The Lost Tribes of Malaysia: The Construction of Race Politics from the Colonial Era to the Present: Part Two
By Dr. Farish Ahmad-Noor
A Note To Readers: This paper was first presented at the Central Market Annexe as part of The Other Malaysia's Public Lecture Series (Number 2). Due to its length, the team at Project Malaysia will publish it in two parts. This is Part Two.
III. The colonial census, racialised capitalism and race-relations in colonial Malaya
'By nature, the Malay is an idler, the Chinaman is a thief and the Indian is a drunkard. Yet each, in his special class of work, is both cheap and efficient, when properly supervised.'
C. G. Warnford-Lock, Mining in Malaya for Gold and Tin (1907).1
The passage quoted above sounds like a quote from a politician of the Barisan Nasional, replete as it is with every conceivable stereotype about the Malays, Chinese and Indians, explained in the most casual essentialist terms imaginable. That is comes from a guidebook written for the benefit of European colonial corporate managers speaks volumes about the nature of racialised capitalism in the colonies then. That is strikes such a familiar note with many of us today reminds us of just how deeply embedded such racialised thinking remains in Malaysia in the present.
Looking at the state of Malaysia's post-colonial politics, it is clear that the country remains deeply divided along the lines of race, ethnicity, language and increasingly religion as well. This is not to deny that ethnic and cultural differences exist, or to suggest that these differences were purely invented during the colonial period. That communities such as the Malays, Minangs, Javanese, Cantonese, Arabs, Tamils and Eurasian Peranakans have existed long before the advent of colonialism is evident, as is the fact that there are/were historically-established differences in language, culture, arts as well as beliefs between these communities. Yet the era of colonial rule helped to solidify and entrench this sense of communal feeling and collective identity (among Malays, Indians and Chinese) to the point where the equally important parallel history of cultural overlapping, cross-cultural fertilization and cultural hybridisation was eventually diminished if not lost altogether.
Central to this task of ethnic-racial homogenisation and streamlining was the colonial census, which was used to monitor the development and expansion of the various ethnic-racial-linguistic communities in the colonial economy while also keeping those communities separated from each other according to a violent oppositional hierarchy that perpetuated the myth of 'superior' and 'inferior' races.
In his study of the working of the colonial census in British Malaya Charles Hirshman (1986, 1987) has noted that the British colonial authorities from the time of Stamford Raffles were not primarily concerned with the massive inflow of migrant workers into the Malay states and Straits Settlements. The migrant coolies served both as a source of cheap labour as well as a market for goods that the British themselves enjoyed a monopoly over. As Hirshmann notes: "The British colonial establishment, both in the Straits Settlements and for the early decades of their rule in the Malay states, was almost completely dependent upon Chinese entrepreneurial activity for their economic base."2 It was thus hardly surprising that the colonial authorities were less inclined to look at the issue of migration as a 'problem' until it was highlighted to them as such by the Malays and the disparities became so glaringly obvious that even the colonial census began to register the disproportionate results of the colonial 'open-immigration' policy.3
The real concern of the colonial authorities then was not to assuage the insecurities of the various communities - both natives and migrants - but rather to ensure that this fragile coalition of communities could be made to play their respective roles in a racialised economy intended to maximise profits for the Empire. The maintenance of the ethnically plural economy thus depended on devices that were used to prop up the notion of separate and distinct racial groups, and to this end the colonial census afforded a sense of pseudo-scientific credibility to what was essentially a policy of divide and rule.
Apart from the colonial census a range of other (then popular) pseudo-scientific theories were used to justify and rationalise both colonial intervention and the creation of a racially-segregated plural colonial economy that served the needs of racialised capitalism. Another theory that was en vogue then was the theory of 'native auto-genocide', which was applied to the Malays and pribumis in particular. According to the theory the 'weak' Malays would eventually die out as a result of contact with the superior Europeans and more industrious Asian migrant races, and that all that could be done to help them was to 'protect' the Malays by offering them 'reserved land' and settlements in very much the same way that native Americans were also kept in reservations, ostensibly for the sake of their own survival.4
This common view of the Malays and pribumis as 'weak' races that were compared to native Americans and Aborigines was in fact rather popular at the time, and happened to be a theme that appeared time and again in both the administrative documentation of the period as well as the popular literature written about British Malaya by the end of the 19th century. In her travelogue entitled The Golden Chersonese, the travel writer Isabella Bird remarked thus: "Civilised as they are, they (the Malays) do not leave any more impression on a country than a Red Indian would."5 Ironically the theme of 'weak Malays' in need of colonial intervention and protection would later be taken up and perpetuated even further by the very same Malay ethno-nationalist leaders of the UMNO party in the postcolonial era.
