Professor Syed Hussein Alatas
An Intellectual’s Intellectual
By Darinee Alagirisamy
Professor Syed Hussein Alatas is one of the most prominent Southeast Asian academics and intellectuals who wrote on such themes as the legacies of colonialism, the implications of race and the importance of multiculturalism, corruption, and other pressing issues confronting newly independent nation-states. Described by a peer as an “an original thinker, a man of principle and of courage,” Alatas was born in the Netherlands Indies (now Indonesia), on 17 September 1928 (Koh 2019). His childhood and education were shaped by key developments unfolding at that time in Malaysia and Indonesia. Specifically, the long shadow that decolonisation cast in Southeast Asia would come to influence not only his upbringing but also have a prominent bearing on his intellectual preoccupations.
Alatas received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 1963. He went on to head the Cultural Division of the Universiti Malaya’s Department of Malay Studies between 1963 and 1967, before leading the (then) newly formed National University of Singapore’s Department of Malay Studies for 21 years between 1967 and 1988. Alatas was a sociologist renowned for his theories as they relate to the postcolonial Malay world, although his intellectual undertakings frequently took him further than the region. He returned to Malaysia from Singapore in 1988, where he was appointed Universiti Malaya’s Vice-Chancellor until 1991. In this role, he launched several key reformist initiatives, including systemic curricular reviews and the appointment of new academic talent. These efforts, which ruffled the feathers of his more conservative colleagues, serve as an indication of his willingness and commitment to revitalising tertiary education in keeping with the needs of rapidly changing times.
Besides the voluminous body of scholarship that is his obvious intellectual legacy, Alatas wore the hats of politician, administrator and activist at various points over the course of his life. Over and beyond theorisations, Alatas was keenly invested in bridging the gap between the world of intellectuals and that of politicians. He sought, in other words, practical solutions to the challenges he witnessed in developing societies, as a citizen of the commonwealth.
Alatas passed away on 23 January 2007, at the age of 82. Perhaps his greatest intellectual contribution was his pursuit of the hidden hand of ideology which he never tired of calling out. He was a pioneer in identifying the foundational dogmas and myths, upon which the towering truths of his time had so carefully been nurtured and raised. In so doing, Alatas pointed to new conceptual frameworks and lines of inquiry that continue to be explored and developed by successive generations of scholars.
Reckoning with legacies: Colonialism by any other name is still colonialism
Alatas was centrally concerned with the influence that ideology wielded in the postcolonial world as he was acutely aware that the more sinister legacies of colonialism had yet to be put to rest. This preoccupation was so strong that it appears to have influenced most of his other intellectual undertakings as well. In particular, Alatas was pivotal in questioning the monumental shadow cast by East India Companyman Sir Stamford Raffles and British colonialism on Singapore’s history up until and even after independence. Whereas Raffles was conventionally featured as the saviour of an apparently sleepy fishing village of little consequence prior to its transformation as a thriving entrepôt centre, for which his astute foresight and governance were credited, Alatas’ 1971 book, Thomas Stamford Raffles: Schemer or Reformer, exposed him as a fraud who claimed credit for Farquhar’s efforts and for his cruel humiliation of the Sultan of Yogyakarta in Java (Alatas, 1971: 32–35). In so doing, Alatas’ scholarship not only prompted a critical reappraisal of Raffles’ legacy, but also pointed towards a national history reclaimed from the trappings of British colonial domination and restored to a much longer pre-colonial past instead. The book was published eight years after the formal end of colonial rule. Thus aided by a context that prompted an urgent reckoning with, and simultaneous distancing from, the recent colonial past, the book’s argument became all the more relevant and compelling.
