Weapons of the Weak- Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance

by James C Scott

  RITUALS OF COMPASSION AND SOCIAL CONTROL

  In Sedaka, as in any peasant society, there is a large variety of ritual ties that lie beyond immediate relations of production and serve both to create and to signify the existence of a community-one that is more than just an aggregation of producers. The particular ritual ties that involve gifts and exchanges between rich and poor are sensitive barometers of the vicissitudes of class relations. While they are not, by any means, connected to production relations in some crude mechanical fashion, they are nonetheless sensitive to changes in the realm of production. Using these gifts and exchanges as a valuable window on the transformation of class relations, it will become apparent that, as the poor have become increasingly marginal to the growing of paddy, so have they become increasingly marginal to the ritual life of the village. There have traditionally been three major forms of ritual gift giving joining the rich and poor in Sedaka. They include what villagers call the zakat peribadi, or “private” Muslim tithe, sedekah, or derma gifts, and kenduri, or ritual feasts to which other villagers are invited. All are either required or at least sanctioned by Muslim law as it is understood in the village. After a brief explanation of each form, I will examine how each has changed and how these changed have been experienced by classes in the village.

  The zakat peribadi is to be distinguished from what most peasants call the zakat raja, the sultan’s or government’s zakat. The latter is the “official” zakat, owed by all but the very smallest cultivators, collected in paddy by an appointed local official (the amil, in this case Basir), and paid to Kedah’s Department of Religious Affairs. Although the proceeds are devoted to specified works of Islamic charity, the tithe is generally resented-and widely evaded-by cultivators for [Page 170] its perceived inequities.68 Zakat peribadi, which is actually a form of religious charity and not a tax as the term zakat implies, is viewed in a more favorable light because it is not compulsory and because the beneficiaries are local, often within Sedaka itself. A part of this zakat peribadi is actually collected by the amil at the same time the zakat raja is collected and is designated by the giver, according to his or her wishes, as a contribution to the mosque (zakat mesjid) in nearby Kepala Batas, to the village hall, which functions as prayer house, religious school room, and meeting place (zakat madrasah), and/or to the imam of the mosque. Private donations are also given personally to the mosque caretaker (Tok Siak) and to the popular religious teacher Lebai Sabrani, whose religious classes include many local children. Collectively, this portion of zakat peribadi might be termed gifts for religious services, and it comprises roughly two-thirds of all zakat peribadi. The remainder is given to other individuals, including especially poorer relatives, neighbors, friends, and wage workers who have helped with the planting and harvesting.69

  It is this last category alone that might be called redistributive. We are by no means, however, dealing with vast quantities of paddy; the total zakatperibadi given out by villagers amounts to something like one hundred and ten gunny sacks or less than 2.5 percent of an average village harvest.70 Of that amount, the potentially redistributive share is not more than forty gunny sacks, or less than 1 percent of the harvest. Even if we were to add the small voluntary [Page 171] donations of milled paddy made to needy villagers just before Ramadan (a kind of fitrah peribadi), the total would not be appreciably greater.

  The zakat is, of course, one of the five pillars of Islam-a sacred obligation. The religious and social reasoning behind it is best illustrated by the pamphlet distributed by the State Religious Council of Kedah.71 After noting that Islam does not discourage the faithful from becoming rich, it asserts that the rich have an obligation to share a portion of their wealth with those who are poor and without property, and it quotes an injunction from the Koran: “And those who store up gold and silver and do not follow the path of Allah, let them know with the sharpest torment.”72 The purpose of the zakat, it continues, is not only to discourage stinginess (sifat-sifat bakhil) but to promote social harmony among the rich and the poor: “To cleanse those who receive zakat of jealousy and hatred toward the owners of property (tuan-tuan harta). To harmonize (merapatkan) the social relation between the haves (golongan berada) and the have-nots.” The zakat is accepted by villagers in much the same spirit. They typically say that they give zakat peribadi in order to “cleanse [from sin] (cuci) their property.”

