Kembalikan kepimpinan negara sepenuhnya kepada sultan-sultan

The Third Force

Hey, what is up guys?

A very renowned person, someone of an acquaintance, just recently said something that impacted on me very profoundly. The said person, who I so revere, was responding to an article I had written not long ago. What he said opened a floodgate of memories and feelings that I had long forgotten and left submerged.

Today, I’m going to share with you an excerpt of a short speech a 16 year old boy had made out for his school in 1990. The boy, who had then just enrolled in a new school, sought permission from his class teacher to deliver a speech during the school assembly.

Seeing that the boy was serious, the teacher told him to deliver that speech to his classmates instead.  According to her, it would help him gauge the response and allow her to ascertain if the intended speech was appropriate to be presented during an assembly.

Following is the unedited script of what the boy had presented to his classmates:

Saya bersasa sungguh sedih hari ini apabila melihat keadaan negara kita yang semakin mundur dari segi kemantapan kepimpinannya. Sememangnya saya akui bahawa Datuk Seri Mahathir merupakan seorang pemimpin yang saya segani dan kagumi. Tetapi kepimpinan negara kita bukan hanya tertakluk kepada kepimpinan beliau semata-mata, yang tak lain dan tak bukan kepimpinan seorang diktator. Malaysia tetap memerlukan campurtangan sultan-sultan dalam hal-hal kepimpinan. Saya sedih melihat bahawa sultan-sultan kita tidak diendahkan masyarakat dan pemimpin dalam ertikata kepimpinan yang sebenar dan hanya dilihat sebagai simbol kedaulatan negara.

Apakah ini yang kami mahukan? Apakah para guru tidak ingin mendidik kami akan pentingnya kedudukan sultan-sultan selain dari menjadi simbol kedaulatan negara dan ketua agama Islam? Apakah sultan-sultan hanya boneka semata-mata? Setiap kali saya membuka buku sejarah, saya hanya membaca cerita-cerita bagaimana sultan-sultan kita ditipu pihak British. Apakah tidak terdapat buku yang boleh mendidik kami akan pentingnya kuasa sultan pada zaman kegemilangan Melaka dikembalikan? Apakah “kesetian kepada raja dan negara” dalam ertikatanya yang sebenar tidak diterapkan dalam matapelajaran sejarah atau sivik?

Setiap kali saya membaca akhbar tempatan, saya hanya melihat laporan-laporan berkenaan pemimpin-pemimpin politik negara. Jarang benar kita melihat laporan berkenaan sultan-sultan kita. Apakah pemimpin politik kita begitu kyushuk memerintah sehinggakan mereka lupa akan adanya sultan-sultan?

Tanpa kesultanan, bayangkanlah betapa hancurnya negara kita sedangkan dengan adanya mereka pun, pemimpin kita tidak pernah menzahirkan setinggi-tinggi junjungan terhadap kedaulatan mereka dan peranan mereka dalam mamantapkan pentadbiran negara. Apakah pemimpin kita tidak berpandukan salasilah keturunan dalam memantapkan tamadun warganegara kita yangberbilang bangsa?

There is more to that speech (it is two pages long), but I’ll stop right there, because it was there that the teacher had stopped the boy. She took the speech and delivered it straight to the school headmaster, who then summoned the boy to meet him.

During the meeting, the headmaster asked the boy if anyone had put him up to it. According to him, it was not normal for a 16 year old to write something of that nature. The headmaster was rude and visibly agitated.

Incensed, the boy challenged the headmaster to report the matter to his dad and threatened to throw a tantrum should he be punished for no apparent rhyme or reason. The boy then told the headmaster that the latter was the product of a flawed system owing to his bigoted intolerance for people who spoke the truth and not the word of the politician or the over-celebrated western philosophers.   

The headmaster ignored the boy since that day. Several teachers became cold towards the boy in the months that followed, right until the day the headmaster was transferred. I’ll admit that the boy had overreacted. My dad is going to kill me reading this article.

The reason being, that boy was me.

Yes, my written Malay was reasonably good back then, give and take some spelling errors. Due to years of neglect, even I get surprised reading pieces I had written 26 years ago, which I have kept to this day. 

Stick around guys. Sorry for the diversion. I’ll be shuffling back into routine with my next article.