65

The Challenge of Forging Unity
in Malaysia

5th National Congress on Integrity, Institute of Advanced
Islamic Studies, 13 May 2010

ASSALAMU’ ALAIKUM and good morning to everyone. I would like to express my utmost thanks to KJ John and all the organisers for inviting me to this event. It humbles me to be the first of a line-up including such distinguished individuals. I must apologise in advance that duties elsewhere prevent me from staying long today. But my colleagues from IDEAS are here and I am sure they will be full and active participants in the conversations later this afternoon.

I think I would be right in saying that I am, however slightly, the youngest person to be addressing you today. When we are born has a profound impact on how we grow up, of course. But age is not the only reason why one’s experiences growing up in Malaysia might differ from another’s. I cannot pretend that my life experiences were typical of the majority of Malaysians in my generation. So I just want to spend a few minutes illustrating the Malaysia I grew up in, and how my view of 13 May 1969 was formed.

“We need not lose any aspect of our individual identities to forge unity. It’ just that these identities should be free from political manipulation.”

From a young age, I attended an international school. There, ethnicity never featured as a defining characteristic for anything. We learnt about nationalities and religions, not races. My best friends were Scottish, Australian and Korean. Although Muslims had to attend mengaji classes, religion was blissfully free of any racial connotations.

And although there were very strong cultural traditions practised by my family, of which I was and still am extremely proud, there was never any indication that they were intrinsically hostile to anyone else. It seemed natural to me that other families had other heritages and practised their own traditions. None were necessarily more right than the other.

Amongst my wider family itself I found all sorts of hybrids. I have cousins who are half-Japanese, half-Indian, half-English and even half-Kelantanese. Of course I was jealous of their mixed heritage. So I researched my own family tree, which simultaneously opened my eyes to a glorious multi-ethnic past.

The first thing I discovered was that once upon a time, my ancestors called themselves ‘Minangkabau’. These people had traditions and values that were, in relatively recent history, blurred and absorbed into a larger identity called ‘Malay’. And such mergers and acquisitions have no doubt occurred within the other ethnic tags we see nowadays. The second thing I discovered was that my ancestors had collectively come from places like the Arabian Peninsula, China and Thailand.

I was very excited. But perhaps it was naïve of me to assume that all Malaysians had similar experiences of mixed heritage, or indeed were remotely interested in knowing who their ancestors were. There is an outstanding TV series on the BBC called Who Do You Think You Are?, in which genealogists research the family histories of celebrities. Very often, there are surprises and amazing historical insights. I think we should have such a show here, because it might cajole the curiosity of Malaysians in researching their own past.

But my excitement changed to profound shock when I learnt, as a teenager, that we had a race riot not too long ago, that Malaysians killed other Malaysians just because of who their ancestors were, or rather, who they thought their ancestors were. I couldn’t believe it.

As I grew up, I began to see more and more the subtle and pervasive ways in which Malaysians discriminated amongst themselves. But the real bubble breaker was my observation at university in London, where it was clear that many Malaysians simply did not socialise outside their ethnic group, let alone with non-Malaysians.

As a student of sociology and politics with an interest in history and public policy, I have long wondered why this is the case. Today’s event is entitled ‘The Challenge of Forging Unity’. To forge unity in a country, it seems logical to consider the historical circumstances before trying to formulate appropriate policy responses.

The story of 13 May 1969 has been well told. Each one of us in this room will have a view on why it happened and whether the steps taken subsequent to that were the right ones.

My personal conviction is that 13 May 1969 was primarily a political event that has deliberately been continually recast as a racial one. It was in essence a conflict between political parties contained within the Klang Valley. Just 60 kilometres away in multiracial Seremban, nothing happened. In Kuala Terengganu across the peninsula, nothing happened.

Of course there were tragic incidents on that day, and I do not in any way wish to insult the memory of those who lost lives and faced hardship. But in the grand scheme of world history, it was a blip. Let’s look at our region alone: imagine, in Cambodia, over two million people died under Pol Pot’s murderous regime. The Vietnam War left over five million people dead. Those countries have much more difficult episodes in their recent history to deal with.

Even in our own country, World War II and the Emergency resulted in far greater loss of life than May 13. Surely, we can move on?

Now, detractors will point to other evidence of racial tension that decade, such as in Singapore in 1964. But it’s important to note similarities in the historiography of both events, which is that two competing political groups initially blamed the other for the violence. In the end, blaming it on ‘racial tension’ became a way of sidestepping these ascriptions of blame.

