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Apr. 21st, 2014 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaReading articles about Fatima Busu's Salam Maria has been very enlightening as to how far off my reading practices are from other people's. In many articles, the authors laud Salam Maria as a bold novel condemning the Malaysian government who fail to serve marginalized women, the archetypes of which are featured in the novel: the disabled (blind, deaf, mute such as Kimbung Tua), the orphan (personified in Tasnim), the elderly (Mak Cik Ijuk, Mak Cik Jarah, Mak Cik Lang), the Minah Karan factory girls pregnant from dalliances with co-workers (Maznah being the first), the victims of incest (Wati). The novel paints an unflattering, and somewhat nonsensical, portrait of Malay society: prone to superficial judgement (the masjid imam and congregation who faint), escalating gossip and lies (Maria Zaitun's coworkers and neighbours), sensationalism (Primadonna magazine), glory-hogging (the men approaching Siti Senang, and Siti Senang herself), hypocrisy (Wati's father memberi zakat dengan tak ikhlas). There is an anti-establishment agenda at work, to be sure, but the indictment of the government itself is rather unclear. Nonetheless, the slamming of the foibles of the Malay community as it moves into the industrial age is open, and its comparison of the city against cottage industry rural life displays a romanticization of the rural.
A cursory search shows that Fatima Busu's short stories and novels are certainly counted among the Malaysian writers often counted as part of "Malaysian literature" by academics. Does she write national literature? If we take "national literature" to mean "literature written in the national language" (the most obvious sense of the term) then yes, Salam Maria certainly fits. However, if we push the term further, to mean a literature reflective of the nation, it becomes more complicated. These archetypes are recognizable, the gejala sosial familiar, but under the guise of fiction they are magnified, almost to caricaturish proportions. Perhaps this is necessary for shock value, but the prescription--Maria Zaitun's exhortations for greater spirituality--seems a narrow solution for what is a wider phenomenon. This is probably not the reason why Fatima Busu's Salam Maria has been sidelined, though; an anti-establishment novel written by a woman out to point out the ways the Malay community has failed its own people, especially women dikhianati oleh masyarakat, was probably never going to go down well. It brings to mind Marina Mahathir's memoir, In Liberal Doses (1997) which had the advantage of being written by an elite and having a foreword by the Prime Minister Man himself, and Shahnon Ahmad's Shit (1999), his self-published political satire (so hard-hitting, nobody wanted to take the flak).
In a brief comparison between Salam Maria, Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan and Rimba Harapan, Salam Maria stands out for its obvious polemic, especially its religiousity. Religion is hardly an issue in RSJ, and while there are characters working towards greater religiousity in Rimba Harapan, they straddle a line between the kaum muda teachers from Indonesia and the local superstitions. Both sides are prescriptivist, but there are social consequences either way. The inhabitants of Hutan Beringin are given no such inner conflict; Maria Zaitun comes, delivers unto them her spiritual teachings, and goes about making sure they pray the right way, dress the right way, act the right way, all in accordance to her interpretation of the Quran. This is remarkable because usually men perform this role, and it remains revolutionary to have a woman step into the role (Saba Mahmood's Politics of Piety studies how women take on leadership roles at their local mosques in Egypt, but as far as I know, this remains rare in Malaysia). While it is arguable whether or not the women in Hutan Beringin actually needed Maria Zaitun's middle-class guidance in the first place, together the women create a utopic space that is independent from male (and government) support.
On a different note, I would also like to make a brief case for Salam Maria as having speculative elements, especially in the framing narrative of the novel. The first few chapters featuring an entire congregation fainting only to awoken twenty-two months later by the young pelajar Maahad Tahfiz who happens to read the right Quranic verse; the frantic search for Maria Zaitun, especially by the fantastically-named Siti Senang who has a dream of Maria Zaitun which presumably inspires her to take on the veil and persona of the new religious idol; the sudden proliferation of wakafs dedicated to Maria Zaitun and passing of laws to protect local forests--if the rest of the novel is rather unrealistic because of the flat characters and polemical storytelling, these sections of the novel are unrealistic because they are absurd and yet carry through to the final, fantastic climax of the storm at the novel's end.
A cursory search shows that Fatima Busu's short stories and novels are certainly counted among the Malaysian writers often counted as part of "Malaysian literature" by academics. Does she write national literature? If we take "national literature" to mean "literature written in the national language" (the most obvious sense of the term) then yes, Salam Maria certainly fits. However, if we push the term further, to mean a literature reflective of the nation, it becomes more complicated. These archetypes are recognizable, the gejala sosial familiar, but under the guise of fiction they are magnified, almost to caricaturish proportions. Perhaps this is necessary for shock value, but the prescription--Maria Zaitun's exhortations for greater spirituality--seems a narrow solution for what is a wider phenomenon. This is probably not the reason why Fatima Busu's Salam Maria has been sidelined, though; an anti-establishment novel written by a woman out to point out the ways the Malay community has failed its own people, especially women dikhianati oleh masyarakat, was probably never going to go down well. It brings to mind Marina Mahathir's memoir, In Liberal Doses (1997) which had the advantage of being written by an elite and having a foreword by the Prime Minister Man himself, and Shahnon Ahmad's Shit (1999), his self-published political satire (so hard-hitting, nobody wanted to take the flak).
In a brief comparison between Salam Maria, Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan and Rimba Harapan, Salam Maria stands out for its obvious polemic, especially its religiousity. Religion is hardly an issue in RSJ, and while there are characters working towards greater religiousity in Rimba Harapan, they straddle a line between the kaum muda teachers from Indonesia and the local superstitions. Both sides are prescriptivist, but there are social consequences either way. The inhabitants of Hutan Beringin are given no such inner conflict; Maria Zaitun comes, delivers unto them her spiritual teachings, and goes about making sure they pray the right way, dress the right way, act the right way, all in accordance to her interpretation of the Quran. This is remarkable because usually men perform this role, and it remains revolutionary to have a woman step into the role (Saba Mahmood's Politics of Piety studies how women take on leadership roles at their local mosques in Egypt, but as far as I know, this remains rare in Malaysia). While it is arguable whether or not the women in Hutan Beringin actually needed Maria Zaitun's middle-class guidance in the first place, together the women create a utopic space that is independent from male (and government) support.
On a different note, I would also like to make a brief case for Salam Maria as having speculative elements, especially in the framing narrative of the novel. The first few chapters featuring an entire congregation fainting only to awoken twenty-two months later by the young pelajar Maahad Tahfiz who happens to read the right Quranic verse; the frantic search for Maria Zaitun, especially by the fantastically-named Siti Senang who has a dream of Maria Zaitun which presumably inspires her to take on the veil and persona of the new religious idol; the sudden proliferation of wakafs dedicated to Maria Zaitun and passing of laws to protect local forests--if the rest of the novel is rather unrealistic because of the flat characters and polemical storytelling, these sections of the novel are unrealistic because they are absurd and yet carry through to the final, fantastic climax of the storm at the novel's end.