Siapa Yang Bawa Melayu Aku Pergi? (Who Took My Malay Away?) is a powerful love letter to Singapore, the country of Faizal Abdullah’s birth and where he spent the first 34 years of his life.
Taking the form of a performance-lecture, this bold new work addresses themes of colonisation, identity, indigenous displacement and the loss of cultural heritage and language.
Emotive and thought provoking, Siapa Yang Bawa Melayu Aku Pergi? (Who Took My Malay Away?) delves into Faizal’s Muslim-Malay-Singaporean identity, and specifically the uniqueness of being Malay in Singapore (The Malays are the indigenous community of Singapore).
Mixing visuals with a fascinating presentation of Malay culture, colonial history and Jawi lesson (Jawi is the reading and writing system of the Malay language), Siapa Yang Bawa Melayu Aku Pergi? (Who Took My Malay Away?) explores perceptions that the wider world has about what it means to be ‘Singaporean’ and what it means to be ‘Malay-Muslim’.
Faizal Abdullah, creator and performer of Siapa Yang Bawa Melayu Aku Pergi? said: “The show was conceived quite differently in the beginning, and it was essentially an exploration of what it means to grow distant from one’s roots, culture, and language and be almost powerless to stop it; by the end, it feels like the only logical thing to do is to surrender to that outcome. But as I keep re-visiting the work, it continues to reflect the shifts in my thoughts, ideas, and perspectives. Perhaps it is a mixture of being away from home, from family and being away from things and sensations and feelings that are familiar – everything that goes on around me has shaped this version of the performance today.
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“Now, it’s a different surrender; it is about embracing my roots, culture, and language and celebrating these aspects of my identity. I feel that it’s important to know who you are, and this is who I am. I can’t @mdfaizalpretend to be someone else. In a world that is becoming ever more connected, it can become easy to lose sense of who you are. This performance – first and foremost – is a reminder for me to stay connected to my roots, culture, and language. If someone else can find resonance with the performance, I consider it a bonus.”