The colonial mode of governance then (as it is being perpetuated today in Malaysia as well) was determined, therefore, by some simple objectives:
Firstly, to introduce the notion of there being 'racial differences' between the Europeans and the Asians; which in turn was extended to keep the Malays, Chinese and Indians apart;
Secondly to create and perpetuate these differences according to an ordered hierarchy that kept the 'superior' races above the 'inferior' ones;
Thirdly, to justify the creation of this violent hierarchy by appealing to the benefits of a plural racialised colonial economy where the exploitation of resources would bring profit to the Empire and by extension the colony as well;
and finally to maintain this order of knowledge and power via recourse to a complex ideologically-loaded discourse of race-relations, colonial governance and good management that was said to be of benefit to all.
The practice of race-relations emerged as a matter of colonial policy then, and Charles Hirshman (1986) has noted that "modern race relations... in the sense of impenetrable group boundaries, were a by-product of British colonialism of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Direct colonial rule brought European racial theory and constructed a social and economic order structured by 'race'6 The hardening of ethnic cleavages in turn allowed the creation of segregated communities, each with its own internal power structures and vertical ruling hierarchies, all of which turned to the Western colonising power as the final arbiter that would keep these groups apart as well as manage the allocation of wealth and resources among them. Thus while the Chinese coolies were entirely dependent on their Kapitan Cina representatives, the Indian migrant workers who were assigned to the rubber estates, tea plantations and railway and road works were entirely dependent on their assigned Indian Kangani overseers who spoke on their behalf and exploited them in turn.
The creation of a racially segregated colonial economy was in turn reflected in the racialised urban geography of the colony as well, with the emergence of racially-exclusive enclaves for Europeans, Malays, Chinese and Indian neighbourhoods. Though today the Malaysian tourist board seems inclined to celebrate the existence of areas such as Chinatown and Little India in cities like Kuala Lumpur, it has to be noted that these enclaves emerged at a period when racialised thinking was at its peak and that they served only to keep the communities apart, rather than bringing them together. Indeed, one of the most striking things about colonial-era urban planning was the lack of attention given to the need for open, inclusive public spaces where all the communities could come together, such as public markets and parks. A quick survey of the town-planners maps and designs from the late 19th to mid-20th century would point to the opposite trend, and the consistent attempts to keep the communities segregated from one another with specific areas 'reserved' for Europeans, Malays, Chinese and Indians instead.
The fact that the divisions introduced to the racial groupings were heavily influenced by European perceptions of racial supremacy, the imperialist notion of 'paternalistic duty' and 'the white man's burden' towards the coloured races, as well as the colonial-capitalist conception of the Malays as 'lazy natives'7 who required Western intervention merely reinforced pre-existing ethnic and racial differences and allowed these differences to crystallise into a rigid framework of segregated ethnic and cultural spaces. Turning to the colonial census of 1871, 1891, 1911 and 1931, we see just how the myriad of communities were summary lumped together under the general headings of 'Europeans', 'Malays', 'Chinese' and 'Indians', leaving little space for those marginal itinerant communities that criss-crossed and inter-penetrated the frontiers of race and ethnicity:
