Transethnic solidarities, racialisation, and social equality

2 Transethnic solidarities, racialisation and social equality* Sumit K. Mandal Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Introduction Being Malaysian at the start of the twenty-first century is often defined in two primary ways: the strategic aims of party politics and everyday teh tarik nationalism. The former requires no further explanation. Teh tarik, on the other hand, is a sweet milky tea commonly assumed to be of Indian origins that is made frothy by draining the mixture from one hand-held container into another in a long arcing movement. Malaysians commonly identify themselves and their national identity through this tea and similar symbols of consumption regarded as unique to the country. Party political aims and tea come together in government or private sector-backed teh tarik contests held nationwide. Teh tarik thus comes to symbolise contemporary Malaysian nationalism through the stomach. Strategies blessed by the state such as this effectively project a nationalism emptied of self-reflection, ambiguity or contradiction. The introduction by the Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in 1991 of the term Bangsa Malaysia (encapsulating the aim of building a ‘Malaysian nation’) found many supporters and anticipated the cosmopolitan social dispositions of an even more integrated global economy. A decade later, at the start of the new millennium, the state embarked on an international tourism promotion effort under the theme ‘Malaysia, Truly Asia’. The country’s culturally diverse population has been thereby marketed as Asia in miniature. The ‘multi-racialism’, or ‘multiculturalism’ in present day parlance, captured in the preceding instances reflects what Cheah Boon Kheng (2002: 236) considers ‘inclusivist’ Malaysian nationalist politics. According to Cheah, every prime minister of the country has championed such an inclusivism and thereby mitigated the tendency towards an ‘exclusivist’ Malay nationalist politics. As a result of this political balancing act, then, Malaysia was politically stable for the last three decades of the twentieth century. In this chapter, I make a distinction between transethnic solidarities and the language of inter-ethnic harmony used in the preceding instances, at whose heart lies an unquestioned acceptance of ‘race’ and racialisation. Transethnic solidarities constitute an area of scholarship that has significant ramifications for Malaysian studies as well as approaches to cultural diversity, ethnic politics State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 50 Sumit K. Mandal and other topics of global relevance. By transethnic solidarities I refer to a variety of efforts whereby Malaysians actively participate in society without respect to ethnic background and by rejecting primordial notions of ethnicity.1 Included in these solidarities are the social and cultural activities of arts groups, religious communities, civic and business groups, and so forth. Transethnic solidarities are one of the most obvious and yet least studied aspects of Malaysian society. The sparse scholarship on the subject includes the work of Lloyd Fernando on language and literature, Tan Sooi Beng on the Bangsawan performance tradition as well as recent writings by Farish Noor, Mohan Ambikaipaker and myself.2 Scholars have lagged behind theatre practitioners, visual artists, writers and other members of the arts community who in Malaysia have been the primary intellectuals to articulate or be inspired by transethnic solidarities in their creative work. To name but a small fraction, they are Usman Awang (poetry); Krishen Jit, Noordin Hassan, Jo Kukathas, Leow Puay Tin and Jit Murad (theatre); Wong Hoy Cheong (visual arts); Marion D’Cruz, Aida Redza and Ramli Ibrahim (dance); Sunetra Fernando and Saidah Rastam (music), Amir Muhammad (film) and Janet Pillai (theatre education). Race is not as totalising as it would appear, given the preliminary evidence offered of transethnic solidarities. Nevertheless, as Khoo Boo Teik notes, an ‘ethnic perspective’ dominates the study of politics in Malaysia (Khoo 1995: xvii). He observes the following of this scholarship: ‘the most important division is that between an “indigenous Malay community” which possesses political power, and an “immigrant non-Malay community” which controls the economy’. The country’s politics thus is ‘viewed as a process of managing inter-ethnic divisions, tensions, and conflicts amidst the efforts of avowedly ethnic-based political parties to advance the interest of “their” communities’. In contrast, a ‘class perspective’ has since the 1970s ‘typically tried to highlight class transformation, domination, and contention in state policies, political ideology, and the struggles for the control of the state in Malaysia’ (Khoo 1995: xviii). Departing from the limitations of these approaches – due largely to their mutually exclusive character – Khoo believes ‘that the theoretical acceptance of a simultaneous and intertwined influence of ethnicity and class makes a more rewarding point of departure for the study of Malaysian politics’ (Khoo 1995: xix). The landscape of race politics in Malaysia has been little ploughed with a disciplined critique and towards elucidating the instability of race as a concept and social phenomenon. Both proponents, and instructively, opponents of racialisation in many instances, attribute to race a pre-eminent primordial and unpredictable force, so much so as to render transethnic possibilities unimaginable or incidental. Undoubtedly, race has played a crucial role in the making of Malaysia’s party politics and society, though not without displaying significant ambiguities and inconsistencies. Elucidating the instability of the concept and social phenomenon requires a departure from the dominant party political framework of academic and journalistic analyses to the realm of cultural politics. Race wins elections in the country’s party politics (though not without State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Transethnic solidarities 51 upsets and surprises). It does not, however, rule social and cultural movements with equal success. As such, this essay draws on cultural tendencies and movements and raises them as areas of significant inquiry rather than relegate them, as does conventional social science analysis, to the margins of political life. Drawing from the point of departure offered above by Khoo (1995), I pay particular attention to the cultural politics of language as a space in which ethnicity and class intersect in Malaysia. I do not wish to create a dichotomy between ‘transethnicity’ and ‘race’ in the pages to follow. The scholarship on race and anti-racism underscores the significance of seeking a fresh conceptual approach to the subject rather than resting on ethical, moral and political oppositions in themselves. Michael Banton has shown that simple oppositional critiques may not only be fruitless but counterproductive. He observes ‘that the international anti-racist movement has tended to recycle some of the very ideas it set out to eliminate’ (Banton 2002: 214). Furthermore, he notes that this movement ‘constructed a bogey figure of racism as an evil that acts like an opponent in a contest, when what matters most is to transcend the opposition by reformulating in more satisfactory terms’. Put simply, criticism hurled defensively at the agents of racialisation can actually advance rather than diminish racialisation. Banton’s work draws attention to the need for self-awareness and nuance in developing the conceptual language to analyse the politics of race. In paying attention to language, he ties the conceptual closely to the literal, as he explores the particular prominence and meaning ‘race’ has acquired in popular English usage in contrast to other languages (Banton 2002: 17–25). Joel Kahn’s study of modernity and racism offers comparative evidence against the totalising claims made in the name of race. He observes that racism has been seen as both antithetical to modernism as well as intrinsic to it. ‘Modernist intellectuals’, he notes, ‘assert that modernism – understood as the reflexive dimension of modernity – stands in direct opposition to racialising ideologies and practices, while modernism’s post-colonial, post-modern, feminist and multicultural critics have argued that the two are intrinsically connected’ (Kahn 2001: 129). Departing from the abstract terms of this debate, Kahn’s ethnographic study of modern popular cultures demonstrates that exclusion has been neither uniform nor easily predictable in shape and outcome. Kahn thus departs from the dominant understanding of modernity and racism as abstractions of universal shape and applicability across the world. His analyses of popular culture in the United States, Great Britain and Malaysia reveal distinctive as well as parallel expressions across space. Given ‘a multiplicity of modernities’, it is not surprising ‘to find in them an analogous diversity of constructions of otherness ranging from notions of the other as a primitive version of the modern self to the other as irreducibly alien, from a visible and speaking other to one that is more or less completely invisible and silent’ (Kahn 2001: 130). Notably, by placing Malaysia in a rare comparative context, he dismisses the idea that modernity outside of Europe and the United States is merely derivative, thereby further levelling the historically uneven playing field State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 52 Sumit K. Mandal of scholarly inquiry in the study of modernism. Kahn’s ethnographic and comparative approach suggests that the study of racism merits textured and bold global comparisons. At the same time, racism cannot be attributed to causes that ‘lie completely in ethos or world-view’ and is ‘shaped as much by social, economic and political factors as cultural circumstance’ (Kahn 2001: 131). Malaysia’s racialised political system has worked. The country’s successive governments credibly claimed political stability in the final decades of the twentieth century, especially given the lasting setback to economic growth caused by the Asian financial crisis in 1997. However, the damage done by institutionalised inequality and the lack of critical thinking on the debilitating consequences of ‘race’ and racialisation are cause for concern and an impetus for embarking on the present essay. Furthermore, besides the inter-ethnic compact within an authoritarian structure, other factors as well have contributed to political stability. In this connection, I propose and will elaborate in due course the significance of the relatively shallow racialisation of society in Malaysia and Southeast Asia in comparison to other regions. Differently constructed and stable social worlds have emerged in the region in comparison to the historical racisms that have existed in countries like the United States and South Africa. This is not a cause for celebration as the lack of recognition of the region’s distinctive past in Malaysia’s public discourse is striking. At the same time, in comparison to the contemporary United States and South Africa, there is little collective concern in Malaysia about the social inequalities that have been advanced in the name of race. Complaints abound nevertheless in the name of individual ethnic groups, itself a trend shaped by racialisation. In both the United States and South Africa, and closer to home, Indonesia, significant efforts have either long been underway or just begun towards debating and bringing about social equality. In August 2002, the People’s Consultative Assembly (Majlis Permusyawaratan Rakyat) of Indonesia rejected an attempt to include in the country’s Constitution an official distinction between so-called ‘indigenous’ and ‘non-indigenous’ (pribumi and non-pribumi) citizens. This was a radical step given the use of this distinction to institutionalise racism towards Chinese Indonesians during the three decades of Suharto’s New Order (1967–1998). Moreover, it is worth observing that the decision was arrived at after some debate in the legislature complemented by public discussions. Indonesian intellectuals such as Asvi Warman Adam articulated arguments in the mass media against the proposed constitutional amendment.3 The antidiscrimination ruling was a demonstration of the viability of democratic processes in an Indonesia often portrayed by Malaysia’s political elites and mass media as this country’s ‘Other’: steeped in