This became a convenient justification for all sorts of government action, beginning with the New Economic Policy and developed through a range of government agencies and policies. All these programmes, which involved some degree of government intervention, were symbiotic with the broad consociotionalist model that was accepted and re-elected by the people.

But as the debates over the New Economic Model exemplify today, there are those who see these measures as permanent, and moreover, cite their preservation or expansion as essential to peace. Constitutional and historical arguments are provided to prove their prescriptions.

Despite the fact that our pre-Merdeka history is longer than our post-Merdeka history, it is easy to be selective about it. It is easy to ignore that for centuries the Malay sultanates flourished in a highly competitive economic environment, where international merchants would come and go, bringing trade, knowledge and people from all over the world such that Venetians would know of Malacca. It is easy to ignore that interracial marriage was in vogue here before it was in vogue in America, with Sultan Mansur Shah marrying Hang Li Po in the 15th century. It is easy to ignore the fact that even the royal courts of Malay Rulers had non-Malay advisors sitting in them.

I admit: I am a Romanticist. But in those days, it seemed our ancestors were judged for their character, their capabilities and their worldviews. Today, we are all too often lumped into categories that our forebears never knew.

And that is why, Ladies and Gentlemen, I do not think fostering unity in our country is about improving relations between ‘groups’ defined by government. I think it is about enabling relations between individuals who define themselves. At the heart of the challenge of forging unity, then, is the promotion of personal responsibility, of free markets and of individual liberty.

It means more freedom for headmasters in running their own schools, so that instead of fulfilling political demands, they can actually try to attract the best children. It means having more avenues for students to express themselves at university without being tied down to clichéd expectations. It means less restrictive scholarships on our youth so they can contribute to the nation in their own ways instead of doing what out-of-touch generations tell them to do.

It means more opportunities for trade, so that we can decide the basis on which we buy and sell things. It means Malaysians keeping more of their hard-earned wages instead of them being spent on projects and schemes that won’t improve their lives.

I commend those on both sides of our political divide who see these realities. As a result, they want to liberalise the economy and they want to make our society more competitive. But there are also those who suggest that such things threaten loyalty and patriotism. I say they are Pa’ Blalangs who need to wake up to the reality of our nation’s 21st century situation. Democracy and open markets are not enemies of patriotism.

Yet, when our leaders warn of the dangers of discussing May 13 ‘too openly’, they speak out of a genuine fear of violence re-erupting. It is true that some people get very upset when ‘sensitive issues’ are discussed. It is true that many people get worried for their families when policies that have been in place for decades might be taken away. It is true that no one wants to risk instability at such an important juncture in our nation’s narrative.

But I still don’t believe it. I don’t believe that Malaysians killed other Malaysians because of who they thought their ancestors were. The casualties of this day 41 years ago were, I believe, caused by the provocation of political actors.

Nevertheless, we have brought this—this exaggerated fear of violence—upon ourselves. This has been allowed to happen because of what Malaysians have been led to believe about the story of ‘unity’ in our country. I believe that the antidote is to tell a different story, which is that in the entire history of the kingdoms and territories that today make up our federation, there have scarcely been racial tensions comparable to those we have seen in Germany, in South Africa, in Palestine or in Rwanda.

And so we must take it upon ourselves to tell this story. It is not the job of government to tell us who we are and where we are going. It is up to us, and the best thing the politicians can do is to get out of the way.

In short, we must depoliticise the keris, and reclaim it as the symbol of honour and civility that it once was. The more we let cultural symbols become tools of politicians, the more we put ourselves at their mercy; our identities become theirs to mould.

There are some radical reformers who suggest that we must be Malaysian and Malaysian only. But I disagree. I am proud of my other identities. I think this talk of being something first is a bit unnecessary. We are simultaneously many things. Indeed, my colleagues and I once coined the term ‘quintuple M’, to stand for ‘Malay Muslim Middle-class Malaysian Male’.

I do not think that we need to lose any aspect of our individual identities to forge unity. It’s just that these identities should be free from political manipulation. We simply need to be a nation of individuals who respect other citizens for their own multiple identities, rather than a nation of groups defined by political parties. Perhaps when the political parties talk more about policy ideas and less about which ‘groups’ they need to get votes from, the closer we will get to realising this dream.

That, I would say in conclusion, is the first step of the challenge.

Thank you very much for your kind attention, and I hope you have a very good day ahead.