|
1871
|
1891 |
1911 Straits Settlements (SS) |
1911 Federated Malay States (FMS) |
1931 |
|
Europeans and Americans (plus 18 subcategories)
|
Europeans and Americans (plus 19 subcategories) |
Europeans (plus 31 subcategories and Americans) |
Europeans (plus 17 subcategories) |
Europeans (plus 24 subcategories) |
|
'Malay' Races: Boyanese Bugis Dyaks Javanese Jawipekans Malays Manilamen
|
'Malay' Races: Aboriginies Achinese Boyanese Bugis Dyaks Javanese Jawipekans Malays Manilamen
|
'Malay' and other allied races: Achinese Amboinese Balinese Bandong Bahjarese Bantamese Batak Borneo Boyanese Bugis Bundu Dyaks Dusuns Javanese Jawipekans Kadayans Korinchi Malays Rawanese Sulu Sundanese Tutong
|
'Malay' Races: Malay Javanese Sakais Banjarese Boyanese Mendeling Kerinchi Jambi Achinese Bugis |
'Malay' Races: Malays Javanese Boyanese Achinese Bataks Minangkabaus Korinchis Jambis Palembang Other Sumatrans Riau-Linggans Banjarese Dutch Borneo Bugis Dayaks Sakais Others Also natives from Dutch East Indies
|
|
Chinese
|
Chinese 'races': Cantonese Hokkiens Hylams Khehs Nanyangs Teo-Chews
|
Chinese: Straits-born China-born |
Chinese 'tribes': Cantonese Kheh Tie Chiu Kheh Hokkien Hiu Hua Hok Chiu Tie Chiu Hailam Kwong Sai
|
Chinese 'tribes': Hokkien Tiu Chiu Hakka (Kheh) Hok Chhia Cantonese Hailam Hok Chiu Kwongsai
|
|
Hindus Bengalees and other Indian races not specified. |
Tamils and other Indian races: Bengalees Burmese Parsees
|
Indians, India-born Straits-born born elsewhere |
Indians by race: Tamil Telugu Punjabi Bengali Malayali Hindustani Afghan Gujerati Maharatta Burmese |
Indians by race: Tamils Telegu Malayalam Punjabi United Provinces Burmese Bengal Bombay Bihar Nepal
|
Source: Charles Hirshman, 'The Meaning and Measurement of Ethnicity in Malaysia'. Journal of Asian Studies, 1987.
The census of 1871, 1891, 1911 and 1931 demonstrate a clumsy awareness of the existence of diversity and alterity among the peoples of Southeast Asia, but also the tenacious insistence on bringing these diverse communities together under the general headings like the 'Malay races' etc. Note how the census continues to bring together peoples as diverse as the Bataks and Javanese under the general heading of 'Malay'; whereas any scholar of Southeast Asian history and culture will remind you that a Javanese is nowhere closer to a Batak than a Dutchman is to a Mexican. Likewise the census demonstrates an acute inability to recognise Chinese and Indians who have been born and bred in Southeast Asia as native Peranakans as well, as alluded to distinction between 'native-born' and 'foreigh-born' Chinese in the 1911 census for the Straits Settlements.
As a result of the census, the category of 'Malayness' (and the other Chinese and Indian categories as well) became increasingly all-encompassing and abstract in time. By the time of the 1931 census was taken, 'Malayness' included racial and ethnic groups from the rest of the Indon-Malay archipelago as well. While this allowed for the inclusion of other native groupings such as the Javanese and Bugis under the general rubric of the 'Malay race', it did have a serious drawback in that the very definition and meaning of 'Malayness' was also being radically reconfigured in terms of the ideological fiction of the 'lazy native' stereotype. The inclusion of Banjarese, Bugis, Javanese and others as part of the Malay race thus had the negative effect of allowing the myth of the lazy native to be applied to all these racial groupings as well. To further compound the difficulties, the other side of the colonial myth was the image of the Chinese and Indians as superior workers and servants who would inevitably supersede the Malays in terms of economic and social development.