inter-ethnic violence, unstable and underdeveloped (Heryanto and Mandal 2003: 8–11). Academic critiques and dialogues, let alone public discussion in Malaysia, rarely if at all have engaged racialisation with the conviction, critical thinking and informed public debate that has distinguished the same question in Indonesia since 1998. Without denying the importance of race in Malaysia, this chapter offers some insights into how much more unstable it is than often acknowledged, and how State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Transethnic solidarities 53 Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. giving primacy to race renders marginal or invisible much that functions across or beyond boundaries. The term ‘race’ in itself is not at issue, as it can be used without the punishing exclusiveness of racism, and thus resembles the contemporary scholarly notion of ‘ethnicity’. In this essay, ‘race’ is used specifically to represent scholarly and other perspectives that see Malaysia as primarily constituted by the mutually exclusive and reified tripartite: ‘Chinese’, ‘Malays’ and ‘Indians’. Such perspectives render these groups’ cultural identities and social composition homogeneous while attributing to them an unchanging and primordial quality. Racialisation in this chapter is seen as a process by which groups are categorised, selectively privileged and marginalised without necessarily imposing the claims of supremacy, violence and outright repression typically associated with racism. Racialised oppression can operate in highly sophisticated, undramatic and ultimately much more insidious ways than racism. The distinction between the two and its significance is explored further in the chapter. One of the debilitating social and political consequences of racialisation is the absence of a shared public space within which social and cultural differences may be negotiated by dialogical means. There is hardly the language to speak of transethnic solidarities let alone political community in Malaysia. Under such circumstances, a language has to be forged that describes society beyond the terms of race and articulates the nuances, heterogeneity and diversity of cultural identities, as well as their relational character. In the following three parts, I explore the ways in which transethnic cultural politics has been erased from history in Malaysia, provide a critique of ‘race’ as well as the existing scholarship, and sketch a history of transethnic solidarities in the region. In the fourth part, I turn to Toni Morrison for a framework to locate the ongoing search by Malaysians for a collective means by which to speak of transethnic solidarities. Historical erasures Numerous efforts have been initiated in Malaysia’s history to grapple with the fragmented state of society in order to forge a common purpose or stand. The creation of an encompassing political community has been the key challenge faced by those to the left and right of the political spectrum in the colonial and post-colonial eras. Given the present day dominance of racialised perceptions of the past, all but forgotten is the establishment in 1947 of a united political front by anti-colonial left movements representing different ethnic groups. The alliance between the All-Malaya Council for Joint Action (AMCJA) and Pusat Tenaga Rakyat (PUTERA, or Center of People’s Power) resulted in the first collective agreement regarding the provision of citizenship rights for all and the elimination of racially discriminatory practices. This transethnic political effort, the blueprint for future efforts to establish the nation-state (Cheah 1984: 91), was among the casualties of the British war against left movements between 1948 to 1960. To the historically significant AMCJA–PUTERA alliance, could be added State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 54 Sumit K. Mandal the reflections on the forging of transethnic solidarities in the writings of James Puthucheary and Ahmad Boestamam (Puthucheary 1998: 142–45; Ahmad 1972: 132–44). These two men represent those intellectuals and political leaders, schooled in the English and Malay mediums respectively, who recognised the importance of bridging ethnic and linguistic divides in the struggle for Independence. The language and schools that formed these men were the primary influences on their public identities, and not their ethnic backgrounds (Mandal 1998). Path-breaking movements and events of the past have been so effectively erased in contemporary Malaysia as to make it no longer imaginable that a significant champion of the Malay language in the 1950s was ethnic Chinese. It was the efforts of Lim Chin Siong, the trade union leader, that established Malay as the national language of Singapore when leading ethnic Malays doubted the language’s potential. This observation, attributed to Samad Ismail, is found in the important work of historical recovery written by Said Zahari (2001: 190); both men were journalists and political activists in Lim’s time. One of many significant historical erasures, the reference to Lim is a reminder of the need to render imaginable a past that was informed not only by racialisation but meaningful empathy and solidarity across social divides. Indeed, Lim, Said, as well as the Singaporean theatre practitioner Kuo Pao Kun, the Malaysian poet Usman Awang and others continually transgressed national and communal divides. The question of transethnic solidarity has been suppressed or erased by complex structural and ideological means. Legal instruments of the state, derived from regulations put in place during the repression of 1948–1960, continue to be invoked against the discussion of matters such as race because they are deemed ‘sensitive’. These instruments are in turn justified by invoking the entrenched idea – not unique to Malaysia – that multi-ethnic polities are inherently unstable given the primordial loyalties attributed to race. Yet the varieties of social and cultural tendencies found in the country’s history, including the pre-colonial and colonial eras, indicate not only social fragmentation but stable creolised and multi-ethnic polities. Dominant historical narratives nevertheless frame the past along racialised lines. Official history is tied closely to the interests of the United Malays’ National Organisation (UMNO), the ethnic Malay-majority party that dominates the Barisan Nasional (National Front), the coalition that has ruled since 1973. UMNO’s ascendancy was achieved in the late 1940s by appropriating the form but not the substance of political nationalism as well as revitalising pre-existing notions of sovereignty, besides British support for the party’s conservative and elite-centred agenda (Amoroso 1998). The newspaper Majlis presented the party as the ‘most viable, if not the only, national body of the Malays’ while casting the left movement as ‘insufficiently Malay and traitors to the bangsa Melayu (Malay race)’. By fully exploiting the ‘public, theatrical, confrontational, and self-conscious’ character of post-war politics, UMNO wrested the political momentum away from the Malay left which had enjoyed substantial popular support previously (Amoroso 1998: 259, 273). Thereafter, formal historical State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Transethnic solidarities 55 narratives have highlighted the race politics championed by the party as the nationalist aspirations of ethnic Malays. Typically taking the form of the glorification – and often emotionally charged – defence of ‘Malay unity’, UMNO keeps alive this political appeal as the party claims the inviolability of both Malay unity as well as its special role as the sole guardians of that unity. The Alliance, the coalition consisting of UMNO and other race-based parties, principally the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), negotiated with the British in order to attain the country’s independence in 1957. The Alliance and Barisan Nasional, both based on interracial cooperative efforts, are given pre-eminence in official narratives and regarded as the source of the long-term political and social stability the country has enjoyed. The left movements that forged the earliest ‘national consciousness’ (Amoroso 1998: 262; Cheah 1984: 80–81, 90–92), weakened if not eliminated as organisational forces by the 1960s, have been erased from official history. In sum, significant transethnic solidarities have been eliminated from the memory and experience of Malaysians as a consequence of racialisation. These historical erasures have been critical to the establishment and durability of the authoritarian state in power since independence. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. The location and instability of ‘race’ Scholars have largely abandoned the term ‘race’ in favour of ‘ethnicity’, given the former’s historical derivation from dubious scientific, principally biological, categorisations of human beings. In the nineteenth century, ethnic groups were hierarchically ordered with the most ‘advanced’ Europeans (Whites) ranked above all others. As a consequence of the socialisation and institutionalisation of this hierarchy by the imperial powers, race as a social category gradually began to acquire its present day global prevalence. The advent of race in the Nusantara (Malay-Indonesian archipelago) is thus relatively recent, in the latter half of the nineteenth century under the auspices of the Dutch and British colonial states respectively. There were no words in the Malay language for ‘race’ at the time. The present day terms bangsa and kaum remain approximations that retain their historical semantic versatility. Racialisation nevertheless had a profound and lasting impact. European dominance and economic exploitation of the Nusantara was synonymous with the attribution of an inherent ‘lazy’ quality to their subject ‘races’. Syed Hussein Alatas (1977) interrogates this stereotype to render the far-reaching and debilitating consequences of racialisation in the colonial era. E.J. Hobsbawm sheds further light on race and ethnicity. Ethnicity, he observes, is neither a programme nor a political concept, though it ‘may acquire political functions in certain circumstances, and may therefore find itself associated with programmes, including nationalist and separatist ones’ (Hobsbawm 1992: 13). He sees ethnicity in general terms as ‘a readily definable way of expressing a real sense of group identity which links the members of “we” because it emphasizes their differences from “them”’ (Hobsbawm 1992: 13). Rejecting primordialist definitions, he reminds historians to take note of State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 56 Sumit K. Mandal ‘how easily ethnic identities can be changed’ (Hobsbawm 1992: 13–14). Ethnic identity at any given moment may be likened to a still frame of a film that captures a momentary image in a larger story. So captured, ethnicity would appear to be characterised by the elements of the particular image and not those that precede or follow. Reduced in character and complexity, particular and unchanging qualities may be easily attributed to the ethnic identity, thus essentialising it in a manner no different from racial identity; the terms become interchangeable. Nationalism, according to Hobsbawm, ‘thirsts for identification with ethnicity’ in precisely its essentialised form, ‘because it provides the historical pedigree “the nation”’ that most nationalist movements lack (Hobsbawm 1992: 13). Social construction approaches implicitly contain the historicised perspective advocated by Hobsbawm as they proceed ‘beyond theories which essentialise or view as “natural”, instead of constructed, ethnic identity’, in an effort ‘to explore how human agency shapes culture and community and take seriously questions of representation, which are critical to understanding race and ethnic relations’ (Nair 1999: 59). When used generally and without historical specificity, the primordial and unchanging character assigned to ethnicity conveys misconceptions that can have serious implications in society as in the case of contemporary Indonesia. A militant and destructive politics of identity has been on the rise in the country since the end of Suharto’s regime in 1998. Ethnic, religious and other identities are deeply ingrained enough to seem natural or inherent to many Indonesians and worth asserting by militant means. Should social construction approaches be made meaningful to the present crisis, Ariel Heryanto argues that the destructive