  The degree to which property is cleansed by voluntary zakat gifts varies enormously in the village. A few substantial property owners are quite generous with zakat peribadi, while others give almost nothing. Thus, Abdul Rahman gives over eight gunny sacks of paddy to relatives, workers, and religious officials, while Haji Kadir gives less than one sack. A small number of quite modest peasants give prodigiously, considering their means. Bakri bin Haji Wahab, a modest tenant on 4 relong, gives six gunny sacks-one each-to the families of those who have transplanted or harvested for him, and Rosni, a wage worker and tenant herself, gives away six gunny sacks divided between religious officials, poorer relatives, and a villager who worked for her (Pak Yah).73 Others give nothing.

  The amount of grain that poor villagers receive as zakat depends on their reputation, how good the paddy crop has been, and how much they have worked in a particular season. Thus Pak Yah and Mansur each received three or four gunny sacks of paddy after the irrigated season harvest of 1979, during which there was more manual work available than usual, owing to flooding. In each case, they received zakat only from those for whom they had threshed but not from all of them. Hamzah, the “zakat champ,” does somewhat better, but a portion of the grain he is given is in recognition of his services as caretaker of the village prayer house (surau). Impoverished villagers who do not enjoy a good reputation fare much worse, even when they thresh regularly; Taib and Dullah [Page 172] are lucky to get more than a single gunny sack of paddy. What is notable here is that when the poor receive zakat it is almost entirely from their employers and its payment is rather carefully calculated according to the respectability of the recipient. It functions not only to “cleanse property” but also to promote labor control and social conformity.

  Sedekah and derma are almost interchangeable as forms of alms or contributions. Unlike zakat, sedekah is not tied to the harvest, is not always paid in paddy, is as often requested by the needy as simply given unasked, and is almost exclusively given to the poor. Derma differs only in that it is more often a collection made house-to-house for a charitable purpose—commonly to help a poor family pay funeral expenses, as in the case of Razak’s daughter.74 Both sedekah and derma are seen as “good works” in the context of Islam for which the benefactor, if of pure heart, will be rewarded. In the village context, at least, such gifts are small—for example, enough milled rice (beras) for a few meals.

  The third major form of what might be considered “charity” are the kenduri, or feasts that constitute the basis of much of the village’s ritual life. Unlike zakat or sedekah, these are collective rituals marked by both prayer and a communal meal the sponsoring family provides to invited guests.75 Kenduris may be held for a host of reasons, but the most common, roughly in order of frequency and importance, are: marriage feasts (kenduri perkhawinan, kenduri bersanding, kenduri emas khawin); feasts to pray for the dead, which often double as feasts to celebrate some good fortune such as a son passing his exams (kenduri kesyukuran, kenduri arwah); circumcision feasts (kenduri berkhatan, kenduri masuk Jawi); pregnancy feasts (kenduri mandi tian); cradle feasts (kenduri berendul, kenduri buaian); infant hair-cutting feasts (kenduri cukur rambut); house-moving feasts (kenduri usung rumah); new house feasts (kenduri naik rumah baru); and feasts for a fulfilled wish-often for a child of the sex desired (kenduri berniat). Both rich and poor sponsor kenduri, but the rich are naturally expected to sponsor them more often, more lavishly, and for a larger number of guests. Expenses, especially for sponsors of modest means, are met partly by donations in kind or cash by guests, although [Page 173] poorer guests may avoid this by helping wit
h the food preparation.76 For the village poor, kenduri are virtually the only occasions when meat is eaten and, as Mansur says, the poor are “led” to feasts by the smell of meat cooking. Ritual feasts of this kind are the traditional means by which the well-to-do validate their status by conspicuous consumption in which their friends, neighbors, relatives, and often the entire village are invited to share.

  When any form of charity is discussed by villagers, there is virtual unanimity for the view that, as a species of social relations, it has declined precipitously. Even the well-to-do farmers are in accord on this point, although many of them hasten to exclude themselves individually from the charge while pointing their finger at those who are even better-off. The village headman, Haji Jaafar, says the decline in charity began with double-cropping. Abdul Rahman, a substantial landowner who is renowned for his generosity, notes that even zakat peribadi is rarely given today and that sedekah hardly exists at all. The rich would rather, he says, sell their paddy and invest the cash in buying or renting in more land. Mat Isa, a fairly well-off tenant, gives voice to the general consensus when he claims, “The rich are arrogant (sombong); they don’t take [the plight of] the poor seriously; [they’re] cheap with sedekah, and [they’re] reluctant to give it.”77 The village poor often put the facts bluntly. In the words of Rokiah, “The rich don’t give anything to the poor.”

