Mat Sabu's historical revisionism

This article should be read as a continuation of my preceding piece.

Is UMNO running on depleting reserves? It doesn’t seem to have the principles, the weltanschauung, it’s not driven and it doesn’t have leadership. The last was mentioned by Tun Mahathir. He says UMNO hasn’t got leadership. My take is, that is the damnest indictment on Najib’s leadership. In not so many words and in so uncharacteristic Mahathir Uzi machine gun style.

It’s now reduced to the stature of a beggar- scrounging at the supposed faux pas committed by PAS’s Mat Sabu. What has Mat Sabu actually said that caused so much consternation? We heard excerpts of it when mainstream TV stations aired condemnations on PAS. Of course the normally dimwitted NST led by its not so energetic managing editor sprung to the defense of don’t know who, posted the rhetorical statement that history is best left to professional historians. That was probably his finest hour in an otherwise nondescript journalistic existence.

One writer, writing in one of the online portals, says UMNO gets a reprieve. Reprieved from what may we ask? You can only show you are better on the misstep of your rival? What intrinsic value can you show us? Nothing?

The axiom that history is written by the victor is no longer true. The losers and the oppressed are fighting back. Mat Sabu is doing his own historical revisionism.  It’s a trend observable even at a more universal level. So Mat Sabu isn’t actually doing something out of the ordinary. For example, the historical record of America being "discovered" by Europeans is now sometimes presented as a history of invasion, exploitation and dominance of a people who had been there before the Europeans. This reinterpretation of the historical record is called historical revisionism, which can take the form of negationism, which is the denial of genocides and crimes against humanity.  In Mat Sabu’s case, it takes the form of a rejection and denial of the falsification of history.

Mat Sabu has unwittingly started a revision of history possibly incurring the ire of revered busybody historian such as Khoo Kay Kim. The revision of previously accepted historical accounts is a constant process in which "today's winners are tomorrow's losers", and the rise and fall of present institutions and movements influence the way historians see the past.

We haven’t heard what Mat Sabu said. I don’t think Professor Emeritus Khoo Kay kim has heard the video clip. Khoo Kay Kim is now indulging in a favorite pastime of people who refuse to acknowledge their own inconsequentiality. As a professor of history he is history himself. Making his views a commodity and a dime a dozen opinion, he has, as one commentator says, become an intellectual whore. He answers to the entreaties of any paying passerby customer as the fictional Ghostbusters do when called to ferret out ghostly entities.

If we don’t affirm what Mat Sabu said, we are ourselves guilty at historical debauchery. Mat Sabu mentioned the name of Mat Indera, the Batu Pahat Malay born in Peserai who led the attack on the police barrack at Bukit Kepong. The barrack was commanded by an English man representing the colonial government then.

I think we are missing the point here. Mat Sabu wasn’t glorifying the communists or communism. He didn’t even say anything about communism. He was asking his audience to take a relook at the treatment of history on the role of Mat Indera. To Mat Sabu, history has unjustly treated Mat Indera and we, the public has accepted the official version of history, hook, line and sinker. Was Mat Indera a simple terrorist sans a greater purpose and therefore deserving the description of a villain and terrorist?

It now seems the preferred version of revised history is to see and value Mat Indera as a freedom fighter bent on kicking out the British imperialists. Certainly the people in Mat Indera’s kampong in Batu Pahat refuse to accept the vilification of Mat Indera’s memory. The criminalization of Mat Indera is part of the indoctrination and propaganda carried out by British imperialism.

Mat Indera joins the list of so many other freedom fighters who dared rise up to challenge Britsih hegemony. Nowadays the Malayan people could no longer accept nor tolerate the infamy enforced on people like Pandak Endut, on Tok Janggut and Mat KIlau and so many others. Mat Indera certainly doesn’t deserve to be dumped into the dustbin of history as just ‘one of those’ terrorists.

Why is UMNO concerned? I have touched on this slightly in my preceding article when I mentioned that PKMM was formed in 1945, one year earlier than UMNO. PKMM was the first Malay political party to clearly state Independence as its main vocation and raison detre.

What is then alarming about Mat Sabu’s faux pas is the fear that it may lead to a widespread revision of history. If it snowballs into a widespread revision of history, then UMNO’s actual role MAY itself be diminished and it will no longer enjoy an unchallenged and monopolistic place in our nation’s history. Politically it will also mean that UMNO will find it increasingly difficult to claim absolute legitimacy as the nation’s only political force to have fought for MERDEKA. Its own heroes will be brought down to size. 

