View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarBank@NUS THE POLITICS OF DRAMA: POST-1969 STATE POLICIES AND THEIR IMPACT ON THEATRE IN ENGLISH IN MALAYSIA FROM 1970 TO 1999. VELERIE KATHY ROWLAND (B.A. ENG.LIT. (HONS), UNIVERSITY MALAYA) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Theatre practice is largely undocumented in Malaysia. Without the many practitioners who gave of their time, and their valuable theatre programme collections, my efforts to piece together a chronology of theatre productions would not have been possible. Those whose contribution greatly assisted in my research include Ivy Josiah, Chin San Sooi, Thor Kah Hoong, Datuk Noordin Hassan, Datuk Syed Alwi, Marion D’Cruz, Shanti Ryan, Mano Maniam, Mervyn Peters, Susan Menon, Noorsiah Sabri, Sabera Shaik, Faridah Merican, Huzir Sulaiman, Jit Murad, Kee Thuan Chye, Najib Nor, Normah Nordin, Rosmina Tahir, Zahim Albakri and Vijaya Samarawickram. I received tremendous support from Krishen Jit, whose probing intellectualism coupled with a historian’s insights into theatre practice, greatly benefited this work. The advice, feedback and friendship of Jo Kukathas, Wong Hoy Cheong, Dr. Sumit Mandal, Dr. Tim Harper, Jenny Daneels, Rahel Joseph, Adeline Tan and Eddin Khoo are also gratefully acknowledged. The three years spent researching this work would not have been possible without the research scholarship awarded by the National University of Singapore. For this I wish to thank Dr. Ruth Bereson, for her support and advice during the initial stages of application. I also wish to thank Prof. Lim Chee Seng of the English Department of the University of Malaya for his endorsement of my work, and my supervisor, Dr. Christopher Stroud, who provided guidance and invaluable feedback as this thesis took shape. Finally, this work would not have been possible without the support of Richard and Akhila Harding. Kathy Rowland ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii SUMMARY iv CHAPTERS I INTRODUCTION 1 II OVERVIEW OF PRE-RIOTS HISTORY AND THEATRE PRACTICE 27 III POLICY CONTEXT AND CONTENT 39 IV 1970 TO 1979 62 V 1980 TO 1989 87 VI 1990 TO 2000 129 CONCLUSION 176 LIST OF WORKS CITED 182 APPENDIX I iii SUMMARY Malaysia gained independence from the British in 1957. After a decade of relative stability, the country experienced a period of social and political upheaval, leading to inter-ethnic riots in 1969. The riots marked the end of a laissez-faire system of government, and the beginning of active state involvement in an economic and socio- political landscape divided by language, culture, ethnicity and religion. This thesis is an inquiry into the development of English-language theatre in Malaysia, both in terms of its form and content as well as its organisational framework. It examines the means through which the existing shape and content of English- language theatre has been influenced by the National Cultural Policy of 1971, the National Language Bill of 1961, the Education Act of 1967 and the New Economic Policy, all of which were either introduced or reinforced by the state following the riots. English-language theatre under the combined power of these four policies, found itself marginalised from the mainstream after 1969. Viewed through the lenses of the policies, it was embedded with associations of colonial imperialism, western values, elitism and economic privileges inherent in the position of English language in Malaysia. Despite the process of delegitimisation engendered by the policies, however, theatre in English continued to develop and expand over the thirty-year period of research. Rather than conform to the imperatives of the policies which, in theory, would have instigated a decline in English-language theatre, practitioners developed iv strategies of sustainability which enabled them not only to continue practice but also to strengthen and develop what was once a purely amateur area, into the beginnings of a professional practice. Furthermore, the enforcement of the stated intent of the policies was moderated by the nature of the state’s ethnic-based political system, which prevented the State from suppressing art and cultural forms which fell outside the definition of national as prescribed by the state. Therefore, although the post-1969 policies did influence theatre in English, the shape of practice reflects the strategic response by practitioners to the policy imperatives rather than a narrow conformity to the dictates of the state’s agenda as expressed in the policies on culture, language, education and the economy. v CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION “Modern man is not loyal to a monarch or a land or a faith, whatever he may say but to a culture” E.Geller1 1. 