The Tambusai Connection

Yesterday while I was seated on a bench at One Utama waiting for my daughter's violin class finishing, I came across a friend who recently had retired as one of the Sec-Gen of a big Ministry and he immediately recognised me. Somehow I always bumped into him at this place. So as always we entered into a conversation always beginning with the days when he was in University of Pittsburgh in the 1980's when I went there for a three month's course at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. At that time my brother Hazim was also doing his PhD in philosophy and history of science. I was quite surprised upon learning that he visited my blog and mentioned about Tuanku Tambusai, the icon hero of our family association, BERKAT. I wondered what that had got to do with him? So as we talked, it dawned upon me that he had some enquiries on how his family is somewhat connected to the story of Tuanku Tambusai, not as "keturunan" but associated in the place of origin in Riau Province of Eastern Sumatra. I also told him that I came to know that TT followers could also be found in Perak and Pahang where they settled and somehow got involved in the past history of the locals there. In 2005 when we had one of the largest gathering ever in Pusat Dakwah in Paroi, Seremban, my cousin presented a running commentary of the involvement of the followers of Tuanku Tambusai in the local intrigues of ruling successions in Perak and Selangor as well as Pahang. But I was sceptical, simply because we had no way of corroborating the evidence in solid research supported by written records. I am still the cold rational being not wanting to jump blindly into the black hole of the past. It had always been the weakness of past Malay historians to rely so much on oral traditions that they distorted the truth and lived on legends which capture the imaginations of the unschooled and the untutored. I wanted nothing of that sort and as ever wanted scientific truth to prevail. But when I mentioned to this friend of mine as some of the place names in Rokan Hulu about 3 hours from Pekanbaru, which I had never set before in my life and just came to know of it from the Internet, he seemed to know too. Thus he could not be further from the truth. When I told him that the former Governor of the Riau Province also had the name of "Tambusai" after his real name of Bapak Saleh Djasit Tambusai, then I took it that in line with the practice of some people, they like to add the name of their birthplace after their given names. For example we had one of the Ambassador resident in Kuala Lumpur more than 50 years ago where he had the name "Al-Fatany" following his name because he was born and bred in the Southern part of neighbouring Pattani not far from the Kelantan Border. So I told him that when we had the ceremony of handing over of the key to the newly upgraded Tuanku Tambusai Complex in 2002, there were some fellows who claimed to have some connection with the iconic hero, Fakeh Muhamad Saleh, our ancestor from Tambusai. But I told my uncle, let them claim whatever they wished as we had been plagued with impostors who claimed to be the fourth generation descendants of Fakeh Muhamad Saleh who by right should have been six feet underneath the ground. The most unfortunate part of this episode of impostors were how the Negri Sembilan Museum Board got themselves taken for a ride despite the fact that we had explained at length who were the true descendants of Tuanku Tambusai. But as fate had it, they are still being hoodwinked by these pretenders who perhaps had nothing better to do and slowly a few of them had already been called to meet their Creator, ALLAH ALMIGHTY. Now, my only wish is to see that the bastards who still are bent on these spurious claims will see their folly and seek forgiveness from us, the true descendants and refrain from repeating their unfounded claims. If they insist on holding on to their beliefs there's nothing much we can do, but the stupid people on the Museum Board should not entertain such people and strayed further from the truth. Biarkan Biarkan, biarkan Pak Pandir terjun dengan labu labunya, biarkan biarkan.