Monday, August 03, 2009

Malay nationalism a historical accident?

What is a Malay? What is a Malaysian? What is a nationalist? What is a 'nation'?

How are we becoming "re-tribalised" in this world of increasing restlessness over a range of issues that are not being resolved by the current regime. These are burning questions as we become more mature in discussing race relations in Malaysia – 40 years after the May 13, 1969 incident.

Ernest Renan, Anthony Smith, Benedict Anderson, Harry Benda, and John Funston – major scholars of nationalism -- would agree that Umno does not have an ideology except to sustain its elusive political superiority via the production of post-industrial materials and human beings.

Elusive word

Even the word "National Front" (Barisan Nasional) is elusive. It is surviving as long as means to cling on to power – by all means necessary – becomes more efficient and sophisticated. Its survival lies in the way people are divided, conquered, and mutated into 'post-industrial tribes'; market-segmented-differentiatedly-sophisticated enclaves that are produced out of the need for the free market economy to transform Malays and Malaysians into consumers of useless goods and ideology.

Post-industrial tribalism is a natural social reproduction of the power of the media to shape consciousness, and to create newer forms of consumerist human beings. Nationalism, including Malay nationalism of the Mahathirst era, is an artificial construct that needs the power of "othering" and "production of enemies" and "boogeymen and boogeywomen" for ideological sustainability.

But what is "nationalism" and does "Malay nationalism" actually exist in this century? Does the idea of 'natio' or "nation" or "a people" survives merely on linguistic, territorial, religious homogeneity when these are also subject to the sociological interrogations of subjectivity and relativity?

Nationalism is a psychological and cultural construct useful and effective when deployed under certain economic conditions. It is now ineffective as a tool of mass mobilisation when nations have gained "independence" from the colonisers and when the "enemy" is no longer visible. All that exist in this post-industrial, globalised, borderless, and mediated age of cybernetic capitalism is the idea of "post-industrial tribes" that live and thrive on chaos and complexity and on materials and goods produced by local and international capitalists.

Revise the old formula

We are in the 21st. century. One year from now, we will arrive at the year 2010. The non-Malays and non-bumiputeras have come a long way into being accepted as full-fledged Malaysians, by virtue of the ethics, rights and responsibilities of citizenship. They ought to be given equal opportunity in the name of social justice, racial tolerance and the alleviation of poverty.

Bright and hard-working Malaysians regardless of racial origin who now call themselves Malaysians must be given all the opportunities that have been given to Malays since 40 years back.

Islam and other religions require this form of social justice to be applied to the lives of human beings. Islam does not discriminate one on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, creed nor national origin. It is race-based politics, borne out of the elusiveness of nationalism, that creates post-industrial tribalistic leaders; leaders that will design post-industrial tribalistic policies. It is the philosophy of greed, facilitated by free enterprise runamuck that will evolvingly force leaders of each race to threaten each other over the control of the economic pie.

The claim of 'civilisational Islam' or "Islam Hadhari" must be backed with a philosophy of development that restructure society no longer on the basis of newer forms of post-industrial tribalism that accords the political elites with the best opportunity to amass more wealth, but to redesign the economic system based on an efficient and sound socialistic economic system. It might even require political will to curb human enthusiasm of acquiring more and more of the things they do not need. In short, it should curb temptations to out-consume each other in the name of greed.

To be civilised means to wake up to the possibilities of humanism and not plunge into a world of more sophisticated racism. The universal principle of humanism requires the privileged few to re-examine the policies of national development that prioritise the creation of more real estate projects than the construction of programmes that meet basic needs of all races and classes of peoples. To civilise a nation means to de-tribalise the citizens into a polity that will learn to share the wealth of this nation by accepting this land as the "earth of mankind" (bumi manusia) rather that a land belonging to this or that race.

In a multi-racial, multi-religious, country such as Malaysia, nationalism is a complex yet withering concept. In a globalised world of globally- and government-linked companies this concept of "fatherland" or "motherland" is a powerful weapon of the wealthy to mount arguments that hide the real intention of empire-building. The lifestyle of the country's rich and famous require nationalist sentiments to be played up so that the more the rights are "protected" the more the political-economically rich few will have their sustained control over the people, territories, natural resources and information.

This, I think is the picture of post-industrial tribalism we are seeing as a mutation of the development, appropriation and imitation of the Malay feudalistic mentality. The clear and present danger in our post-industrial tribalistic world lies in old formula we are wrongly using.
The essential question now is – as a 'Malaysian nation'/Bangsa Malaysia haven't we agreed upon a construction of a common history and a common destiny?

Or-- did we have a wrong version of Malaysian history funneled into us, through a historical error?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I fully agree that race based politics is not the way forward. but Our constitution and school system encourage it. and if we do away from it now, i believe it may have a negative impact on the country as the ppl as much as they are fed up with politics are racially defined and polarised. fix this first and change is more effective....

Anonymous said...

Dr are you a MALAY?

Tamerlane said...

To be Malay is to be Malaysian. Aujourdhui, Robiespierre est mon cul.

francis ngu said...

Shall we say warped nationalism, primordial tribalism and consumerist capitalism conspiring to thwart freedom, equality and social justice for Malaysian people? Fortunately, civilizational dialogue based on shared humanist values is progressing faster than ever. The academic luminary, like your good self, is playing an eminent role in this intellectual spring.

Maggie said...

I don't know what has become of Malaysia and the future of Malaysians if we are not united as one race, one country. It is a real shame that many go into politics because of greed and power and not because they want the best for the people and country. They try their best to divide us and make us hate each other. I don't want to hate another race or dislike them. May God help us to love one another and be fair to each other.

kh said...

studying overseas, i am lucky to have substantial exposure to and interaction with another 'tribe'. i just realized how ironic that such interaction was so minimal or almost none when i was in malaysia. being far away from home, 'malaysia' brought us together and we are always looking out for each other. yet, i can still sense some sort of invisible barrier between members from different tribes. the friendship offered is reserved. so, i am wondering what can a ordinary citizen do to change this deeply engraved tribal mentality? something trivia that i can do in my daily life to pave the road for de-tribalizing.

Tamerlane said...

This is another hypocrite shit practised by Malaysians Everyday Malaysians wake up without saying good morning, smiling or tegur their neighbors or anyone on the street. Suddenly when theyre overseas they somehow have the “we are the world “ spirit holding each others hands and jerking each other off. Nak muntah lah aku dengaq such hypocrasy

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