12 January 2009

SilatMelayu.Com 2.0

Assalamualaikum and salam hormat,

Welcome to SMC 2.0. For those who have emailed me asking why we never got around to upgrading the website, thank you for the concern.

The obvious question for many, is why have SMC when we already have Silat.TV? Well, to be fair, SMC started first, but never really got off the ground. The original idea for SMC was for it to be a website gathering together the best information about silat online promoting silat from a Malaysian perspective.

Since then, a lot of blogs have appeared with good content on different Malaysian styles, driven by members of those styles. We feel that SMC's role in that area has diminished slightly. To avoid competition with these sites, we have decided to go the way of Facebook, MySpace and of course, Silat.TV, social networking.

Thus, SMC now stands for Silat Melayu Community, hopefully a welcome change to all. What's different between SMC and Silat.TV? We share some of the same members, but SMC aims to have a more religious and cultural approach where we explain the role that Islam and the Melayu culture plays in defining silat, as most Malaysian pesilat already acknowledge.

We are not out to proselytize, but we do want to present a more accurate picture of silat as we've inherited it, not nominally how it's being practised. As some can already witness, modern living has forced silat to abandon quite a bit of its roots, producing simply fighters instead of champions of right.

Some might disagree with our views, but this is what we intend for the site. You are welcome to stay and see what we truly mean by this. Thus, all content that we put up (not the members) will tend to portray a more cultural angle. We will have content on silat music, dress, adat and adab, kebatinan, medicine, etc as long as we can find authentic sources.

So, do enjoy your stay here and email me at webmaster@silatmelayu.com if you have ANY comments for improvement.

Sincerely,
Mohd Nadzrin Wahab
SMC Webmaster

Original Article by Mohd Nadzrin Wahab

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