survive?
A: Some of them work with the Tourism Arts and Culture Ministry, while others are locally supported. The Chinese dalang in Kelantan find innovative ways of promoting themselves. People give donations. We have no institutional funding, so it’s a core group that I constantly fall back on.
In our conversation on economic restructuring over the past year, I find the private sector insulated. Why is it not part of the community? The conversation has got to be a lot broader than getting money from people. I want Pusaka to be able to talk to the government about what is cultural economy in the next Malaysia Plan. For a start, I want a conversation (with the ministry) (as) we lack imagination. Recently, deputy tourism, arts and culture minister talked about how culture can contribute to the economy, but we have been having the conversation for 30 years now. So what are the ways to achieve it?
Q: How do you foresee achieving these goals?
A: Education. I want to talk to people in the private sector about culture and capital. People look at traditions like they are just about songs, dances, arts and cultures.
This is not a production. This is an entire, all encapsulating organism. Pusaka tries to give the people on the ground a voice. It’s not done badly, the media has been good.
Q: In your opinion, how committed is the government to supporting the arts?
A: The government can play a supportive role but it’s quite irrelevant and very often, greater government involvement in the arts is not positive because the government has issues with independence.
Traditions we work with are from the community, sustained by it and has to continue to play that role. There is no point talking about national identity when there is no real firm holding on to and celebrating these traditions. It all boils down to community responsibilities.
Q: Growing up with (the late historian) Tan Sri Khoo Kay Kim as your father must have been tough. He must have cast a large shadow.
A: When I talk about my father, I will cry. I am always happy and proud to be his son.
In the past 10 years, being his son means something bigger. I’m the one who gathered his work and worked with him to put it together in the memoir he was reluctant to do.
And I, KKK is a funny, inspiring love story involving his country, wife and family. When he died, I was amazed at tributes that came in. People felt close to him. They were not the usual ‘great loss, so sad, condolences’. They were thought out, which meant so many people grew up with him on television, hearing him speak or meeting him in the supermarket.
The intimacy people felt with him said a lot about him. He was an old-school historian who buried himself in microfilms, newspapers and documents. He was always alone in the library, very private yet he had this public appeal.
No, I never felt that I am living in his shadow. He was a beautiful father, very liberating. My father never wanted anything (for me). His dream for me was not in scholarship or writing. He wanted me to be the next Tony Bennett.
Q: What would your father think of state governments wanting to rename roads after him?
A: I think he would be a little overwhelmed. But I think one road name is enough. I was moved because he was a proud Perak native and he was given this by his adopted state of Selangor. The fact that they are calling it Jalan Professor Khoo Kay Kim gives him his professorship for life. He was proud of that. It came before everything else, before Tan Sri and all. He got the title “Professor” in 1975.
Q: What do think your father would have wanted for Malaysia now?
A: That we get inspired and excited about the country the way he was. Just to get along and empathise. He always talked about how we have to embrace diversity. He was saddened by divisiveness; he just couldn’t understand it. He was a man of no race, he married, lived and brought his children up that way.