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Politics of Language and Language of Politics: Theory
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Malaysia
Conference Paper · March 2013
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Politics of Language and
Language of Politics:
Theory and Practice of the
‘Nation-of-Intent’ as
articulated in Malaysia
Shamsul A.B.
Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM
(UKM Ethnic Studies Paper Series)
Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA)
Bangi 2015
iii
Cetakan Pertama / First Printing, 2015
Hak cipta / Copyright Penulis / Author
Institut Kajian Etnik (KITA)
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 2015
Hak cipta terpelihara. Tiada bahagian daripada terbitan ini boleh
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dalam sebarang bentuk atau dengan sebarang alat juga pun, sama
ada dengan cara elektronik, gambar serta rakaman dan sebagainya
tanpa kebenaran bertulis daripada Institut Kajian Etnik (KITA),
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia terlebih dahulu.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Institute of
Ethnic Studies (KITA), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
Diterbitkan di Malaysia oleh / Published in Malaysia by
Institut Kajian Etnik, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600 Bangi, Selangor D.E., Malaysia
Dicetak di Malaysia oleh / Printed in Malaysia by
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600 UKM Bangi,Selangor D.E Malaysia
http:/pkukmweb.ukm.my/~penerbit/
Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia
Data-Pengkatalogan-dalam
Penerbitan
Cataloguing-in-Publication-Data
Shamsul Amri Baharuddin, 1951
Politics of Language and Language of Politics: Theory and
Practice of the ‘Nation-of-Intent’ as articulated in
Malaysia/Shamsul Amri Baharuddin.
(Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 35/2015)
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ISBN 978-983-44318-0-8
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Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 2 (November) ISBN 978983-44318-1-5
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Governance in Malaysia’s Survival as a Nation. Siri
Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 3 (September). ISSN
2180-1193
Sun Mee Lee. 2009. Construction of Moken Identity in
Thailand: A Case Study in Kuraburi. Siri Kertas Kajian
Etnik UKM Bil. 4 (Oktober). ISSN 2180-1193
Eric Schubert Ansah. 2009. Shaping A New Africa:
What
Malaysians
Should
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about
the
Transformation in Africa. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM
Bil. 5 (November). ISSN 2180-1193
Thock Ker Pong. 2009. Tsunami Politik 2008 dan Hala
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Sepanjang Jalan. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 6
(Disember). ISSN 2180-1193
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Sharifah Zaleha Syed Hassan. 2010. Negotiating
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Lifestyle in Singapore and Bangkok: A Case Study of
Singaporean Homosexual Men. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik
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2180-1193
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Theory of Globalization. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM
Bil. 10 (Ogos). ISSN 2180-1193
Lennart Niemelä. 2010. WALK! Framing a Successful
Agrarian Reform Campaign in the Philippines. Siri
Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 11 (September). ISSN
2180-1193
Elinor Lumbang Boayes. 2010. The Deadliest Free Press
in Asia: A case study of the Philippines. Siri Kertas
Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 12 (September). ISSN 2180-1193
Shamsul Amri Baharuddin. 2010. Unity in Diversity:
The Malaysian Experience. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM
Bil. 13 (Oktober). ISSN 2180-1193
vi
Ong Puay Hoon, Dick Yong, Ong Puay Liu & Ong Puay
Tee. 2010. The Silent Burden: What it Means to be
Dyslexic. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 14
(Oktober). ISSN 2180-1193
Shazlin Amir Hamzah. 2010. Branding Malaysia through
Tourism: When Ads Permeate Our Consciousness, What
Happens to Our Identity? Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM
Bil. 15 (November). ISSN 2180-1193
Tallyn Gray. 2010. Justice and the Khmer Rouge: Ideas
of a Just Response to the Atrocities of Democratic
Kampuchea in Buddhism and the Extraordinary
Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Siri Kertas Kajian
Etnik UKM Bil. 16 (Disember). ISSN 2180-1193
Shamsul Amri Baharuddin. 2011. ’Ilmu Kolonial’ dalam
Pembentukan Sejarah Intelektual Malaysia: Sebuah
Pandangan. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 17
(Januari). ISSN 2180-1193
Shamsul A.B. & Anis Y. Yusoff. 2011. Managing Peace
in Malaysia: A Case Study. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM
Bil. 18 (Mei). ISSN 2180-1193
Clive S. Kessler. 2012. What Every Malaysian Needs to
Know about Race. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 19
(Mac). ISSN 2180-1193
Pue Giok Hun & Shamsul A.B. 2012. Peranakan as a
Social Concept. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 20
(April). ISSN 2180-1193
vii
Denison Jayasooria & Teo Lee Ken (Editors). 2012.
Issues Pertaining to Malaysia’s Ratification of The
International Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) 1965. Siri
Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 21 (Oktober). ISSN 21801193
Hasan Mat Nor. 2012. Kompilasi Beranotasi mengenai
Orang Asli: Bahan Bertulis dalam Bahasa Melayu di
UKM. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 22 (November).
ISSN 2180-1193
Denison Jayasooria. 2012. Malaysia: The Need for
Inclusiveness. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 23
(Disember). ISSN 2180-1193
Denison Jayasooria. 2012. Issues Pertaining to
Malaysia introducing a New National Harmony Act. Siri
Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 24 (Disember). ISSN
2180-1193
James T. Collins. 2013. On Malay Manuscripts: Lessons
from the Seventeenth Century. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik
UKM Bil. 25 (Januari). ISSN 2180-1193
Azmi Aziz dan Shamsul Amri Baharuddin. 2013.
Pluralisme dan Pluralisme Agama: Sebuah Wacana
Konseptual. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 26 (April).
ISSN 2180-1193 (not in print)
Denison Jayasooria dan Muhammad Ismail Aminuddin.