1) PRELIMINARY REMARKS The relationship between culture and the state is sometimes viewed as one predicated on the formulation of national policies on arts and culture. Consequently, it is assumed that this relationship is a recent phenomenon, commonly dated to the end of the World War II. It is a position often accompanied by the claim that the entry of the state into the arts arena instigated tremendous growth. There is evidence, however, that state involvement in the area of culture and the arts predates the advent of formal, national-based policies on culture and the arts. In classical times, the city of Athens financially supported drama festivals, while in the Middle Ages, institutions of power such as the church, and royal houses wielded some form of influence upon culture and the arts in Europe even before the Renaissance, as noted by Cummings and Katz in The Patron State. These incursions into the area of the arts by the state were motivated by a range of factors. Not least was the use of culture and the arts as markers of power and prestige, as competing rulers and feudal lords sought to establish their political power and foster a sense of separate identity in competition with neighbouring territories. A UNESCO study conducted in 1968 did find, however, that there was an increase in the number of countries constructing formalised state policies on culture and the arts 1. Quoted in Smith, Anthony "History, Modernity and Nationalism" in Representing the Nation : A Reader, ed. Boswell, David and Evans, Jessica.,p.36. 1 from the middle of the twentieth century onwards. The predominance of the welfare state philosophy in post-war Europe was a contributing factor to the emergence of such policies. States assumed the role of guardians of public welfare, and were guided by the rationale that amongst a host of such other public services as healthcare and education, they had an obligation to democratise access to the arts. The rise in taxation, the growing affluence of post-war Europe, and the increase in leisure time resulting from the mounting mechanisation of the production process also contributed to the heightened presence of the state in matters concerning the arts as various scholars such as Cummings and Katz, Pick, and O'Hagan have demonstrated. The UNESCO study also attributes the increase in the number of cultural policies to the creation of nation-states in the former colonies. The invigorated anti-colonial movement of the post-World War II period saw the emergence of new nations. These nations viewed policies related to national identity and culture as an integral part of nationhood. The motivation behind the formalisation of these policies was not dissimilar to that of early feudal kingdoms, in that these incursions by the state were driven by agendas outside the interest of culture and art specifically (Cummings and Katz, Quinn, Zemans and Kleingartner). The colonial powers imposed structures privileging their language, art, culture and religion, primarily via the education system, in territories under their control. Indigenous culture and arts practices were often denigrated as primitive, resulting in the indigenous people themselves viewing such forms as inferior to that of the coloniser, as scholars such as Franz Fanon and Edward Said have demonstrated. As nationalist movements gained momentum, the concept of an essentialised indigenous culture, one that predated colonisation, gained credence, and was used by anti-colonial 2 movements around the world to legitimise claims to independence. Thus, cultural policies are nationalistic in character, used by the state to foster national identity and to defend against external challenges to its sovereignty. As the aforementioned UNESCO report claims, such policies are “essential in order to strengthen the awareness of nationhood and thus facilitate the growth of an original culture” (11). Furthermore, formalisation of policies on national culture served another function. Emerging nations were constructed upon colonial political lines, which often encompassed ethnically diverse communities, co-existing out of economic necessity and under the compulsion of the respective colonial administrations rather than of their own volition (Furnivall, 304). In such an environment, the construction of a national culture was seen as an essential step towards creating a sense of shared national identity. However, these policies often privileged one group over another. Pfaff- Czarnecka’s study of the construction of identity in Asia shows that “the majority groups dominating the state have been careful to design policies elevating their own cultural traits over those of the minorities…[c]onsequently, the cultural characteristics of those in power have become political symbols resented by minorities” (20-23). Thus policies ostensibly aimed at unifying are rendered ineffectual at best, and divisive at worst. 1.2 ) INTENT OF RESEARCH The contrast between the stated intent of national culture and art policies and the actual content and implementation of such policies is at the heart of my inquiry into policies affecting arts practice in Malaysia, an ethnically diverse nation that attained independence from the British in 1957.