Rites of Belonging: Memory, Modernity, and Identity in a Malaysian Chinese Community (review)

Jean DeBernardi is a researcher who has been writing on various aspects of Chinese religious culture in Malaysia for more than two decades. Her latest publication in this field is an engaging and insightful book on Penang Chinese popular religion. As someone who grew up in Penang in the 1970s, I found this work personally meaningful and rewarding to read. In particular, the ethnographic narration of the rituals of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival triggers flashbacks to the annual event as it was staged next door by a neighbour of mine, a Chinese spirit medium.

The proposition that religious rituals and initiations help define ethnic identity and maintain group solidarity is widely accepted by many scholars. However, while ethnic groups employ rituals and initiations to sustain group identity and solidarity, the effectiveness of this strategy depends on the interplay of a variety of factors; social, economic and political circumstances, differences within the ethnic group, and how the rituals and initiations are "re-invented". In this book, DeBernardi examines the "localization" of Chinese religion in, first, the emerging British colonial city of Penang in the latter half of the 19th century and then in post-colonial Malaysia in the 1970s and 1980s. In both historical periods, she rightly pointed out that ethnic politics played a decisive role in the "re-invention" of Chinese cultures and festivities.

Part 1 of the book discusses the formation of the Penang Chinese community out of the diverse population of emigrants coming from southeastern China to the island. Amid the port's diverse ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious milieu, descendants of Chinese emigrants became localized by assimilating selected elements of mainly the Malay and British forms of life. At the same time, they also preserved their Chinese identity by hanging on to traditional Chinese practices and festivals. However, Penang Chinese society during the latter half of the 19th century was divided between the Straits Chinese and the sinkeh or new emigrants, and also fragmented by the fact that many Chinese continued to define themselves "by native place, regional language, and descent". The re-enactment of traditional Chinese practices and festivities thus serves two ends; one, to delineate the Chinese community from other ethnic communities, and the other, to facilitate Chinese solidarity by broadening the "bases for consociality".

Chapter 3 and 4 focus on the sworn brotherhoods to illustrate how Chinese religion was exploited by community leaders for the purpose of fostering a sense of group belonging. While Chapter 3 looks at the institutionalization of the sworn brotherhood, Chapter 4 provides a detail analysis of its initiation rites. Together the two reveal and explain how the sworn brotherhoods were maneuvered by Chinese leaders to propagate identity and enhance solidarity.

DeBernardi importantly contextualizes the Chinese re-invention of traditional performances and rites in relation to the competition for control of the emerging colonial society that went on between the British and Chinese communities. What this meant was that the Chinese were permitted to practice their religion as long as they did not contravene British notions of "public civility", "rationality", and "authority". Although as political master, the British could circumscribe and occasionally proscribe some Chinese religious practices, there were times when they had to negotiate a compromise with the community. Two examples are used to illustrate this; firstly, the 1857 Penang Riots encouraged the British to allow the Chinese their right to publicly hold their festivities albeit under certain guidelines, and, secondly, the secret societies, or sworn brotherhoods, were banned in 1890 in part because they challenged and subverted British authority. Despite such measures, the British "did not succeed in preventing the symbols and practices of Penang Chinese religious culture from having continued empire over the imagination".

Since the British colonial state was primarily interested in constructing conditions for economic development, there was hardly any attempt made to integrate the diverse populations into a common community. The Chinese community was largely left...