ISSUES IN MY WRITING.

 -Zurinah Hassan

 POETRY.

My introduction to  literary writing was through poetry, mostly traditional Malay poetry in song lyrics that I heard over the radio when I was small.  My involvement in creative writing have been more associated with poetry and this category that I received the South East Asia Write Award in 2004 and The Sunthorn Phu Award in 2013.

One issue close to me is women issue . Several scholars have analysed what they called the feminist voices in my poems. One such paper is written by Dr Suzana Muhammad (Universiti Sains Malaysia),  “The Development of Woman Identity: Feminist Approaches to Selected Poems of Zurinah Hassan.”. A poem often quoted  is  “Pesanan Puteri gunung Ledang Kepada Sultan Mahmud” (The Message From Princess of Mount Ledang To Sultan Mahmud)  The Princess of Mount Ledang was a mythical character, unearthly, magical, mysterious, and of course described as exceptionally beautiful. She dwelt at Mount Ledang in the southern area of Peninsular Malaysia visible from the palace of the Malacca Sultan. As the story goes, the sultan was looking for a queen after the demise of his consort. This time around, the sultan was determined to marry someone or something different from an ordinary human princess as he wanted to be different and far above anyone else. That was how he got the idea of asking for the hand of the Princess of Mount Ledang.

The Sultan sent his men up the mountain to ask for her hand in marriage. He summoned almost every able bodied man, causing much hardship and unnecessary death to his subjects. It was a perilous journey.   Many men fell off into the deep ravine or fell prey to the wild animals.  Even Hang Tuah, the famous Malay warrior, failed to reach the top. Only Tun Mamat succeeded to the summit and entered the garden of the Princess. But he could not see the Princess, and only conveyed the Sultan’s proposal through Dang Raya Rani who was the princess’s chief lady in waiting. The beautiful princess sent her famous message to the Sultan through Tun Mamat.

The Message from Princess of Mount Ledang to Sultan Mahmud

 

Tun Mamat

Convey this message to the Sultan

Bring these as my dowry

If he wishes to marry me.

 

Build me a bridge of gold and another of silver

Bring me germs and mosquitoes seven trays of their hearts

Vessels full of tears and juice of young beetle nuts

From the king and his prince a bowl each of their blood.

 

Honestly

I knew from the start

That he is willing to construct the bridge of misery

Let the people carry the trays of agony

And bear the burden of heavy vessels of tears

Rack their life with flame of his own desire

Provided he could escape the fire.

 

Tun Mamat,

These conditions only show my rejection

As his queen I refuse to be

Seeing my life a murky reflection

I am not Tun Fatimah

With the skill to forgive cruelty

I am not Tun Kudu

Who could be forced to agree

It’s enough with Hang Li Po

Wrapped up as a gift, a commodity

Or Tun Teja who tripped and fell

The lover she followed was only a shadow.

 

Let Mount Ledang stand tall, a reminder to all

Of a flower that survived and remained free

Untouched by the royal fancy

Even a woman can choose to disagree

Even a king has his turn

to admit being beaten.

 

(Menghadap ke Pelabuhan/Facing the Harbour. 2013:20-21)

 

This proposal is an episode in the Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals). The story may not have been historically true. The princess may not have existed. But the writer of the Sejarah Melayu has constructed the episode as a medium to criticize the Sultan for his unjust rule of the country and his cruelty especially to women, treating them as if they have no heart and soul. The Princess of Mount Ledang proposed these conditions of the dowry as a way of refusing to marry him. As for the Sultan, this was the first time anyone said no to him. The princess was the first woman to succeed in showing the Sultan that he too must be able to accept rejection. The important point in “Message of the Princess of Mount Ledang to Sultan Mahmud” is the exertion of a woman’s right to decide and take control of herself and her life. That the princess was able to speak her mind showed that women have freedom of expression. As I put in my poem:

Let Mount Ledang stand tall, a reminder to all

Of a flower that survived and remained free

Untouched by the royal fancy

Even a woman can choose to disagree

Even a king has his turn

to admit being beaten.

 

Besides the “Princess of Mount Ledang,” there are more legendary figures in the Malay Annals, one of which is Princess Hang Li Po.

 

The Voyage of Princess Hang Li Po (Original title: pelayaran Hang Li Po)

 

The beautiful Princess Hang Li Po

In the voyage to Melaka

Crying in agony

So young and so tender

To be torn from her mother

Like a shoot from its root

She’d rather die

Drowned by the ocean

Than to lose the loving touch of her parents

Is this her fate her destiny

To be delivered as a gift,

Wrapped as a commodity

Shipped to Melaka

As a bride and a donation

That would strengthen the nation

Her mother, Her Majesty, The Maharani

Had spoken in tears

My beloved Li Po, please be brave

This fact we have to face

You and me what we are born to be

As queens and princesses

We do not own ourselves

Marriage for us is not a personal decision

It is a state arrangement, a political mission.

