Wak Ketok and the quest for Malay identity in 1930s Malaya. Razan Rosman and Sarena Abdullah
Abstract
This article discusses Wak Ketok, the trademark character of the newspaper Utusan Zaman. We argue that Wak Ketok, through his various multifaceted appearances and disguises, played a significant role in the formation of Malay identity in 1930s Malaya. By consistently antagonizing Arab and Jawi Peranakan communities, and critiquing urban Malay lifestyle in Singapore, the character sought to delimit the boundaries of a Malay core ethnie as well as shape the mores of the urban Malay masses at the time. The character of Wak Ketok and his criticisms reflect a cosmopolitanism within the Malay population, particularly urban dwellers.
The authors would like to thank Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and USM’s RU(I) Grant (1001/PSENI/816285) for the funding that enabled the authors to conduct this research. All images are reproduced courtesy of Utusan Melayu (M) Berhad.
Summary
This article examines Wak Ketok, the trademark caricature character of Utusan Zaman, the weekly periodical of Utusan Melayu, and argues that the character played a significant role in the formation of Malay identity in 1930s Malaya. The authors focus on the character’s cosmopolitan persona—its chameleon-like disguises and its sustained critiques of Arab and Jawi Peranakan communities and urban Malay lifestyle in Singapore—as a vehicle through which editor Abdul Rahim Kajai articulated his concept of takrif Melayu, a definition of Malayness that was both ethnically expansive (encompassing Nusantara peoples) and selectively exclusive (deliberately omitting Arab and Jawi Peranakans). The central historical problem addressed is how Malay identity was negotiated from below through intra-ethnic contestation, rather than being imposed solely by colonial census categories or European racial taxonomies.
The analysis draws on the complete visual and textual corpus of Utusan Zaman’s first year of publication, pairing illustrations by the little-known cartoonist Ali Sanat with Kajai’s accompanying columns to trace how the character simultaneously delegitimized the religious and economic authority of Arab and Jawi Peranakans while constructing an ethnic basis for Malay political solidarity. The authors argue that Wak Ketok embodies a form of “rooted cosmopolitanism” in which Malay identity was built through the selective incorporation of cultural traits from across the archipelago, a process made possible by Kajai’s own experiences in Makkah, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore. The character’s Javanese appearance, his fluency in Middle Eastern and Western cultural references, and his critiques of urban modernity all reflect this cosmopolitan grounding, even as the column’s content pressed toward an ethnonationalist agenda.
Key Findings
- Utusan Melayu, established in 1939 and owned by Kesatuan Melayu Singapura (KMS), was the first newspaper in Malaya fully funded, managed, printed, and published by Malays, breaking a roughly 60-year monopoly of Arab and Jawi Peranakan publishing that had begun with Jawi Peranakan in 1876 (pp. 20, 30).
- The Wak Ketok column appeared in every issue of Utusan Zaman from November 1939 to 1941, with one to four illustrations per issue created by Ali Sanat and written by Kajai; no biographical records of Sanat survive beyond his identification as a supporter of Malay causes (p. 25).
- Kajai’s takrif Melayu explicitly included Ceylonese, Minangkabau, Javanese, Bugis, Madurese, and even non-Muslim Orang Asli groups (Sakai, Semang, Jakun, Pangan), while excluding Arab Peranakans (termed DKA) and Jawi Peranakans (termed DKK) from the Malay category (p. 29).
- In the “Seruan Penganjur Melayu” illustration (24 December 1939), Kajai cited that in 1938, 767,462 tons of rice worth $45,452,333 were imported and consumed in Malaya, using this figure to argue that agriculture offered Malays a path to economic self-sufficiency (p. 44).
- Kajai coined the mocking term takrif songkok to describe Arab and Jawi Peranakans who wore the Malay songkok cap when committing immoral acts (drinking, visiting cabarets, facing criminal charges) but switched to the tarbus in public gatherings to assert their non-Malay identity (pp. 31–32).
- The first issue of Utusan Zaman (5 November 1939) introduced the word karikatur to Malay readers, defining it as “a fictional picture inspired by thoughts or intended for jokes,” and explained that its opening illustration depicted Malaya as a cow being milked by all races while the Malay owner slept (pp. 21–22).
Conclusion
The authors conclude that Wak Ketok demonstrates the presence of genuine intra-ethnic contestation among the Malay intelligentsia in formulating Malay identity prior to World War II, signifying that these intellectuals possessed their own agency in constructing localized conceptions of race and nation rather than merely adopting Western frameworks uncritically. The character functions as a mirror of urban Malay experiences in 1930s Singapore, and its cosmopolitan persona reveals that the construction of takrif Melayu was a complex process of mediation—drawing on shared regional similarities while excluding specific communities—to generate the political will necessary for Malay economic and social advancement.
Context
- Primary sources: The article is based on the complete visual and textual corpus of Utusan Zaman (first year of publication), with all images reproduced courtesy of Utusan Melayu (M) Berhad.
- Historiographical contribution: Builds on Muliayadi Mahamood’s study of Malay editorial cartoon styles and Deborah Johnson’s micro-level analysis of Wak Ketok as a site of intra-ethnic identity contestation, expanding the latter by foregrounding the character’s cosmopolitan dimensions and the visual-textual interplay of the column.