The Sidelines: A multilingual, multimedia creator in a multicultural Malaysia
With Sheena Baharudin, poet and academic
The Sidelines is the supplementary issue to every main edition of The Starting Block. Here you will find the interview transcript and more information about the conversation of the week. The interview is transcribed by Otter.ai and edited for length and clarity. All links provided come from me, and not the guest, unless stated.
Listen to the audio version here.
TRANSCRIPT
TINA CARMILLIA: Hello, my name is Tina Carmillia and this is The Starting Block, a weekly conversation on science and society with an emphasis on disinformation, data, and democracy.
Before we start, I’d like to let you know that the transcript and credits for this conversation are available on The Sidelines, the supplement to every main edition of The Starting Block.
Now, in the next lane: Sheena Baharudin, an assistant professor of literature at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. Our topic this week: being a multilingual multimedia creator.
Ready? Let’s go.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Okay.
TINA CARMILLIA: Let’s start with a little bit about your background, both as an artist and as an academic.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Hello, hi, my name is Sheena Baharudin. As a performer, as a writer, I think that has been going on for quite a while, we’re looking a roughly about 10 years. And it’s quite interesting how that’s about the same length when it comes to my role as an academic and why I say that is because I studied literature, and then I went on to teach literature, and now I’m still doing literature. But, of course, sort of adding in the creative writing. So how I got into the creative art scene would be as a performer or a performance poet, I started if I’m not mistaken, in 2006—I think that’s about 15 years now. And right now, I’m teaching at the University of Nottingham Malaysia.
TINA CARMILLIA: As an academic who is also a performer, I’m really curious about how much of your technical, academic side—how much does that influence your performance? And vice versa, your experience as a stage performer or as a creator online—how much does that influence how you extend that knowledge to your students?
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: I think is a case of the chicken and the egg because I’m not really sure what influenced which role. And what I meant by that, is that how I approached poetry from the very beginning, I guess, if you want to sort of narrow it down, it will be as a student, right? As a student of literature and poetry. And whenever I wrote a poem, I came from this context where I wanted to apply what I’ve learned before as a student, and we’re referring to the technical requirements and all of that—the technical features of poetry.
However, what I’ve noticed, you know, over the past 10 years—and why I say 10 years is because of this role that I’ve taken as a performance poet, where I feel that whenever I do write a poem, and whenever I do decide to perform it, there is a very strong sense of responsibility attached to it. Yeah, I mean, why do you perform when you can actually just write and get it published? Why do you need to be present and be physically present, to respond to certain situations? And I think that has to do with my sense of responsibility. And that can only come if you come from a discipline, in this sense, spoken word poetry, where there is a very strong idea that the body is political, right? And what you mean matters. And when you are performing something, you’re not just saying it, it’s not just a declaration, not just a statement, but you’re acting it out. And you are doing—it’s an action, really. So for me, I find that really interesting. And this is more being self-reflexive. Prior to this, you don’t really think, you’re just angry, you write something, you just perform it. But nowadays, I find myself doing a little bit more research.
And that’s really interesting because then I sort of asked myself, when did it become much more research-intensive, as opposed to just writing it because you feel that you need to write something. So now I do a little bit more research—it’s a little bit more time consuming compared to before. And I guess for the past two years, because of the fact that there are no more spaces to perform because of the pandemic, putting your work out there on social media, what we know about the Internet is that once it’s out there, it’s no longer yours, so you need to be really sure. The words that you choose and—yeah, exactly. That is where I feel that there is this really interesting intertwining convergence of two roles that I’ve had for quite a while.
TINA CARMILLIA: As a multilingual poet where one of the languages that you speak is English, you have not just the ability to access a large part of the Internet, but it’s a very distinct privilege as well, because a lot of Malaysians, for instance, even though we do have a pretty good grasp of the English language, I think, the more technical—especially with academic work that’s in English—is not accessible English. What is your thought, especially because you are also a published poet, and you’ve had your works translated to other languages as well, right? What are your thoughts on the importance of translation and other forms of accessibility? For instance, for those who are deaf or hard of hearing and stuff like that.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: The way that I am going to respond to your question is just based on my own personal experience, as a consumer of poetry, somebody who consumes poetry daily. And what I’ve come to is this understanding that yes, translation is very important. And translation goes hand in hand with accessibility, anyway. And yet, at the same time, if you really look at this niche area of poetry, there is always going to be something that is going to be lost in translation, right? What you’re doing is you’re reading something based on the translators understanding of the piece. Something’s gonna need to be lost. However, to be able to have that is better than nothing at all. So that’s where I’m coming from.