 

Do not cry for your father

He is a man, and a king

He loves you as a daughter

But his kingdom is everything

He laughs and cries for the nation

The kingdom demands his attention

First the reign over his land

Family happiness comes second.

 

Yes Li Po

Look what history has written

Of empires and nations

Built and strengthened

At the sacrifice and tears of women

While many brought to the end

By misdeed and greed of men.

 

 (Menghadap ke Pelabuhan/Facing the Harbour: 24-25)

 

Princess Hang Li Po was the princess of China betrothed to the Sultan of Melaka as the show of support and protection from the much feared Empire of China to the newly founded nation of Melaka. The Princess was taken away at a tender age when she still playing around at home, cuddled by her mother. I imagined Hang Li Po’s tears dropping into the ocean, crying  for the people she loved and missed so much. Her mother must have also cried in agony, but they both were women facing patriarchal oppression. As a mother I was very much disturbed and saddened by this mother-daughter separation. It would be heart-breaking for any mother to have her daughter taken away and sent to a place so far away.   Given the condition of travel at that time, there was no guarantee of seeing each other again.  More than that, Hang Li Po as a female, was being treated as a commodity shipped to Melaka. Marriage for queens and princesses was not a personal decision but a political mission. Her father, as a man and a king, thought and talked less about family happiness but more about his kingdoms.

Hang Li Po was not the only one sacrificed for the sake of the Malacca Sultanate. There have been others. There were famous beautiful suffering ladies of Malay Annals including Tun Teja, Tun Kudu dan Tun Fatimah. Tun Teja was the daughter of a statesman of Pahang, who felled in love with Hang Tuah and agreed to run away with him to Melaka. Later in the boat she found out that she had been deceived by Hang Tuah with all his talks of love. Hang Tuah at the time was sent to exile by the Sultan and abducting Tun Teja for a present was his mean of getting back into the Sultan’s favour.

Another pitiful woman in the Malay Annals was Tun Kudu. She was the consort of  Sultan Muzaffar and a sister of Tun Perak,  the man who saved Malacca from foreign attacks. Tun Perak rose up for his bravery that strengthened Melaka and it was rumoured that he was eyeing the position of Bendahara much to the dismay of the existing Bendahara, Tun Ali. Subsequently rivalry broke up between supporters of Tun Ali and Tun Perak. This threatened the stability of Melaka and the position of the Sultan. Someone came up with a solution that the widowed Tun Ali should be married into Tun Perak’s family. When offered to pick his choice,  Tun Ali was adamant about desiring none other than Tun Kudu,  the queen. The Sultan agreed  supposedly for the sake of peace and stability. Tun Kudu was divorced and she became another woman who was asked to sacrifice for the sake of Melaka. Indeed Melaka was built on the sorrow and tears of women, but it eventually fell due to the greed and misdeed of men, as has been the case with so many other nations.

 

Part of the poem Episod Tun Kudu goes:

 

Tun Kudu was the consort of Sultan Muzaffar

A bunch of grape sweet and  ripe

In the vineyard of his heart

Bendahara Tun Ali was looking

And secretly craving

 

Tun Kudu, the wife

Cool as cucumber  

Waiting to be sliced

By the royal knife.

 

Defying his age

Tun Ali was adamant

To ask for the fruit of his passion

a woman in the chamber of the Sultan

as a prize of his retirement

 

Sultan Muzaffar and Tun Ali

Making arrangement and agreement

Between gentlemen

Exchanging position and a possession

That they called a woman.

Who have no say in the discussion

It is up to men to discuss

And the duty of woman to sacrifice.

 

I have written poems about women in the legends, but  I am also concerned  about the present situation. What happened to the legendry ladies is happening to many women in our time, though in different ways. Even today,  marriages are not  necessarily a matter of the heart. There are marriages of convenience, marriages for family honour, business arrangements, social commitments, and more often to save a woman and her family from the social stigma. A girl is  brought up to preserve a good name so that she will be married into a  good family. It is believed that no woman would remain unmarried by choice . There is a high and often unaffordable price of living alone and remaining true to one’s identity and carving one’s own destiny. My point is what I put in the line, “A woman has to be less herself, in order to be more a woman”. This is delivered in a poem entitled “Marriage”:

Marriage

-one woman’s opinion

 

Marriage is the difficulty

Of changing routines and priorities

That make you less yourself

And a woman has to be less her self

In order to be more a woman.

 

Marriage to a woman

Is a protection

For her who dares not live

On her own identity

It is too costly and too risky. 

 

(Menghadap ke Pelabuhan/Facing the Harbour: 82-83)

 

 

Even up to the present time some young girls sacrifice advancement in career for a marriage prospect much to the loss of their nations. In a poem “Salam Perempuan Dari Penjara,” (A Woman’s Greeting From Prison, 2010) ,  I looked at a woman’s journey through life as a procession which no one dares to divert from. It is a procession where everyone walked to a fixed destiny:

She and her sisters

in a procession to their day

while within this wall

they have not lived at all.

 (Menghadap ke Pelabuhan/Facing the Harbour: 60-61)