By Zaharah Othman
August 4, 2019 @ 8:41am
www.nst.com
THE very thought of setting my eyes on old manuscripts, papers and correspondence filled me with such great excitement, not unlike a child’s first visit to the library. It was the thought of being transported back in time, of getting glimpses of the past that thrilled me to no end.
So it was with excitement and anticipation that I found myself in Durham, a three-hour train ride from London to a city which had earned its place in the Unesco World Heritage list; what with its famous cathedral and a 900-year-old castle and many, many more — a real treasure trove for history buffs.
Adjacent to the cathedral is the 17th century Palace Green Library, which according to history had been Durham University’s main library for 150 years before focusing on archival and special collections in the 1980s, drawing visitors and researchers to explore both the university’s treasures and collections from around the world.
It was here that I first set eyes on the Malcolm MacDonald papers and manuscripts. MacDonald was the diplomat son of Britain’s Labour prime minister, who was the last governor-general of Malaya in the 1940s as well as one of the founders of the University of Malaya and in fact its first chancellor.
Thus his collection of journals, papers and manuscripts, mostly relating to the aborted Malayan Union proposal, which is now housed at the library, is of much interest to Malaysia and is now being digitised in a collaboration between the university, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin and the National Archives of Malaysia.
There were letters and telegrams, personal and official, on security and intelligence matters, most of which were only declassified after 30 years.
The papers and manuscripts, all meticulously catalogued and kept in more than 30 boxes — with correspondence between MacDonald and the then governor-general of the Malayan Union, Sir Edward Gent — detailed meetings with Dato Onn Jaafar, talks with Malay rulers, discussions on education policy and many more.
All these would certainly be of great value to students and researchers of the history of Malaya.
Looking through the papers and certainly the handwritten manuscripts took me back to the time when I spent days and days at the National Archives in Kew Gardens, looking at correspondence and journals relating to the Malaysian Constitution, the communist threat and many more.
I was always amazed at jottings of meetings with the locals that were eventually sent back to the office in London, that not only documented the minutes of the meetings but also meticulously recorded what each attendee wore and their body language! One small matter was the colour of a lady’s lipstick!
Most were beautifully handwritten, signed always by “Your humble and obedient servant!”
Taking me back more in time were the letters spanning nearly four centuries, from the oldest known Malay manuscript (1521), through to the eve of the 20th century and these would include beautifully crafted correspondence in Jawi, yes, Jawi, from Sir Stamford Raffles and Francis Light to our sultans and vice versa.
Their splendid illumination, elegant calligraphy, intricate seals and courtly and refined language left me in awe of a civilisation and aesthetics that we once enjoyed.
The Raffles letters have found a home in the British Library, while the Light Letters are at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London.
It was in 1994 that I was involved in the making of the travelling exhibition, “Legacy of the Malay Letter”, roped in by lead curator of the British Library, Datuk Dr Annabel Gallop in a project with the National Archives of Malaysia. And with Pesona Pictures, we did a documentary that took me to other parts of the world where Malay letters are kept. I found myself in a museum in Berlin where I saw one of the most beautifully decorated Malay letter — a letter from Sultan Ahmad of Terengganu in 1824 to Baron Van der Capellen, governor-general of the East Indies. A simple message to trade but the illuminations were the best that I had ever seen.
I was often amazed at the placement of the seals and the headings which tell more about the background of the sender and the recipient. The letters were carefully designed and folded, sometimes with illustrations of accompanying gifts.
We could read more into the relationships between the colonial powers and the local sultans through not only the way the letters were crafted and the ceremony that accompanied the letters, but also from the way they addressed each other and signed off the letters.
Light stood out in his very seemingly simple letters to the sultan of Kedah where he addressed the sultan as Ayahanda beta (my father) and signed off as Hamba yang sehina-hina hamba (the lowest of your lowest servant).
The contents of the letters, especially from the Malay sultans to Raffles in response to his requests for help to drive the Dutch out of Batavia, were certainly delightful reading, as they were the best examples of diplomacy. A sultan, when asked for food supplies in the form of goats and cows, replied they were all diseased, while Light received a reply from the sultan of Perak who, in warding off his request for trade, said Perak was like a beautiful woman who was already betrothed to a jealous husband (the Dutch!).
I must admit these were painful albeit interesting reading — painful because I wasn’t well versed in reading the Jawi script and I can’t stress enough the importance of learning this craft.
While at the Palace Green Library, I met Professor Dr Claire O’Malley, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Global), who told me about the journals that her planter grandfather left behind that would certainly shed some light on the life of planters in Malaya. I bet there are many more manuscripts that are kept in attics and basements of the present generation who are only now finding the time to look through the written legacy of their fathers and grandfathers.
And because of this, we must not stop searching for there could be more; parts of our history stuck in an attic in some corner of England.
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