However, I think it’s this year, because of this project that I had with My Poetry School, Elaine Foster and also the Deaf community specifically, it did really teach me a lot in terms of how we have sometimes—not to say ignore, but I think we’ve sort of neglected the idea of what accessibility is. It’s not just about languages, the texts, right? It’s about the hard of hearing—what do they have access to? Because communication is not just about the text, it’s about what is being spoken as well. And there’s a lot of that that is not accessible, let’s just say, if there is no closed caption and, and others as well. And I think in that sense, that has really taught me a lot about the importance of trying to make one’s work as accessible as possible. It’s not 100% perfect. I mean, there’s no such thing as perfection anyway. I think it’s more of just trying to get there.
So number one, loss in translation. Number two, that it is still a continuous effort.
So you started off asking whether or not the language itself is capable of discussing really serious topics, right? Yes, of course. We do have the vocabulary for it. But the question will be whether or not people have access to that wealth of the vocabulary, as opposed to the ones that are being termed ‘Bahasa Malaysia’.
TINA CARMILLIA: Do you have any words in Malay, especially—
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: I love this question!
TINA CARMILLIA: —that you think is just completely untranslatable?
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Okay, so I have a few favourites ones, actually.
Right now, I’m trying to learn French because I think French is a beautiful language. And somehow it sort of opens up this door to the romance languages. I can understand a little bit of Arabic, and of course, Bahasa as well as English.
But, again, I think this exploration of Bahasa Melayu or the Malay language only came quite recently. When I say recently, we are looking at two to three years old—young. So yes, my favourite words are all of them. Okay, so? I’m going to share with you five. Four of them are in Bahasa Melayu one of them is in Arabic and can also be found in Bahasa. So we’ll start with the Arabic one. And that is rahim.
TINA CARMILLIA: Is it the same one with the Malay rahim.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: No, it’s not, that’s the thing, right? So rahim is an Arabic word that means compassionate and mercy. And I’ve used that word before and I find it really difficult to translate it to English and by the end of it, I’m sort of—it’s untranslatable. Because it means so many things in there. So that’s one word.
And for the ones in Bahasa… So let’s check if you know these words, yeah? So we’ll start with cakrawala.
TINA CARMILLIA: It’s something… solar-related, no?
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Celestial body. Yeah. So, cakrawala, of course, has its roots in the Sanskrit language as well. So celestial bodies, I find it really difficult to translate that because it’s untranslatable as well.
I like the word sunyi.
TINA CARMILLIA: It’s not quiet—no, that’s senyap.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: No, exactly. Sunyi is a loaded word because it also has this feel of just being completely alone.
TINA CARMILLIA: There’s this ambience…
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Yes, there is an ambience to it, as well.
I love rindu, we all know rindu. If you were to translate that into English, what would it be? What is it?
TINA CARMILLIA: There’s a Portuguese word saudade—I think it’s comparable. It’s probably not exactly the same. But there’s an element of longingness to that… missingness.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Correct. And the fact that we don’t understand [Portuguese] you know that there are more layers to that as well, right?
And one more, halus, because even in Bahasa, there are so many ways to use that word. So it can mean something that is in terms of textual experience, so it’s not rough, it’s smooth, right? But halus can also be applied to language, Bahasa halus—so, euphemism, anything that is not meant to offend. And you also have makhluk halus, the creatures that belong in the supernatural world. So there are so many ways to actually use it. I love the word halus. And the meaning is associated with the way it sounds, like the minute when you [say] halus, it just disappears.
TINA CARMILLIA: It’s a physical word.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: It is.
TINA CARMILLIA: And this is why I love having conversations with you, Sheena. I always learn something. These words that you are introducing—it really shows Bahasa Malaysia/Melayu as a beautiful language.
And I know that we learned that Malay used to be the lingua franca in our region, right? I don’t know what happened along the way, Sheena, but I also am so fascinated by how the language evolved, because there’s a is difference between the way we learn the language in school and in the way we use it in traditional media—like super formal Malay that you hear in the news. And there’s a different way that we use it casually and online. Like it’s almost a completely different language. And if you only learn Malay in school, and you don’t speak it, you cannot understand the Malay that’s used online. Why does it seem so—does English have something that’s comparable to that?
There’s also criticism that Muslim is just not an academic language or a language of knowledge—it’s because of the different forms it’s presented [as]. What’s going on, Sheena, tell me?
