Blog

In recent weeks, Dr Mahathir has claimed that eating with chopsticks is a sign of the failure of Chinese Malaysians to integrate into a “Malaysian” identity. This remark has, rightfully, been made fun of. However, I would invite Malaysians to consider Dr M’s remarks seriously, not as a call to stop using chopsticks, but as an indicator of the ideology that permeates the ruling stratum of not just  Malaysia but of countries all over the world.

Unity, as a cultural or political appeal, is something that is experienced. What is experienced by people is reflective of their reality as it exists and not what is claimed to exist. There will be no true unity in a country or community where there is no shared experience. This is the case no matter how hard people may try to convince a community that they are or should be united. Appeals to unity can be found in almost every community of people. Malaysia is no different. Earlier this year, the opposition frequently told each other to unite against the unelected Muhyiddin government which was accused of having lost its majority. Moreover, never has unity been such a nebulous concept as when politicians from 3 different parties accused each other of undermining Malay unity while being united in a government coalition. This begs the question: what exactly do these people mean when they say unity?

A call to unity is addressed to a particular community of people. Hence, it is defined just as much by what it excludes than what it includes. In Dr M’s case, by saying that the “Malaysian” identity is eating with our hands, he has essentialised what it means to be Malaysian and excluded those who disagree with this notion. He has created an imagined community whose interests, desires and aspirations are assumed to be shared. This community does not need to actually share these things and can be completely arbitrary. What matters is that the people within this group accept that they are a part of this group, and pursue their shared interests. What happens to those who reject an essentialised characteristic of the imagined community? Those who want to be a part of the imagined community must assimilate. The alternative is social isolation or worse. 

In Malaysia, there are certain views that must be accepted if one is to be a Malaysian. Chief amongst these are an acceptance of Malay special rights and the Malay royalty. These are views that have become not only culturally hegemonic, but also institutionally enforced. PDRM have questioned many a dissident simply for publicly questioning the necessity of Malay special rights. In practice, many Malaysians disagree with one of, if not both of these propositions. However, one can disagree with a particular state of affairs and yet still come to accept them, and that is precisely the case in Malaysia. The existence of this underlying dissatisfaction with the status quo is the reason why calls to unity must continually be made. In other words, calls to unity must be made because people are not united. This may seem obvious, but it leads us to another important question: why are Malaysians not united?

Anyone with a basic understanding of history knows that under British colonialism, the races of Malaysia were divided from each other. The British negotiated independence with UMNO which was in coalition with MCA and MIC as representatives of the interests of the Chinese and Indians. This is where the notion of a “social contract”, the idea that the different races made compromises to each other when Malaysia was founded, comes from. As has been pointed out by many, the “social contract” does not in actual fact exist. It is merely a hegemonic idea that has been portrayed as being a founding principle of Malaysia. The Alliance was not the only show in town as far as political representation in pre-independence Malaya goes. The Malayan left who drafted the People’s Constitutional Proposals was an alternative, and more controversially the Communist Party of Malaya. After independence, the problem of racial divisions did not disappear despite a nominally multi-racial coalition in power, and non-Malay support for the Alliance declined drastically. This state of affairs would continue until the May 13th riots. Post May 13, The Razak administration would establish the NEP, a set of policies that aimed to, among other things, reduce the identification of races with economic function, and the rather more ambitious goal of eliminating poverty.

Although great strides have been made towards reducing racial wealth gaps, I would argue that there is still, to some extent, informal segregation in Malaysia. Two things stick out to me. The first is the fact that the public sector is dominated by Malays due to racial quotas.  This creates, although to a much lesser degree, an identification of race in the economic sector. The private sector has a much higher ratio of non-Malays in comparison, such that some businesses are able to put mandarin language requirements for job applications much to the chagrin of some Malays. The other issue is Malay quotas at public universities that allow them to be dominated by Malays. Informal segregation between races happens due to a structural issue caused by government policy. There is great resistance to reforms in these areas, almost exclusively from Malays who do not want to lose their ”special rights”. This need to defend Malay rights was what motivated so many to demonstrate against the signing of ICERD and the Rome statute. Perhaps, in light of so many calls for it, special attention should be paid to the idea of Malay unity. UMNO, Bersatu and PAS all claim to represent Malays and all 3 have been ruling as part of a governing coalition since Langkah Sheraton. This would seem to imply that Malays share some kind of common experience or interests that, at least to some extent, pit them against the other races. But does unity truly exist among Malays or is it simply an arbitrary imagined community?