I shamelessly plagiarised the title of this article from a 1962 work by Pablo Neruda that captures in the music and imagery of poetry what I wish to convey. If the title is a little mysterious, I hope it will be less so when you hear the first two stanzas of the poem:

This poem more than any other text gives life to the value and meaning of the word for me. More to the point, I am intrigued by the lines:

"the people set out and arrived

and married new land and water

to grow their words again."

Like much of Neruda's work, rather than idealise his subject, he grounds it in the earth. He imagines people, set upon by grief, moving to a new place to settle down and grow their words, as they would their rice. Words are necessary and nourishing. They are the vessels of memory and the stepping stones to a different future.

Neruda's poem speaks to the way people have viewed the world in this region going back a long way - the word for 'homeland' in Bahasa Malaysia marries land and water. From tanah and air , we get tanah air .

As our homelands are increasingly redefined by larger powers and multinationals, we need to actively participate in shaping our homelands after our own vision. We apply ourselves to this task not necessarily bound by national borders and certainly not by breeding an Asian form of exclusivism. To the contrary, we learn about ourselves by studying others.

Why comparative study?

Comparative work is not about voyeurism but taking collective responsibility by seeing in others bits of ourselves. The problems of different countries are thus viewed as shared concerns rather than the exclusive business of nation-states - as professed in the last few decades by the Asean non-intervention doctrine.

In the case of Indonesia and Malaysia, the two countries I study, comparative study calls for recognising cultural histories, migratory flows, ideas and religions shared, often with different outcomes.

Through comparative study I see the ultimate effort at understanding humanity and extending a shared concern for many matters of importance, from cultural heritage to basic human rights issues.

Many have produced lasting work when inspired by an inclusive, comparative perspective on the world. Notable among them is the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, one of the first modern Asians to foster intellectual ties across national boundaries when he journeyed by ship from India to Japan in the early part of the 20th century, stopping in Southeast Asia along the way. In Tagore's own words:

"Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin. I am proud of my humanity when I can acknowledge the poets and artists of other countries as my own. Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that all the great glories of man are mine." (Sen 1999: 242)

A few conditions are necessary, however, for the comparative perspective to be fruitful. Firstly, our strivings in themselves have to aim for a more complex and in-depth understanding. I shall illustrate this matter by reiterating the question Indonesians often ask me: why is Malaysia doing so well and Indonesia not? There is a stock of easy, single-factor answers to this question that are in circulation. I shall dwell only on one: "oh, Malaysia's population is low, that's why." When we compare more deeply, however, we learn that there is simply no single-factor answer to the question.

Secondly, while working with rigour and detail on individual work, I think it is crucial to keep in mind larger issues, especially in connection with the work of others in different fields. Ideas do not circulate well or get translated into practice, and collective dialogues do not emerge, without keeping the larger picture in mind.

By discussing the view of the region from Malaysia, I would like now to illustrate the salience of comparative study.

The view from Malaysia

Malaysia is a rich country much admired for its social peace as well as economic and infrastructural development by people in the region from all walks of life. Malaysian activists and critics of the government often fail to acknowledge this with dire consequences to their own programmes.

They expose problems in human rights, the environment, politics, and other matters without realising that their efforts fall mostly on deaf ears in Malaysian society, and is of little consequence to the region.

I do not propose that there are no problems in the country or suggest that social activists have no role. Rather this country's problems are often hard to bring to the public eye and require well informed critiques of government and society.

Malaysia is undeniably doing better in many areas of national life than Indonesia and the Philippines in this region. However, there is an insidious character to this "doing well" as serious problems are removed from the public eye.

Communities of indigenous people (Orang Asli) are among those made practically invisible, thus making the work of Colin Nicholas (Centre for Orang Asli Concerns) and others very important to the country as a whole. Displaced plantation workers, once the backbone of the economy, are another example.

There is something of value in "Asians studying other Asians," to borrow from Ariel Heryanto, especially if it is not undertaken to fulfil exclusive ethnic, cultural, geographical or territorial fantasies. It could allow, for instance, for Malaysians to see just how much better off we are. But, at the same time, just how parochial we are.

A good case in point of the parochialism is the business of racialised identities - the Indian, Malay and Chinese - defended in shamelessly unintelligent ways in public discourse. As the self-appointed party political leaders of the so-called "three major 'races'" each divide up power and rewards, two key areas are eliminated from the public eye:

1) the biological and cultural diversity of this country (as in the case of the Orang Asli).

2) problems such as poverty that are shared across Malay-Chinese-Indian-Other boundaries, and not specific to any one group.

Comparative study is distinguished from taking potshots at the Other as characterised by the "we are unlike certain countries" political one upmanship, often deployed by political leaders and the mass media in Malaysia.

Comparative study is about learning just how much is shared by peoples, how much each owes the Other in one form or another, and how historical indeterminacy works. Take for instance how the dominant image of Indonesia in Malaysia's public discourse has shifted from idealised familial bonds in the 1940s to the undeserving and poor relative in the late 1990s.

What do we find, however, when we probe deeper?

The democratic processes underway in Indonesia since 1998 did not lead only to chaos and decline - as Malaysia's political leaders predicted - but to exemplary policies, thinking and social movements. As of July 2002, Indonesia no longer recognises or supports any official distinction between those regarded as "indigenous (pribumi)" and "non-indigenous." Conditions are sharply different in Malaysia.

More than 20 years ago Usman Awang, the Malaysian poet laureate, wrote his moving poem Sahabatku (My Friend) as a tribute to his close friend and doctor, M K Rajakumar.

In the poem, he questions the unequal treatment of his friend in relation to himself. He says in one despairing line "Aku dapat gelaran 'bumiputera' dan kau bukan (I am given the title 'bumiputera [indigenous]' and you are not)."

Usman Awang was one of the few voices who spoke out in public against inequality with passion and honesty, and in the collective interest. Not only are institutionalised and informal social inequalities glossed over today, they appear to be taken for granted. Too often we hear, "what to do, like that lah."

The wavelength which connects us

In concluding, I think of Neruda's line: "This is the wavelength that connects us." And as I do so, I naturally remember the late Ishak Shari, the former director of IKMAS (the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia) who was among those who worked hard to create the API Fellowship Programme.

Without doubt, Ishak saw the Fellowship not as money for research alone but as a framework for building cross-border relationships between intellectuals - with a small "i" and without grand titles.

I believe he saw the Fellowship as a necessary experiment for Malaysians, a means of challenging their intellectual inertia and self-satisfaction. I mention Ishak not out of sadness or nostalgia but to put his work into words that the newest batch of API fellows may know something about it.

References

Heryanto, A (2000) " Asians Studying Other Asians: What Difference Does it Make? ", Aug 2, 2003.

Neruda, P (1995) Fully Empowered , A. Reid, trans., New York: New Directions.

Sen, A (1999) Development as Freedom , New York: Alfred A Knopf.

SUMIT MANDAL is an historian at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. This is an abridged text of a presentation made at the orientation ceremony of the Asian Public Intellectuals (API) Fellowships Programme at the Putrajaya Shangri-La on March 3, 2004. It is published here with the permission of the author and the consent of the API Coordinating Office housed at IKMAS.