Satire, Malay Identity, and National Heritage in Lat’s Malaysian Cartoon Stamps Postage, 2008

This paper presents the cultural significance of the Kartun Malaysia, Lat stamp series, which were released in 2008 by Pos Malaysia in celebration of the most popular cartoonist in the history of Malaysia Dato’ Lat. This series is based on everyday life, humor, and light satire which are characteristic of Malaysian society as opposed to the other traditional stamps which include legends, national heroes or historical events. Based on the iconography methodology developed by Panofsky, the semiotics developed by Barthes, and the theory of representation presented by Hall, the study will analyse the ways in which the stamps of Lat visually represent the Malay cultural identity, their social values, and the role in the Malay visual heritage.
The results reveal that the stamps represent relevant cultural elements including kampung childhood games, the authoritative schoolmaster, the rural to urban transition and the complications of the Malaysian everyday living. Lat highlights such values as simplicity, creativity, discipline, respect, and multicultural unity with the help of mild satire. His cartoon stamps are a written visual form of text that best entertains but also criticizes modernization and social change. The study also proposes that the stamps that Lat creates transform popular culture into a kind of national heritage that humor and satire can help retain the intangible cultural values and make Malaysia more united.
This paper concludes that the Kartun Malaysia, Lat series plays a vital role in the protection of Malay identity and culture memory and serves to popular cartoons as close to the national cultural heritage as possible. It highlights the importance of perceiving stamps as cultural artefacts that may link tradition, modernity and nationhood.

Lat, satire, Malay identity, postage stamps, cultural heritage

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