mamakk!!!

Farish Noor wrote:

There are times when our folk heroes need to be brought down a peg or two, particularly when they have overstepped the frontier of ideological correctness. I’ve always nursed a vendetta against Hang Tuah, that beloved ‘budak Raja’ so adored by amok-prone keris-waving nationalists and humbug patriots who can never chant the slogan ‘Tak kan Melayu hilang di dunia’ too many times. But of late the cult of Tuah and his keris antics have become too staid, too repetitive, too predictable for this academic; and so the time has come to take off the gloves and give the fella a good whuppin’.

Who hasn’t heard of Tuah and his gang? The trials and tribulations of our national hero have become part and parcel of our nation-building process, and since childhood we have been reminded time and again of his blood-soaked exploits and his valiant efforts to keep the status quo intact. Tuah was always an instrument of regime maintenance at best, and at worse comes under the category of Preman-mercenary types who, like the ever-so-loyal English yeoman, was cast as the salt of the earth.

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