Alatas helped to set the tone for postcolonial scholarship that was simultaneously universal and specific, although he is perhaps best known for blazing an intellectual trail where the latter is concerned. In his famous book published in 1977, The Myth of the Lazy Native:A Study of the Image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th century and Its Function in the Ideology of Colonial Capitalism, he wrote that “In a total and fundamental sense, no scholarship is free from the influence of ideology. The influence of ideology can be vulgar, and it can be refined” (Alatas, 1977: 16). The ideological culprit he was after was the pernicious, long-reaching arm of racial construction and its impact on social organisation. Alatas argued that colonial knowledge production surrounding the figure of the native had been bolstered by the state’s having put into motion key processes guaranteeing its indefinite perpetuation. The undergirding framework of colonial capitalism had rendered said “native” communities amenable to control by the state. Even with the achievement of national independence, it continued to determine how the “native” was seen, categorised and managed by the postcolonial state, which had not only inherited several state apparatuses, but also, and more importantly, ways of thinking and being from the colonial era. Elsewhere, Alatas criticised Raffles for having regarded Malays as “rude and uncivilised, of feeble intellect and at a low stage of intellectual development, indolent, submissive and prone to piracy” (Alatas, 1977: 18).
The specifics of Alatas’ thought derived from personal experiences primarily rooted in Malaysia and Indonesia, to highlight the ways in which ideology not only influenced knowledge production, but had, in a fundamental sense, monopolised the production of knowledge pertaining to the native. Unsurprisingly then, Alatas’ work has often been cited as foundational to the field of Malay studies by scholars. According to Associate Professor Maznah Mohamad, current Head of Department of NUS Malay Studies, “Prof Alatas’ personality, his speech and his writings continue, in the present tense, to set the tone for the study of the Malay world, its people and its interconnections with the Global” (Mohammad 2020).
Decolonising disciplines
Pathbreaking as Alatas’ intellectual contributions are, this focus on his marshalling evidence from the Malay world to bolster his argument has been somewhat to the detriment of his argument itself. The global relevance and resonance of his theories have generally been under-appreciated by scholars, who have emphasised his contributions to the field of Malay Studies, with its specific regional focus. Alatas himself was, however, keenly concerned with the global, specifically with exposing the universal imprint and implications of ideology, over and beyond its manifestations in any one corner of the postcolonial world. To this end, he called for the decolonization, not just of forms of knowledge, but more importantly, to approaches to knowledge production that bore the imprint of European colonial hegemony. “The interesting thing,” for Alatas, was always “the ideological root.” (Alatas, 1986: 214). Exposing this root was essential to toppling the structures that had been raised upon it. Alatas was convinced that it was possible to write autonomous histories of decolonised Asian societies, completely redeemed from the trappings of colonial legacies and prejudices. Modern scholarship, he was convinced, was capable of just such an undertaking (Wang 2021).
Alatas warned against the “captive mind” that he argued was endemic in Asian politics, society, and perhaps most worryingly for him from where he stood, in education. He wrote quite extensively on this, blazing a trail that others have since adapted in making sense of such a phenomenon. Asserting “multiple modernities,” in which Western social science tradition would necessarily need to be recognised not as canonical, but as sitting alongside autonomous Asian social science traditions, was central to Alatas’ intellectual labour. He argued that this ought to be “the definitive reference point for departure and progress in the development of sociology,” for the emergence of a truly global sociology (Alatas, 2002: 10). Alatas’ work thus demonstrates his concern with universal manifestations of power, ethnocentrism and knowledge production. Edward Said would later cite Alatas’ work as a fine sample of postcolonial scholarship, one that set itself “the revisionist, critical task of dealing frontally with the metropolitan culture,” using tools and perspectives “once reserved exclusively for the Englishman” (Said, 1993: 293). In an ironic yet prescient testimony to Alatas’ work, Said’s remarks are often cited to endorse Alatas’ writings; Alatas had demonstrated critical engagement with the decolonisation of knowledge before the publication of Said’s magnum opus Orientalism in 1978 (a year after Myth of the Lazy Native) which went on to become canonical in the field of postcolonial theory.