NAMA Jawa Ponorogo pernah terkenal dengan berita penangkapan anggota komunis, Ahmad Indera atau dikenali sebagai Mat Indera, berdarah pahlawan daripada keturunan Datuk Bentara Husin Lela Pahlawan Siak Seri Inderapura yang menjadi panglima kanan Sultan Sharif di Siak.

Meskipun Mat Indera dikaitkan sebagai pengganas oleh sesetengah orang kerana pembabitannya dalam komunis dan dilabelkan sebagai petualang oleh kerajaan Inggeris, ramai masyarakat Jawa Ponorogo menganggapnya pejuang dalam menuntut kemerdekaan, cuma memilih jalan yang salah.

Pemuda kelahiran Kampung Gombak, Peserai, Batu Pahat itu mempunyai peribadi tinggi dan dikatakan kuat beribadat serta tinggi pengetahuan agamanya. Justeru, dia disenangi penduduk di Sri Medan yang kerap membantunya membekalkan makanan ketika dia dalam parti komunis.

Namun, tekanan yang diberikan Inggeris terutama kepada rakan karibnya, Mat Tukyo supaya menangkap Mat Indera atau tindakan tegas dikenakan terhadap penduduk Sri Medan menyebabkan mereka tiada pilihan selain memastikannya ditangkap.

Namun, bukan kerja mudah menangkapnya kerana kehebatan dan ketinggian ilmu Mat Indera.

Ugutan Inggeris terus menjadi tekanan kepada penduduk Sri Medan termasuk untuk memindahkan mereka dan mengambil tindakan tegas kepada mereka yang membantu membekalkan makanan kepada Mat Indera.

Penangkapan Mat Tukyo oleh Inggeris sebelum ditawarkan beberapa ganjaran selain hidup bebas di Sri Medan menjadi kemuncak tindakan nekad penduduk Jawa Ponorogo, namun perlu melalui kaedah terancang kerana semua mengetahui kesaktian Mat Indera.

Pada 14 Oktober 1952, lima lelaki Jawa Ponorogo yang diketuai Md Sham dan dibantu Ismail Mustakim (Misban), Beladang, Mat Tukyo dan Bajuri menggunakan tipu helah untuk memberkas Mat Indera.

Ia bermula dengan jemputan Mat Tukyo dan Misban untuk mengadakan perbincangan mengenai pelan bantuan orang kampung kepada Mat Indera. Dalam perbincangan itu, dia dijamu dengan tempe dan kopi yang dicampur kecubung. Akibat itu Mat Indera mabuk dan mengantuk.

Kesempatan itu digunakan untuk menanggalkan semua tangkal serta mengikat tangannya dengan lalang. Dikatakan, kerana itulah ilmu ghaib dan kehebatan Mat Indera tidak lagi dapat digunakan.

Bekas ketua kampung Parit Warijo, Malik Samuri menjadi saksi bagaimana Mat Indera dibawa dengan basikal sedang tangannya diikat daun lalang. Peristiwa itu sebenarnya menimbulkan pelbagai reaksi masyarakat Jawa Ponorogo. Ada yang gembira dan ada yang sebak.

Mohd Abidin Ismail iaitu anak salah seorang yang menangkap Mat Indera, Misban, berkata meskipun terbabit secara langsung dalam tipu helah itu, sepanjang hidup ayahnya tidak pernah menyatakan kebanggaan atas kejayaan itu, malah tidak sesekali melabelkan Mat Indera sebagai petualang.

“Cuma apa yang kerap diceritakannya ialah tindakan mereka ketika itu adalah disebabkan tekanan yang dihadapi akibat ugutan Inggeris. Mungkin ada melabelkannya sebagai petualang tetapi saya merasakan dia seorang pejuang tetapi memilih jalan yang salah.

“Tidak adil terus melabel Mat Indera sebagai pengkhianat kerana dia juga berjuang untuk menuntut kemerdekaan. Cuma kumpulan yang disertainya itu tidak sesuai, itupun disebabkan tiada kumpulan lain ketika itu. Kumpulan Melayu lain terlalu lambat bertindak” katanya.