  For kenduri, there is also a consensus, albeit one with a slight wrinkle. Initially, the new profits of double-cropping in 1972 unleashed a memorable burst of feast giving that was unprecedented in Sedaka. Pak Haji Kadir, who then owned a battery-operated loudspeaker, can remember renting it out over seventy times in little over a year for kenduri. Nearly everyone, including small tenants and landless laborers, took advantage of their new-found prosperity to celebrate rituals they could not have afforded earlier. The kenduri of the poorer villagers were necessarily more modest, but even they were able, for a time at least, to emulate the ritual decencies that help to define citizenship in this small community.

  After this short period of euphoria, both the frequency and scale of feasts has, by all accounts, been sharply reduced. Few villagers would find much to disagree with in Kamil’s account of what has happened since then. “Before,” he claims, “kenduri were big, even to the point of leasing out 10 relong for a few years [to cover expenses].” “Now,” he says, “people are a bit more clever”; they figure [Page 174] out exactly how many people are coming, what they will contribute, and how much of the outlay will be recovered. “Then, people didn’t look to make a profit; they didn’t want a shabby kenduri, it had to be a cow, not chickens.” In those days, people would ridicule a Haji who skimped on a feast, saying “‘Hey, Haji so-and-so is giving chicken kenduri,’ and he would be shamed.” “Today it happens all the time.” Tok Kasim agrees, as he describes kenduri that lasted two nights and at which two cows were slaughtered.78 Today, he says, they only last an afternoon and there is only chicken. The reason for the curtailing of ritual feasts by poor peasants is obvious; since at least 1976, their income has become more precarious. For richer peasants, the decline in the quality and number of kenduri is more a question of attitude than of resources. Most villagers would agree with Dullah’s explanation that “The rich cut corners; they don’t want to waste money.”79

  The affluent farmers in Sedaka are by no means tongue-tied when it comes to explaining why so little zakat peribadi or sedekah is given to the poor. They make, in effect, three arguments, any one of which would be sufficient to justify their position. The first is nearly a point of law, inasmuch as the nonhandicapped, working poor do not fall into any one of the eight categories of recipients who, according to Islamic regulations, are eligible to receive zakat gifts. Kamil takes the position that the government, since it established the state zakat system a decade or so ago, does not approve of zakat peribadi outside official channels. The implication is that private gifts of this kind are not only wrong but possibly illegal now.

  A second argument, typically thrown in for good measure, is that there is virtually no one in the village who is truly in need of charity. Thus Haji Salim, the richest man in the immediate vicinity, asks rhetorically, “Why give zakat to those who are hard up? They have land, they grow paddy like us.” Here, the appeal is to a kind of conceptual equality between all those who cultivate rice. We are, he implies, all on basically the same footing here and hence there is no need for zakat or sedekah. It is true, of course, that most of the poor in Sedaka do own or rent rice land, however lilliputian its size; that fact allows Haji Salim to make something of an abstraction of the difference between those who rent 1 relong and those who own 20. Another rich villager, Lebai Pendek, avails himself of the same argument and adds that, since those who thresh his [Page 175] paddy are paid and usually have some land of their own, any further gifts would be “too much” (terlampau). If one accepts his logic, then it becomes pertinent to wonder why the practice of giving zakat peribadi to wage laborers was so widespread until at least 1975. The anomaly, I believe, is resolved by considering zakat peribadi as, in part, a system of labor control that was necessary when harvest labor was scarce but is no longer required now that combine-harvesters are easily available. Mat “halus,” a landless laborer, captures what has occurred in precisely these terms: “The well-off gave out zakat peribadi so that they could call forth the work (panggil kerja). Poor people went everywhere. They called and we went. Now we go even without zakat peribadi because we need the work.” It is certainly possible that wealthy villagers always considered the zakat given to harvest workers as an illegitimate imposition, perhaps even as a form of labor blackmail. The difference may be that now, thanks to the combine, they are able to make their opposition to zakat peribadi stick.