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: (Laughs) I completely understand I have that same feel of just confusion and just being overwhelmed. What on Earth is going on what has happened so far? Because if you were to look at this Bahasa Malaysia that is used on mainstream media, that’s not how we speak. Right? And then once you start comparing that with social media, then clearly that's a whole different creature altogether. I think that’s really interesting and it’s an interesting question because it really highlights the potential reasons behind it.
Now, I have to give you some context, like I mentioned earlier, my curiosity for Bahasa only started off about two, three years ago. And that is because I really had to unpack a lot about how I respond to the language myself since I was young. And to put words into it, you know, to my lived experience with this, for quite some time, I was pretty ashamed to be Malay.
TINA CARMILLIA: Oh…
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Yeah. Yeah, that’s why I say I need to unpack a lot. Yeah, I needed to do just that. There’s a sense of shame. And it has something to do with this sort of idea of what a Malay is, and how are we supposed to look like and how am I supposed to behave. And I couldn’t really fit in any of those boxes. And because of that, I started distancing myself from the language itself and just start to speak in English because also because that’s the language that we speak in the house, at home.
However, three years ago, I told myself, this, this is crap. Like, what on earth is happening to actually be in a position where you are ashamed of this part of your identity, of who you are, right? And then when I started looking into it, because I did my research, thanks to you. I did my research and, surprisingly, this idea of Bahasa Malaysia was sort of formulated and conceptualised in the 1980s, because of certain education policies. And it’s quite similar to Bahasa Indonesia in Indonesia (David Fettling, BBC), where you have Bahasa Indonesia that is used to unify the country. There is the sense of wanting to standardise the language because different states have different dialects of using language.
But I wouldn’t say it’s unique. But I guess that’s the situation in Malaysia, where not only do you see this language, which is quite different from the way that you communicate every day, but also because of that whole idea that comes with it that this is the language of the majority in the country. This is the language that you suppose to learn.
And I remember when I was in school, I didn't like Bahasa, because it’s all just grammar, right? There’s no soul in it. And it was only when I was 17 years old when I had to go for my SPM, that final examination, that important examination, that the teachers just started giving us all of these classical Malay texts. And it was so beautiful. And I had no idea that it can be so beautiful. So I found myself in a place where I was completely confused. I did my SPM, that examination, as a 17-year-old, I think it was in 1999. And that was the first time that I got to see that aesthetic use of the language as opposed to just practical functional, it’s just there for a reason…
TINA CARMILLIA: The imbuhan (prefixes and suffixes)...
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Yeah, I know! It’s such a pain in the… behind. So now when you look at mainstream media and how they use it, it still holds on to this idea that to use Bahasa Malaysia, that is the way for you to communicate to the Malay people and also to the Malaysian at large. But you know that is not the case, because the minute you take the language outside of the mainstream media people just put in so many—like, Hokkien, Cantonese, Tamil, English, everything is just there. So yeah, so that disconnect says a lot.
TINA CARMILLIA: There’s a bit of a resurgence lately with like publications like Svara, for instance, where I think it’s bringing back that kind of quality writing, that doesn’t really hold on too much to the super technical, super precise grammatical Malay. And, like, let it have its own soul. And I love that.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: I love that too. Because I feel that, you know, one thing that is beautiful about, at least, Bahasa Melayu—because back then, that was the term for it, Bahasa Melayu—it was the lingua franca, and it’s really easy to learn, it’s almost skeletal and it mutates, and it moves around. I love it, you know.
But the minute you come up with this idea of bahasa baku (standard language), that Bahasa Malaysia is bahasa baku—which, by the way, is part of my research, thanks to you, Tina Carmillia—that Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka is supposed to be the preserver of the language, they say that there are people who have made the mistake of just calling it bahasa beku (frozen language) instead of bahasa baku. Frozen language. I think that’s hilarious. Because I do believe wholeheartedly that the Malay language is incredibly fluid.
TINA CARMILLIA: So for you as someone who understands more than one language, and who lives in a multilingual, multicultural community, do you think that that makes it a hindrance to master any single language? For us Malaysians, like you said, with the Malay language for instance, we’re throwing in so many different words from different languages as well into our sentences. A sentence can have three, four different languages at any one time, right? Even when we speak English, it’s the same. When we speak Malay, it’s the same. Hokkien is also riddled with two, three other languages.