2013. Satu pendekatan dalam membina kesepaduan
sosial melalui penyertaan komuniti. Siri Kertas Kajian
Etnik UKM Bil. 27 (April). ISSN 2180-1193
viii
Wendy Smith. 2013. Managing Ethnic Diversity in a
Japanese Joint Venture in Malaysia. Siri Kertas Kajian
Etnik UKM Bil. 28 (April). ISSN 2180-1193 (not in
print)
Denison Jayasooria (ed.). 2013. Building an Inclusive
Society on the Foundation of Human Rights and
Responsibilities. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 29
(April). ISSN 2180-1193
Pue Giok Hun (pnyt.). 2013. Menyelusuri Cabaran
Kepelbagaian: Pengalaman Malaysia Terkini. Siri Kertas
Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 30 (Mei). ISSN 2180-1193
Leong Kar Yen. 2013. The State and Unseen Realm:
State Ideology, History and Memory in Indonesia. Siri
Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 31 (Julai). ISSN 21801193
Kartini Aboo Talib @ Khalid. 2014. Consociation In
Plural Society: Accommodating Contemporary Malaysia
Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM Bil. 32 (September).
ISSN 2180-1193
Kartini Aboo Talib @ Khalid. 2014. Moderation and
Power Sharing in Malaysia: Accommodating concept
and practice. Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik Bil. 33
(September), ISSN 2180-1193
Eric Olmedo Panal. 2014. “MAMAKIZATION” Food and
Social Cohesion in Malaysia: A Tentative Framework.
Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik Bil. 34 (November), ISBN 978967-0741-03-1
ix
About the UKM Ethnic Studies Paper Series
UKM Ethnic Studies Paper Series marks the inaugural publication of
the Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA), UKM. The purpose of this
Paper Series is in line with UKM’s official status as a research
university under the 9th Malaysia Plan. The Series provides a premise
for the dissemination of research findings and theoretical debates
among academics and researchers in Malaysia and world-wide
regarding issues related with ethnic studies. All articles submitted for
this Series will be refereed by at least one reviewer before
publication. Opinions expressed in this Series are solely those of the
writer(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of
KITA. The first two papers published in November 2008 under this
Series had the ISBN code. For 2009, the Series carries the ISSN
Code. However, the Series reverts to the ISBN code with the
publication of number 34, November 2014.
For further information, please contact:
Prof. Dr. Ong Puay Liu
Chief Editor
UKM Ethnic Studies Paper Series Committee
Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA)
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
Website : http://www.kita.ukm.my
email: pliu@ukm.edu.my; puayliu@yahoo.com
Mengenai Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM
Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik UKM menandakan penerbitan ulung Institut
Kajian Etnik (KITA). Tujuan penerbitan bersiri ini adalah selaras
dengan status rasmi UKM sebagai sebuah universiti penyelidikan
dalam Rancangan Malaysia Ke-9. Penerbitan Kertas bersiri ini
memberi peluang kepada para akademik dan penyelidik di Malaysia
dan luar negara untuk menyebar penemuan-penemuan kajian dan
idea-idea teoretikal masing-masing mengenai isu-isu berkaitan
dengan kajian etnik. Artikel-artikel yang dihantar untuk tujuan
penerbitan akan diwasit oleh sekurang-kurangnya seorang penilai.
Segala pandangan yang diungkapkan oleh penulis artikel dalam
penerbitan bersiri ini adalah pandangan penulis berkenaan dan tidak
semestinya mewakili atau mencerminkan pandangan dan polisi KITA.
Dua kertas yang diterbitkan pada bulan November 2008 di bawah Siri
ini mempunyai kod ISBN. Mulai tahun 2009, Siri Kertas Kajian Etnik
UKM ini membawa kod ISSN. Namun, kod diubah balik ke ISBN
bermula dengan penerbitan nombor 34, November 2014.
x
CONTENTS
1. Introduction … 2
2. States without Nation … 3
3. Competing Nations-of-Intent in Malaysia … 6
4. Define and Rule:
Conquest … 10
The
Colonial
Epistemological
5. Language, Education and Culture: Bargaining
& Negotiating within ‘Nations-of-Intent’ Framework
… 16
References … 25
About KITA … 26
xi
Politics of Language and Language of Politics:
Theory and Practice of the ‘Nation-of-Intent’
as articulated in Malaysia1
Shamsul A.B.2
“Nationalism and its imperatives have been a
potent force in the history of modern Southeast
Asia. The driver and repository of anticolonial
freedom movements, nationalist ideas have
also been a means of determining who is within
and who without, what political scientist
Benedict Anderson has called ‘imagined
communities’ of modern nation-states and
anthropologist Shamsul A.B., their ‘nations-ofintent.’” (Owen 2005: 252)
“Writing about nations has been especially
vulnerable
to
teleology.
Nationalists
themselves tend to seek ancient historical
origins for the nations they support, while the
main theories of nationalism – Smith’s
primordialism, and the constructivism of
Hobsbawm, Gellner and Anderson – tend to be
deterministic: people do not choose national
identity but rather have that identity thrust
upon
them
by
ethnicity
or
historical
experience. In this context, it is useful to draw
on the writings of an eminent Malaysian
sociologist, Shamsul A.B., who has coined the
term ‘nation-of-intent’ as a way of highlighting
the fact that different kinds of nation may
seem possible at particular times and that
people choose consciously between these
possibilities not because they already ‘belong’
1
to one of them (as both the primordialists and
the constructivists imply) but because that
possibility offers the most attractive potential
for the future.” (Cribb 2004)
1. Introduction
When I first wrote and published an essay, in 1996,
entitled “Nations-of-Intent in Malaysia,” it was meant
to elaborate and explain, at the theoretical level, why
the use of the term ‘nation-state’ in Asia is problematic.
In my own anthropological research on the Malay world
I discovered that, at the empirical level, the ‘state’ and
‘nation,’ at most times, are disconnected. What then
existed has been ‘nations without state’ (e.g. Moro
nation) and ‘states without nation’ (Malaysia and
Singapore). I found it was rather difficult to establish
the existence of the idealised European ‘nation-state’ in
the region, perhaps with the example of Brunei with its
Islam-Melayu-Beraja nation. The disconnected cases
seem to be represented by the post-colonial countries
of Southeast Asia.3 However, it was not the political
scientists who appreciated the significance of this
observation but the historians [see, the abovementioned quotations] who were looking at not only
cases found within Southeast Asia but also Asia in
general, for example, the case of Burma, Indonesia,
The Philippines, Vietnam, and Mongolia.
