View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarBank@NUS THE MUSLIM POWER ELITES IN SINGAPORE: THE BURDEN OF A COMMUNITY by Kamaludeen Bin Mohamed Nasir Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SOCIAL SCIENCES (SOCIOLOGY) NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2007 Acknowledgements I will like to thank my parents, Latifa and Mohamed Nasir, for all that is good in me. My brother Ameer Mohamed and sister Nurul Jannah, that it is my hope that they will strive to be more than I ever was, am or ever will be. Associate Professor Syed Farid Alatas, my supervisor, for his time and his valuable insights I am forever grateful. Professor Chua Beng Huat, Associate Professor Hing Ai Yun and Assistant Professor Alexius Pereira who have in one way or another helped in the writing of this thesis. To all my respondents who have made this study possible. Shahrom, for persevering in proofreading my Masters thesis after the excruciating experience of proofreading my Honours one, and Kalsum for painstakingly formatting and editing this thesis. And to all my friends who have tolerated me for better or for worse. My sincere gratitude does not convey any responsibility for my obstinacy; only I am to blame for the errors remaining. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements................................... ...................................ii Table of Contents.................................. .....................................iii Summary ............................................ ....................................... iv List of Tables ..................................... ........................................ v Chapter 1 .......................................... ......................................... 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Theoretical Framework: Carving Out the Muslim Power Elites in Singapore............. 18 Thesis Methodology.................................................................................................... 23 Chapter 2 .......................................... ........................................26 The Problem with the “Malay Problem”: Thinking with Emile Durkheim..................... 26 The Burden of a Community....................................................................................... 30 Chapter 3 .......................................... ........................................43 Disorganization and Reorganization........................................................................... 43 The Biology of Organizations...................................................................................... 44 The Social Elites ......................................................................................................... 45 The Religious Elites .................................................................................................... 52 The Political Elites: Straddling the Nation and the Community .................................. 59 The Ummah and the State.......................................................................................... 60 The Problem of the Vulnerable Mass.......................................................................... 62 Impact of the Knowledge-Based Economy on the Muslim Power Elites .................... 65 Musical Chairs: Chains of Matchmaking..................................................................... 66 The Intellectual Elites?................................................................................................ 69 Chapter 4 .......................................... ........................................71 Impact of Global Processes: The Significance of 9/11 ............................................... 71 Theory of Weak Links ................................................................................................. 74 The Collapse of the Racial Category? ........................................................................ 76 Fractions and Cohesion amongst the Muslim Power Elites ....................................... 77 The Question of Malay/Muslim Loyalty and the Question of Trust............................. 80 The Rhetoric of Cooptation/Altruism........................................................................... 85 Of Continuity and Change........................................................................................... 86 The Reluctant Leader ................................................................................................. 87 The Reality of Representation and the Representation of Reality.............................. 89 Chapter 5 .......................................... ........................................92 A Powerless Power Elite?........................................................................................... 92 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 97 Bibliography....................................... ..................................... 101 iii Summary In this thesis, I will argue that despite the many challenges faced by the Muslim power elites and the many well-documented problems of the Muslim community, the elites in reality, do have a lot of leverage over the community. I will set out to delineate some of the problems faced by both the Muslim community and the Muslim elites by analyzing three groups of Muslim elites 1) political elites, 2) social elites and 3) religious elites, and how they affect one another and locate all these within the larger context of Singapore society. Contemporary and classical theories are employed to map and critically examine the different configurations and permutations of the three groups of elites. My analysis will be dual in nature. Firstly, it will be at the level of inter-elites, wherein the relationships across the various elites are examined and secondly, at the level of intra-elites; looking at the tensions and conflicts within a specific group of elites. I will also contest the idea of the Singapore Muslim elites as a powerless entity which has been established in available literature. It must be impressed upon the reader that although this thesis focuses on the micro in the form of individuals and organizations, it is in the final analysis an attempt at making sense of the macro, the system and social order. iv List of Tables Table 1 Snapshot of Muslim Members of Parliament in 2001................................63 Table 2 Percentage of Readers for Berita Harian..................................................64 Table 3 Snapshot of Muslim Members of Parliament in 2006................................66 Table 4 Tracing Muslim Political Elites in Various Institutions since Year 2000.....68 v CHAPTER 1 Introduction This thesis aims to explain aspects pertaining to the Muslim power elites in Singapore; its origins and characteristics. In our enthusiasm to look at the universal and the national to teach us something about the peculiar and the sectarian, we often miss the fact that the reverse could be as true. In fact due to the magnitude and sheer size of the national, it is easy to get oneself lost in the huge corpus of data and be overwhelmed by the literature that the debates have provoked. This thesis is hence an attempt to make sense of the national by looking at the minority in the hope that new light will be shed to enhance our understanding of the works already done. I will attempt to trace the “Malay Problem” throughout pre- and independent Singapore and the roles played by the Muslim elites. I will argue that despite the many problems faced by the Muslim power elites and the many well-documented problems of the Muslim community, the elites, do have a lot of leverage over the community. I will set out to delineate some of the problems faced by the Muslim community and the Muslim elites and how they affect one another and locate all these within the larger context of Singapore society. It must be impressed upon the reader that although this thesis focuses on individuals and organizations, it is in the final analysis an attempt at making sense of the system and social order. "Although sociology is defined as the science of societies, it cannot, in reality, deal with the human groups that are the immediate object of its investigation without eventually touching on the individual who is the basic element of which these groups are composed. For society can exist only if it penetrates the consciousness of individuals and fashions it in 'its image and resemblance'." (Durkheim, 1973:149) 1 It is important for us to understand elite formation amongst the Muslims in Singapore. This is needed for a number of reasons; the first being the dearth of studies done on elite formation in Singapore. A multi-faceted study that focuses on the minority is almost non-existent. Two works on the Malay elites stand out. One is Ismail Kassim’s Problems of Elite Cohesion: A Perspective from a Minority Community and the other, Sukmawati’s Trends in Malay Political Leadership: The People's Action Party's Malay Political Leaders and the Integration of the Singapore Malays . However, both have somewhat chosen to focus on the political elites, giving the false impression that the political elites are the only ones which hold power over the Muslim community in Singapore. I wish to present a more