Usman Awang's Resistance to the Malay Humanity Facts in Uda and Dara Theatre Script

Salman Alfarisi,Nuriadi ,Muhammad Fazli Taib Saearani

doi:10.6007/ijarbss/v11-i12/11671

Abstract

The Uda and Dara theatre script is based on the outcome of Usman Awang's observation on Malay society life, especially in the newly independent era. Since the beginning, they have taken the process to improve social development. The choices of language and determination of the characters used by Usman Awang reflect any ideas and strong critical thinking on Malay society, humanity facts that were colonized and defeated either by the real colonizers or the Malay elite themselves. Thus, it is believed that through Uda and Dara, Usman Awang fought for a social statement that was contrary to the noble values that were believed in, namely the Malays who developed social, cultural, economic, and political origins based on Islamic values. In accordance with the issue, this article focuses on the two problems. How Usman Awang's resistance to the Malay's social reality and how the Malay elite practised colonialization of fellow Malay's. The literary sociology approach and reading literary method was used to analyse Uda and Dara theatre scripts. This article shows that Usman Awang strongly criticizes the stratification or social status that only benefits the Malay elite. Through an unjust system of land tenure, the Malay elite maintained strong dominance over weaker societies. The main principal is Usman Awang was able to reveal the critical Malay's awareness to escape from the elites power who colonized them after independence from Western colonialists.

Highlights

There is much debate about literature as a human creative work
In the context of the Uda and Dara manuscripts, Usman Awang wants to place the basic concept of developing the Malay society as Islamic, which adopts a concept of equal social status
Usman Awang's assertion that shows that Islam as the basis for the strengthening of Malay character can be referred to the plot structure of the Uda and Dara manuscripts

Summary

Introduction

There is much debate about literature as a human creative work. Some opinions state that literary works cannot be equated with the reality of society's life (Suharianto, 1982) and are still evolving to this day. If we refer to the source of the imagination creator, language can be seen as one of the estuaries where various social problems are anchored in society This shows that reality and imagination can be in union that gives arise to the interweaving of stories in literary. Tracing the traces of these thoughts, it can be deduced that in terms of Usman Awang's great thinking and creativity, both the poem Gadis Kuburan and the short story Uda dan Dara including its music, have not undergone major changes. All these creative works have shown Usman Awang's critical thinking and resistance to the humanity facts of the Malay community. It is seen that knowledge and belief in high Islamic and Malay values do not make them able to build a social system that is equivalent to one another

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Results

Conclusion