Political Thought of Malay Thinkers (Part 3)

The Political Thought of Burhanuddin al-Helmy

He was born in Perak in 1911. His education includes studying on the pondok in Jambi, Sumatra and enrolling in Madrasah al-Mashoor of Penang, which was established by Islamic modernist thinkers such as Sheikh Tahir Jalaluddin and Syed Sheikh al-Hadi. This was all before 1927. Then he went to India to study homeopathic medicine at Ismaeliah Medical College and Aligarh Muslim College. The situation in India at this time was the struggle Indian political leaders against British colonialism and demanded independence from the Empire. Aside from exposed with independence movement of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, Burhanudddin also managed to travel to Palestine. This was the time that controversial Balfour Declaration was taking effect and destroying the Palestinian homeland. This experience convinced him that colonialism is the biggest threat to the advancement of the Malay world. On the spirit of nationalism and anti-colonialism, Burhanuddin quoted Gandhi that his nationalism is humanity. 

He and Ibrahim Yaacob had envisioned uniting the Malay Peninsula with Sumatra and Java to create a nation called Melayu Raya. They did met with Sukarno and Hatta, two founding fathers of Indonesia when all of Malay Archipelago under Japanese occupation. The dream was shattered when the Japanese Empire surrendered in August 1945. Burhanuddin writes that their involvement with Japanese occupation is only a short term strategy to achieve long term goals. The most important thing at that time is to liberate Malay from British colonialism.

There are 2 books that could be considered Burhanuddin’s thesis statement on politics and nation-building. The first is called Perjuangan Kita and the second is Asas Falsafah Kebangsaan. Perjuangan Kita was written when British was at the process of decolonizing its colonies after World War 2. It touches on the negative effect of colonialism that had impacted Malaya and how it was related to current Malay problems. From there, he also elaborated on how we can struggle to build a new and independent state.

In Asas Falsafah Kebangsaan, he stresses that the foundation of the Malay nationalism is not about whose blood is more pure. Someone can be considered Malay if he or she fights for the independent and prosperity of Malaya. He or she also need to severed ties with his birth nation so that they can focus in one nation only. Burhanuddin’s idea of Malay is unique which he tried to accommodate Chinese and Indian that had been born and raised in Malaya. He also said that the struggle for Malay nationalist had started from the time of Kesatuan Melayu Muda (KMM), and then evolves into Partai Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKM and PUTERA-AMCJA. Finally they started to create a legal framework with the proposal of Perlembagaan Rakyat.

His writings was influenced both by Islamic and western tradition. He cited Surah Ali-Imran verse 110 as a call from the Quran to humans to liberate themselves from the tyranny of other men. He believes that the Malays used to be the best of nations, but then fall off from the grace because of the action of Western Imperialism. If the Malays were free from the West, then they can finally fulfill their duties as God servant in the world. Burhanuddin also influenced from the reformist thinkers where they believed that to love one country is a part of faith. He also elaborates on the term, ‘asabiyah that was used in the Hadith. Some people interpret it as nationalism and it should be avoided. This was use by some traditional scholars to allowing the continuation of British colonialism. Burhanuddin hits back by saying that ‘asabiyah means extremism or fanatic of only one race. It is not permissible to be fanatic on one race, but nationalism and love of one country should be promoted.

There are several evidences where Burhanuddin ideas may influenced from the socialist movement such as his opinion on the correlation between colonialism and the role of capital. But ultimately all this ideology is still subservient to his Muslim faith. He did quoted Renan and Ottor Bauer when elaborates on the meaning of nation. Although some people speculate it was influenced by Sukarno speech. Burhanuddin is one of the representatives from Malaya to the Bandung conference in 1955. He also believes in the idea on mobilization of proletariat masses and the fact that the British had spread the ideas of Malay indolence to continue justification of European imperialism. These ideas have similarities with other nationalist figures of Southeast Asia such as Indonesia’s Sutan Sjahrir and Phillipines’s Jose Rizal.

In his 1955 speech at Parti Rakyat congress, he stresses that to fight colonialism does not mean supporting communist. He wanted Malaya to be given back his sovereignty before it was colonized by Portuguese, Dutch and British. With this awakening, our nation will be at the same level with other great nation. When he refer the nation, which he called Tanah Air Nusantara, he means encompassing all of the Malay Archipelago. He goes back to the history of Srivijaya, Majapahit and Malacca, where all of these empires was respected and build relationship with kingdoms in India and China. He differentiates Eastern empires with Western empires such as French and British. He believes that Western empires are capitalist in nature, where they exploit the land and negatively impact the local societies. This phenomenon was not seen in Eastern empires where their ruled does not subjugate and devastating as the West.

There are differences of Burhanuddin priorities before and after independence. Before independence, he said that it is hard to revive Islam if the sovereignty of the nation still under non-believers. The first thing is to make ourselves free. But on 1957, he starts to promote that Islam should be the official religion of Malaysia and it should follow the true teaching of Quran and sunnah. When he leads Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) in 1964, he reiterates that PAS struggle is to create a nation and administration that follows the footsteps of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. 

Burhanuddin is one of the earliest Malay politician and leaders of a political party/ movement in Malaya. But he himself did not make a successful career as politician. At one time he was very radical in fighting British and eventually jailed. When he was the leader PAS, he focus on Islamic politics and manage to push out non-Malays politician to works with him in the time of election. In PAS, he managed to win Besut parliamentary seat in 1959 seat. He was also push out from PKMM that is more left leaning because he was considered by Ahmad Boestamam at that time as too honest and lenient. 

Burhanuddin long involvement in Malays politics had put him in collaboration with left leaning, Islamic inclined and even Malays traditional politician. He is one of the Malays biggest critics on British colonialism. Although he might not realized that colonialism also is a double-edged sword where it eventually contributed to the rise of Malay nationalism and consciousness, something that was promoted by Syed Sheikh al-Hadi. Both of them agree on the point that Malay traditional political structure and religious scholars had broken. But while Syed Sheikh wanted to move forward and introducing Western and modern Islamic element, Burhanuddin wanted to go back to the glories of older Muslim sultanates such as Malacca.