Thus rather than helping the integration of the different and diverse communities of the colonies, the colonial census effectively helped deepen the ethnic, cultural and religious cleavages between them (note, for example how Indian Muslims were categorised as 'Jawipekan' or 'Jawi peranakan' and thereby segregated from their Hindu Indian counterparts). The net result of the combined use of the colonial census, colonial-capitalist ideology as well as the imperialist doctrine of racial supremacy and irreconcilable racial differences effectively brought the Malay lands together under a centralised yet fragmented plural colonial economy, where racial tension became increasingly intensified and problematic. Andaya observes that 'while uniting the disparate political units administratively, the British contributed to the hardening of ethnic divisions which was to plague all subsequent governments of Malaya/Malaysia'8
Perhaps the most damaging feature of the colonial census then was its capacity to erase and deny the legacy of cultural borrowing and cross-fertilisation that had taken place among the Peranakan Chinese, Peranakan Indians, Peranakan Arabs and other Peranakan communties that had settled in the Southeast Asian archipelago for half a millennium before the arrival of modern modes of colonial rule and the introduction of racialised politics in the region. The colonial administrators who invented and manipulated the colonial census were unable to locate such marginal communities like the Peranakan Chinese who were of Chinese origin but at the same time thoroughly Southeast Asian in the language, manners, culture and values by the 19th century. Whatever possibility of inter-communal co-operation amongst the Asian populations in Malaya 'were diminished as European theories of racial difference were imported and as direct colonial dominance was widened geographically and deepened institutionally.'9 The impact of this ideology made itself most acutely felt in the way that it rigidly categorised and compartmentalised the different cultural and racial groupings into their appointed (and exclusive) epistemic, occupational and geographical spaces.
This effectively meant that the Peranakan communities who were simultaneously Chinese and Malay; Indian and Malay; Arab and Malay; European and Malay; etc. were no longer allowed to retain their liminal status as hybrid entities who straddled the ethno-linguistic-cultural boundaries between the communities. In time, they were forced to choose between being either Malay or Chinese, Malay or Indian, etc. They could no longer be both, or more. Consequently five hundred years of inter-cultural cross-fertilisation had been written off by colonial bureaucrats who were not comfortable with the notion of individuals having plural identities.
This legacy of racial stereotyping and scapegoating would continue to haunt Malaysia even after it achieved its independence in 1957. And until today any Malaysian who wishes to retain or emphasise his or her sense of a plural, hybrid past and multiple cultural heritage would have a hard time getting recognised as someone whose identity and past is as complex and mixed as the region we live in. (And if you don't believe me, try getting yourself a Mykad that registers you as a Javanese-Dutch-Indian Jawi Peranakan Eurasian free thinker, and see what happens...) Race politics and the politics of race-relations was not invented in Malaya, or any of the colonies for that matter. Yet it endures til today and remains the defining yardstick of Malaysian politics. The question we need to address now is this: Why is it that after 50 years of independence we Malaysians have not transcended the logic of racial difference?
IV. The Endurance of Race-based politics in Malaysia and the Legacy of Colonial Era Race-Relations
The title of this lecture has been 'The Lost Tribes of Malaysia' and by this we were alluding to what was once a diverse, plural and hybrid social milieu that was populated by a myriad of socio-cultural groupings that were in a state of engagement, overlap, inter-penetration and cross-fertilisation with each other. Though the term 'Peranakan' today refers to a specific community of racially-mixed Malaysians of double, if not multiple, cultural origins; we would take the meaning of the term one step further and argue that much of Malayan society was - in the true sense of the word - Peranakan anyway, and that for centuries Malayan society was constantly in a state of fluidity, flux and inter-mixing. The consolidation of colonial rule and the introduction of the concept of fixed, stable and essentialised racial differences was an attempt to deny this mixed, hybrid heritage of the peoples of the Malayan peninsula and it ultimately resulted in the fiction of essentialised racial differences as we know it today. The 'lost tribes' of Malaysia therefore refers to precisely that gamut of hybrid cultural and sub-cultural, sub-regional and sub-ethnic groupings that complicated the social landscape of the nation, and which kept many a colonial administrator awake at night as they did not know how to manage such a mixed and plural society. Even more ironic is the fact that the next generation of post-colonial administrators were likewise disinclined to accept the fact that ours was once a hybrid and mixed society with a variety of cultural strains and influences flowing through its arteries.
It is interesting to note that despite the claims to being an independent post-colonial nation-state, so much of Malaysian politics and political culture today remain determined by the historical legacy of the colonial era. Now some may wonder why this lecture began with such a long overview of the colonial period and why it has focused on the workings of the colonial census in particular. The reason for this is that we believe that any understanding of the state of Malaysian politics today has to begin from a more comprehensive angle and has to take into account the historical factors that have determined the trajectory and heading of post-colonial Malaysia since 1957.
