Dr Syed Husin Ali was a professor of Anthropology and Sociology with the University of Malaya for 28 years prior to becoming a politician. He has an interest in literature and has written many books on sociological and historical matters. He has even written articles and introduction to a compilation of books to the works of authors such as Dato’ Dr Usman Awang.
He expressed that he is very interested in reading the stories that will be submitted by the elderly people. Being part of the age group himself, he said that he wanted to be able to look into what they are thinking about. He would also like to see what are the themes that these writers will choose to show in the stories. “I am just about that”. The appeal of being able look into the mind of these people is one of the driving factor behind why he choose to take part as a judge for the Jasmina Awards.
Dr Syed Husin Ali believes that just looking at the response towards the Jasmina Awards so far, there seem to be a lot of enthusiasm among the writers. There are also some already established writers who are in their golden years as well showing a very strong sense of enthusiasm for this platform. “If there are a good number of short stories entering the competition and they are of a high merit, then I think people will be interested. To a certain extent may have some impact and add additional value to literature in Malaysia”.
When asked what he looks for from the submissions, he mentions that aside from the artistic merit of the stories, he would be looking into the content of the story and the themes that are presented. “Is it the concern of the people at large or just concerns about ideas or is it just emotions”.
Lastly, he shares that there are very little channels provided to the elderly for expression of ideas through literary writings. Through platforms like the Jasmina Awards, people will be able to see the difference between the thinking and the choices of themes of older writers and how it would compare with the younger writers. He notes that there are lees writers now who are emerging from society and very few of these writers are from the older age group. “This is one way to encourage them and to encourage more writing among them”.