This paper is my latest attempt to share the ‘nation-ofintent’
theoretical-conceptual
framework
with
researchers on Malaysia and Southeast Asia, in the
field of public policy, language studies and education,
with the aim of expanding and widening the empirical
2
content of the conceptual framework. The theme of this
panel - ‘negotiating the culture and politics of language
choice’ – indeed falls within the ambit of the said
framework. Through this framework, I am suggesting
that it is in ‘states without nation’ that the notion of
‘nations-of-intent’ continue to flourish thus opening up
socio-political space for contestation, bargaining and
negotiation by different groups within the society over
a broader range of issues, macro and micro, and in the
context of choice- and decision-making.
2. States without Nation
We learnt from the post-colonial countries that, firstly,
we cannot assume the term ‘state’ could be used
interchangeably with the term ‘nation-state’ because
the range of historical trajectories shaping the postcolonial countries is quite wide. Secondly, the term
‘nation-state’ could be used in a number of different
fashions. For example, we are aware of the existence
of ‘state-nation,’ such as Singapore, in which the
‘state’, instead of society, not only defines and
engineers but also reinvents the ‘nation’ almost at will
to suit the changing demand of the ‘state’. In some
other cases, there are ‘nations-without-state’, such as
in the case of the Moro of the Southern Philippine, in
which, it has a ‘nation,’ or a few competing ‘nations-ofintent,’ but is yet to successfully establish a full-fledged
bona fide ‘state.’ Of course, there are also cases of
‘states-without-nation.’ Malaysia is one such case.
The existence of these variations has conceptual and
empirical implications that we intend to address in this
present discourse. Conceptually, the ‘state,’ defined as
“an entity that has a rule of a law, a territory and
3
citizenship,” especially in post-colonial countries, could
be separated from the ‘nation,’ defined as “an imagined
community imbued with a notion of a nation-of-intent,”
because the former has already existed during the
colonial period fulfilling colonial needs. Once a country
achieved its independence and despite the fact that the
natives are at the helm, its main structure of
governance remains almost the same as that of the
colonial state.
Depending on how independence was negotiated, the
‘nation’ or ‘how the nation should be,’ in most
postcolonial countries, remains unfinished agenda
because the struggle for independence during the
colonial era rarely takes a homogenous form,
especially, in multi-ethnic or multi-cultural societies,
such as Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, The Philippines
and Vietnam. In these countries, the ‘state’ exists for
many decades after independence without an
established nation. Sometimes, bloody civil wars occur,
such as Indonesia, because different ethnic groups
within a post-colonial country prefer to pursue their
own nation-of-intent. In the wider context of Asia, as in
the case of India, the Muslim anti-colonial nationalist
movement broke away to form its own state called
Pakistan, consisting of West and East Pakistan. A few
decades later East Pakistan broke away to form what
we know today as Bangladesh.
We would like to argue, based upon the empirical
evidence outlined above, that the ‘modern states’
and/or ‘nation-states’ in Southeast Asia, and other
post-colonial countries, are a distinct lot, for historical
and a host of other reasons, when compared to the
European ones which have been for so long the main
4
conceptual and empirical source, indeed benchmark,
for theorization in the construction of theories about
‘the state’ and ‘nation-state’ for the rest of the world.
Indeed, in many of the Asian cases, the ‘state’ and the
‘nation’ are two quite separate entities. The former is
solidly established and usually promotes a version of
the latter. The latter, on the other hand, is often being
contested by different social groups, hence the
proliferation of notions of the nation-of-intent.
We have chosen this strategy for two main reasons.
First, most analyses of Malaysia’s modernization project
tend to emphasise the material process. Whereas this,
of course, is necessary, we believe we should also try
to grasp the ideological, and in many ways ‘abstract’
contestation that goes with modernization. There is a
need to explore what happens in the political space,
beyond politics of parties and numbers, particularly in
the realm of ideas, symbols and perceptions. Second,
in so doing we have outlined some of the origins of the
present ‘abstract’ ideological struggle over the
definition of the cultural principle that should underpin
the functioning of the political unit, both amongst the
elites and non-elites. The latter are particularly
concerned about the practical consequences of various
concepts of community for their everyday lives and the
future, such as their children’s education, the
usefulness of their mother tongue and other cultural
practices. Such concerns, mundane as they seem, are
closely linked to the larger issue of Malaysia’s future as
a ‘united Malaysia nation’ or Bangsa Malaysia, or
Malaysia as a state with a number of competing
‘nations-of-intent.’
5
3. Competing nations-of-intent in Malaysia
By nation-of-intent we mean a more or less precisely
defined idea of the form of a nation-state, i.e. its
territory, population, language, culture, symbols and
institutions. The idea must be shared by a number of
people who perceive themselves as members of that
nation, and who feel that it unites them. A nation-ofintent may imply a radical transformation of a given
state, and the exclusion or inclusion of certain groups
of people. It may also imply the creation of a new
state, but it does not necessarily imply an aspiration for
political self-rule on the part of the group of people who
are advancing their nation-of-intent. It may be an
inclusive construct, open to others, which is employed
as the basis for apolitical platform voicing dissent or a
challenge to the established notion of nation. In any
case, the concept nation-of-intent depicts an idea of a
nation-state that still needs to be constructed or
reconstructed. It promises the citizens (or some of
them) an opportunity to participate in a ‘grand project’
which they can claim as theirs. It therefore bridges the
authority-defined and the everyday-defined idea of a
nation. In the Malaysian case, as admitted by Mahathir
(Malaysia’s Prime Minister 1981-2003), the ‘united
Malaysian nation-state’ is yet to be born. Hence,
various social groups in Malaysia can still voice their
different nation-of-intent.
In some aspects, conceptually, ‘nation-of-intent’ is not
dissimilar to Anderson’s concept of ‘imagined political
community.’4 By ‘imagine’, he does not necessarily
mean ‘invented’, but rather the members of the said
community ‘will never know most of their fellowmembers, meet them, or even hear them, yet in the
6
minds of each lives the image of their communion’.
However, nation-of-intent is more positive, proactive,
non-deterministic and forward-looking. It has a
programmatic plan of action articulated in real politic
which has, in the Malaysian case, emerged not only
from a historical context of anti-colonialism but also in
the post-colonial era. In the latter, it serves as an
alternative way of formulating political intentions even
though, mostly, it remains at the discourse level.