Malaysia, it has to be remembered, is a constructed entity that was created in the context of a colonial mode of politics where the logic of Empire and imperialism dominated. Like many post-colonial societies that were radically reconfigured and restructured by the destabilising impact of colonial rule and the imposition of a lopsided colonial economy, Malaysia has also been shaped by the cultural politics of the colonial period.
It has to be noted therefore that the colonial plural economy that was based on the logic of racialised capitalism was never meant to be a democratic, equal society in the first place. It would be a rather commonplace assumption to state that colonial economies and societies were highly unequal, divisive and unstable societies to begin with, and that instability was precisely one of the pre-requisites of creating a colonised society that could be kept together by the rule of force and violence. Colonial modes of 'divide and rule' governance were fundamentally and inherently unstable arrangements that necessitated the creation of centralised colonial governments backed up with the threat of state violence (hence the enduring presence of colonial armies and security forces) as well as repressive laws that ensured that dissent was muted from the outset (hence the creation and use of laws like the Sedition Act, the Emergency Ordinances, the Internal Security Act, etc.)
The supreme irony of post-colonial politics, from Africa to Asia, is this: That after winning independence from their former colonial overlords, many post-colonial governments that began on an anti-colonial footing quickly reverted to a form of repressive neo-colonial rule themselves, retaining many of the laws and security instruments of the colonial era and also internalising the logic of colonial governmentality as well. Malaysia is no exception to this rule and the endurance of race-based politics is something that can be explained easily when we take into consideration the simple fact that colonial Malaya was itself a divided, stratified and unstable socio-political entity to begin with: Colonial Malaya was never a peaceful multiracial plural ethno-racial melting pot to begin with. The use of the colonial census to both fix and determine, as well as divide and order, the various ethno-linguistic communities and nationalities of the colony was constructed upon a violent hierarchy. At no point was inter-cultural mixing and hybridity encouraged and promoted, and this was reflected - as we have argued earlier - in the urban planning of the colonial era with its emphasis on ethnic ghettos, as well as the social conventions of the time that discouraged inter-communal mixing and inter-racial relations.
Furthermore the 'fixing' of each ethno-linguistic and cultural grouping according to their appointed roles and places in the plural economy was suited to the needs of racialised capitalism rather than the desire to see a multiracial equal society emerge. In all the areas of popular culture - from the films made of Malaya to the popular literature that emerged at the time, from the tourist ads to the plethora of popular postcards and stereotypical images of the native other captured on billboards, posters and the colonial imaginary - the abstract notion of the fixed, determined, essentialised 'pure' Malay, Chinese and Indian were arrested and determined with a fixed meaning; to be reproduced at will for the sake of maintaining the myth of a simplified plural Malayan society where there were only Malays, Chinese and Indians - with the colonial European masters ruling over them and keeping them apart.
From the late 1950s, Malaysia's national narrative has simply borrowed from this colonial repertoire of stock images, similes, tropes and stereotypes in order to reproduce for local (and foreign) consumption the same national narrative of diversity and pluralism where ethnic categories need to be fixed and hermetically closed from each other.
Note, for instance, the trends that we have witnessed in Malaysia post-1957 (and crucially, post-1969):
The steady erasure of Malaysia's pre-Islamic past has not merely truncated the country's history to a period of less than 500 years, but has also served to sever the bond between the Malay-Muslims of the present with their Hindu-Buddhist ancestors from the past. By doing so, the generation of post-1957 nation-builders have helped to further reinforce the colonial stereotype of the essentialised Malay with an essentialised history which denies the plurality and hybridity of Malay culture, which in turn creates a simplified understanding of the Malay 'race' and community which is essentially Islamic and local. By denying the Hindu-Buddhist past of the Malays, the generation of post-1957 nation-builders have dislocated the Malays from their wider cultural-historical associations with and to the Indian subcontinent and the culture, language and religions of South and Southeast Asia, effectively leaving the Malay-Muslims of Malaysia marooned in the modern political construct of postcolonial Malaysia itself.