and violent assertions of essentialised identities may be stemmed. He observes that the inability of Indonesians ‘to recognise the constructedness of social identities is responsible, to a considerable extent, for the widespread violence that threatens to dismember the nation’ (Heryanto 2001). Theories of social construction critically engage racialisation by introducing a strong measure of doubt to essentialised notions of ethnicity, held with too high a degree of comfort in contemporary Malaysia. While the violence in Indonesia has on occasion been dramatic and grossly damaging in character, the lack of recognition of racialisation may be said to lead to less dramatic and everyday forms of violence in Malaysia. On the one hand, such theorising may be validly criticised for nihilism when it is crudely supposed from the constructed character of communities that they have no real circumstances and features. The internalisation of social identities, as acknowledged by Heryanto, may be inappropriately dismissed as a result. On the other hand, constructionist theories render visible the historical making and unmaking of very real social identities. The constructed character of ethnic identities in Malaysia has been demonstrated in studies of censuses across time that reveal inconsistent and arbitrary categorisations of the population (Hirschman 1986; 1987). The ‘races’ listed vary considerably from one census to another. Entire communities appear in one instance and disappear in the next when the social composition had not changed quite so dramatically. Censuses thus construct races not only by State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Transethnic solidarities 57 enumerating but by naming and omitting them. Given such power, censuses have been important instruments by which colonial and post-colonial states have racialised the social landscape to suit the exigencies of the day (Anderson 1991: 169). Race in this regard has been very much a state project. Rather than explore the complexities and limits of colonial era racialisation, the public discourse on race in Malaysia tends to recollect only the fragmentation of society under the British. This fragmented condition, according to official narratives, was corrected under the inter-ethnic leadership of the Alliance. Colonial rule thus is seen as having established a well-defined racialised world. However, this condition is more a reflection of formal institutional politics rather than social realities. While colonial era racialisation profoundly shaped particular spheres such as the economy and political institutions, it was not necessarily as effectively socialised across the board. Racialisation’s course has been far more complex, suggesting in certain respects the failure of the race project (at least in comparison to the history of the US and ancien régime South Africa). Race has nevertheless resulted not only in significant social divides in Malaysia but lasting conflicts in the construction of an anti-colonial and national self (Nair 1999: 60, 68, 76–77). The absence of a critical examination of race has meant that it assumes a murky space in society with potentially harsh social and political consequences. Myths of racial primordialism and the inherent instability of multi-ethnic polities remain unchallenged. Racialised, and even racist, instruments of state and politics find their place in the public spaces of Malaysia without much sustained and rigorous criticism. Although in disfavour in the public discourses of their land of origin, Europe, terms such as ‘race’, ‘stock’ and ‘breeding’ remain in use. Notable examples of racialised language are the primordialist terms ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy)4 and pendatang (newcomer) used by chauvinist elements in the Malay leadership to assert an inherent difference between their ‘own’ and ‘migrant’ others. In recent decades, these chauvinist terms have come to the fore during elite political crises in order to galvanise groups along racial lines. As a consequence, citizens long established in the country suddenly find themselves in a disturbingly uncertain state. The profound social alienation caused by such racialised language is vividly portrayed in the short story ‘Arriving’ by K.S. Maniam. A striking example of the normalised character of race is the full-page advertisement placed in a leading newspaper by the major insurance firm Sime AXA Assurance.5 High-achieving insurance agents are ranked in a number of different categories of accomplishment, with members of different ethnic groups represented in each. Those of ethnic Malay background, however, are separated. The respective categories are: ‘Top Agency Managers’, ‘Top Unit Managers’, ‘Top Agents’ followed by ‘Top Malay Agents’. Besides Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s well-known racialised understanding of politics and society, it is worth noting resonances of the same in his opponents. Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, the chief minister of the state of Kelantan and spiritual adviser to the Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS, or Malaysian Islamic State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 58 Sumit K. Mandal Party) commented on Mahathir’s claim that PAS had abandoned talks with UMNO in order to win the support of Chinese voters. Nik Aziz, as the chief minister is commonly known, responded as follows: ‘Reminders or advice to [the Chinese] will not make any difference. The Chinese are, after all, more civilised and advanced than many other races’.6 The predilection for colonial language, thinking and institutions does not apply to the question of race alone (Shamsul 1999: 19–23; Fan 2001). The racialisation of state initiatives like the New Economic Policy (NEP) have institutionalised race and made it part of an effective political system, thus furthering its unproblematised existence. As a result, the state may be credited with making colonial era racialisation a postcolonial success. In advancing a critique of race, the word racialisation rather than racism is preferred as the former allows for a broader framing of the problem. Racism is a particular social and political manifestation of racialisation that does not necessarily reflect the condition of state and society in Malaysia. Although racist discourses – as distinct from racialising ones – have surfaced from time to time these have neither been fully or consistently supported by the state nor have they been widely socialised. Hence, when oppositional groups, including nongovernmental organisations, accuse the state of racist politics, their arguments often run aground and do not find widespread support.7 Rather than the systematic structural and ideological implementation of social divisions, as in the case of South Africa under apartheid, racialisation has been a function of politics in Malaysia in complex, uneven and contested ways. Take for instance the notion of ketuanan Melayu noted earlier. While the chauvinist expression remains in use today, it has ebbed and flowed in both rhetorical flourish and popular support.8 Should it have become the basis of government, then Malaysia could appropriately be characterised as racist. Under the circumstances, racialisation rather than racism best covers the range of experiences in the country’s race politics. This claim by no means reduces the weight of the debilitating consequences of race but represents an effort to seek a salient language to engage it without necessarily giving it totalising implications. As is the case elsewhere, racialisation in Malaysia has not followed a smooth course but has been made and unmade through time, with little sustained institutional support until the 1970s. In Malaysia, the NEP was set in motion in 1970 to eliminate the identification of ethnicity with specific economic roles.9 As noted previously, the politics that ensued, however, led to the increased but complex racialisation of the country. While on the one hand economic and social privileges were accorded to Bumiputera (‘indigenous’) groups (primarily Malay in terms of numbers and political power), other ethnic groups were able for the most part to advance in society and the economy. The history of the several relevant decades would require more elaboration than possible here, but it is worth noting that racialisation has been promoted in society with some political checks and balances against the alienation of ethnic groups. Racialisation is no less cause for concern than racism. The transformation of the civil service, army and police force into largely single-ethnic group enclaves State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Transethnic solidarities 59 has significant everyday as well as larger political implications. The government’s efforts in 2001 to promote ethnic diversity in the civil service indicate an official awareness of the potential problems.10 The debilitating consequences of racialisation are rendered less obvious and verifiable given the absence of a systematic racism, a ruling coalition claiming to represent all ethnic groups, and a stated concern for inter-ethnic equity. Notably, the state has invested also in efforts to redress poverty in poor Chinese and other communities (Andaya and Andaya 2001: 304). As a result, racialisation acquires a dispersed character that makes it much harder to identify and challenge – and possibly more insidious – than outright racism. The study of ethnic divisions by Edmund Terence Gomez (1999) is instructive in this regard. The part titled ‘Recession, Racism and Repression’ discusses the repressive actions taken by the state in face of the economic recession of the early 1980s. He shows here the political uses to the state of particular instances of ethnic mobilisation in what is principally a study of party political racialisation. Nevertheless, the racism he notes at the outset is not only unsubstantiated but unmentioned in the ensuing discussion. Rather than a sign of inattentive scholarship, this lapse indicates the difficulties of engaging the racialisation in question and the need for further studies and analyses of the location and character of this social process. Two questions may be asked of scholarship on Malaysia in advancing the present critique of race. First, what is the salience of race in advancing our understanding of social and cultural developments as a whole (quite apart from its usefulness to party political and economic interests)? Second, to what extent may individual ethnic groups be studied without relating them to others in the nation-state, however racialised the social conditions? In answer to the first, a number of scholars have produced studies of the social and economic divisions that have been historically constituted along ethnic lines, thereby providing valuable analyses of Malaysian society (Sanusi 1984; Shamsul 1999; Gomez 1999; Abdul Rahman 2000). At the same time, others have intelligently explored the valuable and productive results, namely political stability, of inter-ethnic alignments in the colonial and post-independence eras (Cheah 2002; Harper 1999). Absent in most cases, however, is a disciplined and sustained critique of the very notion of ‘race’. Syed Husin Ali makes the distinction between ‘ethnicity’ and ‘race’ but without questioning the dubious origins of the latter (Syed Husin 1984: 13–14). Instead, he offers an explanation of the difference between ethnic groups in Malaysia versus those elsewhere by using racial classification to explain his own preference for the term ‘ethnicity’. Malaysian studies have comfortably accommodated racialised norms with the consequence of affirming the official division of the population into ‘Malays’, ‘Chinese’, ‘Indians’ and ‘Others’. The order of the ethnic groups typically named is of course in keeping with the normative value placed on formal political control and numerical size; Malays thus are on top and the unnamed Others at the bottom. Usually the latter category is left unmentioned except in official documents, tourist information and so forth. This categorisation reduces State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 60 Sumit K. Mandal the diversity and complexity of the country and may be of no particular value besides being of use to party political and official interests. Not only are the complexities of each of the so-called major races eliminated, so too the remarkable diversity of ethnic groups listed under ‘Others’: the Kadazan, Dayak, Bajau, Iban and others