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The search for a Malaysian
race
By Ioannis Gatsiounis
KUALA LUMPUR - From one
vantage point, Malaysia is a shining example of racial and
religious harmony in the post-colonial age. It has
met the basic needs of its majority Muslim-Malays
and its substantial Indian and Chinese minorities, not
to mention myriad native peoples in the
country's eastern regions, to the extent that there
has been no major racial incident in
Malaysia since the May 1969 riots, in which hundreds
of Malays and Chinese were killed.
Seen another way, however, the social construct of
race pervades the national consciousness at
almost every turn. All political parties, for
instance, are race-based and have been known to use race
to advance their own interests. Many schools
are segregated; most Malay students choose to
attend national or, increasingly, Islamic schools.
Some 90% of Chinese primary and secondary
students attend private, Chinese-run schools, according to Michael
Yeoh, chief executive of the Asian Strategy &
Leadership Institute. Pent- up mistrust,
resentment and condescension are a part of daily
life here.
In the end, however, acceptance
has always prevailed; an acknowledgement by most
Malaysians that while the racial situation is far
from perfect, there is much to be grateful for.
Theirs is a stable, fast-developing country. All
Malaysia can take a little pride in that.
Unfortunately, this "success" has not been
matched by a collective and concerted effort to
improve the "harmony" here - not in the
government, not among the rakyat
(citizens); in large part, the government censures
and the public dutifully avoids substantive
exploration of the matter.
"There has been
a self-satisfaction with the current situation and
laziness to deal with certain problems and
conflicts," said Sumit Mandal, a historian with
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
The
authoritarian government, while flexible in its
effort to accommodate, hasn't strayed much from
its original post-riot social contract, the New
Economic Policy (NEP), an affirmative-action
program intended to help the Malays and other
Bumiputeras (sons of the soil) catch up
economically with the capitalist-oriented Chinese.
The policy and its offshoots have played a crucial
role in sustaining harmony in Malaysia. But they
have been equally controversial and, say some
analysts, a source of increased resentment.
This can be better understood by
considering what the NEP collectively stood for
during its implementation in 1971: a compromise.
It was widely thought that Malay economic progress
would be matched by political gains for the
Chinese and other minorities. But it hasn't worked
out that way. Many minorities claim their
political influence has waned, and thus too has
optimism about the future of their communities:
their outlook is built now less on hope and more
on predictability.
"From a [non-Malay]
perspective, there has developed a weary
acceptance of the way things are," said Ibrahim
Suffian of the Merdeka Center for Opinion
Research.
Malay economic advance has been
matched not by an increase in power-sharing but by
a consolidation of Malay political power. The
United Malays National Organization (UMNO) heads a
multi-racial coalition known as the National Front
(Barisan National or BN), but the leading Chinese
party's role has weakened in recent years. Samy
Vellu, head of the Malaysian Indian Congress,
Malaysia's largest Indian party, is widely thought
to be a token of UMNO - and "more threatened by
smart Indians than inclined to help them", as one
young Indian businessman put it.
Meanwhile, the Malay population, currently
at 58%, is growing, while the populations of
Chinese (27%), Indians (8%) and other minorities
are shrinking proportionately. Previous hopes of
gaining equal citizenship have become a distant
dream for many.
Potential unrest, however,
has been tempered in no small part by the economic
prospects available to Malaysians of all
ethnicities - despite occasional grumblings of
"institutionalized inequality".
Gross domestic product looks
primed to exceed 7% for 2004.
Average household
income is $9,000, higher than any country in
the region save Singapore. Unemployment is at
3.5%. Poverty has been reduced from 49% at the
NEP's outset to 7% today. The country is the
world's largest producer of palm oil, pepper and
rubber, and is a destination for people from
across the continent.
Thus, most
Malaysians count themselves lucky, and those who
don't are often reminded they should. In The
Chinese Dilemma, a provocatively eloquent book
that challenges conventional Chinese and other
minorities' perceptions of themselves as
second-class citizens here, Malaysian businessman
Ye Lin-Sheng writes, "If the Malays had come to
occupy India and China in a similar manner, how do
you imagine the Indians and Chinese would feel?
How would they have responded to these intruders?
What would they have done? ... I also look at the
lot of Chinese and Indian migrants to other
countries and that of those who had stayed home.
This is enough to make me feel thankful that I am
[in Malaysia] and not there."
But this
logic may be finding fewer takers. Disgruntled
Malaysians with the means have been known to
relocate overseas. Even the government lately has
expressed concern about its "best and brightest"
not returning after being educated abroad, in what
has been tagged the "brain drain". It is estimated
that 30,000 Malaysian graduates work overseas.
Many of them are Chinese.
