V for Vendetta, M for Mak Yong
H Muhammad
May 4, 06 3:41pm
I find it humorous reading Dr Azly Rahman’s article Who does Mak Yong serve? It is obvious that he’d struggled in trying to intellectualise and justify the Mak Yong ban. The funniest part of it all was his rationale that Mak Yong dance was a tool of mind colonisation.
Mak Yong dance is a traditional dance that is unique to and synonymous with Kelantan. To ban the art form would be a loss for Kelantan’s cultural identity and traditional heritage. Moreover, such a unique and beautiful cultural performance could generate much needed income and hence benefit the locals economically by an influx of tourists.
Let me offer a different approach in intellectualising the Mak Yong ban. Let’s look into the land where they have banned Mak Yong. It is obvious to see a dichotomy of perceived levels of class-consciousness - the upper spiritual class lead, rule and guide and the lower-class subjects submissively follow.
The former monopolises knowledge and instills favoured cultural ideals by setting spiritual paradigms encompassing all aspects of living. The latter submissively abide by these set of rules and continuously strive to support and maintain this complex structure built upon perceived levels of spirituality (religious convictions) with a foundation based on subliminal inequality and mental oppression. And that is the complex structure of mind domination.
In the early 90s, the decision to label - and later ban - what was deemed as decadent culture was a strategic pre-emptive political move fueled by conservative ideological ideals that laid the foundation to speed up the process of preferred cultural ideology. This was the purifying phase. The propagandists from the upper spiritual class then started to indoctrinate the masses into an ideology of submission. They started to broadcast through loud speakers at ‘ceramah’ in every ‘kampung’ from dawn to past sunset. Not to forget that such broadcasts could also be heard from every street side corner of what is now declared as an Islamic city.
All these were sheer moves to manifest power and sent a clear message to the people in its subtlest form of who is in control. It is obvious in this class and caste relationship, the underlying insensibility that characterised the social structure of the Master and the Subjugator - in which the latter are submissive - has been culturalised into an active medium for the spreading of the preferred cultural ideology.
The upper spiritual class, who now have the means, will continue to dominate the docile minds so that present and future generations will not be able to critically reflect and decide for themselves on issues and situations. They (the followers) prefer to be dictated even on the matters of personal faith and ‘aqidah’.
In the end, these happily subjugated docile minds will be the force that continues to support and maintain the hegemony, ideology and power of their masters with the objective of preserving this complex structure of mind domination.
But the question now is: Whom does Dr Azly Rahman serve?
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