Hero or Villain

RPK posed an interesting question on two historically legendary Malays, in a post titled
SO, WAS JEBAT OR TUAH THE HERO?

Jebat - hero or villain?

Aiseh, I know some of you won't visit his blog so I have re-posted here my comments made at his mentioned post, with some judicious editing to (hopefully) improve on my original but hurried comments(s):

Whoever wrote Hikayat Hang Tuah was brilliant in posing this question via the tragedy in the minds of readers, namely: Was Tuah the better person for his absolute blind obedience to his liege lord but with lamentable disregard for his loyalty to his blood/sworn "brother", or was it Jebat for his deep sense of fraternal love and loyalty but lack of traditional absolute allegiance to his liege lord?

It's the eternal agonising yin-yang story, worthy of serious study as per some of the Greek tragedies like the saga of Jason & Medea, ...

Jason & Medea
(portrayed instead in Roman style)

... or that of ginormous confronting contradictions to be found in the Hindu epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata where so-called heroes like Rama in the former and Arjuna in the latter appeared to be treacherous underhanded villainous cads while supposedly arch villains like Ravana in the Ramayana and Karna in the Mahabharata appeared as chivalrous & righteous heroes.

And then there was the story of Ekalavya in the Mahabharata which troubled me as much as the story of Hang Tuah unjustly (or stupidly) killing his best friend and sworn brother-in-arms (and that by deceit too) on the say-so of the Sultan whose unjust persecution of Tuah had ironically been the very reason for Jebat rebelling against the tyrannical ruler.

Ekalavya idolised Drona, who was the ultimate sifu who had taught martial arts and magic to both the Pandava and their cousins the Kaurava, the two principal warring foes in the epic. But Drona refused to accept Ekalavya as his student because the latter was a low caste person. Yes, the Mahabharata reeks of despicable caste discrimination and class snobbery.

righteous (but stupid) Ekalavya giving his right thumb to a caste-conscious discriminatory and sinister Drona

Yet Ekalavya despite his low caste disadvantage practised diligently by himself with only Drona as his inspiration, becoming the best archer in the epic. But Drona was out to get him as he subsequently revealed his sinister upper caste discriminatory reason to his fave student Arjuna on why he had Ekalavya cut off the latter's own thumb:

"What would happen to society if the lower castes start learning the martial arts reserved for Kshatrias? I had to do this to preserve stability and social order. My goal is to make you the best archer in the world and remove all barriers towards that goal."

You may want to know why Ekalavya willingly cut off his own thumb to give it to an asshole like Drona even if that act caused the silly bloke to lose his supreme skills in archery? Well, that's almost the same question you would ask on why Tuah killed his best mate Jebat for a tyrannical ruler.

We see the same troubling injustice in the Old Testament where modern biblical scholars have been re-evaluating the now-apparent villainous deeds of an unscrupulous murderous and adulterous King David against the equally now-apparent exemplary kingly conduct and performance of King Saul, a role reversal that certainly won't appeal to the "faithful".

In the above last phrase, to wit "... won't appeal to the faithful", I believe I might have stumbled upon the clue to the answer for our agonising question, in that the "faithfuls" would naturally think differently to the "discerning", a case of faith versus scholarship.

Mind, that question posed (not directly of course, or even not intended) by the author(s) of Hikayat Hang Tuah didn't arise in Malay minds (at least publicly) until Kassim Ahmad wrote his dissertation "Perwatakan Hang Tuah" in 1950. In that paper Kassim saw Jebat as the real hero for standing up to tyranny while he considered Tuah as a palace sycophant.

Kassim's character analysis of the two Malay warriors was radical thinking in a then Malay world where absolute loyalty to a Malay ruler was automatic, expected, and without question. Kassim provided the spark that gave rise to a virtually virgin perspective for Malay thinking about their allegiance to cruel repressive rulers, where Jebat himself was reputed to have said:

"Raja adil raja disembah, raja zalim raja disanggah."

... which means "A fair king is a king to salute, a cruel king is a king to rebel against"..

And regardless of how Kassim Ahmad may be regarded by Malay monarchists, he certainly has earned his redoubtable title as Malaysia's foremost intellectual.