This rarefied and essentialised idea of racial identity and difference was further reinforced in the writings of the post-1957 generation of Malaysian politicians who were not Malaysian-minded in character but who were - almost without exception - all converts to the new mode of race-based politics and ethno-racial communitarian politics themselves. Notable examples of such neo-colonial modes of racialised thinking can be found in the writings of Mahathir Mohamad in his Malay Dilemma (1969), and the compilation of essays on the Malay condition compiled by the then Secretary-General of the UMNO party, Mohamad Senu, in the edited work Revolusi Mental that also emerged in the post-1969 period. Both The Malay Dilemma and Revolusi Mental are replete with essentialised, simplified racial stereotypes of the Malays and other 'races' in Malaysia. Both texts bemoan the economic and political lot of the Malays at a time when Malay-Muslim ethno-nationalism was at its peak. And both reiterate the divisive modes of communitarian race-based thinking which was constructed on the fallacy of racial difference.
The most striking thing about both the Malay Dilemma and Revolusi Mental is that both texts have accepted and reproduced the conventional stereotypes of Malay identity that were first formulated and instrumentalised by the former colonial masters during the colonial era. As Alatas (1977) has shown, both texts are entirely devoid of any traces of auto-critique and introspection, and they both faithfully reproduce the logic of colonial racial difference and race-relations in an uncritical manner.10 Furthermore in both works we also detect traces of other pseudo-scientific theories such as the theory of Social Darwinism and essential racial traits which, as we have argued earlier, were remnants of the mode of pseudo-scientific social engineering during the colonial period.
Due to the predominance and hegemonic influence that such race-based thinking enjoys among the political elite in the country, the same sort of simplistic race-based rhetoric and discourse is found among the leaders and supporters of the other race-based parties, NGOs and social movements in the country. Hence we will note that since 1957 Malaysia's political future has been determined less by a long-term broad-based concern for the nation as a whole, but more by the narrow parochial concerns of specific ethnic-religious-cultural groups instead.
Today, Malaysian politics remains configured along divisive sectarian and communitarian lines, with the major component parties of the Barisan Nasional being the inheritors of the colonial mode of racialised thinking in Malaysia. Oddly enough, the underlying logic of the Barisan Nasional parties reiterate the very same logic of race-relations of the colonial period with its claim that only such an inter-racial compromise between elites of the various racialised communities can serve to ensure that economic prosperity and political stability is ensured in the country. However the divisive nature of such communitarian politics becomes painfully clear when we note that almost all the major political crises that have befallen Malaysia since 1969 have emerged from the intra-coalition squabbles and conflicts among the ruling BN parties themselves (most notably the conflict between UMNO and MCA over the thorny issue of vernacular education in 1987). Herein lies the contradiction of the BN formula, which happens to be both a political contradiction as well as a more fundamental epistemic contradiction that strikes at the very heart of our nation's national politics.
The communitarian mindset that prevails among the leaders of UMNO has been internalised and mirrored by the equally communitarian mindset of the leaders of other parties, and perhaps the real tragedy of post-colonial Malaysia has been the failure of the country's leaders to take us forward as one, common, mixed and plural nation, rather than serve as the spokesmen and representatives of their own fixed, essentialised constituencies instead. Malaysian leaders are wont to sprout froth and sweet lullabies to the lofty notion of a united Malaysia; but ask yourself this: How many Malaysian leaders have really been Malaysians themselves?
We began this lecture with the premise that the concept of race-politics and racial difference were fallacies that have no sound grounding in either biology or history. Yet as an instrumental fiction such fallacious ideas do have their political utility and as we have shown earlier was precisely the premise upon which the construction and reproduction of an entire colonial economy was based. One should never underestimate the power of stupid ideas: Stupid ideas may not make sense logically, but when utilised at the hands of a demagogue can lead to rather spectacular things like genocide and world wars. The foundational premise of post-colonial Malaysia is built on a body of ideas and abstract notions, some of which are equally false and non-verifiable, but they have sustained our national myths and narratives for long enough.
The question we face today, as the new generation of new Malaysians in search of a new Malaysia and a new Malaysian political culture, is this: Can we not think of another basis to the national narrative that can help us construct a Malaysia that is inclusive, accommodating, plural and diverse without falling back on the staid and stale stereotypes of racialised differences? And unless and until we have done so, can we truly claim to have transcended the confining and constricting logic of colonial governmentality that once served as the premise of a racially-divided Malaysia that was unequal, unstable and at odds with itself?