However, in a number of cases, especially in particular
localities, the idea of advancing alternative nations-ofintent has found concrete expression, hence political
space.
That is what has happened in the local provinces of
Kelantan and Sabah. In both provinces, the local ruling
party, during the period when they were on their own
and opposed the Malaysian BN-dominated federal
government, have made serious attempts not only to
continue to articulate its own nation-of-intent but also
to implement some aspects of it locally. Even though
these attempts have met with limited success, they
have demonstrated that it is possible to have and hold
on to one’s nation-of-intent and implement it within the
so-called ‘authoritarian’ political context in Malaysia. It
is in this sense that the Malaysian situation, in some
ways, is not unlike the African one. If the latter has
been complicated by ‘tribal nationalism’ thus giving rise
to a situation described as ‘one state, many
nationalisms’, the Malaysian case could be described as
a situation of ‘one state, several nations’, or more
precisely, ‘nations-of-intent.’
The concept of a united Malaysian nation, proposed by
Mahathir, could be interpreted in two ways: first, to
7
mean ‘the nation as a cultural community’, a kind of
political innovation which suggests the idea of rural and
urban, intra- and inter-ethnic, and inter-class
solidarity, (clearly, here Mahathir is not using the term
‘nation’ in the traditional ‘aspiration for political selfrule’ sense); and, second, to mean the construction of
a ‘national identity’, hence ‘national integration’. In
fact, the latter has been the overriding, but as yet not
realized, objective of the New Economic Policy, which
was launched in 1971, implemented over two decades,
and ended in 1990.
Some observers have said that Mahathir’s concept of ‘a
united Malaysian nation’, or Bangsa Malahysia, is not
really different from the one proposed by Lee Kuan Yew
in 1963, namely a ‘Malaysian Malaysia’ nation, when he
was chief minister of Singapore and Singapore was still
in Malaysia. However, some Malay bureaucratic
intellectuals have answered that Mahathir’s concept is
qualitatively different. Whereas Lee Kuan Yew argued
for a nation-state in which everyone, irrespective of
race, colour and creed, would enjoy equal status,
Mahathir argues for a nation-state in which the
constitutionally
recognized
bumiputera’s
special
position, hence bumiputera political dominance, is
retained and accepted by all Malaysians.
Therefore, it could be said that the shaping of the
political agenda of Malaysia’s modernization project, as
outlined by Mahathir, is contextualized within the
existing legal-bureaucratic state structures, namely,
the Malaysian Constitution and the federalist nature of
the state. Lee Kuan Yew’s ‘Malaysian Malaysia’ agenda,
on the other hand, demands a radical constitutional
reform and perhaps the formation of an ‘absolutist’
8
unitary state, such as the one in Singapore, which,
according to many analysts, has not really been a
‘Singaporean Singapore’. In spite of that, the
Democratic Action Party (DAP), the Chinese-controlled
main opposition political party in Malaysia, has
continued, from the late 1960s until the last general
election of 2008, to call for a ‘Malaysian Malaysia’ as its
nation-of-intent.
Since it is unlikely that a radical constitutional reform
will take place in Malaysia, by implication the formation
of a unitary state in the mould of ‘Malaysian Malaysia’
is improbable. But, in Mahathir’s opinion, there is no
reason why Malaysians should not strive to create a
‘united Malaysia nation-state’ and build their own
‘national identity’. Ironically, it is this very suggestion
that keeps the debate open, about what kind of Bangsa
Malaysia we should have, or at least that is the
perception of many social groups in contemporary
Malaysia. Hence the dialogue between various nationof-intent is alive and well in Malaysia at present,
arguably, in a redefined political space. Therefore, it is
not surprising that elites from various ethnic groups in
Malaysia continue to articulate different nations-ofintent. These notions cannot be dismissed as wishful
thinking, because some are actively articulated and
operationalised in various institutional forms, such as
through
political
parties,
NGOs
and
cultural
organizations.
It is useful to trace, albeit briefly, the origin and the
formation of the post-colonial Malaysian state, and the
different nations-of-intent that were generated within,
by taking a closer look at its modern history and how
British colonialism has redefined, divided up and
9
constructed the lasting structure of what has been
called ‘plural society’, which was first known as Malaya
and later, in 1993, as Malaysia.
4. Define and Rule: The colonial epistemological
conquest
In Malaysia, most historians and other scholars in the
humanities accept ‘colonial knowledge’ as the basis of
Malaysian and Malay history. Moreover they do so in
what seems like an almost unproblematized manner,
even though politico-academic attempts are being
made to ‘indigenise’ Malaysian history and the ‘Malay’
viewpoint has been privileged. Such attempts are
admirable, and yet it is good to realize that this
emphasis on the Malay perspective has been primarily
motivated by a ‘nationalistic’ need to re-interpret
history, and not by the urge to question the ways
historical knowledge per se has been constructed. In
Malaysia historical knowledge, a crucial element in
every identity formation, is still based on colonial
knowledge; in this connection the question of the good
and bad sides of the paternalism which informed this
knowledge is not a very relevant one. 5
In short, Malaysian historiography is a kind of
ideological struggle involving different interest groups
(ethnic, foreign, academic, political, and so on), an
articulation of the ‘unfinished’ cultural/ethnic nationalist
project in Malaysia. The situation is reminiscent of
Ernest Renan’s famous essay ‘What is a Nation?’ in
which history is placed at the centre of the ‘nationalist
project’: the past requires a careful and selective
interpretation, and in this process, Renan argues,
‘getting history wrong’ is the precondition of nationalist
10
history since it requires not only a collective
remembering but also a collective forgetting. This
forgetting ‘is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation,
which is why progress in historical studies often
constitutes a danger for [the principle of] nationality’.6
Renan’s essay points not only to contradictions in the
creation of the historical substance of a ‘nation’ but
also to the need to take note of the ‘identity’ of a
particular form of historical knowledge and its
construction – the very issues covered in this sketchy
essay about the identity of Malaysian historical
knowledge. These issues have escaped many scholars
and analysts involved in the study of social and ethnic
identity in Malaysia.
