 Syed
Hussein Alatas is a Malaysian academic and former politician. He was once
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Malaya in the 1980s, and formed the Parti
Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (Gerakan). Syed Hussein has written several books, the
most famous being The Myth of the Lazy Native.
Political Career
Syed Hussein was among several intellectuals who formed Gerakan in 1968 as an
offshoot of the defunct Labor Party. Gerakan was relatively successful in the
1969 general election, where it campaigned on a platform of social justice and
the reduction or elimination of Bumiputra privileges outlined by Article 153 of
the Constitution. Gerakan held a victory rally in the capital of Kuala Lumpur to
celebrate. However, it deviated from its planned route into Malay areas of the
city, where party members jeered at the Malays. Although an apology was issued
the following day, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), a major
component of the ruling Alliance coalition government, held a retaliatory rally.
This rally soon degenerated into outright rioting after Malay participants
killed passing Chinese motorcyclists. At least 180 people were killed during the
subsequent riots (although other estimates put it substantially higher). As a
result, a state of emergency was declared, and Parliament was suspended; it did
not reconvene until 1971.
When Gerakan joined the Alliance coalition government in 1972, Syed Hussein left
to help form Pekemas (Parti Keadilan Masyarakat Malaysia, or Social Justice
Party of Malaysia), based on similar principles that Gerakan had been formed on.
However, the party collapsed in 1978 due to massive defections to the Democratic
Action Party (DAP).
Academic Career
Syed Hussein's academic career began at the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka publishing
house, where he worked as head of the research department from 1958 onwards. He
began lecturing part-time in philosophy at the University of Malaya in 1960, and
served as the Head of the Cultural Division at the University's Department of
Malay Studies from 1963 to 1967. He served as the Head of the Department of
Malay Studies in the National University of Singapore from 1967 to 1968, before
quitting to form Gerakan. He returned to academia as the Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Malaya in 1988, before becoming a professor at the Centre for
General Studies in the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in 1995. He later
transferred to the Department of Anthropology and Sociology in 1997, before
becoming principal research fellow at the Institute of the Malay World and
Civilization of the same university in 1999.
Syed Hussein has authored a substantial number of books, many of them on
corruption.
The Myth of the Lazy Native
In 1966, Syed Hussein began pondering the question of why Western colonialists
had, for four centuries, considered the natives of the Malay archipelago to be
generally lazy, since Europeans had not arrived until the 17th century. His
research eventually produced The Myth of the Lazy Native, a book which was
published in 1977. In the book, he cited one instance of a "denigrating" view of
the natives, when a German scientist suggested that Filipinos made their oars
from bamboo so they could rest more frequently: "If they happen to break, so
much the better, for the fatiguing labor of rowing must necessarily be suspended
till they are mended again." Syed Hussein criticized such beliefs in the book as
ranging "from vulgar fantasy and untruth to refined scholarship." He also
asserted that "the image of the indolent, dull, backward and treacherous native
has changed into that of a dependent one requiring assistance to climb the
ladder of progress".
Syed Hussein Alatas died of a heart attack at his home in Damansara Heights,
Kuala Lumpur at 9.30pm on January 23, 2007.
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