Assalamualaikum,
I just come here to drop by my thoughts after finished watching the first 30 minutes of a movie which is a writing piece of Buya Hamka, Tenggelamnya Kapal van der Wijck. I actually do not really prefer to watch love story but I don't know why somehow I decided to watch it today as a gift to myself after I have spent my day doing my writing session for masters.
So here's what I feel and want to write;
The scene that got me really mad is when the Ninik Mamak, a group of selected important and respected men in their big family or their suku/tribe, held a meeting to discuss on the matter of Hayati and her marriage proposals. So two marriage proposals came to Hayati. The first one is from Aziz, a modern westernised guy with crystal clear of full-blood Minang lineage who happen to like Hayati due to her beauty seen by him when she came to his house during the horse racing event (she happened to be a friend of his sister, Khadijah who offered Hayati to stay at her house during the event. Hayati came to Padang Panjang with the intention to meet Zainuddin, his true love, at the racing event cause they are separated at distant due to her Ninik Mamak dislike of Zainuddin’s mix-blood lineage) and the second one is Zainuddin, a kind-hearted, islamic and decent guy who loves Hayati wholeheartedly, fell in love with her when he came to Hayati’s hometown to learn about Islam but got discriminated by all the village people who are Minangkabau descendants due to his non-full or partially Minangkabau.
I got really mad listening to these respected dominant male members who felt that they did a really good and important job of discussing what’s the best for their tribe members by upholding their value towards their adat really high that actually lowering down their priority for religion. They care too much about one’s bloodline that they could decide the best person is to get married with Hayati is the westernised, unislamic Aziz over this decent and faithful Zainuddin. They also seen to be not really cared about Hayati’s wellbeing and opinion as they only wants Hayati to follow their dictatorial decision. They did ask Hayati of what she felt after they came out with their decision. Hayati could only cry listening to it and at the same time, they furthered their question to Hayati to reveal of what she thinks about the decision. Since Hayati could only cry and did not utter any word, they kept on pushing Hayati to speak so that they could only leave the place of meeting and have dinner. They asked her not to get her consent but only to fulfil the ritual/procedure for asking. Just to follow the protocol/adat. They do not really care about Hayati’s feeling. They only care about their pride, ego and ‘face value’ cause they cannot stand of people mocking them for having an imperfect-lineage member in their family. Their heritage is somehow stained or distorted if that happens. I mean, come on, if they really cared about Hayati, just by seeing her crying, you could easily understand that she does not want to get married to Aziz.
One more interesting scene is when they (the Ninik Mamak) were having ‘the discussion’, a young member of the meeting members voiced out his opinion that it is not a good practice to lower down people just because of his lineage status. However, he was severely objected with a high rise voice by the leader tribe who happened to be Hayati’s father that this young guy do not know what he is talking about and it is a wrong statement. He, the leader, knows much better than the young guy. Shouted by the elder member, the young guy straightly shut off his mouth. So, we can see here of how arrogant and egoistic are the elder alpha members of the family/tribe. They do not listen to their young members’ view. They do not spare any thought on listening to the young generation.
