There Can Only Be A ‘Pivotal’ Malaysian Nation

There Can Only Be A ‘Pivotal’ Malaysian Nation

By Farish A. Noor


With the UMNO General Assembly just around the corner, it is clear that
the race for leverage and pole position within the party has already
begun. UMNO being what it is – an ethno-nationalist party with a
political agenda based primarily on a race-based form of communitarian
politics – it would hardly be a surprise to us by now if some of the
more vocal leaders of the party were to play to the gallery yet again.
We have already been treated to the sordid spectacle of UMNO leaders
reaching for the keris and brandishing it in public for the sake of
making a statement. Likewise we have been reminded of where UMNO’s
true loyalties lie by the proclamations uttered by some of its leaders
on thorny issues such as the New Economic Policy (NEP), the privileged
status of the Malays, and the place of Malay identity in the
constellation of Malaysian politics.

Now, yet again, we have been reminded of the inherent sectarianism and
parochialism of the party thanks to the statements uttered by some of
its leaders, notably Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman, chief of UMNO Johor.
While delivering his policy speech in the state of Johor recently,
Datuk Ghani bluntly stated that there should be less talk of ‘bangsa
Malaysia’ (the Malaysian nation) as such talk would only lead to
confusion and political uncertainty. He insisted that the concept of
an abstract Malaysian nation would merely lead to a ‘mish-mashing’ of
the different racial identities and groupings in Malaysia, and that
there was no justification for some parties to call for the creation of
a Malaysian nation in the first place. Datuk Ghani’s qualifying remark
was one that seemed to sum up the mind-set of many an UMNO leader
today: “Even if the term bangsa Malaysia were to be used,” he argued,
“it must only be applied in the context of all the peoples of Malaysia,
and with the Malays as the pivotal race.”

Accompanying this remark was a train of essentialised notions about the
traits and characteristics of the Malay people, as well as ‘the Malay
way’ of doing things; which may presumably include not questioning the
status of the Malays as the ‘pivotal race’ of Malaysia.

At a time when the nation should be thinking of new ways of
re-imagining itself and its place in the world, it is sad – nay,
pathetic – that such narrow-mindedness should prevail among some of its
political elite. While the younger generation of New Malaysians are
looking for ways and means to bridge the divisions of race, ethnicity,
language and religion, the old guard are still harping on about the
good old days and the good old ways when this land was referred to as
‘Tanah Melayu’ (Land of the Malays). So once again we are brought back
to the homespun colonial fictions of the not-too-pleasant colonial past.

It is ironic, to say the least, that the very same party that claims
the right to wear the mantle of anti-colonialism would be the first to
reiterate the manifold contradictions of colonial historiography and
colonial anthropology and ethnology. Part and parcel of the British
colonial enterprise in Malaya (then later, Malaysia) was the systematic
re-writing of its history to privilege one ethnic-racial group over
others. By the mid-20th century when it became patently obvious to all
that the colonial enterprise was about to reach its agonizing climax,
Britain (like the other European colonial powers of the time) sought an
effective exit strategy from its colonies east of Suez; and in the
Malaysian case came up with the blueprint for what would eventually be
known as the inter-racial elite compromise between the elites of the
various ethnic-racial communities.

Yet was it ever the case that there was such a thing as a ‘Malay’ race
per se, understood in purely essentialist terms? If one were to
revisit the colonial census of the 19th century, it is clear that the
very idea of ‘Malayness’ was not only vague (a ‘mish-mash, as Datuk
Ghani might put it) but also far from essentialised.

