One definitive feature of Syed Hussein Alatas’ approach as a public intellectual was to look at the “absences” in society. The absence, whether material or intellectual in nature, reveals untapped potential for progress. It represents the unthought, and hence underdeveloped, aspects that may impact societal and human growth. Alatas’ notion of the absence was probably influenced by Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge. It informed his own identification and diagnosis of problems – an approach that made Alatas a critical and creative thinker.

Absence, as a heuristic device, was employed by Alatas in his short monograph discussing the importance of the library in the development of civilisation. Published posthumously by Malaysian imprint, The Biblio Press (2023), this short monograph titled Libraries and the Development of Civilization, systematically discusses the emergence of the library, philosophy of librarianship, the importance of the library to the development of discourses in various fields of knowledge, the effects of the absence or poor presence of libraries, and the link between libraries and sociological changes.

The connection between the library and human development lies in the fact that the library is a repository of humanity’s historical memory. It is this appreciation of history that makes progress possible. History holds lessons and tracks achievements that require humans to surpass in order to move forward as a civilisation. “Thus,” Alatas wrote, “the effect of the library on the development of civilization and human life is not only in the dissemination of existing knowledge but also in the generation of new knowledge and awareness, new attempts to rectify a situation, and a new striving to achieve what is significant for human life.”

Correspondingly, the absence of a good library will affect the development of thinking as well as inhibit our awareness of fundamental problems. To prove his point, Alatas lamented the lack of interest by many Southeast Asian governments – with the exception of Singapore – to develop a Southeast Asian library in their respective countries even 50-years post-independence.

A pity, given that despite all the effects of colonialism on the indigenous population, the Dutch at least had shown serious interest in developing a library. The first modern library built by them in Batavia (present-day Jakarta) had some 300,000 copies in its 1846 catalogue. This was later followed by the establishment of Balai Pustaka for the purpose of producing books for the people in Indonesian language along with its own printing press. Similar enthusiasm could not be said of the British in Malaya.

Due to the lack of the library culture in general, Alatas contended that “great effort has to be made to impress the leaders of society the significant role of books in the various sectors of living.” When leaders are not interested in the intellectual pursuit, there will be no serious effort to establish and develop a good library for the people. As a result, we could say that there will be a lethargy in the thinking of the population: views are simply shaped by limited horizons inherited from the past while not exposed to new ideas, hindering a“mental revolution” that enables societies to develop, grow and progress.

It will not be wrong to say that there is a connection between great civilisations and the presence of great libraries. Think of Baitul Hikmah (House of Wisdom) in the 8th century, which was the intellectual centre of Baghdad at its height as a leading city of the Islamic world. Its function as a repository of rare works of the ancient world allowed scholars and scientists to develop a wide range of knowledge of which the modern world has inherited, developed and thus benefitted from. Similarly, Alexandria was known as the capital city of knowledge and learning due to the presence of the Great Library, where important scholars of the Greco-Roman world had worked at during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE. Today, we could not imagine the reservoir of knowledge past and present without reference to the British Library in the UK and the Library of Congress in the US – two of the world’s largest libraries today.

Therefore, we could say that the absence of good libraries in any society is a sign of backwardness. This need not be in the form of public libraries. One should also think of how much the home library is an indicator of one’s intellectual interest, respect for knowledge and the reading habit. When Shaykh Rifa’at al-Tahtawi, a young Azhari cleric, travelled to Paris in the early 19th century, he was impressed with the presence of personal libraries in every Parisian home – both rich and poor, which indicated the importance they attached to reading. In his travel accounts titled Takhlis al-‘ibriz fi takhlis Bariz (The Extrication of Gold in Summarizing Paris), he described the impressive presence of bookstores and libraries, which led him to conclude: “The interest shown by the French in knowledge is their most praiseworthy characteristic.”

If we lament the lack of critical knowledge production and the absence of an intellectual culture in our midst, it is time we start asking why. Alatas, in his short monograph, points to the absence of good libraries. The indicator of “good” here is not simply in terms of physical and technological infrastructures. It is also about the curation of books – whether in physical or digital formats – that can spark the intellectual energy of readers. This is also connected to the wider book culture and industry, and the presence of writers and other knowledge producers congregating for intellectual dialogues and discussions. These may all converge in the library as a repository of information, data and memory. To neglect the development of the library in society is therefore a mark of degeneration, which will imperil all.