On poverty, charity and semangat padi
A REPUBLIC OF VIRTUE
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/2009/11/malay-view-of-biro-tata-negara-and.html
The Malays of the ‘rice belt’ states have traditionally been believers of ‘the spirit of the padi’ or ‘semangat padi’ – an element of animism residualised from the ancient Hindu-Buddhist tradition.
It is perhaps rooted in the belief that what one consumes becomes the flesh, blood, and soul of what one is. Because we are close to nature, borrowing somewhat a Taoist or Rousseau-ian notion of existence, we become what we eat and hence for the Malays, the spirit of padi lives in the self when one consumes rice.
Man is essentially an agricultural being. Man’s destruction begins when he invented the machine and transformed himself, as a cog in the wheel of capital having transformed nature, into technologies of control.
There is a also a saying ikut resmi padi (follow the nature of padi), makin berisi makin tunduk (the more one is knowledgeable, the more one becomes humble).
The opposite of this is ikut resmi lalang (follow the nature of the blades of grass) or always ‘blowing in the wind’ as American folk singer and poet Bob Dylan would say, alluding to the idea of arrogance without substance.
These days the padi has no longer any respect. It is mutated through biotechnological methods, thanks to Malaysia’s obsession with the slogan of Biotech Malaysia.
These days the padi has become a politicised commodity. It is used in a barter system – of buying votes. If you vote for this or that political party, you will get a sack or two of rice with the logo of the coalition party on the gunny sack.
Why are the abject poor given bags of rice – are these tied to political loyalty? Will the rice packets have this or that or whatever party symbol on it? What is the moral aspect of ‘giving’ in this case?
About 20 years ago, I saw rice bags with the Barisan Nasional symbol in Tambun Tulang, Perlis. Not right – from the perspective of human rights.
It is as if saying that only if the people vote for this or that party they will not go hungry, whereas food, shelter, clothing are the most basic of all human rights and must not be tied to partisan politics.
If millions can be given to candidates at every election, please spare the poor from the politics of rice. Keeping the poor poorer until they vote for the rich is a strategy of the master-slave narrative.
The poor can never realise that poverty is not a question of fate but a deep-rooted structural problem that can be corrected through revolutions, in some cases.
The poor think that the rich and powerful are very generous and charitable and always in the public eye, giving bread and circuses to them, not knowing that a political-economic and dialectical game is at play here.
This is the essence of hegemony both at the psychological and political level.
Process of conscientisation
One must learn how to read rhetoric, perception, and propaganda these days. We are all educated enough not be bought wholesale by the politics of rice and mistake it as semangat padi. Bite the hands that feed?
The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, famed for his work on education for critical consciousness, in the tradition of the analysis of coloniser and the colonised of the Algerian psychologist Albert Memmi, spoke about the condition of the oppressed who is trapped in the “objectivity” of his economic condition.
Only by learning how to name oppression – naming words and objects that surround them, understanding how their lives have been subjected to become objects in the whole process of history-making, understanding who or what is controlling the social reproduction process, and being aware of the structural violence and hidden dimension of oppression they are in – only through these can the process of re-humanisation of the poor take place.
Freire spoke of the process of “subjectivising the objective” and understanding what dehumanisation means through the process of conscientisation or education for critical consciousness to affect cultural action for freedom.
But in Malaysia, the poor and the downtrodden, especially the Tamils, the Penans, and other marginalised people are aware of their condition. They understand the forces of oppression and the authorship of the authoritarian system.
They know who the author of things is. The problem is the brute force that is used on them and the structural condition they are trapped in as historical beings. This can be seen in the Hindraf and Bersih marches, and in incidents such as Batu Buruk a few years ago, and in the Baling riots in the 1970s.
The politics of padi and of rice-giving to the abject poor might be seen as a benevolent act but more troubling than this is the politics of food at play.
In Sabah and Sarawak, the work of those giving those sacks of rice with logos of political parties need to be looked into and the poor need to be taught the process of gift giving and the pledge of allegiance through the prostitutionalisation of that basic necessity – padi.
Kurus semangat (starved will the spirit be) as the Johor Malays would say, which means that the spirit (of the padi, the semangat of the padi) is not well fed.
In this context, let us hope that food is not used as a tool of domination. We have seen enough of goodies given during election – batik sarongs, cash, contracts, credit cards, new roads, vacations, etc.
Like water, food is a basic necessity and must be spared from being bartered by robber barons.
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND — ABOLISH THE ISA — NOW!
