Lat, his cartoons and appreciating our multiculturalism

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IN this article, I wish to bring the readers to contemplate the secrets of success to international fame of our beloved cartoonist, Datuk Lat.

I would like to suggest that Lat had two secrets of success; firstly, was his ability to communicate in English, and secondly, his appreciation of the multiplicity of our cultures and faiths.

Many Malays in Malaysia, sadly, nowadays are making themselves enemies of non-Malays by thinking that these people are out to destroy the culture of Malayness and the religion of Islam.

Lat, luckily, was not one of these ignorant Malays and his great fame is testimony to the idea that our multiculturalism and faiths are our greatest assets and not our greatest liabilities, as some politicians might have us believe.

I was most interested to write this article because of two reasons. Firstly, I am most surprised at how someone like Lat, who is a Malay and had never set foot in a university, was accorded many awards and accolades as an international artist of exceptional talent and vision.

Secondly, the career path of Lat can teach us many things about the issues of racism and bigotry in our present midst. This article was based on the reading of his biography ‘Lat: My Life and Cartoons’ published by Editions Didier Millet last year.

In his early childhood, Lat hailed from a poor family in the kampung and he was not one of those equipped with academic intelligence that would see him towards a university life. At an early age, he loved to draw cartoons like what he had read and found in such classics as ‘The Beano’ and ‘The Dandy’ from England.

In his early cartoon strips, which he drew and sold personally, Lat introduced the characters of ‘Tiga Sekawan’ or ‘The Three Friends’ and the antics of ‘Ali Konga’. His early story lines and characters were based on the cultures of English cartoons and slapstick comedy.

One day, an elder from his village named Wok Kamaruddin advised him that he should draw stories from his own Malay culture and not resort to the antics of cartoons emulating the English.

Wok Kamaruddin pointed to the chicken coop and the coconut trees, and the kampung house and told Lat to absorb all he has seen and experienced and make stories surrounding the Malay kampung context.

That was how Lat made his first local hit in a satire of ‘Keluarga Si Mamat’. As a child, I still remember reading about the antics of Si Mamat, who seems to be based on his own character of a chubby boy with a mop of messy hair.

The series was a hit with the Malay readers and his name was on the rise. However, he would not have been noticed had not something curious happened in 1973.

In that year of 1973, Lat submitted his first cartoon in English for ‘Asia Magazine’. His father had suffered a heart problem and he was in and out of the hospital to care for him while juggling his day job as a news reporter.

The cartoon strip that he drew for ‘Asia Magazine’ was a circumcision ceremony and ritual in Malay society narrated in English.

When it was published, the reception was astounding! Malaysians of all races appreciated the cultural satire and he was noticed by a big time news editor, Lee Siew Yee. Lee offered him a job as a full-time cartoonist for the ‘New Straits Times’.

What was unique with Lat’s cartoon in ‘Asia Magazine’ was the cultural content retold in a humorous and innocent manner that not only tickled the funny bones but made people sit up and read into a different culture in a most appreciative way.

This was a new way of cross-cultural communication other than words, slogans, and political statements. Lee told Lat to continue his new found philosophy of cultural appreciation and satire. Lat began his new career with a series of drawing strips about a Perak Wedding and it became, again, an instant hit.

It was not only appreciated by the English educated Malays but it also by the English educated Chinese, Indians, and even Westerners working in Malaysia’s embassies.

Lat then decided to take a bold step and launched his ‘Scenes of Malaysia’s Life’ series. He drew Hakka wedding ceremonial rituals and then a Sikh Wedding. Needless to say that this was an extremely bold thing to do in a volatile political scenario of racially charged politics in Malaysia.

But Malaysians of all faiths and race did not take offence at the satires of their own cultures and laughed and showed off the cartoons to everyone they met.

Lat had discovered a unique key to national harmony and unity that had evaded our forefathers and even present leaders. What was the key? To be able to laugh at our own self, our own race, and our own culture – at the unique and sometimes funny ways of our lifestyles.

Another key was to be able to share in the experiences of other cultures that make up Malaysia as a nation of many faces, beliefs, and ways of life. To laugh at ourselves and to share our cultural ways without malice or prejudice and judgement of who is better than whom was more important than a million-ringgit slogan.

Lat continued his series with ‘Makan Time’ and celebrations of religious faiths. Again, all his depictions were accepted and appreciated. Lat became a phenomenon and more importantly, a Malaysian with a strong root in his Malayness as well as Islamness.

Lat had shown that even if one is a Malay with a religion different than others, we can all enjoy our cultural uniqueness and lifestyle as part and parcel of the colourful canvas of Malaysia.

Lat was then given a fellowship by the United Kingdom to spend time in that country and he drew British people again in his innocent and interesting satire.

When he was awarded another fellowship by the American Embassy to spend time in the USA, he did the same thing and had us all in stitches laughing at the African American taxi drivers and Caucasians with extremely large body sizes.

Later on, Lat embarked on his dream project of making animated cartoons and he worked hard with a team from the USA, flying back and forth to complete his dream. The rest, as they say … is history.

What are the most important lessons and message that I wish to impart in this article?

For the Malays, who are now becoming more and more extremist with a narrative of being enemies with the non-Malays, I wish to remind them that Lat, who is a Malay, would never have gone far had he resorted to his own culture as satire written in his own Malay language.

I am not trying to belittle Bahasa Melayu but trying to home in a most important point that the Malays need to appreciate our different cultures and faith beyond the poisonous rhetoric of PAS, Umno, Perkasa, Isma, and any Malay individuals bent on making a living out of making enemies of all of us against each other.

Lat drew the cultures of the Malays, the Chinese, the Sikhs, the Indians, the Brits, and the Americans as part of our own family of humanity. Lat, in his cartoons, refrained from making judgments of ‘holier than thou’ and stuck steadfastly to the comedy of life itself and the magic of multiculturalism.

Lat’s endearing message is simply that without the many colours of life, the artist would face a blank canvas devoid of lessons, reminders and humour that reminds us every day that we are all human beings with a soul of spiritual sameness but a lifetime of uniqueness.