Dr M now a 'radical Malay', says professor
Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad can be considered a “radical Malay” in the mould of Malay nationalist Burhanuddin alHelmy, said Malay studies professor Syed Muhd Khairudin Aljunied.
The National University of Singapore academic said this is because Mahathir is bold in airing national issues.
“I see what Mahathir (photo) is doing now to be the same as radical Malays before. He has become radicalised.
“He is the Burhanuddin of our time,” Syed Muhd Khairuddin told Malaysiakini after launching his book ‘Radicals: Resistance and protest in Colonial Malaya’ in Kuala Lumpur today.
Syed Muhd Khairudin, who specialises on Islamic history in South-East Asia, says Mahathir can be deemed so because he embodies the spirit of 1940s Malay radicals and their fight for justice for the people.
“He clearly carries the same spirit of the Malay radicals of the 1940s, by trying to struggle for the people as part of a people’s movement.
“It is ironic, and people say he is not like he was before. But I believe that history changes and he may be a student of history,” he said.
Umno's radical roots
He added Mahathir was also seen as a radical in Umno at one point and Umno itself had radical roots, the don said.
Syed Muhd Khairudin’s book focuses on the radical Malay movement and provides an insight into the thinking of leaders of era.
Many of the so-called radical leaders were deemed as traitors in mainstream discourse, but Syed Muhd Khairudin posits that these leaders left a lasting impact on society’s mindset.
“What we learn from them is that they were not just writers. They played pivotal roles all the way to the grassroots, with the poor and ordinary folk, to change society from the bottom-up.
“This is why many books do not give importance to this radical movement, even though it brought a paradigm shift among Malays at the time.
“The problem with our history books is that it is written from the perspective of the elite and sidelines those with revolutionary ideas. We must now include these people in our history,” he said.
Burhanuddin al Helmy was a foremost Malay thinker in the pre-Independence era.
Considered a leftist for his support of trade unions, he was part of Malay nationalist movement Kesatuan Melayu Muda and advocated an Indonesia-Malaya political union.
He was PAS president from 1956 to his death in 1969, and was detained under the Internal Security Act in 1965 for one year for allegedly trying to overthrow the government.
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