Zero tolerance for corruption and the emergence of a democratic culture
In line with his concern with the ideological root of hegemonic structures, Alatas stressed the need for transparency and liberalism, warning against nation-building becoming an extension of the colonial civilising mission. Taking a stand against corruption and reiterating the importance of political liberalisation were two areas in which Alatas’s own ideological bearings may be discerned, although he was always careful to couch his thoughts in practical terms.
Over the course of his lifetime, Alatas published four books on corruption. In perhaps the most important of these works, titled The Sociology of Corruption, Alatas defined corruption as “the subordination of public interests to private aims involving a violation of norms of duty and welfare, accompanied by secrecy, betrayal, deception and a callous disregard for any consequence suffered by the public” (Alatas, 1968: 12). He argued against the then-prevailing functionalist approach to corruption wherein some degree of corruption was tolerated, justified, even, in the interest of securing a supposedly greater good, development. Alatas pointed out that while the short-term consequences of corruption might be productivity and profit, in the long run a culture of corruption would invariably take root, eventually hampering development by increasing the costs of administration. “No stretch of sociological imagination,” Alatas stated, “could ever succeed in suggesting that (corruption) has some positive function in development, except in the development of exploitation, inequality and moral and legal disorder” (Alatas, 1999: 16).
To ensure that corruption was nipped in the bud, Alatas proposed accountability between government and society. Society necessarily depended on the government of the day to be transparent, effective and honest. However, for non-corrupt governance to take root and continue, society had to be equally responsible for holding leaders accountable for their actions, or, conversely, inaction. “Who will make this happen?,” he asked. “Not the leaders, not the government. These negative traits do not originate from the leaders, they emerge from the community. So, positive values have to emerge through community groups, bodies, movements, writings, newspapers, books. All these should be used to bring up values that are needed. If the community don’t bring them up, leaders will not facilitate” (Alatas, 1967). To this end, he warned against political apathy and blind submission to authority as contributing, ultimately, to the ruination of society. Alatas spoke and wrote at a time when one-party political systems justified and perpetuated themselves as the most effective solution for problems plaguing newly independent Asian nation-states, when Confucianist ideals of patriarchy were frequently referenced to urge loyalty and obedience in the masses. Coming in this context, Alatas’s emphasis on the importance of fostering a democratic culture in which the public would be empowered to criticise and question governments and their approach to governance was not just unconventional, it was revolutionary.
Race and Multiculturalism
Race and multiculturalism were of great importance to Alatas in his intellectual undertakings. He proposed a more liberal solution to political organisation rather than the organising principle of race as the basis of politics. Alatas and like-minded peers came together to form Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia which was committed to upholding the principles of liberal democracy and multiculturalism in 1968. While the party was eventually subsumed under UMNO and a subsequent attempt at political organisation, PEKEMAS, also failed, Alatas remained committed to multiculturalism as the way forward. He remain concerned with addressing the question “How do we develop our society with the greatest sense of social justice and with the greatest efficiency?” (Alatas 1975). For him, the “most effective approach” was one based on rational thought processes that could be tested and verified. A common culture rooted in scientific modernity presented the most effective and democratic approach to policy matters.
Once again resisting binaries, Alatas adopts a nuanced argument against the wholesale acceptance or rejection of culture and simplistic dichotomies between tradition and modernity. Such dichotomies, he argued, were at best arbitrary, and, at worst, self-serving. “The basic condition is that we are first made conscious of what our Asian values are. Then only can we decide well, we want to preserve such and such values and we want to select such and such values from the West. There is to my mind, not sufficient information given to the awakening of consciousness to what these Asian values are” (Alatas 1975). To this end, Alatas called upon Asian societies to be discerning and selective in retaining culture and tradition. He pointed out that as there are many cultural elements in Asian societies, “which are not against progress, and which are, as a matter of fact, conducive to progress,” it would be “meaningless” to depict tradition simply as bad and modernity as good (Alatas 1975). It would depend rather on the specific issue under discussion.