Khoo Kay Peng of
the Sedar Institute, an independent think-tank,
links this trend to the government's race-based
policies. "If you don't create equal opportunity
through a meritocracy, in the private sectors,
high-quality people will continue to move away."
Government leaders know the race-based
policies are beginning to pose problems. So
perhaps the question that now needs asking is how
long will the Malays need assistance? The NEP was
designed to run 20 years, but it has been extended
to the present in various incarnations.
Prime Minister Abdullah
Badawi warned at last year's UMNO annual assembly
that Malays need to abandon their "crutches" or
risk ending up in wheelchairs. But Abdullah was
met with strong resistance within UMNO. (See Abdullah stirs a hornets'
nest
,
October 2,
04).
Abdullah has set up a National Unity
Council to better unite the races, but few are
holding their breath. He has shown a pension in
his first 15 months in office of announcing grand
programs, such as the Royal Police Commission,
National Integrity Plan, and "Islam Hadari"
(civilizational Islam), but none have begun to
show substantial results, or necessarily appear
determined to do so. The National Unity Advisory
Panel, according to a member, has had one meeting
since its inception in October and is in the
process of trying to schedule a second.
"I
don't see any headway in the government's
strategy," said social scientist Dr Norani Othman,
despite much talk among a band of younger
overseas-educated members of the United Malays
National Organization, who have witnessed more
egalitarian means of managing multi-racial
societies. "There continues to be a lack of
critical thinking, of examining how this problem
has arisen in the first place."
Some
problems can be linked to tactics used by former
premier Mahathir Mohamad. He may have coined the
term "Bangsa Malaysia" (Malaysian race) in 1991,
but by most accounts he did more to emphasize
differences than de-emphasize them during his
22-year reign. He tended to point the finger at
the plight of ethnic groups in other nations when
the going got rough at home, sometimes in the form
of bigoted tirades. And it was under Mahathir that
UMNO and the opposition Islamic party, Parti Islam
Se-Malaysia (PAS), began their feud to
out-Islamize each other and win over the Malay
heartland.
The battle exacerbated an
Islamic revival already underway and that has
continued to the present. Non-Muslim as well as
Muslim analysts say that these two developments,
feeding off each other, have impeded ethnic
relations in Malaysia. "There needs to be greater
questioning of traditional teachings [of Islam]
that do not support equality, inter-faith, and
inter-ethnic relations," said Othman.
Abdullah, softer in style than Mahathir
and with Islamic credentials to boot, has
introduced Islam Hadari to encourage Malaysians to
see and live beyond atavistic dimensions.
Indirectly it is an acknowledgement that all is
not as progressive as it might seem in this "model
Islamic democracy" - and that seems like a fine
start. But Malaysians have grown cynical of
government programs and sloganeering, and many
question the motivation and substance of Islam
Hadari. (Publication of a book detailing
Abdullah's vision of Islam Hadari has been
indefinitely postponed.) Even, however, if Islam
Hadari proves successful, it alone cannot solve
Malaysia's inter-ethnic tensions - because Islam
is hardly the only force at work in Malaysia's
complex social fabric.
In The Chinese
Dilemma Le suggests that the Chinese could
help improve matters by taking a closer look at
themselves: "Malay success is always ascribed to
the privileges and special support they get under
affirmative action, but non-Malay achievement is
invariably put down to innate ability and hard
work ... have the Chinese forgotten all those
licenses, concessions and contracts that they have
won through patronage, connections and bribery?"
Le encourages them to "try looking at themselves
through Malay eyes", but concludes that the
possibility of this has been "undercut by more
recently acquired feelings of inferiority. Much
cultural baggage, then, stands in the way of a
change of Malaysian Chinese attitudes toward
Malays."
Of course, a less fragmented
Malaysia will depend on all communities
taking a closer look at themselves and their own
legacies of racism, as well as taking greater
steps to better understand the grievances of each
other's communities. (Indians, for instance, among
Malaysia's poorest communities, don't qualify for
Bumiputera perks, yet few outside their own
can be found championing their cause.)
But
these steps are unlikely to happen if the trend in
schooling continues and if Malaysians don't learn,
first and foremost, to talk through their
differences. As it stands, when race is brought up
outside one's own community, many Malaysians are
astonishingly awkward in expressing themselves.
Many would rather not. And the state-regulated
media all but avoids meaningful discussion on the
topic.
"The [government and media] should
create a sense that people should talk about their
differences," said Patricia Martinez, head of
Intercultural Studies at the Asia-Europe Institute
at the University of Malaya. Instead, there's been
a "sheer infantilizing of all of us to the point
that we're unable to articulate ourselves on an
issue that has become central to defining
ourselves as Malaysians."
