One evening in my first year in Canberra at the Australian National University, a lecture by Professor Brij Lal (1952-2021), an academic of Fijian-Indian origin, made me ponder.
The British began ruling Fiji in 1874, the same year the Pangkor Treaty was inked. The Indians who were brought into Fiji by the British merchants as indentured labour went through hell, but eventually managed to free themselves, and gradually built homes, bridges, schools, small businesses, and lives.
Eventually, there exists a nation of an indigenous Fijian population and a local ethnic Indian community, born and bred in Fijian soil. Political clashes – and some resulted in bloodshed – between the two communities characterised most parts of the Fijian history.
That evening in 2001 made me realise that if you change the equation, replacing Indigenous Fijian and Indians in the context of Fiji with Malays and Chinese in Malaysia, we have a lot of similarities.
In February 2003, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia held a conference comparing the histories of Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Fiji, three British colonies with similar plural societies. An edited volume by Emeritus Professor Dato’ Dr Abdul Rahman Embong based on the conference titled “Rethinking Ethnicity and Nation-Building: Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Fiji in Comparative Perspective” (2007) is a good read for deeper understanding of the fraught histories of these post-colonial societies.
It struck me that while both Sri Lanka and Fiji went through very harrowing ethnic strifes and, in the case of Sri Lanka, a brutal ethnic war between the State and the Tamil Tigers (LTTE), Malaysia has been largely peaceful in the nearly seven decades since its independence, with several exceptions: between 15 August 1945 when the Japanese surrendered and 3 September 1945 when the British returned to Malaya to continue its colonial rule, during which the Malayan Peoples’ Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) went around the Peninsula to exact revenge against those claimed to be Japanese collaborators; the battle against the Malayan Communist Party during the 1948 – 1960 Emergency which many interpreted in racial terms; and the 13 May 1969 riots.
𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆
Malaysia featured prominently in Arend Lijphart’s articulation of political accommodation in multiethnic societies which he called “consociationalism”, as well as in Donald Horowitz’s “Ethnic Groups in Conflict” (1985), a major scholarly contribution to the subject.
In Horowitz’s understanding, there was a political centre in Malaysia which was all encompassing, including all key ethnic groups. Up until that point in history in the 1980s when the book was published, Barisan Nasional was that. When the centre of multiethnicity could hold, the rest of the forces could only occupy the political fringes.
Two lessons I learned from these discourses: first, to understand Malaysian politics, we will have to look at the narratives and sentiments on both the Malay and non-Malay sides, and find a common ground of accommodation to ensure that the centre holds, which in itself is a delicate balance; second, we will have to ensure that the fringes do not dictate the terms, as Malay and non-Malay fringes could find an unlimited number of issues to exploit and fight on.
The 1995 general election was Barisan Nasional’s high point when the Vision 2020 fervour and the Bangsa Malaysia idea won support from all ethnic groups. BN won 65% of popular votes, an all-time high.
However, in the 1999 general election, half of the Malay voters voted against Barisan Nasional in protest against Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for the arrest, beating, and jailing of his former deputy Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
After Dr Mahathir stepped down, the 2004 general election marked the last time that Barisan Nasional was able to win across all communities, winning 64% of popular votes, with the new Prime Minister effect of Tun Abdullah Badawi.
Apart from political accommodation, the old order was also sustained through authoritarian means such as the Internal Security Act (ISA) which provided detention without trial and targeted mostly at opposition politicians and activists.
The last 20 years since the 2004 election saw the old order slowly crumbling, culminating in Barisan Nasional losing power in the 2018 general election.
During this slow disintegration which affected the centre, especially between 2005 and 2018, the ruling coalition no longer attempted to appeal to all sections of the society. Instead, in an attempt to salvage its reputation, it focused solely on sustaining the Malay ground.
𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝘀
Some friends in the civil service shared with me that during the 2000s, and even up until the 2010s, Biro Tatanegara (National Civics Bureau) whose role is supposed to promote patriotism and national unity, had conducted compulsory courses to civil servants on why Datuk Seri Anwar was not suitable to be Prime Minister and why the DAP – and by extension the non-Malays – were potential traitors to the nation as well as being “communists”. The historic fall of Malacca in 1511 was cited in all these programmes, pointing fingers at non-Malay traders of the 16th century as traitors who caused the downfall of Malacca to the Portuguese.
Over the past decade alone, quarrels over a stolen handphone at Low Yat Plaza (2015), paintbrushes made with pig bristles (2017), the teaching of Jawi calligraphy (2019), the controversial remarks about non-Malays by Indian Muslim preacher Zakir Naik (2019), halal certification issue (2024) and socks at KK Mart (2024), were such examples.
There were two sides – Malays and non-Malays – in each of these quarrels, and the extremes of each side were the loudest.
Many issues in Malaysia are seen from ethnic lenses, and the moment an issue is articulated from such a perspective, there will be contradictory responses from both sides. A lot of these views are based on stereotypes, biases, and some are just blatant racism. There seems to be no middle ground in such culture wars. Whoever advocates a middle ground will be chastised by the extremes of both sides. Middle ground is often accused of being a sellout.
In culture wars, group identities take precedence over individuals. It is “us versus them”, and a zero sum game, as if there must be a winner and a loser, and there is no compromised outcome. Those not included in the “us” group are the Other. In its extreme form, often the Others are dehumanised, not seen as humans. In many other countries, the line between culture wars and actual violent conflicts is very thin.
In the recent quarrel on the national flag, UMNO Youth Chief Datuk Akmal Saleh acted as a “hero” to this captive audience, showing off his bravery acting against “transgressors” who were deemed disloyal. The flip side of this is that his action evokes anger, fear, and humiliation among the non-Malays.
In this mindless situation, every side would have to rise to “defend” against each other. On the Malay side, it is about defending the dignity of the race. On the non-Malay side, it is about defending against bullying and hegemony.
And as per usual political reaction, on the Malay side, there are renewed calls for UMNO not to cooperate with DAP. On the non-Malay side, there are calls for DAP not to work with UMNO, and also some thoughtless calls to not display the national flag.
DAP Secretary-General Anthony Loke’s idea to put up an even larger Jalur Gemilang at the hardware shop at which Akmal and his supporters were to hold a protest was spot on. It is important to rally the people across ethnic lines around the national symbol and not to allow this to degenerate into a Malay versus non-Malay zero sum culture war.
𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴, 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲
Malaysia has had no credible singular central authority for nearly two decades. When the fires of culture wars raze, no one wants to be in the middle to speak for the middle ground, or to speak for what I call Malaysian nationalism. The middle is tightly squeezed if the centre could not hold.
The Unity Government is a unique opportunity in itself to build a strong centre and a new political order that is underpinned by Malaysian nationalism. The centre needs to hold and expand, and to assert its centrality. The racial fringes must not be allowed to feel that they are in charge. The Prime Minister’s reminder during his speech to the civil servants that there must be a serious effort to assert a central authority is encouraging.
A strong centre should be authoritative but not authoritarian. Malaysian nationalism can go hand in hand with a strong democracy which has rules and norms acceptable and embraced by the citizenry, which in turn sideline culture wars and culture warriors.
What we see in Malaysia in the past two decades is not unique to us. We live in an age in which President Donald Trump is the chief culture warrior while right wing populist Nigel Farage has a chance of becoming the UK Prime Minister. Many previously homogeneous societies are now multiethnic and multicultural, and facing challenges of political accommodation of a diverse population.
For Malaysia, under the Unity Government led by Anwar, we have an opportunity to showcase to the world the possibility of both being a workable democracy and a cohesive multicultural society. It is our collective responsibility to sustain and enhance the middle ground.
