According to one of its founders, M

According to one of its founders, Masuri S.N., as cited by
17
Maman, the name ‘ASAS 50’ initially emerged when Sutan Takdir
Alisjahbana (STA) met with a number of Malay writers in Singapore
prior

to the formation of this association. When STA asked one of the members about the name of this would-be association,
the latter said that they were ‘Sasterawan Angkatan 1950’, following
Indonesia’s ‘Angkatan 1945’,
as they were impressed by the Indonesian

revolution and influenced by the works of the ‘Angkatan
1945’ (Li Chuan Siu 1975:23).
The fact that even in naming their organization these writers
followed the Indonesian model was no surprise, since most of them
had belonged to the Malayan Nationalist Party. Reprising the wartime
idea

of a Greater Indonesia, this party still envisioned independent

Malaya as a part of Indonesia. Therefore these writers
kept looking at Indonesia as their primary reference, while many of
them built personal links with their Indonesian counterparts. They
read literary works of Indonesian writers, while the mass media they
managed, such as the newsmagazine Persatuan, covered news from
and about Indonesia (Maman S. Mahayana 2001:92).
The way that Indonesia was seen as ‘Mecca’ by the writers of
ASAS 50 is, for instance, obvious in one column by a Malaysian
columnist Rustam A. Sani. In his obituary of Usman Awang, one
of the prominent activists of ASAS 50, Rustam writes that while
the [aristocratic] Malay elites were hegemonized by the colonial
education, those belonging to ASAS 50 were fascinated by the
dynamics of Western arts and culture through modern Indonesian
literature. Indonesian writers were experimenting with ideas and
expression while enhancing the Malay language (having been officially
named
Bahasa
Indonesia)
by
exploring
broader
references
of

ideas,
including
Western
ones.
Usman
and
his
fellow
Malay
writers

used
the
works
of
Indonesian
writers
as
a
sort
of
university,
through

which
they modernized the Malay literature.