Spirit of Wood : Art of Woodcarving

Author:

By Farish A Noor, Eddin Khoo, David Lok

Spirit of Wood – the Art of Woodcarving in the Northeast Malay Peninsula.

The Spirit of Wood is perhaps the most comprehensive book on Malay woodcarvings from the Northeastern Peninsular states of Pattani, Kelantan and Terengganu that has ever been researched. Drawn from the collections of two of Malaysia's foremost master woodcarvers, the late Nik Rashidin Nik Hussein and his protégé, Norhaiza Noordin, it explores the origins, history and art of traditional Malay woodcarving by taking motif as the focal point. By examining how these motifs evolved over time, the book illustrated the dynamic interplay of native Austronesian motifs with Hindu-Buddhist, Islamic and Chinese influences.

The book also explored the traditions, techniques and philosophy of traditional woodcarving and placed them within the wider context of Malay civilisation. The artefacts featured in the book were carefully chosen to illustrate the materials used, the types of objects made, and the concepts, beliefs and cultural aesthetics that shaped Malay woodcraft.

Artefacts ranged from the everyday - cake moulds and tackle boxes - to architectural elements from mosques and palaces, to luxury and ceremonial items such as weapons, sireh sets and birdcages. In addition to antique artefacts, the book also showcased the works of the regions top craftsmen working today.

The Northeastern states of the Malay Peninsula represent a unique sub-grouping of the Malay World with its own cultural, artistic and historical heritage. Centred on the city of Pattani and rooted in the ancient Hindu-Buddhist kingdom of Langkasuka, the Northeastern Peninsula was periodically an important crossroads for trade passing across the Isthmus of Kra between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. During these periods of prominence, in particular between the 2nd and 8th centuries as well as the 12th through the 16th centuries, traders, scholars and religious pilgrims from across the region and around the world flocked to Lankasuka and to its successor, the Sultanate of Pattani. As a result the area reflects a characteristic blend of indigenous and foreign influences that is at once unmistakably Southeast Asian and uniquely Langkasukan.

It is indeed a worthy book to be read, refer, and understand on wood, wood-carvings, patterns and etc.  culture of the Northern Malay Peninsula!

 

Why wait? ^_^ Branding your references now!

101 Puteri Dunia Melayu

101 PUTERI DUNIA MELAYU: SEJARAH DAN LAGENDA

Author: 

Nisriwani Yahaya

Publisher: 

Jabatan Muzium Malaysia

Year Published: 

2003

 

 

 

This book tells the story of the princess and the most prominent women in history, myths and legends of the Malay world. The book is complete with a picture of his time and environment but also show heritage, culture, arts and literature of the Malays. The information content in a bilingual book.

 

Read this book and get yourself closer with the princess whose also plays important role in our Malay society.

Singapore in the Malay World

Dr. LILY ZUBAIDAH RAHIM

Singapore in the Malay World: Building and Breaching Regional Bridges

Abingdon: Routledge, 2009

230 pp. ISBN 978-0-415-48410-7
Reviewed by P.J. Thum, University of Oxford

The Author

In her first book The Singapore Dilemma: The Political and Educational  Marginality of the Malay community, Prof Lily Zubaidah Rahim explained the continuing economic, educational, and political marginalisation of the Singapore Malay community. In this book, she takes her work to the next logical step, by turning her view outwards towards Nusantara, the Malay world. She asks how Singapore’s internal relationship between the Chinese-dominated political elite and the Malay community affects its external position in the Malay world.

Rahim takes a flexible approach to her analysis, not getting tied down in any particular theoretical framework. She sets the table by looking at the role of Malays and Malay culture in Singapore’s dominant historical and political narratives. On this basis, she compares the competing nation-building paradigms of Singapore and Malaysia, detailing how the two paradigms are, in fact, mirror images of each other. This is followed by studies of the security and economic aspects of Singapore’s regional position (mainly with Malaysia). The last part of her analysis focuses on the Singapore-Indonesia relationship. Her writing throughout is well reasoned, convincing, and extremely readable. It makes clear the complex, multidimensional aspects of Singapore’s relationships with its two biggest neighbours.

