Who are the Mandailings

Our people originated from the south-western corner of the island of Sumatra. Their homeland is called tano rura Mandailing [the land and water of Mandailing]. Today it is known as the kabupaten of Mandailing-Natal, or the regency of Madina. The motto of the regency is Madina yang Madani [Civil Madina].

Our social and cultural markers include:
The Dalihan Na Tolu, the Mandailing social structure
The Urup Tulak-Tulak, the Mandailing script
The Namora-Natoras, the institution of Mandailing governance
The totem Sangkalon, a symbol of justice
The Gordang Sambilan (the nine great drums)
The Arbit Godang, the ceremonial shawl
The Bindu Matogu which represents the Mandailing's philosophy of life

Among our outstanding attributes are a tradition of consultative governance and an egalitarian society governed by customary law (adat), a clan system (marga) and genealogical tradition (tarombo) and our strong literary and historiography tradition. For centuries the Mandailings have migrated throughout the peninsula and Indonesian archipelago.

Famous Indonesian Mandailings include Tun Adam Malik (of the Batu Bara clan), the former Foreign Minister and vice-president; A. Haris Nasution, the great military leader and historian; Mochtar Lubis, the crusading journalist; Batara Lubis, the artist and Tudong Mulya Lubis, the human rights lawyer and activist. Famous Malaysian Mandailings include nationalist educationist, Aminuddin Baki (Lubis); Supreme Court Judge Tan Sri Hashim Yeop Sani (Rangkuti); former Inspector General of Police, Tun Hanif Omar (Nasution) and former Mentri Besar of Selangor, Dato' Harun Idris (Harahap).

Perhaps the Mandailing's biggest contribution to peace at the regional level was to help end the Malaysian-Indonesian Confrontation. The 'Konfrontasi' arose as a result of Sukarno's opposition to the formation of Malaysia, which the Indonesian's saw as a British-inspired polity. Two Mandailings - Indonesia's Foreign Minister Adam Malik and General Haris Nasution conspired to broker peace between the two neighbouring countries.

The families of Adam Malik and Haris Nasution hailed from the same village in the Mandailing homeland - Hutapungkut. However, Adam Malik himself was born in Chemor, Perak in Malaysia as his mother Siti Salamah was a Chemor woman. (1) Whenever he visited Malaysia, he would take the opportunity to visit Chemor.

General Haris Nasution's nephew, Mohd. Zain Mohd. Salleh, was also a son of Chemor. At the time of Konfrantasi, Haris was a general in the Indonesian army and his nephew was the chief of staff Malayan navy. (2) General Haris Nasution had flatly refused to go to war with Malaysia as he likened it as fighting his own relatives.

Indeed, Adam Malik felt that his main task as Indonesia's Foreign Minister was to end the Confrontation. He even challenged Sukarno over the matter. He achieved his objective when the two neighbouring countries agreed to end the Confrontation. After the peace treaty was signed in 1966, the first thing Adam Malik did was make a trip to Malaysia and visit Chemor to reassure his relatives. (3)

In spite of their of their enormous contributions to politics, society, music, literature and the press both in Indonesia and Malaysia, Mandailings continue to be culturally marginalized in Indonesia and Malaysia. Academic works have subsumed them under the categories of the Angkola, Batak and Malay. In Malaysia, racial politics and state-sponsored socio-economic engineering in the name of nation building, backed by the academia, have resulted in the acculturation of the Mandailings into the dominant Malay racial category. In Indonesia, the Mandailings have been lumped into the dominant Batak group since the Dutch colonial era. As a result, the basic human right of the Mandailing to define themselves has been overlooked by most Malaysian and Indonesian intellectuals who have accepted the state's discourse on ethnicity. Indeed,

In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten, in the human kingdom, define or be defined. (Thomas Szasz)