in Sabah and Sarawak, and the Temuan, Senoi and others on the Peninsula. Despite the questionable salience of the racialised categories, scholarship persists in deploying them. The now classic history of Malaysia by Barbara and Leonard Andaya exemplifies how scholars can propagate racialised language and perspectives in spite of the contradictory evidence offered by their own writing, which is often of high quality. The related and politically important question of indigeneity serves as a useful point of departure. Having discussed the ‘indigenous’ and notably ‘dominant’ ethnic Malay communities, the authors describe the country’s ‘nonindigenous’ as follows: ‘Among the Peninsula’s non-indigenous population, which includes a range of different groups such as Arabs, Armenians, Eurasians, Filipinos and so on, the main communities are the Chinese, estimated at 29.4 per cent in 1991, and the Indians, including individuals of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan Origin (9.5 per cent)’ (Andaya and Andaya 2001: 4). I have little doubt from the authors’ complex, rich and well-crafted narratives that they know just how difficult it would be to offer a sound intellectual defence of the indigenous versus non-indigenous distinction. Of the many questions that emerge, one may ask the following: what would be the statute of limitations – in a manner of speaking – for indigeneity in the case of the many long-established Chinese communities? Consider the less well known urban communities of Kota Baru, Kuala Selangor, Kuala Terengganu, Kuching and so forth, and let alone Penang and Melaka with their famous Baba-Nonya (creole Chinese) communities. Well in advance of scholars, the visual artist Wong Hoy Cheong insightfully rendered the historical and cultural contradictions in the indigenous/ non-indigenous dichotomy by among other things exploring through his art how plants commonly regarded to be indubitably ‘native’ such as the chili were actually introduced by the Spanish and Portuguese some five hundred years ago (Mandal 2000b). There is a wealth of valuable and complex detail in the Andayas’discussion of particular communities and ethnic groups to render obsolete the dominant racialised framework. Yet the authors themselves appear to accommodate if not affirm the same framework, as indicated by their reading of indigeneity which mirrors official history. The Andayas are not unaware that each ethnic group they name in their book is complex and diverse in social composition. They observe of the turn of the twentieth century that ‘even the term “Indian community” is misleading’ as it included a great variety of people with very diverse historical and cultural backgrounds and who spoke different languages, including Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi and Hindi (Andaya and Andaya 2001: 182–83, 227). Similar kinds of complex histories are revealed throughout the text for other groups. Why do they stop here though, only to resume their narrative along conventional lines? Why not, as proposed in this essay, take as their point of State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Transethnic solidarities 61 departure the dynamic and complex identities and social composition their narrative itself uncovers? Towards a tentative answer to the question posed at the outset of this section, race is not necessarily salient to illuminating Malaysia’s social and cultural history. Rather more valuable and interesting is to examine precisely the social complexities that make such terms as ‘Indian community’, according to the Andayas, ‘misleading’ in the first place. Colin Abraham’s substantial and valuable work offers further insights into the course of racialisation in scholarship, in this instance through the study of ‘race relations’. The author systematically studies the impact of British rule on social class formation to show that the resulting pattern of race relations was shaped by colonial political, economic and ideological structures. Although the study observes that social classes were transformed under colonialism, it takes as given the ostensibly discrete ethnic groupings formed thereafter. On the one hand, the historical documentation and theoretical analysis nicely locate racialisation in a particular colonial context. On the other, it would seem that ‘race’ itself is given an unchanging character though it too is socially constructed and in flux. The vast literature on ‘race relations’ offers helpful insights into the dynamics of social conflict. Nevertheless, the tendency towards modular approaches in this literature attributes a false stability to race by affirming its apparently primordial character. This in turn reinforces the premise that multi-ethnic societies are unstable polities. By claiming the salience and universality of race, the literature attributes far too much of consequence to the ‘racial’ rather than the social, cultural and political dynamics that give shape to the category in the first place. Social interactions are characterised by modular shifts in behaviour as a result; race relations tend to ‘improve’ and ‘decline’ in such analyses. Such relations do not merely deteriorate or improve; the politics of race is a complex arena, involving, to state the matter simplistically, structural divisions along party political and class lines as well as social and cultural conditions. Party political crises are relatively easy to observe and relate to racialised strategies or instances of aggression and violence. Broader social and cultural tendencies may support such developments but not necessarily or completely. I do not mean to suggest that there cannot be social disintegration along racial lines, say the gulf that may result between communities with the racialisation of everyday practices, norms and attitudes. Evaluating this gulf, nevertheless, poses real challenges, especially given the controlled mass media in Malaysia and the absence of outright and dramatic forms of verbal and physical violence whose impact would be immediate and visibly alienating. It is particularly hard to ascertain radical shifts in racialised discourse in the social life of Malaysians as these are not necessarily conveyed by the press. Such shifts tend to develop gradually and show their head in isolated social phenomena. In contrast, expressions of inter-ethnic harmony such as those noted in the introduction, given the state’s explicit support, are comfortably accommodated in the mass media. The questions posed by ethnicised societies require paying close attention to the intersection of culture, politics and the economy in shaping social interactions along particular lines and not the simple shifts in attitudes State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 62 Sumit K. Mandal ascribed to races. Malaysia’s racialisation calls for even more nuanced observations of alienation and inequality along ethnic lines. Rather than the modular and ascriptive approach of ‘race relations’, we need to consider ethnic groups in relational terms, as we turn to the second question posed earlier: is it possible to study ethnic groups as isolated social phenomena? Numerous studies provide rich analyses and ethnographic accounts of individual communities in Malaysia and may thus be defensible arguments for looking at the parts rather than the whole (Lee and Tan 2000; Arasaratnam 1979). Few if any see ethnic groups in relational terms, suggested here in broad terms to reflect the influence that each group has on the other. Misreadings abound of numerous social phenomena as a consequence. In the case of theatre, for instance, Kathy Rowland notes that the paucity of ‘relational perspectives’ results ‘in an imprecise, if not fragmentary understanding of the growth of theatre’ (Rowland 2003: 14). She believes the commonalities of theatrical efforts across ethnic and linguistic boundaries ‘warrant grouping them under the label “modern Malaysian theatre”’. More often than not, dominant racialised views ensure that this significant transethnic arts space is obscured if not rendered quite incidental. Seeing social phenomena in relational terms could radically alter many prevailing notions about Malaysian society. Sheila Nair notes ‘that for many scholars an analysis of Malayan, and later, Malaysian nationalism, has meant an engagement with Malay politics’ (Nair 1999: 56). The valuable 1967 study on the subject by William Roff, she observes further, ‘is principally an examination of Malay nationalist politics’ (Nair 1998: 56). Put in relational terms, however, the rise of Malay nationalism could be more intimately and substantially linked to the fear of the ‘Chinese’, especially as an encroaching economic power. Roff mentions this defining factor without further elaborating the subsequent historical relationship between Malays and Chinese. As such, his work offers insights into the internal dynamics of ethnic solidarity without speaking with much care of its messy border spaces, shared variously by tendencies towards absorption, rejection, tolerance, accommodation or empathy, not only with ethnic Chinese but Indians, Orang Asli (native people), Britishers and so forth in a long list of the inhabitants of colonial Malaya. This significant omission in the work of an insightful and prolific scholar such as Roff may nevertheless be a salient reflection of the exclusively Malay imaginaries prevalent shortly before the country’s independence in 1957. Kahn observes that the early films of the well known director and actor P. Ramlee focused on ethnic Malays to the exclusion of Chinese or any other ethnic groups. In his experience ‘there is little doubt that the silence about “ethnic” Chinese that so strikes a viewer of Ramlee films is very real, especially among Malay villagers’ (Kahn 2001: 124). Instructively, Kahn’s very approach to studying Malays is relational. Communities, defined along ethnic or other lines, may not be studied adequately in isolation from others, given their location in the modern nationstate – most responsible for the construction and preservation of ethnic identity. The study of one group cannot ignore the influences exerted by others, whether State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Transethnic solidarities 63 before or after the advent of race in the colonial era. While scholarly work on Malaysia that takes this tack is scant, there are exceptions. Tan Chee Beng observes in his study of culturally diverse Chinese communities in Malaysia that ‘[t]heir life-world (world of daily life) is not merely a Chinese social world, it is a multi-ethnic social world’. In the same breath, he observes that ‘Chinese Malaysians share with Malays, Indian Malaysians and other Malaysians a certain stock of knowledge, sentiments and ways of life that can only be described as Malaysian’ (Tan 1984: 191–92). Notable also is the anthropological examination of Chineseness in the capital city Kuala Lumpur by Yao Souchou. Although discussing the experience of ethnic Chinese, this study uncovers the significance of dominant constructions of this group by Malays (aligned with the state) that operate in nuanced ways, thereby making inextricable the experience of the respective ethnic groups. Besides Yao, other scholars such as Noboru Ishikawa and Eric Thompson have produced work that takes the study of Malaysia well beyond the now traditional ‘race’ orientation into social science approaches informed by nuanced conceptions of cultural identity, borders, space, neighbourhoods and so forth. It is imperative to advance a critique of race given its notable absence in the scholarship on Malaysia. The existence of individual ethnic groups with particular cultural identities and practices is undeniable and does not necessarily pose a problem. The reification of these communities into neatly defined and separate races or ethnicities that affirm primordialist notions, however, is cause for concern. With this in mind, it is worth recounting that the racialisation of the colonial and post-colonial era has taken particular shape in this country. The nation-building imperative so important to nations that emerged from colonialism has been one of the key influences on scholarship. Cheah (2002) is but a recent example of important and valuable contributions towards this body of knowledge principally but also the politics and policy-making that falls under the rubric of nation-building. This brand of scholarship also advanced racialisation, inevitably in the Malaysian case, given the conservative ruling politics