It is clear, both from the colonial census and the historical records
of the many community-based associations that sprung up during that
period that the people of Malaya did not see themselves as fixed ethnic
blocs or racial groups. In fact up to the early 20th century the
category of ‘Malay’ was just one sub-category in a wider group of
ethnic identities. Alongside those who called themselves ‘Malay’ were
other groups summarily labeled as Javanese, Bugis, Makasarese,
Sumatrans (ranked as Minangs, Acehnese, Lampungs, and others), Jawi
Peranakans, Arab Peranakans, Indian Peranakans, Chinese Peranakans, and
so on. Nowhere was the concept of Malayness presented as a given,
static, essentialised fact. If anything, territorial loyalties were
paramount and the people of the land referred to themselves as
‘Johorese’, ‘Kelantanese’, ‘Kedahans’ first and foremost. One might
add here that the categories of ‘Chinese’ and ‘Indian’ were likewise
nowhere as simplified, as the communities that would eventually be
grouped under these general headings were then defined as Hokkiens,
Cantonese, Hakka, etc; and Punjabis, Bengalis, Tamils, Ceylonese, etc.

It was with the passage of time and the development of the colonial
state that the various communities were lumped together into neat and
homogenous blocs, conflating differences and reducing the communities
to essentialised categories like ‘Malay’, ‘Chinese’ and ‘Indian’. Seen
from this critical perspective, the invention of the ‘Malay race’ was
in fact a by-product of Western colonialism and imperialism in Malaysia!

Yet since 1957 this nation of ours has labored under the oppressive
fiction that there exists such a thing as a homogenous, fixed and
essentialised ‘Malay race’, which can only be defined artificially via
the legal instrument of a constitutional definition.

It is upon such instrumental fictions that the Malayan (and later
Malaysian) nation-state was built, though it has to be remembered that
once this elaborate political fiction is placed in a broader historical
context the Malaysian political experiment is seen as a relatively
short episode. For centuries the peoples who have lived in this land
have seen themselves as mixed, each being a multifarious nation and an
assembly of ‘races’ on his/her own. A cursory reading of the complex
biographies of the ‘great Malaysians’ of the past (before the very idea
of Malaya/Malaysia was even mooted) would show that most of them
recognized, and even valorized, their hybrid identities. Consider the
biography of Munshi Abdullah for instance, regarded as the father of
the Modern vernacular Malay novel, who was of mixed Peranakan heritage
himself. Likewise the same could be said of men like Syed Sheikh
al-Hadi, Sheikh Tahir Jalaluddin, Ibrahim Yaakob and others. All of
them were of mixed parentage and all of them were and remain true
Malaysians.

Yet today when the fundamental contradictions of racialised capitalism
in Malaysia are coming to the surface and when it has become clear that
the fiction of racial difference can no longer be sustained, it is
precisely the most sectarian, conservative communitarians in our midst
who clamor for a return to the politics of racial difference and ethnic
compartmentalism, solely for the sake of preserving the status quo.

How long can this fragile balance be maintained before the very
socio-cultural fabric of Malaysia rips itself asunder? Faced with the
realities of a globalizing world where parochialism of any form – be it
religious or ethnic-racial – would be detrimental to the health and
future of a nation-in-making, the falsehood that is at the heart of
Malaysia’s racialised political culture has to be exposed for what it is.

Ethno-nationalist politicians will undoubtedly find it hard to change
their spots and stop themselves from playing to the gallery. The
clarion call of ‘the Malays in danger’ rings sweet in the ears of those
conservative ethno-nationalists for whom the keris is a potent symbol
of power and hegemony. But Malaysian society today is more complex,
plural and hybrid than ever; and it is the complexity of Malaysia that
may well save it in the long run, opening up cultural and historical
bridges to other countries (not to mention the rising Asian economies
of India and China) in turn.

Those who call for the protection of the Malays as the ‘pivotal race’
of Malaysia fail to note these political realities and the historical
subtleties that render such ideological over-simplification useless and
futile. Yet in the weeks and months to come, as Malaysia heads slowly
towards a political crisis that seems to be on the cards for all, it is
imperative that we remind ourselves that the only thing that can still
keep this country together is the abstract idea of a universal
Malaysian citizenship, premised on the belief and conviction that there
is, and has always been, a complex and hybrid Malaysian nation after
all: despite what the history books and keris-wielding politicians may
tell you.

End.

Dr. Farish A Noor is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights
activist. Visit his site at www.othermalaysia.org