  The third and last line of defense against zakat to harvest workers is one that is familiar by now-the claim that many, if not most, of the village poor are not fitting objects for charity. Thus Haji Salim asks, “Why should we give zakat without good reason to people who don’t want to work?” He then illustrates the improvidence of the poor by saying that someone who got zakat last year sold the paddy to buy an expensive (M$35) pair of shoes. “He wears fancier [shoes] than the well-off.”80 Prosperous villagers invariably mention the ever serviceable Razak and other poor villagers whom they consider more or less disreputable (for example, Dullah, Midon, Taib, Mat “halus”) to explain the decline in zakat and sedakah. The charges include lying (bohong), cheating (tipu), and laziness (segan). To the extent that this category begins to include most of the village poor the problem of charity is thus solved at one stroke. Giving help to such people, they imply, would only encourage such behavior. And here too we can see that the practice of zakat peribadi serves the purpose of social control as well as that of labor control. The rich put the poor on notice that only those who conform closely to their standard of correct conduct are eligible for their largesse. The only notable exception to this pattern is when death intervenes and even the poorest villager is accorded the minimal decencies.81

  As for kenduri, there are still a few well-off villagers who have a reputation for not scrimping. Abdul Rahman and the headman, Haji Jaafar, in particular, rarely let a season go by without a sizable kenduri to which all the village is invited. Other substantial villagers typically admit, sometimes with a trace of embarrassment, that they have become more clever (bijak, cerdik) about feasts to [Page 176] avoid wasting their money. It is a rare landowner who, like Haji Nayan, rejects the custom altogether and says, “Stupid people give kenduris.”

  The potential beneficiaries of zakat gifts, alms, and feasts have, as one would imagine, a quite different view. There is, of course, the lament for the loss of income they and their families have suffered; each of them can recount exactly what they have lost in grain and from whom. But that is by no means the whole story. There is also anger and bitterness made all the more galling by the fact that their losses have come at a time when prosperous villagers have been reaping the profits of double-
cropping. The blame, as usual, is personalized; it is laid at the door of the rich, whose desire for further profit has led them to repudiate their obligations to their poorer neighbors. When the poor say, as they frequently do, that the rich are becoming stingier, it is above all the refusal of charity they have in mind. The account given by Sukur would be familiar to the other poor peasants in Sedaka. He remembers when zakatperibadi was given immediately after the threshing to all those who had worked. Now, he says, the paddy is all sold and loaded directly onto the trucks bound for the rice mill. The employer then has little grain-the traditional currency of charity-in storage and will contend that his cash has gone to pay off debts. This ploy allows him to plead poverty when in fact, Sukur explains, the rightful zakat (zakat betul) for 10 relong would be enough (fifteen gunny sacks) to take care of many village poor.

  There is also the humiliation of asking for sedekah, and occasionally for zakat, and being refused-an experience that is far more common today. Hamzah, one of the more “reputable” poor, speaks with more feeling about this humiliation than about the gain he is denied. Before the harvest last season, when work was scarce and his family had nearly run out of rice and cash, he asked some of his usual employers for loans of rice as an advance on future wages. The results were meager. “I felt embarrassed asking friends [for help]. It’s a pity; it reaches the point where I have to go everyday to ask. I’m ashamed.”82 When his mother died, he had to ask for help with funeral expenses. Rokiah, with few resources of her own, gave him M$150 immediately but Haji Kadir, the richest man in Sedaka, for whom he often worked, gave him nothing. “I went to ask Haji Kadir; he didn’t give [anything}; I knew he wouldn’t.” As is usual in these cases, the refusal was not a blunt rejection but a cold shoulder-silence (sengap). Later in the year I listened to Hamzah grumble to a friend about being shortchanged on wages by Haji Kadir. He had helped fill and sew gunny sacks with paddy disgorged from the combine-harvester, for which he expected a wage of 50¢ a gunny or M$25 for the fifty gunny sacks he had done. He was given only M$5. When I asked whether he complained (merungut), he explained, “Poor people can’t [complain]. When I’m sick or need work, I may have to ask him again. I am angry in my heart.” Here then is the bitterness, the swallowed bile, [Page 177] of a man who has decided to conduct himself according to the rules imposed by the rich-to be available, discreet, and deferential, unlike his brother Razak and unlike others of the poor who rarely ask for help.