If we were to take the discourse on Malay identity in
Malaysia as an example, one could argue that the
colonial methods of accumulating facts and insights and
the resultant corpus of knowledge have been critical in
providing not only substance but also sustenance to the
endeavour of writing about ‘Malayness’. The sheer
volume of ‘facts’ that have been accumulated and
amassed by the British on, for instance, traditional
Malay literature and the modern history
of
Malaya/Malaysia has established the hegemony of
colonial knowledge in Malaysia’s intellectual realm,
where the discussions about ‘Malay identity’ are taking
place.
Relevant here are the methods of accumulating facts
that resulted in the formation and organization of the
corpus
of
colonial
knowledge.
The
approach
anthropologist Bernard Cohn developed to make British
rule in India more understandable is extremely useful.
11
The British managed to classify, categorize, and
connect the vast social world that was India so it could
be controlled by way of so-called ‘investigative
modalities’, devises to collect and organize ‘facts’
which, together with translation works, enabled the
British to conquer the ‘epistemological space’. 7
An investigative modality includes the definition of a
body of information that is needed and the procedures
by which appropriate knowledge is gathered, ordered
and classified, and then transformed into usable forms
such as published reports, statistical returns, histories,
gazetteers, legal codes, and encyclopaedias. Some of
these investigative modalities, such as historiography
and museology, are of a general nature, whereas the
survey and census modalities are more precisely
defined and closely related to administrative needs.
Some of these modalities were transformed into
‘sciences’ or ‘disciplines’, such as economics,
ethnology, tropical medicine, comparative law, and
cartography. Their practitioners became professionals.
Each modality was tailored to specific elements and
needs on the administrative agenda of British rule;
each of them became institutionalised and routinized in
the day-to-day practice of colonial bureaucracy.
The ‘historiographic modality’, the most relevant one
for my argument, had three important components.
First, the production of settlement reports, which were
prefaced on a district-by-district basis; they usually
consisted of a description of local customs, histories
and land tenure systems and a detailed account of how
revenues were assessed and collected by local,
indigenous regimes. Second, the descriptions of
indigenous civilizations; these eventually provided the
12
space for the formation of the discourse that
legitimised the British civilizing mission in the colony.
Third, the history of the British presence in the colony;
it evoked ‘emblematic heroes and villains’ and led to
the erection of memorials and other ‘sacred spaces’ in
the colony (and in the motherland as well).
The ‘survey modality’ encompassed a wide range of
practices, from mapping areas to collecting botanical
specimens, from the recording of architectural and
archaeological sites of historic significance to the
minute measuring of peasant’s fields. When the British
came to India, and later to the Malay lands, they
sought to describe and classify every aspect of life in
terms of zoology, geology, botany, ethnography,
economic products, history and sociology by way of
systematic surveys; they also created a colony-wide
grid in which every site could be located for economic,
social and political purposes. In short, ‘surveys’ came
to cover every systematic and official investigation of
the natural and social features of indigenous society
through which vast amounts of knowledge were
transformed into textual forms such as encyclopaedias
and archives.
The ‘enumerative modality’ enabled the British to
categorize the indigenous society for administrative
purposes, particularly by way of censuses that were to
reflect basic sociological facts such as race, ethnic
groups, culture, and language. The various forms of
enumeration that were developed objectified and
stultified social, cultural and linguistic differences
among the indigenous peoples and the migrant
population, and these differences were of great use for
13
the colonial bureaucracy and its army to explain and
control conflicts and tensions.
Control was primarily implemented by way of the
‘surveillance modality’: detailed information was
collected on ‘peripheral’ or ‘minority’ groups and
categories of people whose activities were perceived as
a threat to social order and therefore should be closely
observed. For surveillance reasons, methods such as
anthropometry and fingerprinting systems were
developed in order to be able to describe, classify and
identify individuals rather accurately for ‘security’ and
other general purposes.
The ‘museological modality’ started out from the idea
that a colony was a vast museum; its countryside, filled
with ruins, was a source of collectibles, curiosities and
artifacts that could fill local as well as European
museums, botanical gardens, and zoos. This modality
became an exercise in presenting the indigenous
culture, history and society to both local and European
public.
The ‘travel modality’ complemented the museological
one. If the latter provided the colonial administration
with concrete representations of the natives, the
former helped to create a repertoire of images and
typifications, if not stereotypes, that determined what
was significant to European eyes; architecture,
costumes, cuisine, ritual performances, and historical
sites were presented in ‘romantic’, ‘exotic’, and
‘picturesque’ terms. These aesthetic images and
typifications were often expressed in paintings and
prints as well as in novels and short stories, many
14
created by the colonial scholar-administrators, their
wives, and their friends.
These modalities represented a set of ‘officialising
procedures’ which the British used to establish and
extend their authority in numerous areas: ‘… control by
defining and classifying space, making separations
between public and private spheres, by recording
transactions such as sale of property, by counting and
classifying populations, replacing religious institutions
as the registrar of births, marriages, and deaths, and
by standardizing languages and scripts…’ (Cohn
1996:1). The colonial state introduced policies and
rules that were organized by way of these investigative
modalities; thus, the locals’ minds and actions were
framed in an epistemological and practical grid.
In different ways, the growth of public education and
its rituals fostered beliefs in how things were and how
they ought to be: schools were (and still are) crucial
‘civilizing’ institutions, seeking to produce good and
productive citizens. By way of schools many ‘facts’
amassed
through
investigative
modalities,
and
resultant officialising procedures, were channelled to
the younger population; in this process governments
directed the people’s perception of how social reality
was organized. What is more, with the creation of
Chinese, Malay, Tamil and English schools, ethnic
boundaries became real, and ethnic identities became
stultified and essentialised by way of language and
cultural practices.
The most powerful and most pervasive by-products of
colonial knowledge on the colonized have been the idea
that the modern ‘nation-state’ is the natural
15
embodiment of history, territory and society. In other
words, colonial knowledge, as a form of epistemological
conquest, first and foremost, has provided the
framework for the colonial state to ‘define and rule’ a
colonial society that became the basis of its ‘divide and
rule’ policy in managing a ‘plural society’ that it had
successfully created.
