Introduction: A Third Line of Defence

In June 2011, roughly two weeks before a mass rally by Malaysian opposition parties and NGOs on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, organised by a group called Bersih, calling for ‘clean and fair elections’, Omardin Mauju – the mahaguru (grandmaster) of the country's largest silat martial arts organisation – publicly announced that his 50,000 fighters were ready to wage war on behalf of the federal government against those ‘traitors’ he said were ‘spreading chaos’ (Utusan Online 2011). His words echoed those of Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak, who in addressing a national silat gathering eight months earlier, called them a ‘third line of defence’ (after the military and police) whom he confidently believed ‘would be ready to fight against those who wish to challenge our country's peace, security and sovereignty’ (Zulkifli, 2010). A week later, Ali Rustam, president of the national federation of silat groups (PESAKA), and Chief Minister of Malacca, amplified the threat. Speaking to silat teachers at the Sultan Sulaiman Club in Kampung Baru, Kuala Lumpur – a site of deep historical significance to Malay ethnic nationalists – he warned that if the rally were not cancelled, it could descend into ‘extreme chaos on the order of May 13, 1969’ (Faizatul et al., 2011), a widely understood reference to an infamous episode of racial rioting in the capital and elsewhere in Malaysia.

What is intriguing about the above statements is not their martial tone – something that is, understandably, intrinsic to silat – but how they reveal the prominence and influence this martial art occupies in national discourses. Such provocations also illustrate important, yet under-explored, aspects of silat: how it has been an important component of Malay political struggles, furthered ideologies within a Malaysian Malay worldview, and employed violence, or the threat of violence, in the pursuit of certain objectives.

The objective of this chapter is to draw attention to silat's active – even assertive – role within the dynamic Malay body politic. It attempts to do so through a look at the sometimes-menacing recent history of silat, and examining, chronologically, the involvement of ideological groups that have coalesced around silat during the latter-twentieth-century. It is hoped that, by understanding the contexts that have given rise to martial silat, people might become more aware of its potential influence upon Malaysian politics and society in the present and future.