I suppose the insinuation behind this question is also maybe about language mastery. I don’t know whether that’s specifically what I am championing. I don’t think we need to be super perfect and fluent in a single language.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Again, the way that I am responding to your question is just how I see things. And what I meant by that is that even now, like, I have been invited to sessions that are conducted in Bahasa, and I struggled with it. And it’s a blow to one’s sense of self. When you're invited to speak in Bahasa, and you just realised, “I don’t have the word, I can’t really think about the word,” you know? And I’m thinking in English, but that’s another conversation altogether.
But the point being, have I mastered Bahasa? No. Does it stop me from mastering the language? Obviously, no. Am I still learning? Yeah. How long will it take? I have no idea. But the idea is that maybe, right now, maybe there should be this sense of looking at it from a different point of view, a different perspective, instead of thinking of mastering the language, because even now, I would not even call myself a master of English. That’s a really weird thing to say.
But maybe what we should be thinking about is how to master—I’m not really a fan of that word as well—but how to figure out the best way to communicate, right? I mean, in order to think about that, you need to think about who you’re addressing and who you’re having this conversation with, you know? And if that’s English, that’s great that’s in English. If it’s in Bahasa, it’s in Bahasa. And one thing about language is that it continuously changes, it’s very dynamic and fluid, so the learning will never end.
TINA CARMILLIA: I don’t know how comfortable you are if I asked you about Malayness and Arab culture, because I think that with the resurgence of Malay literature, there’s also this falling back into embracing Arab culture, and incorporating that into the identity of being Malay, like using a lot more Arabic words when they’re already Malay words for certain, particularly cultural matters. Obviously, language is part of culture and identity as well. But I was just fascinated by that phenomenon because I don’t think we were that hung up with the Arabic language or culture until quite recently.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: I actually don’t think it’s recent and the reason I say that is because I was raised in Terengganu. So I was in Terengganu since the late 1980s, which is pretty much around the same time, you start to have this sense of Malay-Muslim [identity], that’s part of the rhetoric, the idea of what makes a Malay in the first place.
So I was in Terengganu, which is, you know, for those who don’t have the context, it was during that time when [the Malaysian Islamic Party] PAS—so I went through when the state government was Barisan Nasional, and then PAS took over. And then somehow this idea—and even the use, like you said—when we started including more Arabic words in there, and there’s a strange sense of what makes a Malay and what is the Malay identity that you can’t really separate that Islam part anymore.
And again, it’s one of those things that I actually addressed in my PhD thesis as well, where I said that it’s one thing for sure—and I don’t think this is something that’s completely new, people have talked about this—that it is political, it is politicised. You’re looking at a specific narrative.
When you think about the Malay civilisation, the first thing—because that’s what’s being taught in school anyway, you have been to Batu Bersurat in Terengganu, like that is the beginning of the Malays civilisation. And then you have Malacca, the empire of Malacca. And when you think of Malacca, what do you think about it? It’s the fact that it’s from being that really interesting amalgamation of Hinduism and Buddhism, and suddenly you will have the sultan embracing Islam, and that was the height of Malay civilisation.
And I’m laughing at it, not because I’m making fun of it. But I feel that it is a distortion of what history is all about. Because if you’re going to address the 14th century, and really highlight that, why don’t you highlight whatever that came before that as well because that’s part of the formation of one's identity anyway, right? Nobody talks about the fact that before that, we were Hindus, and if we go all the way before that, we were animists. That has to be part of it, you have to take it all, no?
So I experienced it in the ‘80s, I experienced it in the ‘90s and I don’t know if it has paused for a while, I think it’s still there. It has always been there. Maybe just now with social media is a little bit more obvious.
TINA CARMILLIA: Yeah, I think I think maybe that’s my experience because I’m not Malay. Although I do read Malay stuff quite a bit. Mastika, you know, growing up everyone used to read (Alan Teh, NST)?
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Oh, I love Mastika.
TINA CARMILLIA: That was my idea of Malay culture, you know, ghost stories, conspiracies? I love Mastika.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: I love Mastika. I actually feel like when I read Mastika, I feel full on Melayu, you know? I’m like, yeah, this is my world. The seen and the unseen together, this is my reality.
TINA CARMILLIA: But publications like Mastika, it’s creative writing.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Of course. Sensational writing as well.
TINA CARMILLIA: And we obviously have very creative writers and, you know, artists using the Malay language, but do we have the vocabulary or the cultural practices to discuss serious issues in the Malay language, like, academic stuff, policies and philosophy? And without the ability to do so or the interests to do so, does that exclude a portion of the population that only speaks Malay from having access to valuable information and therefore making them more susceptible to misinformation?