Martinez,
however, cautions against placing all the blame
with the government and media. While draconian
legislation such as the Internal Security and
Sedition acts have been designed to curb freedom
of expression, and the mainstream media have with
rare exception dutifully toed the line,
self-censorship often is a greater problem. "We
self-sensor ourselves more than government sensors
us. There's a reluctance [among Malaysians] to be
offensive," Martinez said.
That tendency
has both helped and hampered community relations.
But there's a growing sense that a fully-realized
"Bangsa Malaysia" will require greater expression
between communities and that anything less will
hold the country back.
Movement toward
a Malaysian race
Taking the leap, said
Mandal, are a handful of film directors, website
writers and editors, non-governmental
organizations, playwrights and visual artists.
One is Yasmin Ahmad, whose film
Sepet, a teenage romance centering on a
Chinese boy and Malay girl, will open next month.
Without harping on differences, it subtly examines
some of the realities and myths about ethnic
groups here. And while the film's conclusions
about inter-ethnic relations are far from rosy,
Mandal said it also manages to emphasize what many
of these artists are highlighting: trans-ethnic
solidarities. "There's far more boundary crossing
going on [in Malaysia] than some would like to
believe," he said, adding that transethnic
solidarities are among the least researched
features of Malaysian society.
This is
unfortunate, though unlikely to change as long as
the government maintains its race-based
initiatives, which non-Bumiputeras equate
with inequality. They tend to confirm suspicions,
emphasize differences, perpetuate resentments -
potentially obscuring positive changes on the
ground. For those thinking along racial lines,
perception is everything.
That being said,
outright scrapping, as opposed to a gradually
repealing, of the ethnocentric policies is an
unrealistic option, and those who have been
calling for this tend to think in terms of the
aspirations of their own community rather than the
whole of Malaysia. Such thinking is potentially as
invidious and insensitive as its advocates claim
the current economic arrangement is. It's worth
noting too that Malays have joined the chorus
calling for an end to race-based government
subsistence.
But assuming the government
adopts a system of greater equality, one based
less on race than actual need, gulfs between
communities will still persist. This is in no
small part because race has been so politicized
here; it has become a highly manipulative social
construct by which Malaysians consequently and
centrally identify themselves (even if, as Mandal
rightfully points out, identity here extends
beyond these boundaries).
This has piqued
some interest for a multi-racial party, though a
successful one has yet to emerge. UMNO, it seems,
is not capable of evolving in this manner, as its
past makes it irretrievably suspect in many eyes.
PAS is suspect too, due to its clearly Islamic
agenda.
However, other less typecast
parties are tinkering with the idea of evolution.
"What we see is that religious issues
divide, even among Muslims themselves," said Syed
Hussein Ali of the opposition Malaysian People's
Party. "So we are, though not cutting ourselves
off from those issues, slowly disengaging
ourselves from them." Ali added: "We don't want to
be drawn into issues of religion and race
anymore."
The party was founded by
Mahathir's former deputy Anwar Ibrahim, who was
acquitted in September after spending six years in
jail on what was widely thought to be a
Mahathir-led witch hunt against the charismatic
Anwar. And while the party is seen as a Malay
party, its bread-and-butter issue has been social
justice.
The party, though, was weakened
by March's parliamentary elections, when
Abdullah's promise for reform propelled UMNO to an
overwhelming victory. Yet Abdullah has shown few
signs of fulfilling his promises, leaving the
country without a clear sense of direction, and
raising doubts about his commitment to reform.
This
has opened the door slightly for Anwar. And though
he hasn't declared his allegiances with a
particular party, his recent actions suggest he
may well pursue a polyethnic platform. (See Anwar the Malaysian chameleon
, November 25,
04).
The point is, politicians on both sides of
the divide intuit that change will be
necessary,although to what extent remains unclear.
Beyond economic and infrastructural
considerations, however, Malaysia has in many
respects been coasting. This has led to some
anxiety and restlessness over the future. Which
raises the persistent big question: will Malaysia
explode along racial lines?
The
government's fear of this brought about the NEP in
the first place and has guided policy ever since.
To its credit, it has been dexterous and somewhat
flexible. So have Malaysians. They have shown a
remarkable ability to tolerate each other, not to
overstep certain boundaries that may fuel
tensions. It's also worth noting that the UMNO-led
BN gets much of its support from minorities; when
in 1999 elections the opposition scored upset
victories over UMNO, it was mostly on the backs of
disgruntled Malays. This suggests that
intra-ethnic fissures might be greater than
inter-ethnic ones.
But the true test may
be how Malaysians of all backgrounds are made to
feel in their country.
Ioannis
Gatsiounis, a New York native, has worked as a
freelance foreign correspondent and previously
co-hosted a weekly political/cultural radio
call-in show in the US. He has been living in
Malaysia since late 2002.
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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