In the second instalment in the Cendekiawan Lestari Series (CLS) on “Eurocentrism, Malay Studies and Autonomous Knowledge”, one of our leading intellectuals, Professor Syed Farid Alatas, shared his insights on the need for autonomous knowledge to deal with both Eurocentric and state-centric discourses. Knowledge production from these sources may be problematic as they often disregard the inputs and perspectives from indigenous and local sources which are equally important, relevant and can provide invaluable insights for deeper understanding.
Saturday, 23 January 2021 – For the first time, the Malay Heritage Foundation (MHF) hosted the CLS in a hybrid format, where all 30 invited guests at the venue were joined by other virtual audiences via live-streaming on its social media page (www.facebook.com/MalayHeritageFoundation).
During this second edition of CLS, Prof Alatas began the presentation with a background of the lack of fit between the Western social sciences and the social reality of the Malay world. He cited various examples of the irrelevance or inappropriateness of Western theories, concepts and assumptions observed in the works of individuals of who have assessed the state of social sciences in the Malay World.
Prof Alatas also shared that his presentation coincided with the death anniversary of his late father, Professor Syed Hussein Alatas, internationally renowned Malaysian social scientist and public intellectual. He went on further to reveal the concept formation of ‘jadong’, a term created by Prof. Syed Hussein Alatas. ‘Jadong’ is derived from three Malay words ‘‘jahat’, ‘bodoh’ and ‘sombong’’ (literally translated as evil, stupid and arrogant).
Prof Alatas observed that a few scholars in the nineteenth century and more in the post-colonial period had noted that social knowledge could not be transferred from a particular historical and socio-economic background to another without distorting the understanding of the reality of the latter.
In his presentation, he also spoke about the lack of relevance of Western social science which was identified and the need to develop an adequate response has been acknowledged. Nevertheless, in the effort to generate alternative discourses to replace Eurocentric ones, there has emerged new hegemonic discourses and that function to advance state and other ruling class interests.
The session concluded with Prof. Farid Alatas answering questions posed by the participants on site, as well as those tuning in via Facebook Live. At one point, close to 200 virtual audiences tuned in via live-streaming. CLS is one of our new initiatives to provide a discursive platform in featuring ideas and perspectives from prominent figures and key thought-leaders in the Singapore Malay community.
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