in the aftermath of independence. While, as a result, the privileging of racial social and political constructions has been significant in particular ways, it has not been totalising. Too often the claims made by ethnicity-based parties as well as the ethnicised conditions of public institutions and spaces are taken as the primary reflection of society and thereby made into Banton’s ‘bogey figure’ and the object of contestation. As noted in the introduction, Banton believes the far more critical goal, to which scholarship especially must apply itself, is the reformulation of the terms of the debate itself. Keeping this goal in mind demands the recognition that the claims of party politics and social realities are seldom congruent and mutually contested. Both the notion as well as the advent of ethnically bounded constituencies require immense organisational and social mobilisation (Gomez 1999: 169, 174, 180–81, 188, 193). Then again, these efforts are neither always nor entirely successful. Defending his effort to create a dialogue between the ethnic Malay-based ruling and opposition political parties on the constitutional special rights of State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 64 Sumit K. Mandal Malays (such as the position of Islam and the national language as well as the status of Malay rulers), Mahathir commented as follows: ‘When [special privileges] is questioned, the Malays do not respond in unison, instead [they respond] based on political parties when the threat is not to the parties but to the community’.11 The prime minister’s frustrations appear to stem from the choice of ethnic Malays not to support their ‘own’ along the racialised lines promoted by UMNO for decades as indicated in the introduction to this chapter. The community, in his understanding, is the Malay race, attributed with inherent shared qualities, hitherto represented by UMNO. Given the primordial qualities he attributes to Malays, Mahathir apparently finds it hard to fathom changes in their social and political proclivities. The politics of reformasi – the term of Indonesian origins given to post-1998 oppositional politics – that followed the sacking of Anwar Ibrahim as deputy prime minister has been seen as a sign of the loss of support of Malays for singular party political representation. Ethnic Malay political proclivities, like those of other groups, are not fixed in character or time. A variety of political movements, communist, socialist, Islamist, ethnicist and so forth have risen and fallen from the 1930s to the 1990s with Malays assuming contrary political positions. One relatively recent example will suffice to indicate the changing character and complexity of this ethnic group’s politics. In 1988, with the establishment of Semangat 46 (Spirit of 46) a serious party political challenge was launched against UMNO’s claims to singular representation of Malays. The social construction of ‘race’ and the process of racialisation each have not proceeded apace or in a simple causal manner. The making of one does not naturally translate into the other and, more significantly, differentiating the kinds of racialisation that have existed offers important insights. Racialisation in Southeast Asia, in comparison with the history of the United States and South Africa, as well as other countries, did not proceed apace with the race project because its imposition by the state was not uniform, rigid or systematic over the long term. Racialised social relations in the region may not be easily likened to the exploitation and denigration of White on Black that resulted in the dehumanising conditions of slavery and oppressive segregation in the United States – powerfully captured in James Baldwin’s fiction and essays – or ancien régime South Africa. In the Malaysian context, the creation of racialised social structures and cultural frameworks in the colonial era did not lead to a deep but a more provisional socialisation of race as a marker of identity. Kahn notes in this regard that ‘there is no developed thinking – scientific or otherwise – on the nature of race and racial difference [and] very little history of popular racial stereotyping in the popular media’ (Kahn 2001: 125). Thus, the racialisation initiated by the imperial powers in the nineteenth century and perpetuated in the post-independence era in modified ways has not been totalising. Examined against social realities, the very term represents a politics that is less biologically determined than cultural for Malaysians. It is noteworthy that natives and knowledgeable foreigners can have complex and disaggregated understandings of racial terms if and when they choose to use them. On the whole, the quality of State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Transethnic solidarities 65 racialisation in the Malaysian context suggests that the space for negotiations and dialogues between groups is more substantial and the social dynamics more nuanced than racist societies. Racialisation in Malaysia remains an urgent matter for the careful attention and elucidation of scholars given that the political, social and cultural marginalisation and oppression based on race is difficult to articulate and challenge effectively. The manner in which race has impinged on party political mobilisation is clear and the subject of much scholarly attention. Typically, ‘race conflicts’ have been traced back to the 1940s and seen as threats to national cohesion, of which the political violence in 1969 which took a racialised form is a landmark (Gomez 1999: 175, 180). The significant, complex and perhaps insidious influence of race in society, however, has been neglected for the most part. Racialisation’s debilitating consequences have typically taken the shape of a diffused social mistreatment, neglect, marginalisation, and abuse (including violence), giving rise to uncertain social identities and rights as a citizen. Race has not been a compelling, omnipresent and socially driven marker of identity until recent times and, as a result, has not uniformly displaced tendencies towards creolisation, defined broadly to mean identities of mixed cultural elements. Transethnic social forms have continued to exert an influence though they have been eclipsed in public discourses by official notions of ‘race’. Official histories credit the long-term political stability of Malaysia to the successful coalition building between elite representatives of the different ethnic groups. This view rests on the premise that multi-ethnic polities are naturally inclined towards disintegration and hence require inter-ethnic and authoritarian leadership. The resistance to racialised social and political friction may nevertheless be attributed to the persistence of a hybrid cultural and social temper that has as its basis a less bounded sense of self and empathy towards difference with roots in the region’s historical longue durée. It is no surprise therefore that Robert Winzeler in his study of Thais and Chinese in Kelantan (1985) shows that cultural differences in themselves do not lead to conflict while noting the continuity in the post-colonial era of pre-colonial social patterns – to which we turn next. Historical transethnic polities Oliver Wolters elucidation of the Southeast Asian ‘cultural matrix’ informs the present effort to engage contemporary racialisation and elaborate transethnic solidarities grounded in the region’s historical cultural diversity. Wolters finds good reasons to believe that long-term influences, indigenous to the region and its sub-regions (including the Malay world) continue to assert themselves in meaningful and potentially creative ways. Southeast Asia has often been seen as a confluence of the world’s peoples and civilisations, resulting in mixed societies that are unusual in depth and range of diversity. In other words, both the cultural syncretism and the widely different elements that constitute it have been highlighted as a feature characteristic of and even unique to the region. While State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 66 Sumit K. Mandal Southeast Asia is indeed diversely constituted, it is so within a global context in which peoples and civilisations have influenced each other in profound ways throughout history. This much too obvious assertion is made here given the tendency towards the increased individuation of regions and countries that followed the establishment of colonial empires and the independent nations that emerged from them. Contrary to contemporary tendencies towards celebrating multiculturalism, the presence of cultural diversity may be neither virtue nor vice. As Wolters’ work itself exemplifies, it is more significant to render what shape the diversity takes within particular historical contexts, and how it may be meaningful in enriching our understanding of the world. Creole communities and cultural spheres emerged in the Nusantara during the modern era whose historical formation and relevance are explored in this part. ‘Creole’ and ‘creolisation’ provide not only the analytical terms with which to describe multiple and mixed ethnolinguistic communities but insights into the making of a world of complex cultural identities. A creole community has been typically characterised as one where the elements of different ethnic groups form the basis of a shared culture which departs from its origins enough to constitute a new identity. The Baba-Nonya of Penang, Melaka and Singapore would be an example of a creole community because its shared Chinese and Malay traditions constitute an identity quite apart from either Chinese or Malay culture. The use and meaning of the term creolisation, with its history in the study of linguistics and social life in the Caribbean, has been a matter of some debate. Jonathan Friedman (1994) offers a critique of the use of ‘creole’ to mean a community of mixed ethnic identities as such an understanding assumes the pre-existence of social groups, typically organised along racial lines in the modern era, that are ‘pure’. Rather than constitute a critical engagement with ‘race’ as a marker of identity, he fears the use of ‘creole’ would affirm instead its essentialised character and normalise the process of racialisation as a consequence. For Friedman, the term is as much an analytical tool and perspective as it may be a social manifestation of particular substance and form. Thomas Eriksen (1999), locating the term and its usage in the particular context of the Mauritius, shows its validity in the historical self-naming of certain groups, the state’s system of social classification and the advancement of a creolised worldview of sorts with which people identify themselves despite their official or social naming. While the debates elaborate differently the precise meaning of the term and its application, they share a common concern with elucidating cultures as social constructions that change with time. This confluence of the debates is the point of departure of this chapter. ‘Creole’ and ‘creolisation’ as used here take heed of the social constructionism underlying Friedman’s argument and the contextual basis for claims to creole identities advanced by Eriksen. ‘Creole’ is understood to represent forms of transethnic solidarity and cultural diversity that are non-racial in character and part of the region’s historical longue durée. The recovery of historical creolisation is a key intervention in the search for a language to engage racialisation. The persistent theme in colonial and postcolonial racialisation is the marginalisation or erasure of creolised communities, State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Transethnic solidarities 67 turning them at best into historical curiosities. The Baba-Nonya and the descendants of the sixteenth-century Portuguese colony in Melaka exemplify this trend. Far from being marginal to the region, Engseng Ho argues that the key sultanates formed in the littoral regions of the Nusantara from the late eighteenth century onwards were creole in character (Ho 2000; 2001). Networks of Arabs, principally sayyid (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad) from the Hadhramaut valley in Yemen, became an integral part of seafaring communities of Malays, constituted primarily by ethnic Bugis but also Javanese, Malay and others. As a result, cultural centres emerged that were neither distinctly ‘Arab’ nor ‘Malay’ but creole. Writers such as the seafaring trader and emissary Abdullah al-Misri emerged from such creole communities, to chart in the Dutch occupied Nusantara, like Abdullah Munsyi in areas under British influence, the modern course of Malay culture: determined less by ‘race’ boundaries than a shared linguistic and cultural space (Mandal 2001a). These creoles of the nineteenth century, and arguably into the early twentieth, were part of a cosmopolitan world that emerged within the historical transformations wrought by colonialism. To the diffused character of racialisation in Malaysia discussed in the previous part, may be added the modern history of transcultural movement and cosmopolitanism that has had lasting implications. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. The words to say it: contemporary narratives and languages Toni Morrison’s (1990) essay on race and culture, Playing in the Dark, is an illuminating analysis of the meanings and uses of ‘Whiteness’ in the American literary imagination. It is a quest for the words to speak of racialisation in a manner that is not proprietary in its claims to social identity. Hence, the essay is not only about how blacks are exploited in the writings of White American authors or how White America justifies racist power relations. Morrison uncovers the deeper dynamics of the relationship between blacks and whites in the cultural imagination. She finds the fates of these categories of people to be intimately bound, however much they may be separated along ideological, political and economic lines. Morrison’s perspective, whose complexity has been much reduced for the sake of brevity, informs the following discussion of cultural politics in contemporary Malaysia. This chapter considers cultural production to be a site with significant political implications that merits more substantive inquiry than it has traditionally received. The argument is cognisant of the theoretical observation made by Lisa Lowe and David Lloyd who view culture as a site of political potential ‘when a cultural formation comes into contradiction with economic or political logics that try to re-function it for exploitation or domination’ (Lowe and Lloyd 1997: 1). The authors thus reconfigure the ‘social’ to represent the terrain in which politics, culture and economics meet in important ways. Given this observation, the arts and cultural production as a whole may possess far greater political meaning than is commonly assumed, especially in the context of Malaysia where the arts in particular constitute a rare public forum for the sustained and State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 68 Sumit K. Mandal stimulating engagement of questions of race politics and other matters considered taboo by the state. Highlighting the discursive dimensions of contemporary culture ought not to suggest that society as a whole has not been transformed in significant ways. Research in the late 1990s on pluralism shows a marked tendency towards transcultural relationships despite the longstanding racialisation at work in Malaysia. Beyond the state and party political apparatus, new and cross-boundary relationships have emerged in civic, religious and business organisations which concretely assert transcultural rather than racialised agendas, though an encompassing political community has not been attained (Abdul Rahman 2000; Mandal 2001b). The present discussion complements the findings of this research by turning to the politics of sites typically considered outside the realm of conventional social science analysis. There have been numerous and significant instances of cultural crossovers in the creative production of Malaysia. Two examples suffice in substantiating the assertion, first an artistic form and second, an individual artist. The first example, the Bangsawan theatre tradition, was widespread in the early twentieth century throughout the larger towns of British Malaya as well as the Netherlands Indies where it often took the name Stamboel (after Istanbul the capital of the Ottoman empire). As Tan Sooi Beng’s study shows, Bangsawan consisted of a play, typically based on famous stories of classical Malay courts, staged with numerous intermissions when comedies, dances, duets and other entertainment were interspersed. Performed in the Malay language, it typically incorporated individual artistes and themes of Indian, Persian and other origin and provided a popular form of entertainment for all social classes and across ethnic groups. Sponsors were often ethnic Chinese businessmen who among other things rented out their cinema halls for the performances. The hybrid theatre form thrived mostly before the Second World War and began to decline in the years before Independence. Today, the Bangsawan is being revived, usually by state-sponsored agencies, and often takes an ethnicised shape that makes it quite different from its historical antecedents. The August 1996 Kuala Lumpur production of the Bangsawan Raja Laksamana Bentan [King and Admiral of Bentan], directed by Rahman B and Krishen Jit, offered highly stereotypical renditions of the ‘Chinese’ and ‘Indian’. Sponsored by the National Academy of the Arts and the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism, the supporting role of the ‘minority’ ethnic characters nicely reflected their ostensible place in the country’s party political order. Although out of step with the humour and sensibilities of its time (evident in the poor attendance), the production was in keeping with official efforts to erase cultural hybridity. Noordin Hassan, the playwright to whom this discussion turns next emerged from the Boria performance tradition which shares the hybrid character of Bangsawan. Like the latter, Boria blossomed in the cosmopolitan cultural milieu of Penang, where it was part of the ten nights of festivities at the start of the Muslim month of Muharam. Noordin grew up in a creole Malay community made up of people with Arab, Indian, Sri Lankan, Bengali, Pakistani, Thai and State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Transethnic solidarities 69 Chinese origins where the Malay spoken was shaped by equally diverse linguistic influences (Noordin 1996: 20–21). Of Indian and possibly Persian ancestry himself, he grew up in a family of Boria performers with songs and poems rendered in a creolised Malay. His mother would repeat to him the following poem, the first two lines in Hindustani, the rest in Malay: Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Husein Cedi ye ke bat, bat, Bat bolega pan supari; Adakah tuan pernah melihat, Sirih bertepuk pinang menari (Noordin 1996: 7).12 Fifty years after his mother uttered the poem, in 1992 Noordin staged a play in his native state titled after the last line, bringing to the foreground the influence of his creole cultural background. Despite the formative creole influences in his life, Noordin is celebrated today, at least within official arts circles, as an important ethnic Malay and Malay language playwright. He has been productive on the Malaysian stage for several decades and has achieved some of the highest honours in the arts granted by the state. Notably, few if any other Malaysians are given such recognition at least by the state, though it is equally true that few of other ethnic groups are leaders in the Malay language arts. Like other ethnic Malays nationally prominent in the arts, it is primarily an essentialised view of Noordin’s identity that is foregrounded rather than the diverse influences in his life. Nevertheless, his works speak for themselves, and have challenged essentialised notions. Anak Tanjung (Cape Child), staged in 1987, reflected on the budding nationalism of the colonial era by departing from the Malay-centredness of the dominant narratives. He portrayed the emergent solidarity in a multi-ethnic and poor fishing village as transethnic by narrating the common struggles and intimate relationships between Chinese and Malay characters on the margins of colonial society. Criticised for rendering a history that was ‘Malaysian’ rather than ‘Malay’, he observes that his intention was indeed to show ‘the contribution of the Chinese to the country . . . not just in the character [Ah Heng], but deeper still’. He adds that ‘[t]he sacrifice of Ah Heng, the closeness of Ah Heng to the Malay family, his concerns’ make him ‘a good Chinese; a good Malaysian; a good human being’ (Solehah Ishak 1992: xxv). These examples hardly constitute an exhaustive survey.13 They serve to remind us that hybrid cultural politics did not die with the establishment in the 1950s and entrenchment after the 1970s of race-based party politics. While the party political system has indeed been as stable as the ruling coalition claims, its existence is contingent upon the persistent mobilisation of support along ethnic lines. At the same time, different identities and cultural solidarities have persisted and developed. Signs of new cultural solidarities are noticeable in public intellectual life and social movements in the country with the advent in 1998 of reformasi, which Khoo Boo Teik (1998a) describes as ‘a movement of cultural State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 70 Sumit K. Mandal opposition’. Reflecting on the state’s efforts to racialise the political ferment at the turn of the century, Khoo (1998b) notes that the portrayals of potential violence, drawing heavily from Indonesian news footage, existed only in official fears and imagination. Social conditions were a far cry from state narratives. He observes that ‘ideas of multiculturalism’ had genuine appeal in the 1990s, enough to foment a potentially viable transethnic opposition to the racialised and authoritarian rule of Mahathir. It is important to note, however, that at the same time the broad shape of the oppositional movement had racialised overtones, indicating the need for a critical awareness of racialisation in Malaysian political life as a whole.14 The persistence of racialised thinking, practices and strategies in opposition party politics deserves some attention, though a serious study of this important area is not intended here. At least one reason for this persistence appears to be the practical difficulties faced by the opposition parties in breaking away from the electoral precedent set by the ruling coalition: nominating candidates according to the ethnic profile of particular constituencies. At the same time, and closer to the concerns of this chapter, it is unclear if the opposition parties regard the very question of ‘race’ to be of much import. There is little doubt that these parties reject discrimination based on ethnicity and cultivate multi-ethnic support. What is not clear however is if they believe a radical critique of the very notion of ‘race’ and its primordial associations is necessary. Besides Parti Sosialis Malaysia (the Socialist Party of Malaysia), a small and avowedly anti-racist party whose registration remains held up by the government at the time of writing, other opposition parties tend to consider the challenges of race politics resolved through sheer goodwill and multi-ethnic representation. The ‘cultural opposition’ of the reformasi years is reflected in two notable arguments articulating hybrid culture and histories. They stand out because of their substance and their articulation in Malay (the language of the majority which, contrary to the historically more elitist English, goes well beyond ethnic Malays to reach the working classes and poor) (Mandal 1998). In 1999, Amir Muhammad, the writer, playwright and film-maker, published an article on the English language and realpolitik in Berita Minggu, the Malay-language Sunday newspaper with a wide circulation. In the article, he defends the use of both English and Malay in public life, a contentious position to take in a country where the defence of Malay – at least in name – is of much political weight. Amir argues that each language has its place in the social and professional worlds of the country and furthermore, not only has Malay declined as a result of its association with the ruling party’s ethnicisation, but English has become the de facto national language as it is a space within which all Malaysians engage each other. His article provides the basis for arguing in favour of a cultural politics that crosses the ethnic boundaries of party politics and implicitly advances the notion that creativity emerges from hybrid rather than ethnicised social spaces (see also Mandal 2000a). Another writer, Razif Ahmad (1999), wrote in the oppositional newspaper Eksklusif – one of many that emerged in 1998–1999 – a historically