ISSUES IN MY WRITING.
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)