Without doubt, the post-colonial state has become
dependent on colonial knowledge and its ways of
determining, codifying, controlling, and representing
the past as well as documenting and standardizing the
information that has formed the basis of government.
Modern Malaysians have become familiar with ‘facts’
that appear in reports and statistical data on commerce
and trade, health, demography, crime, transportation,
industry and so on; these facts and their accumulation,
conducted in the modalities that were designed to
shape colonial knowledge, lie at the foundation of the
modern, post-colonial state of Malaysia. The citizens of
Malaysia rarely question these facts, fine and often
invisible
manifestations
of
the
process
of
Westernisation.
5. Language, Education and Culture: Bargaining
and
Negotiation
within
‘Nations-of-Intent’
Framework
There is always a tension between the government’s
mainstream ‘authority-defined’ top-down approach and
the social actors’ bottom-up ‘everyday-defined’
perspective. This is not only happening today but has
always been there in Malaysian history as a result of,
partly, to the demographic nature of the ‘plural
society’, where no single ethnic group could claim,
16
numerically, as an absolute majority group, like the
Chinese in Singapore and the pribumi in Indonesia.
What Malaysia has is a competing group of ‘small
majorities.’ This social reality has had a broader longterm and short-term sociological and political economy
implication.
The lasting impact of this social reality is articulated
best in the political arena of Malaysia. Politically, we
have witnessed as of the last GE12 in 2008, that any
attempt to wrest power from the present Barisan
Nasional must be done by a coalition of multiethnic
political parties, even in a makeshift form as Pakatan
Rakyat has managed to do. In other words, only
another coalition could challenge the incumbent
coalition government.
Another impact of this social reality of ‘small majorities’
is that Malaysia exhibits two notions of majority, which
is rarely discussed in the context of Malaysian studies.
It has a highly influential impact on the process of
negotiation and bargaining within the realm of
language, education and culture in Malaysia. It could
be said that the space for contestation is possible in
Malaysia because of the existence of ‘small majorities’
as well as the two meanings of majority that informed
the conduct of social processes and inter-group
relations in the country.
The first meaning of majority relates to the
demography and numbers of physical bodies. In the
simple numerical demographic sense it has been said
time and again that the Malays/Bumiputera is the
majority, constituting some 60% of the total population
in the country. However, in the economic and wealth
17
sense, having numerical demographic majority, small
or big, is indeed not so relevant. What is relevant is the
ownership of the economic wealth not the number of
physical bodies or demographic majority. For instance,
in Indonesia, although the total Chinese population is
about 5% of the 240 million, a study conducted by the
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT),
Australia, in 1995, on ‘Overseas Chinese Business
Networks in Asia’ claimed that the majority of
Indonesia’s wealth is in the hands of a smaller group of
super rich Chinese entrepreneurs.
The second meaning of majority relates to numerical
size of economic and wealth ownership, and not of
physical bodies of individuals. In the Malaysian case, if
the Malays/Bumiputera is struggling to fulfill the 30%
quota of the economy and wealth in the country, then
the 70% must be owned not by the struggling Malays
but others, in the form of family businesses or large
corporations. But academic research and analysis on
who owns/constitutes the remaining 70% is almost
non-existent. Indeed, there is a huge collection of
published books and articles on the ‘affirmative action
policy,’ or the NEP, published in the last 40 years, the
latest released in December 2012.8 It is not a surprise
therefore that some researchers thought that the overemphasis on the NEP is a form of ‘ethnicization of
knowledge’ in Malaysia because the majority of the
authors and researchers who have published mainly
criticisms on the NEP, has been overwhelmingly not
Malay/Bumiputera authors and researchers. Many of
them are also authors and reporters of the mass media
from Europe, USA and Australia.9
18
What is relevant to our discussion today is to identify
what is the mainstream authority-defined top-down
approach adopted by the current government of
Barisan Nasional, a coalition of Malay, Chinese, Indian,
Kadazan, and Iban political parties, in terms of
education and language in the country, with impact on
cultures of the various ethnic groups. The Federal
Constitution has been the framework within which the
mainstream approach has been embedded since 1957
and the grid that became vehicle of public policy
formulation and implementation, many of which are
openly contested by many groups throughout the
country.
Also relevant to be discussed is the non-mainstream,
bottom-up everyday-defined approach of the different
social groups (ethnic and non-ethnic) reaction, mainly
in the form of contestation (read negotiation and
bargaining), to various policy and implementation
aspects of the mainstream education, language and
cultural policy.
I have decided that it is a worthwhile effort to make
sense of these contestations and on other topics
relating to Malaysian social life by employing a
theoretic-conceptual analytical tool that I have
developed since 1996, called the ‘nation-of-intent’ as
well as the ‘authority-defined’ vs. ‘everyday-defined’
framework, which I have explained at length in the
earlier parts of the paper. In this context, I wish to
examine the three central issues, namely, education,
language and culture, which have dominated
discourses at various levels in Malaysian society even
before its independence in 1957. They have to be dealt
with simultaneously in view of the sociological fact that
19
language is the custodian of every culture and only
through formal and informal education using the same
language, over time, could build a collective
understanding and sharing of the cultural values
belonging to the group, and eventually, the cultural
boundaries of ‘us’ and ‘them’, of the ‘insider’ and
‘outsider.’
Before the colonial period, there was already a private
education system conducted in rural Malaysia by
Islamic religious teachers in pondok (lit. huts-based
schools) and in Sufi-centric centres found in and
around urban port cities. The texts used were written in
Jawi/Arabic alphabet scripts and the languages used as
medium of instruction were Arabic and Malay. These
schools continued to exist until after the advent of
colonial rule and during in the postcolonial era.
Necessarily they went through important changes in
form and content. There are those schools teaching
only theological subjects while others combine
theological subject with Western secular subjects. They
now used textbooks written both Jawi and Rumi
(Roman alphabet) scripts. These schools are run mostly
privately with a few supported by both the state and
federal government.
