(September 11): People can go mad without culture, says Eddin Khoo, adding culture anchors people and gives them a sense of balance.

The Petaling Jaya-born journalist-turned-culture expert and founder of cultural centre Pusaka has been working to preserve the nation's traditional Malay culture and traditions such as wayang kulit, main puteri, Mak Yong and kuda kepang. These have been deemed un-Islamic by the religious authorities due to their ritualistic traditions.

"Culture and sanity go together, any society that has no culture has no sense of self, and any society that has no sense of self has no soul and hence is not sane," Khoo told The Malaysian Insider.

His journey into culture started innocently enough.

As an arts and cultural journalist with Sunday Star in the early 1990s, he became bored with KL's arts scene and went to Kelantan to document the lives of experts and artists who have been performing traditional arts for generations.

It was a time when Islamisation was on the rise in the east coast state, where the PAS state government had banned the performances of wayang kulit.

Khoo still disagrees with the ban.

The main story of wayang kulit is the Indian epic, The Ramayana, which Khoo insists is not religious but is literary in nature, The story, which has travelled from India to Malaysia, has now become uniquely Malay.

"Just because it has its origins in something Indian, we just cast it aside and say this is illegitimate, not Malay and has no place in Malay life today. How can that be? It is the expression of Malay imagination and it expresses Malay sensibilities, asthetics and their belief systems," he added.

What followed in the ensuring years was a lifelong interest and passion in the preservation of these rich traditions.

"Two things got me interested: the depth of the traditions itself and the very nature of the Malays. They are incredibly cosmopolitan people.

“In Kelantan where it is deemed to be most Malay or most insular, I didn't find that at all, instead I found a culture of total openness and acceptance," he said.

It also began to draw his attention to the wider implications of culture, which is not only a matter of arts, singing or dancing, but the intricate ties that involve politics, construction of society and notions of identity.

I have known no other country and I don't regard Malay culture as alien. To me, it is my culture. If you look at Malay culture, it contains Indian epics and Chinese-style singing and usage of gongs which are Chinese in origin. – Eddin Khoo.

This led to his work as poet, lecturer (he teaches Cultural Formation in University Malaya), writer, translator and independent art curator – roles which are all aimed at provoking the intellect.

"How do we approach a culture and history of myths? We can't just sweep it aside and say its rubbish and you shouldn't believe them, and yet we can't take it as if it’s the truth either.

“So to me, a lot of my work is to be interrogative, to really begin to rethink lots of things, our culture, history and our approach to our entire lives," he said.

Eddin, 45, is the eldest son of renowned historian Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dr Khoo Kay Kim, who helped draft the Rukun Negara after the May 13 racial riots in 1969, and a Tamil mother. He was born five months and a day after the bloody incident.

He describes his father, a Peranakan, as a nationalist and a nation builder, and because of his mixed heritage, he finds the notion of racial purity baffling.

His interest in Malay culture and traditions might bemuse many people but to Eddin, who is a Hindu, it is "his culture".

"I have known no other country and I don't regard Malay culture as alien. To me, it is my culture. If you look at Malay culture, it contains Indian epics and Chinese-style singing and usage of gongs which are Chinese in origin.

“So what is this culture of separatism? I don't understand it," said the Newcastle University graduate.

Eddin also studied Islamic Thought and Philosophy, and later did a Masters in Anthropology at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

When it comes to the lack of cultural appreciation in Malaysian society, and particularly cultural roots that stem from other non-Malay traditions, Khoo doesn’t mince his words.

Malaysian society, he says, has become "bodoh sombong" (stupid arrogance), is prone to the “jaguh kampung” (village champion) mindset, sanctimonious and “too clever” for its own good because it doesn’t understand history and the complexity of culture.

"We are going very much backwards, we got no hold on ourselves, meaning, we do not know who we are,” he laments.

What he sees instead is a culture of fear that has stopped Malaysians from being vocal and which makes people afraid to rock the boat.

And if Malaysians lose their multi-layered culture and history, that’s when Khoo believes people will have really gone crazy.

"Being part of a nation is to engage in a sustained and consistent quarrel. People must be able to quarrel, not fight, but no, we do not want to encourage such things because we want machine automations instead," he said.