A Kadir Jasin
In the name of God, the merciful and the
compassionate
IN the January 19, 1992 debut column I wrote about the
then Prime Minister, (Tun) Dr Mahathir Mohamad lamenting about the penchant of
a section of the Malaysian mass media for highlighting mass hysteria in schools
and factories.
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| Those were the better days |
That was 26 years ago. Dr Mahathir is no longer the Prime
Minister and I am no longer the Group Editor-in-Chief of the New Straits Times
Press (NSTP). I resigned in 2001 and Dr Mahathir retired in 2003.
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The media landscape has changed. Then the mainstream media
ruled supreme. Newspaper circulation was on the rise and the NSTP group could afford to reward the staff with six to seven months bonus. Today the online media is
the king and the newspapers are fighting for survival.
The Malays too have changed. Today they are less concerned about the ghosts,
devils and demons. Urbanisation, electric lights and modern housing have
lessened their fear of ghosts.
In the Malay minds, the hantu and the jembalang live in the
dark corners and up in the attics of the creaky wooden houses by the belukar or
the swamps.
Swamps are especially spooky as they are thought to be
the abode of the dreaded bloodthirsty vampire called langsuyar.
Langsuyar is said to be the revenant of a woman who died during pregnancy or childbirth. It feeds on
blood of newborns, preferring boys over girls.
As such it was customary that when a baby was born, the thorny
mengkuang (pandanus) was place under the stilted house directly below where the
mother and infant slept to keep the langsuyar at bay.
Fearful that its exposed entrails would get caught in
the mengkuang thorns, the langsuyar would keep away.
The real reason was to discourage the ducks and chickens
from messing up the puddle created by the bath water of the mother and the
infant, and to thwart peeping toms.
In those days, Malays would rather believe in myth than listening
to scientific explanation.
When I was in the English primary school back in the
1960’s, there was a story in our Malayan Readers series book that explains the
langsuyar phenomena. It was believed to be the combustion of the marsh gas.
Now that most Malays live in sturdy brick houses in brightly
lit housing estates, they are less fearful of hantu believing that their brick
and mortar houses are less hospitable to the pontianak and hantu raya.
If at all, nowadays ghosts came into their living rooms
only through the Malay dramas on television and the re-runs of Hollywood’s
Ghoshbusters.
Occasionally the fashionably-dressed flying ghosts would
join the screamfest via the opera-type Chinese movies.
See the difference? The Malay ghosts are either unclothed
or shabbily dressed. The Chinese ghosts are dressed in flowing fine Chinese
silk.
For the younger Malays, the hantu exists only in bedtime
stories and in ghost house exhibitions. Ghosts have gone commercial.
But there are still a sizeable number of Malays,
especially those in high places, who are totally committed to the unseen world where
the hantu, bomoh, kiai, mystics, tarot card readers and soothsayers rule
supreme.
I have been told that these people would crisscross the
Malay Archipelago in their sleek private jets in search of mythical kiai and
bomoh to help them fulfil their ambitions, ward off their adversaries and keep
their spouses loyal.
I would not make any judgement. Suffice to say that if
you are Muslim, anything verging on sihir (blackmagic) is haram (forbidden) and believing
in the power of the hantu is syirik (idolatry or
polytheism).
In some Muslim countries the crime of sihir is punishable by death. So if Tuan Guru Abdul Hadi Awang
of PAS succeeds in implementing a full blown Hudud, those Muslims who dabble in sihir could risk
being stoned to death.
Wallahuaklam.