Chinese/Mandarin and Indian/Tamil schools were
established during the colonial era. So, too, did the
English medium school and the Rumi-script Malay
schools. The Chinese and Tamil schools were mainly
private. Some of the English schools were private, too,
but the Malay schools, with only primary level
education, were all colonial state funded. There was no
secondary and tertiary level education for Malay and
Tamil, but there was for the English, Mandarin and
20
Arabic medium schools. Those who wished to pursue
tertiary education in English, Mandarin and Arabic have
to go abroad to Europe, China and Taiwan and the
Middle East, respectively.
The sociological significance of this multi-lingual
medium of instruction is greatly relevant to the
eventual
development
of
the
nation-of-intent
framework on two counts, first, the emergence of
group cohesiveness and, second, the opportunity to
turn this cohesiveness into a socio-political platform for
the competing small majorities. The contestation is
usually shaped by the different groups’ general
perspectives and ideas on the kind of Malaysia they
would like to have from the loosely structured form to
the more clearly defined ones. The latter often leads to
the emergence of formal associations or political
parties.
This was what exactly happened within the Malay
nationalist group before and after Second World War.
They were divided into three, namely, those educated
in English, in Malay and in Jawi/Arabic. The ones
educated in English promoted the idea of ‘Malaydominated plural society nation’, those educated in
Malay and leftist in political orientation promoted the
‘Melayu Raya nation’ (lit. Greater Malay world nation),
and those educated in the religious schools with
Jawi/Arabic medium promoted the ‘Islamic nationstate.’ It implies that education and language that
became the medium of instruction has been critical in
developing these social groups, in the case of the
Malays intra-Malay groups and each promoted its own
nations-of-intent. What is equally important is to
observe the kind of cultural contestation among Malay
21
elites, namely, between the traditional-religious elites
vs. the modern English-educated elites vs. the Malay
school educated elites. Issues on ‘adat vs. Islam’,
‘haram and halal’ and ‘sanctity of the royal family’ have
been, though sensitive to many, openly discussed. 10 In
other words, UMNO may have dominated the BN in the
last 60 years, but the idea that the Malays have been
politically homogenous and united is totally erroneous.
It is also useful to observe the inter-ethnic cultural
contestations because this is highlighted in this panel
today.11 Let us take a look at its evolution in the last 60
years.
At independence in 1957, the then Malayan society
comprised three major ethnic communities, namely,
the indigenous community or bumiputera (lit. sons of
the soil), who accounted for 50 per cent of the
population, and two sizeable originally migrant
communities, one Chinese (37 percent) and the other
Indian (11 per cent). Since then, the Censuses of 1970,
1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010 have shown that, in spite
of the general increase in the population, from about
10 to 28 million, the ethnic composition has not
changed significantly. However, to most Malaysians, it
is the bumiputera and non-bumiputera ethnic divide
that is perceived as significant, used in official
government documents as well as the idiom of
everyday interaction, despite the fact that there is
heterogeneity within both. Nonetheless, colloquially,
the public referees to this ethnic divide simply as ‘bumi’
and non-bumi, reflecting the delicate demographic
balance between the two categories, each constituting
about 60:40 ratio of Malay/Bumiputera to nonMalay/non-Bumiputera. This has important wider
22
implications in the social life of Malaysians, especially in
political terms.
One of those involves the attempt to make ‘the cultural
principle’ (read the different notions of ‘nations-ofintent’) and the political unit (read ‘the state’)
congruent. At the level of ‘authority-defined social
reality’, which bumiputera-dominated, the cultural
principle question, or in popular idiom referred to as
the issue of ‘national identity’, is perceived by the state
as a non-issue because its basis and content has been
spelt out in a number of policy documents within the
framework of the Malaysian constitution. It is a
bumiputera-defined
cultural
principle
that
has
privileged many aspects of bumiputera culture as the
‘core’ of the Malaysian national identity while
recognizing, if peripherally, the cultural symbols of
other ethnic groups.
On the other hand, at the level of ‘everyday social
reality’, the authority-defined cultural principle has
been challenged by three groups, namely, the nonbumiputera group, led by the Chinese, and two
bumiputera ones, the non-Muslim bumiputera group
and the radical Islamic bumiputera group, each offering
its own nation-of-intent, i.e. its own vision of what the
cultural principle should be for the political unit (the
state), based on a particular ideological framework.
The non-bumiputera rejects the bumiputera-based and
bumiputera-defined cultural principle in preference for
a more ‘ pluralised’ one, in which the culture of each
ethnic group in Malaysia is accorded a position equal to
that of the bumiputera. For instance, the Chinese
suggest that Chinese language and rituals should be
considered as an integral part of the cultural principle
23
or national identity.12 Although both the non-Muslim
bumiputera and the radical Islamic bumiputera accept
the
authority-defined
bumiputera-based
cultural
principle, the former suggest that Christianity and
‘native religions’ be accorded equal status to that of
Islam, as components within it; the latter, on the
contrary, rejects what it sees as the secular, modernist
Islamic component of the identity in preference for a
‘truer and purer’ Islam, hence the idea of the Islamic
state. The Kadazan of Sabah argue forcefully for the
non-Muslim bumiputera case and the Parti Islam,
whose core is in Kelantan, for the radical Islamic
bumiputera group.
Those who believe that Malaysia is an authoritarian
state, with bumiputera hegemony well entrenched,
view the opposition to the authority-defined cultural
principle as an anomaly, a social aberration, or as
minority voices, which the state allows as an act of
benevolence or a form of ‘social tokenism’. This view is
informed, conceptually, by a ‘benevolent state’ thesis
which stresses the fact that bumiputera dominance is a
foregone conclusion. Hence dissenting voices find space
at the behest of the bumiputera ruling class, who, in
return, use this to demonstrate that ‘democracy’ is well
and alive in Malaysia. We find that this approach, albeit
unwittingly, favours a kind of master narrative that
downplays and in an ironic twist, belittles many of the
oppositions and differences of human experience that
characterize everyday human life in Malaysia. Their
‘hegemonic developmentalist’ approach ignores most of
what is going on behind the public scene.
We thought it more instructive to give equal weight to
the dominant and the dominated, each representing a
24
different view or approach, and each articulating
dissimilar
interest.
