The Transformation of Race Relations in Malaysia: from Ethnic Discourse to National Imagery, 1993-2003

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The Transformation of Race Relations in Malaysia: from Ethnic Discourse to National Imagery, 1993-2003 The Transformation of Race Relations in Malaysia: From Ethnic Discourse to National Imagery, 1993-2003 RAYMOND L.M. LEE * ABSTRACT Malaysians are under no illusion that they have shed their racial identities to embrace a single national identity. Yet the multiculturalism practiced in contemporary Malaysia seems to be compatible with a patriotic nationalism espoused by the government. This compatibility has the appearance of multi- culturalism surviving the ordeal of postcolonial racial politics. The turbulence of racial politics seems to have been surpassed by a revitalized nationalism that does not blatantly erase racial heritage. The question of race relations in Malaysia is therefore a question of how multiculturalism and nationalism are success- fully presented as icons of integration, overshadowing the more gritty issues of racial politics. These issues are not denied, but have become less transparent as national identity is developed in an arena of new images. Introduction Ethnic and racial violence in the 20th century has given rise to the metaphors of ethnic cleansing, new forms of tribalism, and the clash of civilization. They leave the impression of the impossibility of national integration. The incessant spilling of ethnic blood seems to lead to endless * Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; e-mail: raymond@um.edu.my African and Asian Studies, volume 3, no. 2 also available online 2004 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden see www.brill.nl Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:00:23PM via free access 120 • Raymond L.M. Lee retributions. Yet in the midst of this spiraling violence, the call to promote ethnic pluralism or multiculturalism has not gone unheeded (Eller 1997). Governments in many multiethnic nations or countries have attempted to showcase their respective multicultural programs as workable in political, economic, and religious terms. These attempts reflect the way ethnicity is publicly expressed as an imagery of integration. Generally, the field of race and ethnic relations is concerned less with imagery than the way people talk about, and act on, group differences. In that sense, race and ethnic relations concern the discourse of symbols predicated on the context of contact between groups claiming different lines of descent. Racial symbols tend to be based on physical characteristics such as skin color. Ethnic symbols connote a cultural dimension that may or may not include physical characteristics, but they emphasize differences based on traditions, practices, and ways of life. Claims of descent based on these symbols are political by definition because they are related to the perceived legitimacy of various positions occupied by the claimants in the social structure. Race and ethnicity are indeed political since these positions and the benefits thereof are not simply assumed but contested and are the reasons for intensive mobilization in the struggle to exact gains for each racial or ethnic group (Barth 1969; Cohen 1974). The discourse of race and ethnicity is, therefore, a discourse of empowerment because it addresses the way terms are used to signal patterns of domination and subordination (e.g. Fenton 2003: 25-50). In Malaysia the three major descent communities (Malays, Chinese, and Indians) 1 draw upon several terms in Malay and English to actualize their sense of positioning vis-à-vis each other. Fenton (2003: 42) has noted the high frequency of the word ‘race’ and its cognates (such as race relations and racial conflict) in Malaysian public discourse. The word “ethnicity” tends to be used less often. But in the Malaysian context, ‘race’ is an inclusive term that covers both physical and cultural characteristics. Yet the use of these different terms belies a more significant change that is attenuating the centrality of discourse by redirecting the talk of race relationstoitsmediationasimagesofintegration.Itistheseimagesthat have come to dominate the field of Malaysian race relations in recent years. This does not mean that there is little racial discourse in Malaysia or that 1 By the year 2000, Malays represented more than 55 percent of the population with the Chinese hovering around the 25 percent mark and the Indians registering less than 10 percent in the census. The other groups not referred to in this paper are the indigenous peoples of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, Sarawak, and various minorities. I have chosen to use the words ‘race’ and ‘racial’ rather than ‘ethnicity’ and ‘ethnic’ to discuss relations between Malays, Chinese and Indians in accordance with the popularity of the former two words in the Malaysian context. Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:00:23PM via free access Transformation of Race Relations in Malaysia • 121 racial identities have become less important. Rather, the quest to present images of successful race relations seems to have taken precedence over that of racial discourse. This new quest signals an important development in Malaysian race relations. My aim is to discuss this development in Malaysian race relations as it relates to the question of how multiculturalism and nationalism were presented as icons of integration in the decade 1993-2003. To understand developments in this decade, I will discuss the nature of racial discourse in the context of the term ‘plural society.’ The meaning of this term is also considered in relation to the Malaysian Constitution, the New Economic Policy, and religious differences. The creation and presentation of effective imagery conjoining multicul- turalism and nationalism now seems to occupy the field of race relations. The power of the media in this respect cannot be underestimated be- cause it is able to impress the public with cleverly scripted slogans and advertisements that emphasize the compatibility of multiculturalism and nationalism. In theoretical terms, the imagery of racial harmony has over- shadowed the symbols of racial discourse. Imagery refers to projections that take on their own special reality. It can be seen as a type of sign. The difference between symbol and sign is the difference between the represen- tation of something and representation that stands for itself. For example, flags are symbolic representation of nationhood whereas advertisements are signs from which statements about a product become their own reality (see Blonsky 1985). The ascendancy of signs seems to coincide with the opening of global markets that promotes mass consumerism and the free flow of images (Gottdiener 1985; Evers and Gerke 1997; Lee 2002). In this new context of unrestrained commodification, the mode of production falls prey to the mode of ‘seduction,’ which transforms all symbolic values into an aesthetic play of differences. 2 Symbols cannot stand on their own since all transactions of difference are enmeshed within a new iconic system. Consequently, symbols vital to a discourse of difference are marketed as signs that possess their own power to make difference palatable and pleasurable. In the words of Lash (1988: 334) who saw these changes as suggesting a new ‘regime of signification,’ “advertisements began as bits of information to help market commodities. Then, with the advent of ad agencies, the adverts themselves became commodities. Not long 2 The idea of ‘seduction’ as a reversal of production originated from Baudrillard (1990). ‘Seduction,’ in this sense, is not restricted to sexual events but represents an order of artifice and signs that convert all meanings in the system of production into an unparalleled dalliance with objects and images. Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:00:23PM via free access 122 • Raymond L.M. Lee after, images rather than information became the content of these new commodities.” In other words, the mode of ‘seduction’ exploits the power of the image on perception and feelings. The discursive is reduced to the figural as symbols are replaced by signs that rely on the commodity form to direct and hold attention. When we consider these changes occurring in Malaysian society (Lee 1992), racial imagery rather than discourse becomes central to the man- agement of race relations. This does not imply that racial differences in power and identity are now resolved but that these differences constitute the very spectrum on which a range of images can be generated and ma- nipulated. There is no doubt that Malaysian race relations can be dutifully presented as a model of multicultural magnificence, but in the context of a figural regime of signification accompanying massive commodification this presentation becomes its own reality. To understand this reality, we will first discuss the nature of racial discourse in Malaysia. Racial Discourse in Malaysia As a former British colony in Southeast Asia, Malaysia (British Malaya as it was known then) was a polyglot society of self-proclaimed indigenes and peripatetic immigrant workers (see Nagata 1979). The British colonial administrators assumed the ‘white man’s burden’ of maintaining social order. Those days are gone. Contemporary Malaysia is a dynamic NIC (newly industrializing country) whose leaders extol its development in terms of the workability between different descent and cultural communities. Indeed, multiracial or multicultural Malaysia can be construed as vastly unlike the ‘plural society’ found in the days of British Malaya. Yet elements of the ‘plural society’ continue to influence cultural and political perceptions in modern Malaysia. The idea of ‘plural society’ first appeared in J.S.
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