Nationalism and Epistemic Intellectual Awareness

If we define national awakening as a major event that gave rise to the impact of sustainable awareness, the spirit of change born out of the 20 May 1908 event was not strong enough to serve as its basis.

During breaks at a seminar on “State and Transnationalization” in Penang, Malaysia, in the mid-1980s, I was talking with an anthropologist of the neighboring country, Sayyid Husin Ali.

“I am,” he said, “the one who has been abandoned by both.” What he meant by “both” were Indonesia and Malaysia. When I inquired what the reason was, Sayyid, who wrote a dissertation about the role of bomoh (traditional healer) in his society at Oxford University, Britain, replied, “It’s because I prepared a program for the unification of Indonesia and Malaysia.” Then the figure who was “shaken” in the ethnic turbulence in Malaysia in 1969 and I laughed heartily.