Dr. Wan Salleh Wan Ibrahim

Dr. Wan Salleh Wan Ibrahim is president of the World Melayu-Polynesia Organisation, and head of the Centre for Malay Heritage Arts from 2006 to 2012. Unable to attend the Wananga, his paper was read by Dr Madame Tin Cho Ma.

Our present world is very much into globalisation, easy travel and fast-track developments. We are also in the digital age where human relationships become minimal and less meaningful. However, we Malay-Polynesians, inspite of all these, need an ever concerted effort to interact, come together to boost cooperation in all areas.

We are increasingly challenged to sustain the values we uphold. The history and civilisation we had shared and built together must be maintained, for the sake of our new generation, and the generations that will follow.   Despite this world becoming multicultural, giving little importance to indigeneity and cultural identities, the importance of exploring and reconstructing our roots, our DNA connections, own historical narrative of our peoples, our lands and our seas is always challenging. The organising of the present Voyaging Wananga in historical Waitangi is therefore a giant leap at rediscovering ourselves, our DNA connections, our kinship,  and how capable we had been in our distant past. Our capabilities, our values and our stories need to be systematically recorded, transmitted for the new generation to be nourished in perpetuity.

Since the earliest of times, we Malay-Polynesians, from 14,000 – 12,000 BC, were the leading indigenous inhabitants of the earth spreading over the globe. We were leading explorers, settlers, agriculturalists, scientists and  navigators of the world and second to none in these exploits. Between ourselves, we spread across about four-fifths of the globe, speaking more than 1200 variations of that root language. Despite the coming of others into our shores and our lands, the values we share are as ever shining as the morning sun.

Many of the present generation of scholars and historians in Asia had argued that the major and earliest civilisations of the world had been the Indian and Chinese. The standard world history sometimes omitted us from its mainstream reference.  However,  lately, honest Western prehistorians, marine archaeologists, linguists and anthropologists  had discovered that Nusantara was once the centre of world civilisation, and that other civilisations, like the Sumeria, Mohenjo-Daro and Chinese Civilisation were passive recievers of the civilizational ingredients of Sunda Civilisation. We had lost ground in rediscovering and reconstructing our civilizational heritage the moment we were colonised by foreign powers during the 15^th-17th century.

• CONCEPT OF MALAY-POLYNESIAN HISTORY

One prehistorian, Renfrew (2007) believe that pre-colonial Southeast Asia was not known until 1500 AD. The emergence of our countries from the colonial yoke was recent, between 50-100 years. The moment we attained independence, all textbook materials were couched in their histories and us as native participants within their margins of reference.  The 15^th through the 17th centuries was the colonists Age of Discovery, their writing of us was skewed and narrow, that we were portrayed half naked, half-dressed and indolent, devoid of civility and civilisation. One Malay scholars Syed Hussein Alatas – in studying this post-colonial experience in Java, Sumatra and Philippines – wrote The Myth of the Lazy Native (1970)’ It was hot reading for many intellectuals.

The West had been keen to find the Spice Islands, besides gold and other precious materials These sent Sequeira, Drake, Cook, Tasman, Alfonso, Raffles and Light to our shores. These names are said to be those of heroes and discoverers of our native lands, although we had been here 50,000 years before them.

We need to unlock one of our prehistoric archive – that is the existence of Sunda Civilisation. The Sunda Civilisation, its knowledge, its influence and global maritime reach may open our sense of history, our voyages, our crafts and our discoveries into a meaningful pattern, making sense of our present lives, sufficient and complete.

Indonesia has been our point of discussion here.

One Greek philosopher, Plato had been writing in his dialogue, Timaeus and Critias, about a hypothetical  civilisation called Atlantis. He named it as Aurea Chersonesus. This `Atlantis’ was not at one geographical point but spread its own constellation of centres’ influence,  though tied commercially to one mother city. It was estimated to be 9,600 BC. The problem of Atlantis’ reality or fiction had divided scholars in the past. However, one Oxford medical scientist-anthropologist, Stephen Oppenheimer brought out a book called `Eden in the East’ (1998).

Oppenheimer was a medical scientist in Malaya, but undertook many studies into the Orang Asli (natives) and over time gathered oral and written evidence of this region. He studied flood effects of the Great Flood of Noah, its probable cause of volcanic eruptions and overall catastrophism in the Nusantara and Sunda Platform, especially. Then he concluded, with all these characteristics, Indonesia must be this Atlantis. The major city zone had been between the tip of Java and Sumatra guided in by the Sunda Strait to a cluster of islands called Krakatoa. It was the volcanic explosions of Krakatoa that sunk the Sunda Platform submerging the cities and population.

The present sea level was 150 metres above the past at the time of cities and civilisation.