grounded State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Transethnic solidarities 71 critique of notions of racial purity (in the case of Malays in particular but Malaysians in general). He spoke for many supporters of reformasi who became increasingly suspicious of the benefits of ethnic politics if not outright defenders of equality for all. He was prompted to write by chauvinistic remarks made by a cabinet minister and directed against Wan Azizah Ismail, the wife of Anwar Ibrahim, who was still at the early stages of her political career. Her light complexion and eyes indicated, according to the slurs hurled at her, ‘the stamp of the dragon [cap naga]’ on her person, implying Chineseness. The incident was widely reported in the major daily newspapers. Instead of denying the claims, Razif argues that the notion of ethnic Malay purity is a falsehood by showing how each of Malaysia’s prime ministers since independence were of mixed ethnicity, including in their creole identities Arab, Turkish, Indian and Thai ancestry. In so doing, the writer not only cogently relayed pieces of information already known to the public, but inserts into popular discourse a social constructionist approach to ethnic identity. Instructively, the slurs hurled by the minister at Wan Azizah were one of the reasons that cost the former his job. It would appear that race-baiting tactics of the state failed in this instance. Although the strong rejection of ethnicisation and notions of racial purity made by Razif Ahmad was not necessarily a reflection of prevailing opinion, it resonated with many, within and outside reformasi circles. Cultural politics more generally and language specifically have become increasingly obvious sites in which questions of ethnicity and class come together. Amir’s views herald wider developments. To dwell on but one example, individuals have stepped off their respective stages – the ethnically and socially diverse English and Malay language theatre worlds – to conduct dialogues. Cultural activists such as Kathy Rowland, Lorna Tee, Marlia Musa and others have been engaged in public dialogues to discuss creative production in the different linguistic spheres.15 Through such dialogues, members of the arts community from a variety of backgrounds learn of the common challenges in their efforts, notably how to produce good work that is sustainable financially. While a public forum like this is not easily organised and faces challenges from established ethnic ideologues, such efforts actively create a shared public sphere that easily enables transethnic conversations. When this emergent public space is described as ‘Malaysian’ in the present context, it stands neither for the defensive nationalism encouraged by the state after the financial crisis in 1997, nor the promotion of the country as a uniquely ‘multi-Asian’ tourist destination. Rather ‘Malaysian’ expresses a creative vigour – an élan – of considerable charge. Far from merely making a positivist claim, Rowland’s articulation of the existence of ‘modern Malaysian theatre’ earlier in this chapter, for instance, expresses the pleasure of cross-boundary creative work and subverting racialisation. Kahn appreciates the significance of this pleasure when he discusses Malaysian urban youth culture, in this instance in relation to nasyid, the popular music typically performed by male a capella groups distinguished by an Islamic identity in their music and public face. ‘The growth in the generalised idea of a Malaysian urban youth culture, which at least for a time State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. 72 Sumit K. Mandal includes the nasyid performance’, he notes, ‘implies a subtle but none the less significant shift in the patterns of racialisation in popular Malaysian discourse’ (Kahn 2001: 148). While nasyid may manifest silences about cultural diversity, he adds, ‘Malaysian youth culture, of which it forms a part, certainly does not’. Morrison’s (1990) study of race in the United States, as alluded to earlier, is helpful in elucidating the value of the preceding efforts. She does not consider her work to be in the interests of any one group but an illumination through literature of the whole experience of racialisation as it impinges on both ‘Whites’ and ‘Blacks’. Similarly, Razif and Amir neither write for any single ethnic group nor position themselves along racialised lines. They have found the words to say it, to speak to each other as Malaysians. Their writings articulate the ways in which race has permeated the politics of state and society and find a means of uncovering the very things it obscures and marginalises but does not eliminate: transethnic cultural politics. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Conclusion Finding the words to speak of transethnic solidarities does not in itself amount to a resolution of the problem of racialisation in contemporary Malaysia, which is manifest in insidious and damaging forms of social inequality. Rather, this effort calls into question the racialised political order by exemplifying cultural and social developments that have rested on the inclusion, mutual empathy and equality of social identities. The transethnic cultural politics discussed in this chapter are not the mere shadows of an alternative history and society but salient suggestions of a shift from the present day political order. Scholarly concern with social equality more generally remains imperative. Much is made and even celebrated of the country’s multi-ethnic political order and its long-term stability at the turn of the twenty-first century. Bangsa Malaysia, and other official appeals, are easily and often with good reason seen as laudable calls for social cohesion; hence the widespread support among intellectuals, business leaders, social organisations and the population as a whole. Given the history of fragmentation in national political life, the possibilities offered by appeals to social integration are attractive to many. The pleasure derived from exploring things ‘Malaysian’ then is not confined to the arts community discussed previously. Nevertheless, no active effort has been made to change the racialised foundations of the present order with the advent of Bangsa Malaysia. The insidious and uncertain violence of racialised social inequality in Malaysia thus remains in tact. Scholars unconvinced by the self-satisfaction expressed by the state and elements of society, unconvinced also by the simplistic and over-determined critiques of oppositional groups, continue to engage Malaysia’s racialisation. Joel Kahn and Khoo Boo Teik acknowledge significant cultural and political shifts away from racialisation. They do not, however, dismiss underlying problems as a consequence. They see race and its potential conflicts as embedded in the political economy, society and culture, and remain insistent of the need for social State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Transethnic solidarities 73 equality within and beyond national frameworks (Kahn 2001: 151; Khoo 2001: 17–18). In this connection, Ishak Shari notes the growing income gap between and within ethnic groups since 1990 as economic growth achieved phenomenal rates spurred by liberalisation measures. Structural problems that have emerged as a result, namely entrenched divisions along ethnic lines between rich and poor, remain challenging issues facing Malaysians today. While rumours circulated of the orchestrated nature of the violent confrontation between Malays and Indians in March 2001 in the Petaling Jaya area, a salient cause of the unrest is indisputable: endemic urban poverty. Undoubtedly, conflict along ethnic lines need not necessarily be restricted to the poor, but it may be exacerbated and initiated by their socially and politically marginalised condition. At the same time, the ease with which state and socially sanctioned race politics advances, and the small numbers of organised men (typically) it takes to foment racialised violence, remain to be addressed. As noted in the introduction, whereas in Indonesia there have been dramatic instances of violence along ethnic and religious lines, in Malaysia conditions have been relatively calm. Both government and social groups can credibly take credit. What has emerged in Indonesia and is lacking in Malaysia, however, is a strong critical engagement with race or identities attributed with primordial qualities. The public discussion of these issues may be taking Indonesians a little closer to the self-consciousness of social construction that Ariel Heryanto (2001) believes is necessary as a bulwark against identity conflicts. Institutions have been initiated and remade, some from the ground up and others state-led. In Malaysia, on the other hand, while institutional change has been much slower, there has been a significant recognition and assertion of transethnicity within different social groups. Engaging afresh the racialised social order in Malaysia requires a shift from the modular ‘race relations’ literature to approaches that more readily name and elucidate the nuanced character of racialisation in Malaysia. Race is quite fundamental to Malaysian political culture but it is not totalising in character. ‘Malaysia’, as such, has been invoked historically not only in racialised terms, but also as a space shaped by the liberating terms of social equality. Notes * This chapter is a revised version of ‘Transethnic Solidarities in a Racialised Context’, Journal of Contemporary Asia (30: 1), February 2003, pp. 50–68. I owe much to many people who have been generous with their time, ideas and encouragement throughout the course of this chapter’s germination. I would like to thank Khoo Khay Jin, Hjorleifur Jonsson, Nora Taylor, Sharaad Kuttan, Kean Wong, Wong Hoy Cheong, Engseng Ho, Shanon Shah, Mary Zurbuchen, Eric Thompson, Henk Maier, Michael Salman, Sheila Nair, William Roff, Anne Christine Habbard, Caroline Hau and Donna Amoroso. I would also like to thank Edmund Terence Gomez for his valuable suggestions, which I have tried to incorporate in the present chapter. In addition, I would like to express my gratitude to the API Fellowship Programme and the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University as I benefited from their support in Indonesia and Japan respectively while preparing this chapter. State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 74 Sumit K. Mandal 1 Further empirical material and analysis of such solidarities may be found in Mandal (2001b). 2 Farish Noor, Mohan Ambikaipaker and I presented papers, with Sheila Nair acting as discussant, in the panel ‘Reframing Race and Culture in Malaysia’ at the Third Malaysian Studies Conference, 6–8 August 2001, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia. An earlier draft of the present chapter was first presented on this occasion. 3 ‘Jangan Buat Masalah Lagi dengan Kata “Pribumi”’, Kompas (10 August 2002). See also http://www.kompas.com/utama/news/0208/10/004311 (12 January 2003). 4 Compare with the discussion of ketuanan Melayu in Cheah (2002: 237) where it is translated as ‘Malay dominance’ and regarded as ‘part of the informal “bargain”’ agreed upon by the Alliance. 5 The Sunday Star (15 August 1999). 6 Sulaiman Jaafar, ‘Chinese wise in politics, says Nik Aziz’ (The Sun 30 March 2001). 7 At the panel discussion entitled ‘Multi-Culturalism and Respect for Minorities’ held at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, Kuala Lumpur on 7 December 2000 in conjunction with Human Rights Day, a Chinese Malaysian educator based in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia claimed that ethnic Chinese on the West Coast were oppressed by a Malay-dominated state through its assimilation measures. In contrast, Chinese on the East Coast, he observed, assimilated by gradual means, encouraged by the tolerant political and cultural environment. Should his claims of repression be true, it is less likely the result of racism than authoritarianism for ethnic Chinese political leaders constitute as much a part of the state in question. Related to this educator’s views, though more nuanced and substantiated by ethnographic and historical accounts, is the study by Tan Chee Beng (1984) of cultural differences among Chinese Malaysians. 