In other words, Alatas called for a critical approach to the question of culture and religion — one that recognised the intertwined cultural and religious underpinnings of any approach to issues of identity. He understood that religion, for instance, is never independent of culture. “In the concrete texture of reality,” he argued, “no religion is entirely free from the influence of the cultural and social background of the community of believers” (Alatas, 1972: 113). He pointed out that as culture changes much faster than doctrinal underpinnings of religious practice, the development of a democratic social order was as much necessary in approaches to religion, as it was in the realm of politics. While Alatas stressed that “Islamic values as such are not the direct cause of the disharmony,” he acknowledged that “that it is characteristic of Muslim religious thinking in Malaya that important decisions are left to the official functionaries,” which in turn had the potential to give rise to all manner of abuse of this power (Alatas, 1972: 119). To this end, he was critical of attempts by religious hardliners in Malaysia and Indonesia to fix religion of Islam in a state of stasis. Instead, he pointed to the ways in which religious practice had already evolved, having assimilated influences that signified more than just the tolerance of differences. Instead, his scholarship emphasised how religious practice historically demonstrates accommodation of divergent points of view that heralded, in other words, the emergence of a genuinely multicultural society.
Conclusion
Syed Hussein Alatas was a deliberate intellectual whose writings reflect for us his critical engagement with, and diagnosis of, the most pressing problems plaguing the postcolonial world that he has witnessed. Alatas resolutely refused to be hemmed in by oppressive structures and binaries and instead devoted his life and academic career to calling out these foundational dogmas with the intent of encouraging society to rethink the truths that had been carefully raised upon them. By and large, scholars have read in Alatas what they are comfortable reading, carefully sidestepping the most radical, iconoclastic ideas for future generations of intellectuals to reckon with. Yet this inherent conservatism that he was met with never deterred Alatas from his intellectual labours during his lifetime. A man of principle and courage, he never tired of identifying the hidden hand of ideology in a wide spectrum of political and social issues that prevailed in his time. Most importantly, Alatas frequently called for the wider society take up this calling too. To this end, Syed Hussein Alatas’s writings remain for us a fine sample of scholarship that sought to bridge the gap between intellectuals and society.
Darinee Alagirisamy is Lecturer at the South Asian Studies Programme, National University of Singapore.
References
Syed Hussein Alatas. The Sociology of Corruption. Singapore: D. Moore Press, 1968.
__________________ The Myth of the Lazy Native: A Study of the Image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th Century and Its Function in the Ideology of Colonial Capitalism. London: Routledge, 2010.
___________________ “Some Comments on Islam and Social Change in Malaysia.” Essay. In Modernization and Social Change: Studies in Modernization, Religion, Social Change and Development in South-East Asia. London: Angus and Robertson, 1972.
_________________ “The Development of an Autonomous Social Science Tradition in Asia: Problems and Prospects.” Asian Journal of Social Science 30, no. 1 (2002): 150–57. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685310260188781.
_________________“The Future of Democracy in Indonesia and Malaysia.” Essay. In Democracy and Authoritarianism in Indonesia and Malaysia: The Rise of the Post-Colonial State, 155–64. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997.
_________________Corruption and the Destiny of Asia, 1999.
Hajjah Fatimah Chik, Ramli Abdul Hadi and Syed Hussein Alatas. “Talk At National Library, Accession №1997022020.” National Archives of Singapore, June 25 1967.
Maznah Mohamad, Second Syed Hussein Alatas Memorial Lecture, Public Lecture, National University of Singapore, 17 September 2019.
Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage, 1993.
Syed Hussein Alatas, Ho Wing Meng, and Peter Chen, “Opinion: Asian Values and Modernisation, Accession №1997023367,” National Archives of Singapore, 1975.
Tommy Koh. “ Remembering Syed Hussein and Honouring His Legacy”, Talk at the National Library, Singapore, 17 September 2019.
Wang Gungwu. 4th Syed Hussein Alatas Memorial Lecture: Nation-Building as a Civilising mission,” Public Lecture, National University of Singapore, 19 November 2021.