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: That’s a big question. So you started off asking whether or not the language itself is capable of discussing really serious topics, right? Yes, of course. We do have the vocabulary for it. But the question will be whether or not people have access to that wealth of the vocabulary, as opposed to the ones that are being termed ‘Bahasa Malaysia’. Like for me just to write a poem—and this is again, just as an example—if I was just to use the same words that are being used on mass media or in textbooks, I cannot write that poem. I can’t. It sounds horrible.
TINA CARMILLIA: It would sound like a user manual.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Yeah, exactly. Right. So one of the few people that I have discovered all those years of my own exploration on Malay identity and Malay language is this: Kassim Ahmad.
So Kassim Ahamad is obviously a sasterawan, you know, a national laureate, but he is also a literary critic. And why I’m pointing this out is because what he talks about is not just about poetry, you know, like Malay poetry. We’re talking about nationalism, politics, history, anthropology, you know, everything. He is very academic. And he does that so beautifully, that I’m not dozing off halfway, which happens a lot when I read academic Bahasa because it’s so dry. But I do that too, with English journal articles. So maybe it’s just me.
TINA CARMILLIA: I think it’s everyone.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: It’s so bloody dry. Lord. So yes, definitely, we do have a vocabulary for it. But whether or not we are exposed to it is a different thing altogether, whether we are encouraged to use it in that discipline, that’s another question altogether.
So the question—I’m trying to hold on to it so that I don’t digress— whether or not it actually creates this barrier, that there are all those who cannot access that information? I think, yeah, for sure. And for a while, I mean, if you can buy the book, if you can go to an event where that person is there to give a presentation, then that’s a different thing. But yeah, I’m sure that there are people who are not accessing and can’t access it. Yeah, for different reasons.
TINA CARMILLIA: Just before the pandemic was when I started engaging more in discourse in Bahasa, like attending actual events. There’s one that was organised by REFSA, with Goenawan [Mohamed] from Indonesia, so he was using Bahasa Indonesia. His background is in journalism, but he does a little bit more of like, social-political commentary. And it's just so beautiful. Because yes, it is academic use of the language, but there’s always, I feel, something poetic about this language, you know? The way it’s presented, it’s so beautiful. And it’s hard to explain that to someone who doesn’t at least understand some Malay.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: I agree. I myself, you know, as a fan of Indonesian literature, look at the way they use language. And, you know, you’re talking about poets who are poets of the people, right? And the way that they use language is so beautiful. And not to say that we don’t have these poets in Malaysia, we do have quite a few,, quite a number of them, actually. But I think it has also something to do with the way it’s being said.
I don’t know why, but whenever—so, you may disagree with me but when I listen to how Bahasa [Melayu] is being spoken, it sounds quite rough. It’s less musical than Bahasa Indonesia. But that’s, again, a personal opinion. But then if you were to listen to those who are from the northern part of Malaysia, and even those who are from East Malaysia, like Sabah and Sarawak, I think they’re beautiful, the way that they speak the language. It’s just that it is not the ‘beku’ version, slash standard version.
TINA CARMILLIA: Yeah, absolutely. I always enjoy our conversations, Sheena but I feel like we need to wrap up. Maybe you could recommend some books or other publications online or offline for media in Bahasa that we could maybe check out?
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: So like I mentioned earlier, this book is entitled Kassim Ahmad, Dialog Dengan Sasterawan—so, a dialogue with the national laureate, that is a really good book. I think he has managed to communicate, both in text as well as in his speech, in the way that I aspire to do as well. That’s a really great one.
And this is an old one, Angin Dari Gunung, the winds from the mountains. It’s an anthology of short stories written by writers, and I think it’s beautiful. I received this as a birthday gift when I was, I think, 11 years old. So I still have it with me, the same exact copy. I revisit it time and time again.
And right now I am reading this book called Muda dan Melayu, or young and Malay. So this is going to be quite interesting because it says here, membesar dalam kepelbagaian budaya Malaysia, you know, being Malay and growing up in a multicultural nation.
TINA CARMILLIA: That touches a little bit on what we were discussing earlier, no? I would love to hear your analysis of that.
SHEENA BAHARUDIN: Right. Yeah, I'll share with you hopefully.
TINA CARMILLIA: That’s Sheena Baharudin, assistant professor of literature at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus on being a multilingual, multimedia creator.
If you would like to join me for conversations like this on The Starting Block, get in touch here.
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CREDITS
Guest: Sheena Baharudin, PhD (Instagram)
Producer/Host: Tina Carmillia
Music: Theme for Harold (var. 3) by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