8 As noted earlier, Cheah (2002) argues that the premiership has typically contained the racist potential within the ruling politics. This may be true. The point cannot be overstressed, however, that the institutional structures and public discourse remain disconcertingly racialised. There is not a great deal separating Cheah’s translation of ketuanan as ‘dominance’ and my own ‘supremacy’ (see note 4). Both pose different kinds of intellectual and ethical dilemmas when it comes to the question of social equality. 9 In contrast, Indonesia under Suharto’s New Order instituted a bureaucratic form of oppression of Chinese Indonesians that became full blown in the 1970s and 1980s, and in conjunction with an alliance with key businessmen from the community, assigned ‘Chineseness’ with inherent qualities of entrepreneurship, exclusivity and ethnic cunning. This worked nicely to scapegoat Chinese Indonesians in periods of economic and political decline by pitting their interests against those of the pribumi (‘indigenous’ Indonesians). See Khoo (2001) for an analysis of the way the NEP worked in Malaysia and why it would be unfeasible in Indonesia. 10 Of some 800,000 civil servants on 1 January 2001, parliamentary secretary in the Prime Minister’s Department, Khamsiyah Yeop, reports that approximately 76 per cent were ethnic Malay, 9 per cent Chinese, 5 per cent Indians and 7 per cent Bumiputera (‘805,219 employed in civil service’, The Sun 2 August 2001). Bumiputera in this particular instance refers to those considered indigenous to the states of Sabah and Sarawak. In addition to noting the absence of racial discrimination in the selection process, she observes as follows: ‘The government is increasing its efforts to provide a more balanced civil service sector in terms of racial composition’. An aspect of the problems of single ethnic group dominance in government bodies is revealed in the efforts to resolve the racialised violence of March, 2001 in Petaling Jaya. The mostly ethnic Malay security forces deployed to quell the unrest between Malays and Indians would likely have been perceived as partial to their ‘own’ under the highly racialised circumstances of the time. State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Transethnic solidarities 75 11 ‘Defend rights: PM’, The Sun (9 March 2001). 12 Husein Cedi gives these things words, words / And betel wraps will speak; / Have you sir seen, / Betel leaves clapping, betel nuts dancing. I am grateful to Devkumar Mandal, Ayesha Jalal, Sugata Bose and Nandini Sundar for their views on the initial two lines in Hindustani. I am nevertheless responsible for the present translation. 13 I do not intend an exhaustive survey here. For further discussion and examples of transethnic and hybrid cultural politics, see Mandal (2000a and 2000b). 14 I owe this insight to Sheila Nair. 15 Azman Ismail, ‘Teater: Tiada batasan Inggeris, Melayu’, Utusan Malaysia (7 August 2002). Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. References Abdul Rahman Embong (2000) The Culture and Practice of Pluralism in PostIndependence Malaysia, Bangi: Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. (IKMAS Working Paper Series No. 18 [August]). Abraham, C.E.R. (1997) The Roots of Race Relations in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur: Insan. Ahmad Boestamam (1972) Merintis Jalan ke Punchak, Kuala Lumpur: Kejora. Ambikaipaker, Mohan (2001) ‘“We All Have Stories to Tell; We Are All Stories Told by Others”: Re-imagining “Race” and Nation in Contemporary Malaysian Theatre’, paper presented at the Third Malaysian Studies Conference, 6–8 August, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia. Amir Muhammad (1999) ‘Sastera Melayu, Inggeris dan Realpolitik Malaysia’, Berita Minggu 7 Febuary. Amoroso, Donna (1998) ‘Dangerous Politics and the Malay Nationalist Movement, 1945–47’, South East Asia Research 6 (3). Andaya, Barbara Watson and Leonard Y. Andaya (2001) A History of Malaysia, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Anderson, Benedict R. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso. Arasaratnam, Sinnappah (1979) Indians in Malaysia and Singapore, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Banton, Michael (2002) The International Politics of Race, Cambridge: Polity. Cheah Boon Kheng (1984) ‘Perpecahan dan Perpaduan dalam Gerakan Kemerdekaan selepas Perang Dunia Kedua’, in Syed Husin Ali (ed.) Kaum, Kelas dan Pembangunan/ Ethnicity, Class and Development: Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur: Persatuan Sains Sosial Malaysia. Cheah Boon Kheng (2002) Malaysia: The Making of a Nation, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Eriksen, T. H. (1999) ‘Tu dimunn pu vini kreol: The Mauritian Creole and the Concept of Creolization’, lecture presented at the University of Oxford under the auspices of the ‘Transnational Connections’ programme, December, http://www.uio.no/~geirthe/ Creoles.html (21 March 2001). Fan Yew Teng (2001) ‘A condescending colonialist, the ISA and a typewriter lost’, malaysiakini.com 25 June, http://www.malaysiakini.com/News/2001/06/2001062502. php3 (25 June 2001). Farish Noor (2001) ‘The One-Dimensional Malay: The Homogenisation of Malay Identity in the Revisionist Writing of History in Malaysia’, paper presented at the Third State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. 76 Sumit K. Mandal Malaysian Studies Conference, 6–8 August, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia. Fernando, Lloyd (1986) Cultures in Conflict: Essays on Literature & the English Language in Southeast Asia, Singapore: Graham Brash. Friedman, J. (1994) Cultural Identity and Global Process, London: Sage. Gomez, E.T. (1999) ‘Tracing the Ethnic Divide: Race, Rights and Redistribution in Malaysia’, in J. Pfaff-Czarnecka, D. Rajasingham-Senanayake, A. Nandy and E.T. Gomez Ethnic Futures: The State and Identity Politics in Asia, New Delhi: Sage. Harper, T.N. (1999) The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heryanto, Ariel (2001) ‘Remembering and Dismembering Indonesia’, Latitudes 1 (Febuary). Heryanto, Ariel and Sumit K. Mandal (2003) ‘Challenges to Authoritarianism in Indonesia and Malaysia’, in Ariel Heryanto and Sumit K. Mandal (eds) Challenging Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia: Comparing Indonesia and Malaysia, London: RoutledgeCurzon. Hirschman, Charles (1986) ‘The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya: Political Economy and Racial Ideology’, Sociological Forum 1 (2) (Spring). —— (1987) ‘The Meaning and Measurement of Ethnicity in Malaysia: An Analysis of Census Classifications’, Journal of Asian Studies 46 (3) (August). Ho, E. (2000) ‘The Precious Gift of Genealogy’, paper presented at the research workshop ‘Creolization in the Indian Ocean’, Kevorkian Center, New York University, New York. —— (2001) ‘Le don précieux de la généalogie’, in P. Bonte, É. Conte and P. Dresch (eds) Émirs et presidents. Figures de la parenté et du politique dans le monde arabe, Paris: CNRS editions. Hobsbawm, E.J. (1992) ‘Nationalism and Ethnicity’, Intermedia 20 (4–5) (August– September). Ishak Shari (2000) ‘Economic Growth and Income Inequality in Malaysia, 1971–95’, Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy 5 (1/2). Ishikawa, Noboru (1998) ‘Between Frontiers: The Formation and Marginalization of a Borderland Malay Community in Southwestern Sarawak, Malaysia, 1870s–1990s’, Ph.D. diss., the Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York. Kahn, Joel S. (2001) Modernity and Exclusion, London: Sage. Khoo Boo Teik (1995) Paradoxes of Mahathirism, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. —— (1999a) ‘Malaysia’s “Reformasi” Breaks Cultural Lines’, The Nation 9 August, http:// wwwarc.murdoch.edu.au/arc/newspaper/khoo9au.htm (2 August 2001). —— (1999b) ‘Not about Race, Religion or Riots’, malaysiakini.com 29 November, http:// wwwarc.murdoch.edu.au/arc/newspaper/khoo29nov.html (2 August 2001). —— (2001) ‘Managing Ethnic Relations in Post-Crisis Malaysia and Indonesia: Lessons from the New Economic Policy?’ paper prepared for the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) conference ‘Racism and Public Policy’, 3–5 September, Durban, South Africa. Lee Kam Hing and Tan Chee Beng (eds) (2000) The Chinese in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Lowe, L. and Lloyd, D. (1997) ‘Introduction’, in L. Lowe and D. Lloyd (eds) The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital, Durham: Duke University Press. State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Transethnic solidarities 77 Mandal, Sumit K. (1998) ‘Bahasa Inggeris dan Keperibadian Nasional’, Pemikir (July– September). —— (2000a) ‘Reconsidering Cultural Globalization: The English Language in Malaysia’, Third World Quarterly 21 (6). —— (2000b) ‘Serious Mischief: The Work of Wong Hoy Cheong’ in Poisonous Targets: Rea & Wong Hoy Cheong, Sydney: Asia Australia Arts Centre. (Essay in catalogue for the visual arts exhibition ‘Poisonous Targets: Rea & Wong Hoy Cheong,’ Sydney, Australia, 27 October–16 December). —— (2001a) ‘Abdullah al-Misri: The Adventures of a Creole Imagination’, paper presented at the research workshop ‘Creolization in the Indian Ocean’, 23 April, Kevorkian Center, New York University, New York. —— (2001b) ‘Boundaries and Beyond: Wither the Cultural Bases for Political Community in Malaysia?’, in Robert Hefner (ed.) The Politics of Multi-Culturalism: Pluralism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press. Maniam, K.S. (1992) ‘Arriving’, in K.S. Maniam, Arriving . . and other stories, Singapore: Times. Morrison, Toni (1990) Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Nair, Sheila (1999) ‘Colonial “Others” and Nationalist Politics in Malaysia’, Akademika 54 (January). Noordin Hassan (1996) Saya . . . dari Hujung Kota, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Puthucheary, J. (1998) No Cowardly Past: Writings, Poems, Commentaries, Kuala Lumpur: Insan. (Edited by Dominic Puthucheary and Jomo K. S.). Razif Ahmad (1999) ‘Melayu Cap Naga: Seorang Disindir Ramai Terasa’, Eksklusif 24–30 May. Roff, W. R. (1994) The Origins of Malay Nationalism, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Rowland, Kathy (2003) ‘Introduction’, in Kathy Rowland (ed.) Krishen Jit: An Uncommon Position, Selected Writings, Singapore: Contemporary Asian Art Centre. Said Zahari (2001) Meniti Lautan Gelora: Sebuah Memoar Politik, Kuala Lumpur: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Utusan Publications and Distributors Sdn Bhd. Sanusi Osman (1984) ‘Ikatan Etnik dan Kelas’, in Syed Husin Ali (ed.) Kaum, Kelas dan Pembangunan / Ethnicity, Class and Development: Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur: Persatuan Sains Sosial Malaysia. Shamsul A.B. (1999) ‘Identity Contestation in Malaysia: A Comparative Commentary on “Malayness” and “Chineseness”’, Akademika 55 (July). Solehah Ishak (1992) ‘Interview with Noordin Hassan’ in Noordin Hassan, Children of This Land, Solehah Ishak, trans., Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Syed Husin Ali (1984) ‘Social Relations: The Ethnic and Class Factors’, in Syed Husin Ali (ed.) Kaum, Kelas dan Pembangunan / Ethnicity, Class and Development: Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur: Persatuan Sains Sosial Malaysia. Syed Hussein Alatas (1977) The Myth of the Lazy Native, London: Frank Cass. Tan Chee Beng (1984) ‘Acculturation, Assimilation and Integration: The Case of the Chinese’, in Syed Husin Ali (ed.) Kaum, Kelas dan Pembangunan / Ethnicity, Class and Development: Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur: Persatuan Sains Sosial Malaysia. Tan Sooi Beng (1997) Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera, Penang: The Asian Center. State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22. 78 Sumit K. Mandal Copyright © 2004. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. Thompson, Eric (2000) ‘In K.L.-and-Kampung: Urbanism in Rural Malaysia’, Ph.D. diss., University of Washington. Winzeler, Robert (1985) Ethnic Relations in Kelantan: A Study of the Chinese and Thais as Ethnic Minorities in a Malay State, Singapore: Oxford University Press. Wolters, O.W. (1999) History, Culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives, Ithaca and Singapore: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications / The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Yao Souchou (2000) ‘Xiao Ye: Food, Alterity and the Pleasure of Chineseness in Malaysia’, New Formations 40 (Spring). State of Malaysia : Ethnicity, Equity, and Reform, edited by Edmund Terence Gomez, Taylor and Francis, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unmc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=181694. Created from unmc-ebooks on 2017-10-09 00:01:22.