Perhaps the task of inventing a new Malaysia with a new Malaysian political culture is to be carried out by those who truly accept and understand that Malaysian identity has to be based on the notion of an abstract yet inclusive and universal Malaysian citizenship that is blind to the idea of racial difference in the first place. This, however, is easier said than done for all the signs we see around us today would suggest that we remain a long way away from the transcendence of racialised politics and racial difference. Indeed, even in the space of Malaysia's fledgling civil society we have seen the emergence of more and more sectarian and exclusive NGOs, social movements and mass movements that have as their constituencies groups that are defined and aligned along the lines of race, ethnicity, language and religion. Even the forward-looking and politically correct among us continue to labour under the burden of our collective moral guilt and the unstated awareness of our shared colonial inheritance from the past. In our attempts to reflect what we hope would be a more accurate picture of a multicultural Malaysia today, we very so often revert back to the reproduction of staid stereotypes and ethnic caricatures such as the colonial postcards of the native Other that was fixed and determined during our colonial past as well. We are still unable to answer the simplest of questions: What is a Malaysian and what does a Malaysian look like?
It is for that reason that the public domain where such questions can be raised (and perhaps answered one day) has to be kept open in order for there to be a public discussion of such questions; and perhaps the question of 'what is a Malaysian' may be the most important question of all that we face collectively today. Cognisant of the fake and false premises that have underwritten our national history and collective narrative for so long, we retain, nevertheless, the need for a new national myth for a new Malaysia. But should we garner the courage and moral will to reject once and for all the fallacy of racial difference for the ideological conceit that it is, what will be the premise of our new national history, our new national story? Where will be the frontiers of the new Malaysia? And what will the new Malaysian look like?
None of us can answer these questions for certain, for the national narrative of any nation is forever a case of work in progress. Nations are constructs, and based on the collective imagination and imaginary of its citizens. But as a nation in the making and under construction, we should at least have the courage to admit that some of our earlier premises were wrong (if not dangerous) and that the time has come to reinvent ourselves with some degree of hindsight and collective wisdom. For now, however, one of the first steps that has to be taken is to recognise and accept the fact that much of what we have been told as the first generation of postcolonial Malaysians was false, and that these instrumental fictions were in fact the tools that were used to mentally bind us. The rejection of the notion of simplified racial differences may not lead us to the promised land of a new plural and democratic Malaysia, but it would be the first step in liberating our minds from the shackles of a colonial governmentality that should have been rejected half a century ago.
1 C. G Warnford-Lock, 'Mining in Malaya for Gold and Tin'. Crowther and Goodman. London. 1907. (pp. 31-32).
2 Hirshman, 1986. pg. 346.
3 The fear that the Malays might be 'swamped' by migrants and reduced to a minority in their own country became clear by the time of the 1931 census. By the 1931 census was taken, it is clear that the Malays (who numbered 1,962,021 in total) were no longer the majority group in their own country (whose total population was 4,385,346.) By the time of the 1940 census it is also clear that the Malay community was smaller than the Chinese migrant community.
4 The theory of native auto-genocide was based on the belief that the 'savage races' would eventually be destroyed by themselves, thanks to essential flaws that were inherent in their culture and nature. This was a theory that gained greater currency by the end of the 19th century. As Patrick Brantlinger has argued, the theory became a respectable rationale to explain and justify further Western imperial domination and colonisation of non-Western countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Citing the works of late-19th century scholars and scientists such as James Pritchard (On the Extinction of Primitive Races, 1839), Robert Knox (The Races of Men, 1850), Charles Darwin (The Descent of Man, 1872) and Benjamin Kidd (Social Evolution, 1894), he shows how pervasive was this theory among the intelligentsia and intellectuals of Britain and Europe at the time. The theory's claim that the non-Western races would inevitably be driven to extinction thanks to their own lack of cultural advancement and their inability to evolve further made colonial intervention and imperial rule seem both natural and inevitable, thus rendering Empire the added weight of historical determinism. These notions were reproduced by many Orientalist writers of the time, and traces of the theory can be found in the writings of Western women like Isabella Bird, Emily Innes, Florence Caddy, Anna Leonowens and others who travelled and lived in the East as well. [See: Patrick Brantlinger, Dying Races: Rationalising Genocide in the Nineteenth Century. In J.N Pieterse and Bhikhu Parekh, (eds). Decolonising the Imagination. Zed books, London. 1995.]