Yet one is left with the feeling that the title is somewhat of a misnomer. The majority of Rahim’s work deals almost solely with Singapore’s bilateral relationship with Malaysia. In many ways, this is necessary – Singapore’s historical, economic, and cultural links with Malaysia mean that the state looms largest in Singapore’s foreign policy. Yet a work entitled ‘Singapore in the Malay world’ promises a multilateral, regional approach and this book fails to deliver on that promise. Three chapters dominated by Kuala Lumpur and one exclusively devoted to Jakarta sell the Malay world short. Rahim, in an endnote, explains Nusantara as ‘a trans-archipelagic term that corresponds historically to the Indonesian and Malay sphere of influence’. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, southern Philippines, and southern Thailand all fall in this sphere. However, south Thailand, Brunei, Borneo, eastern Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and the Philippines are absent or referred to only in passing in Rahim’s work. With few exceptions, Rahim’s work is focused on bilateral relations, leaving open the interesting question of how exactly Singapore has affected Kuala Lumpur-Jakarta relations. Exploring Singapore’s position using a multilateral approach would have produced a much more fruitful and exciting study.

Correspondingly, the chapters themselves lack any narrative unity, feeling too much like a collection of separate essays rather than a comprehensive work. In particular, the Indonesia chapter bears little link to the rest of the book, and it is left to the conclusion to draw out tentative threads in an attempt to tie the book together.

This compartmentalisation is further underlined by the difference in her approaches to Singapore-Malaysia and Singapore-Indonesia relations. Singapore-Malaysia is dealt with on cultural, political, and economic grounds, but the Singapore-Indonesia analysis is largely driven by the personal relationship between the two governments, and in particular between Lee Kuan Yew and Suharto. The lack of a strong cultural dimension to Singapore’s relations with Indonesia poses a challenge to assumptions about the Malay world  and how it is perceived by its members. However, the chapter on Indonesia is the best chapter precisely because it is much more narrowly focused on more conventional politics and in particular the relationship between Suharto and Lee Kuan Yew.

The politicisation and contestation of culture is one of the central themes of this book. Rahim’s depth of knowledge and familiarity with Malay culture, its complicated relationship with politics on both sides of the causeway, and the marginalisation and discrimination faced by the Malay community in Singapore, shine through. She marshals her facts on Malay culture and perspective well and writes confidently and convincingly. The same cannot be said about her attempts to break down the PAP’s attempt at the sinicisation of Singapore. It fails to capture the diversity of Singapore’s Chinese community, or its schizophrenic attitude towards Chinese culture and language: simultaneously proud of its heritage, frustrated by the alien tongue of mandarin, and fearful of dominance from China, an alien land to second and third generation Chinese Singaporeans. She occasionally repeats unsubstantiated stereotypes about Chinese attitudes and beliefs. She also perhaps overstates the extent to which the rest of the PAP leadership buy into Lee Kuan Yew’s beliefs on sinicisation when she predicts a new Chinese cultural elite poised to takeover leadership of the country. English educated, western oriented leaders continue to dominant the PAP’s upper echelons and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

The problem is, of course, that she is unable to access the Chinese community’s worldview. Her sources, bar three interviews with Malaysian politicians, are entirely secondary, and generally in English. This no doubt reflects the paucity of work from Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese-speaking academics available in English, but it also suggests the limitations of Rahim’s skillset.

In her introduction, she sets to explore Singapore’s external relations from a historical, multidisciplinary, regional perspective. What she has achieved is an excellent study of Singapore’s bilateral relations with its two closest neighbours using a variety of political approaches, with a specific focus on the mindset of a few select leaders, and from a top-down perspective. This book will be extremely valuable to anyone seeking to better understand Singapore’s foreign policy, but we will have to wait for a work which truly embeds Singapore in Nusantara.

Refleksi Pustakawan Tentang Islam

Title: Islam dalam pelbagai perspektif : Refleksi Pustakawan Tentang Islam

Penulis: Shaharom TM Sulaiman

ISBN: 967-69-0205-5

Penerbit: Thinker's Library Sdn Bhd

Buku ini merupakan buku yang diterbitkan dalam tahun 1997. Walaubagaimanapun, ianya amat menarik untuk diulas dan dikongsi bersama kerana adanya terma ini "Pustakawan" pada muka bukunya. Apatah lagi, ia mengaitkan refleksi Pustakawan dalam konteks Islam.

Buku ini menggupas dan membincangkan beberapa pengisian yang menarik bermula dari mencari dan mencintai al-Hikmah, wawasan al-Quran, kecintaan terhadap Rasulullah saw dan ahli keluarganya, penghayatan ramadan dan aidilfitri, tebaran hikmah dan penghayatan doa sehingga kepada ulul albab dan penggunaan akal.

