Reviews & Press : : Raja Bilah and the Mandailings in Perak: 1875-1911

Star Two
11 January 2005
by Christina Koh

Tracing Mandailing roots

Tales of his rich ancestry as a Mandailing descendant of pioneer Raja Bilah had inspired researcher Abdur-Razzaq Lubis to trace his roots all the way to Sumatra.

His experiences and reunion with long-lost relatives on the other side of the Straits of Malacca gave him a better insight when writing a book about the ancestors.

Raja Bilah and the Mandailings in Perak: 1875-1911, which he co-authored with his wife Khoo Salma Nasution, has received encouraging response from readers and publications since it was published last year.

“I’ve always known I was a Mandailing after my grandparents told me stories of my ancestors ever since I was a child.

“As I grew up, I read what literature there was on the Mandailings, which wasn’t much. I only began serious research on the subject in the 1990s.

“It was in Sumatra that I finally met my relatives at the Mandailing settlement deep in the interior. It was a very moving time,” he says.

Abdur-Razzaq Lubis, who is a Mandailing descendent of pioneer Raja Bilah, co-authored Raja Billah and the Mandailings in Perak: 1875-1911with his wife Khoo Salma Nasution.

Abdur-Razzaq adds that from those visits, he felt the need to write the book and “reconstruct” a bit of history from the eyes of the Mandailing people.

“Even the Mandailing heroes have been appropriated by the Malays,” he says.

The book relates the story of Raja Bilah, a Mandailing leader in Perak, and helps bring to life an important period of Malay history.

He describes the book as a personal journey that allows him to exert his cultural identity as a Mandailing.

He points out that there is still a public tendency to assume Mandailings are Malays, when in fact the Mandailings are a distinct ethnic group on their own.

“In Indonesia, we are classified as a sub-group of Batak. As Mandailings, however, we have our own language, script, clans, social and cultural norms, and philosophy of life.

“We also keep family trees. In the 1920s, a group of Mandailings even went to the High Court to fight for the right to be recognised.”

Abdur-Razzaq notes that certain people might sometimes feel offended when a Mandailing chooses to adhere to his or her cultural identity, rather than being identified as a Malay.

He adds that some Mandailings also chose to assimilate themselves into the Malay identity to make things easier.

“There is nothing wrong with that. To me personally, my cultural identity is my very existence. Take that away, and I'd feel like I have lost the soul and the meaning of my existence.

“For this reason, I choose to exercise my right as a Malaysian citizen to declare my descent. No one can deny me that right.

“It doesn’t mean, however, that I’m not proud to be Malaysian,” says Abdur-Razzaq.

He estimates there are roughly 50,000 Malaysians of Mandailing descent in Malaysia today.

Some of the prominent members include former Inspector-General of Police Tun Mohd Hanif Omar and Supreme Court judge Tan Sri Azmi Kamaruddin.

Abdur-Razzaq, an Ikatan Kebajikan Mandailing Malaysia (IMAN) member and the Malaysian representative of the Mandailing All-Clans Assembly (HIKMA) based in Indonesia, now lives in Penang with his wife.

The 278-page book, which was published by the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, is on sale at bookstores nationwide.

The couple is also writing a coffee table book on the Kinta Valley.