5 Bird, pp. 338-339.
6 Hirshmann, 1986, pg. 345. This was particularly true after the 'forward movement' policy of the 1870s when the British colonial powers began to encroach upon the Malay sultanates beyond the Straits Settlements themselves and as such required an ideological basis to justify their policies of expansionism and intervention. Racial theories of difference which explained and justified the necessity of 'paternalistic' domination over the coloured races thus allowed the British to intrude into the affairs of the Malay kingdoms. Their belief in their own cultural and racial supremacy thus reconciled the contradictions between their notions of civilisation and their own rapacious intentions, and kept their sense of missionary obligations and moral integrity intact.' (Ibid, pg. 330)
7 For a study of the invention of the notion of the 'Lazy Malay' native, see: Syed Hussein Alatas, The Myth of the Lazy Native: A Study of the image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th century and its function in the ideology of Colonial Capitalism. Frank Cass, London. 1977.
8 Andaya, 1982. pg. 204
9 Ibid. pg. 332.
10 Re: Syed Hussein Alatas, The Myth of the Lazy Native: A Study of the image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th century and its function in the ideology of Colonial Capitalism. (Frank Cass, London. 1977).
Bibliography and suggested reading:
Undoubtedly the best work on the theme of the 'lazy native' stereotype is the landmark study by Syed Hussein Alatas, entitled: The Myth of the Lazy Native: A Study of the image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th century and its function in the ideology of Colonial Capitalism. (Frank Cass, London. 1977). This should be compulsory reading for all Malaysians who wish to understand how and why the stereotypes of native Asians persist til today. In it Alatas also takes to task the leaders of post-colonial Malaysia who have internalised the logic of racial difference and race-based politics in their own respective political struggles. I cannot emphasise how important this book is for every Malaysian born in the postcolonial era. Though it is out of print, pirated photo-copied editions can be found.
For those who are interested in learning more about the manner in which racial difference was constructed through the use of the colonial census, we would refer you to the works of Charles Hirshman, in particular his two important essays: 'The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya: Political Economy and Racial Ideology', (in Sociological Forum (SF), Cornell University Press . Vol. 1. no.2. 1986); and The Meaning and Measurement of Ethnicity in Malaysia: An Analysis of Census Classifications' (in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 46: 3. 1987). These two essays are essential reading for this subject and they remain key studies on the subject.
Isabella Bird, The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither. John Murray Publishers, London. 1883. Reprinted by Oxford in Asia Press, Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1981.
Patrick Brantlinger, Dying Races: Rationalising Genocide in the Nineteenth Century. In J.N Pieterse and Bhikhu Parekh, (eds). Decolonising the Imagination. Zed books, London. 1995.
Thomas Fox: 'The GCVO week: Accounts of the celebrations at Kuala Kangsar from the 21st to the 28th of September, 1913'. The Times of Malaya, pub. Ipoh, 1914. pg. 41. (Reprinted in 'They came to Malaya: A Travellers' Anthology', compiled by J.M. Gullick, (Oxford in Asia, 1993).
J.N Pieterse and Bhikhu Parekh, (eds). Decolonising the Imagination. Zed books, London. 1995.
Barbara Watson Andaya and Leonard Andaya, 'A History of Malaysia', MacMillan Press, London, 1982.
C. G Warnford-Lock, 'Mining in Malaya for Gold and Tin'. Crowther and Goodman. London. 1907
Dr. Farish Ahmad-Noor is a Senior Fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technical University (NTU), Singapore where he is Director of Research for the Research Cluster on Transnational Religion in Southeast Asia. He is also guest affiliated Professor at both Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta (UMS) and Sunan Kalijaga Islamic University, Jogjakarta. He is the author of 'Writings on the War on Terror' (2006), 'From Majapahit to Putrajaya' (2005) and 'Islam Embedded: The Historical Development of PAS' (2004). He is also the co-founder of the Other Malaysia research website (http://www.othermalaysia.org), and an advisor to Project Malaysia.