Melayu

Chapter 5 Gender, Islam and the “Malay Nation” in Fatimah Busu’s Salam Maria

124 Wong Soak Koon Chapter 5 Gender, Islam and the “Malay Nation” in Fatimah Busu’s Salam Maria Wong Soak Koon The effort to wrte oneself nto the “naton” and the Body Poltc has often been seen and recognzed as a masculnst enterprse by the Malaysan state. Thus far, Malaysa’s Natonal Laureates (Sasterawan Negara) have been men from one ethnc group who wrte n the natonal language, Bahasa Malaysia. In the last few years, however, a spate of works were wrtten by Malay women usng Englsh to challenge the exclusonary boundares of gender and language erected by Malaysa’s natonal lterary prze-gvng and ttle-awardng bodes. In both ficton and essays, as well as autobographcal vgnettes, Englsh-language women wrters lke Che Husna Azhar, Dna Zaman and Marna Mahathr, to name a few, nterrogated a monolthc or hegemonc dentty formaton by complcatng ethnc and Islamc affilatons and gender constructons. Malay women wrtng n Bahasa Malaysia, on the other hand, are arguably more cautous n ther nterrogaton of statst constructons of women. They rarely undermne the state’s master narratves of women’s roles n naton-buldng, avodng, n partcular, a crtcal reassessment of Islamc dscourses whch outlne women’s gender roles. In ths context, Fatmah Busu’s Salam Maria, publshed outsde the ambt of the state’s publshng nsttuton, the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, seems to me to be a bold attempt n complcatng the magnng of Malay-Muslm women proffered both by state and opposton Islamc forces. Halng from Pasr Pekan, Kelantan (a state under the rule of the opposton PAS or Part Islam SeMalaysa), Fatmah Busu s a veteran Malay woman wrter whose novels and short stores have won her varous lterary awards. Wrtng n a provocatve style and often challengng the permeters of receved deas, Fatmah Busu crtques the naton-state from varous 124 Gender, Islam and the “Malay Nation” 125 perspectves. Frst, her best-known short stores, set n Kelantan and often told from a chld’s pont of vew, uncover the corners of poverty whch exst wthn the rapdly ndustralzng post-ndependence state. In stores lke Nasinya Tumpah (Her Ricebowl Breaks) or Anak-anak Pasir Pekan (Children of Pasir Pekan), the developmental ethos of the state comes under crtcal scrutny. Malnutrton and deprvaton stll stalk the poverty-strcken vllagers. Second, Fatmah Busu foregrounds another mportant, often margnalzed group — rural women. She lauds ther reslence as they tend to the famly, work n the padi fields, and supplement meager ncomes wth cottage crafts. Her tales of such women help to hghlght a lacuna n Malaysan hstory, namely the possble elsons of such women’s lves n Malaysan hstorography. More than ths, Fatmah Busu connects women wth a deep knowledge of the land, for example, n the use of medcnal herbs for folk cures. In so dong, she exposes a matrarchal charsma whch the masculnst naton-state dscourse on Islam eldes. Thrd, Fatmah boldly reworks archetypal stores. In Mahar Asmara (The Price of Romance), she recasts the story from Sejarah Melayu (The Malay Annals) about Sultan Mahmud’s obsessve love for the legendary Prncess of Ledang Mountan (Puteri Gunung Ledang). Sejarah Melayu, a key Malay cultural text of dynastc storytellng, s one of the man foundaton texts for Malay-Muslm dentty n Malaysa. In spte of revsonst readngs, t remans a text powerfully evocatve of feudal...