This
opens
the
way
for
uncertainties, ruptures and tensions. With such an
approach we are in a better position to highlight the
alternatives, their attendant differences, however
slight, the distances between them and, most
significantly, the dialogue between them, fruitful or
futile, eventful or mundane. As one would have noticed
from the above, this is the strategy of my presentation.
It is an effort to make sense of dissenting voices in the
Malaysian present-day social milieu with regard to the
question of ‘the cultural principle’ as expressed by the
presentation in this panel. In doing so, we are offering
a discourse analysis on the origin, social roots and
bureaucratic
management
of
contemporary
contestation regarding Malaysia’s cultural principle or
national identity and the implication it has on education
and language policy.
References
Cribb, Robert 2004. ‘Nations-of-Intent in Colonial
Indonesia’. Paper presented at the 18th IAHA
Conference, Taipei, 6-10 December 2004.
Cohn, Bernard. 1996. Colonialism and Its Forms of
Knowledge: The British Rule in India. Princeton:
Princeton
Owen, Norman G. (ed.). 2005. The Emergence of
Modern Southeast Asia: A New History, Honolulu:
University of Hawai’i Press.
25
About KITA
The Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA) was officially
established on 8 October 2007 by Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia (UKM) to undertake academic research on subjects
pertaining to ethnic studies in Malaysia. This research
institute is ‘only one of its kind’ in Malaysia, focusing
specifically on ‘ethnic studies’ with thematic studies
orientation. The Institute emerged out of the need to
maintain at home the present peaceful inter- and intra-ethnic
existence against worldwide problematic, and sometimes
violent ethnic situations.
Organisationally, KITA has five research clusters, each being
led by a prominent scholar or a highly experienced
professional person. The five research clusters are: Social
Theory and Ethnic Studies; Ethnicity and Religion; Ethnicity
at Workplace; Ethnicity and Consumerism; and The Arts and
Social Integration. KITA’s postgraduate program (PhD and
Masters) was launched in December 2009.
Mengenai KITA
Institut Kajian Etnik (KITA) ditubuhkan secara rasmi oleh
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia pada 8 Oktober 2007. KITA
merupakan satu-satunya institut penyelidikan di Malaysia
yang memberi tumpuan sepenuhnya kepada segala kajian
berkaitan dengan ‘etnik’ dan ‘etnisiti’.
Dari segi organisasi, KITA mempunyai lima rumpun
penyelidikan. Setiap satu rumpun diketuai oleh seorang
sarjana atau ahli profesional yang mempunyai rekod prestasi
cemerlang. Lima rumpun penyelidikan berkenaan adalah:
Teori Sosial dan Kajian Etnik; Etnisiti dan Agama; Etnisiti di
Tempat Kerja; Etnisiti dan Konsumerisme; dan Kesenian dan
Integrasi Sosial. Mulai Disember 2009, KITA menawarkan
program siswazah (PhD dan Sarjana).
26
This publication is based on a paper presented at a Panel on
“Negotiating the Culture and Politics of Language Choice in
Contemporary Malaysia”, at the AAS 2013 San Diego,
(Sections I and II).
1
Shamsul A.B. is a Distinguished Professor and, currently,
Founding Director, Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA),
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Bangi. He has
researched, written and lectured extensively, in the last 25
years, on the theme “politics, culture and economic
development,” with an empirical focus on Malaysia and
Southeast Asia. Most of his publications are available on his
website: <https://ukm.academia.edu/ABshamsul>
2
See, Shamsul A.B. “Nations-of–Intent in Malaysia”, in Asian
Forms of the Nation, edited by Stein Tonnesson & Han
Antloev, London: Curzon Press, 1996, pp. 323-347. I have
also discussed the idea of ‘nations-of-intent’ in an essay on
identity formation in Malaysia. The essay introduces the ‘twotier social reality concept’ to capture the difference between
‘authority-defined social reality’ and ‘the everyday-defined
social reality’ in the context of ‘nation-of-intent’ construction,
see, Shamsul A.B., “Debating about Identity: A Discourse
Analysis,” Tonan Ajia Kenkyu, 34(3) December, 1996, pp.
476-499.
3
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. The Imagined Communities,
London: Verso.
4
5
Hirschman, Charles. 1986. ‘The Making of Race in Colonial
Malaya: Political Economy and Racial Category’. Sociological
Forum, Spring, pp. 330-61.
6
Renan, Ernest. 1990. ‘What is a Nation?’. In Nation and
Narration, Homi Bhabha. London: Routledge.
7
Cohn, Bernard. 1996. Colonialism and Its Forms of
Knowledge: The British Rule in India. Princeton: Princeton.
8
The latest is by Gomez, Edmund Terence and Johan
Saravanamuttu (eds.). 2012. The New Economic Policy in
Malaysia: Affirmative Action, Ethnic Inequalities and Social
Justice, Singapore: NUS Press and ISEAS.
9
I raised the issue of ‘ethnicization of knowledge’ about 15
years ago in an essay entitled, Shamsul A.B., 1998.
‘Ethnicity, Class, Culture or Identity? Competing Paradigms in
Malaysia Studies”. Akademika, 53, Julai 1998: 33-59.
10
See, Shamsul A.B., “A History of an Identity, an Identity of
a History: The Idea and Practice of ‘Malayness’ in Malaysia
Reconsidered, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 32 (3),
2001, pp 355-366. [Reprinted in Contesting Malayness:
Malay Identity Across Boundaries; edited by Tim Barnard,
Singapore University Press, Singapore, 2004, pp.135-148 &
291-294].
11
I am avoiding the use of ‘multiculturalism’ as a concept
when describing Malaysian society. I prefer the term multiethnic. Why? I have argued elsewhere that the use of
’multiculturalism’ in Malaysia has been too literal and in its
application to the Malaysian case, and it is epistemologically
erroneous, see Shamsul A.B., “How Knowledge Invents
Boundaries: From Colonial Knowledge to Multiculturalism” in
The Gaze of the West, Framings of the East, edited by
Shanta-Nair Venugopal, London: Palgrave, 2012, pp. 107122.
12
Shamsul A.B., ‘Identity Contestation in Malaysia: A
Comparative Commentary on ‘Malayness’ and ‘Chineseness,’
Akademika, 55, July 1999, pp. 17-37.
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