Buku ini adalah kompilasi esei penulis yang pernah tersiar dalam akhbar dan majalah tempatan. Penulisnya yang merupakan pustakawan mengakui mempunyai minat membaca yang amat tinggi terhadap buku-buku dalam pelbagai disiplin termasuk yang menyentuh aspek keislaman.

Haruslah diingat, penulisan dan penggisian di dalam buku ini merupakan lontaran pandangan dan refleksi penulis berdasarkan niat untuk belajar diantara satu sama lain. Menariknya buku ini dibahagikan kepada enam bab utama yang mempunyai kaitan secara langsung mahupun tidak langsung. Contohnya di dalam bab yang membincangkan al-Hikmah, penulis percaya bahawa kecintaan kepadanya akan membentuk kebenaran, ilmu, kebijaksanaan, pencerahan pemikiran dan makrifah kepada pembaca.

Buku ini tampak ringkas dari aspek rekabentuk, paparan dan olahannya. Bagaimanapun, sentuhannya mengenai pengisahan oleh ahli sufi terkenal, Jalaluddin Rumi dan kisah Rumi nyata menggamit pembaca untuk terus menghayatinya. Memang benar, ia harus dijadikan salah satu rujukan oleh semua lapisan khususnya di kalangan Pustakawan bagi memupuk pemikiran kritis dan kreatif disamping melengkapkan pengenalan kita dalam memahami Islam dari pekspektif bukan ahli agama.

Malay excellence – a transcending legacy

The Malays Par Excellence … Warts And All; An Introspection
Authors: Ismail Noor and Muhammad Azaham
Pub. Pelanduk Publications (M) Sdn Bhd, Selangor
Paperback xvii + 166 pp

Having lived for years in Malaysia and becoming Malaysian, I came to this book, with the sense of, with some basic knowledge and opinions about Kelantanese community as a people. Kelantan, of course, is known for its religious fervor and the Kelantanese, who do not merit a separate mention in this book surprisingly, for their barely concealed hostility to outsiders, even other Malays. Having seen this first-hand and having had west coast Malays complain to me of a certain Kelantanese tendency to keep them at arm’s length, I have to confess to a certain reluctance to believe in Malay unity as a transcending force.
Nonetheless, it is important to see how others view themselves. Ismail Noor and Muhammad Azaham have set out a Malay view of their own people and a Malay view of history and, although one might beg to differ on certain points, is an affirmative statement of self-belief. This is no re-hash of Dr. Mahathir’s The Malay Dilemma, which was both a scathing look at Malay faults and a call to action on their behalf, but an honest look at what makes them tick.
It has often been the case that the Malays, most of whom are easy-going, self-deprecating people (Mahathir a major exception), have been overlooked and the authors blast the British for just this in their treatment of the people. The colonial British did have a condescending attitude towards them for which they paid rather dearly.
Failure to recruit sufficient Malays into the forces pre-WW2 was a crucial factor in the rapid collapse of the colony when the Japanese attacked in 1941-42. That the Malays were indeed good fighting men, contrary to British opinion, was proved in spades by the heroic stand of the Malay Regiment at Kent Ridge in Singapore, a stand made all the finer by the fact that many others deserted the front.
If one wants to take exception to anything said here it must be with the assertion that the New Economic Policy, initiated in the wake of the 1969 inter-ethnic riots that rocked Malaysia to its very foundations, is “bold and dynamic”. There may have been a serious need for affirmative action to lever the Malays up economically but it is fair to wonder aloud whether the NEP is past its expiry date. Having witnessed first-hand the featherbedding of Malay students in the secondary school system, I cannot help but feel that certain aspects of it are deeply unfair to the other ethnic groups including other ‘bumiputera’ such as the Dayaks.
Ismail and Muhammad do make a courageous assessment, nonetheless, of some of the faults of the Malaysian education system. “Several situations of imperfect and relatively unwholesome years in primary and secondary education become compounded by the problem of time-constrained social maladjustment at university level,” they say. A bold assertion.
The authors have provided a catalog towards the back of the book of distinguished Malays, many of whom are unfamiliar to me. Indeed many Malays have distinguished themselves in various fields, not least UN military service, where their traits of collective loyalty serve them well, but I was disappointed to note the absence from the list of scholars of the historian of the Malays, Syed Hussein Ali, an important voice of dissent in Malaysia.

This is a worthy attempt, however, to put a people’s point of view.