Malaysia: The Making of a Nation

2. 1957–2001: The “Bargain” and Contesting Nationalisms

Contesting Nationalisms • 49© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore 49 C H A P T E R T W O 1957–2001 The “Bargain” and Contesting Nationalisms More potent than state nationalism in Sabah and Sarawak was the growth of communalism, in the sense that communal sentiments were becoming more prominent and communal groups becoming larger and more inclusive. Milne and Ratnam, Malaysia: New States in a New Nation, p. 61 Sabah and Sarawak are multiethnic societies but due to the different ethnic patterns prevailing there, their electoral politics have unfolded quite differently from that in the Peninsula …… With the demise, at least temporarily, of the non-Muslim Bumiputera ethno-nationalist movements in the early 1990s, reconfiguration of the political process seems underway, perhaps towards a political system more clearly dominated by the Muslim Bumiputera, as in the case of the Peninsula. Francis Loh Kok Wah, “Understanding Politics in Sabah and Sarawak: An Overview”, Kajian Malaysia XV (1997): 12 MALAY POLITICAL primacy has always been a matter of perception. During the 1957–63 period, it seemed like an illusion. As peninsular Malaya’s population was slightly still predominantly non-Malay, the UMNOled Alliance leaders attempted to project the image of Malaya as one belonging to all citizens. They had put little emphasis on the creation of an integrated new society. They could not decide what to call it. Every effort Reproduced from Malaysia: The Making of a Nation, by Cheah Boon Kheng (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available from 50 • Malaysia: The Making of a Nation© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore was made to avoid endangering communal harmony and straining constitutional democracy. These were the early fragile years of a newlyindependent state. Malay political supremacy was, therefore, not openly stated or touted. As Diane Mauzy has observed, even UMNO’s dominance within theAlliance was not overtly stressed: “The MCA and MIC combined did not have the electoral weight, the unity, the support, or the historical precedents to be exact political equals with UMNO. This fact was obscured, however, because for years the dominance of UMNO was masked, though at times not altogether convincingly, under the façade of an equal partnership. UMNO’s supremacy was understood by its partners, but the MCA and the UMNO top élite did not want any obvious public demonstration of this fact. The lower echelon officials, however, were often not so sensitive to this point.”1 Malay poverty, Malay special rights, Malay quotas in the civil service, and Malay as one of the two official languages (the other being English), did give the impression that the Malays were being treated as a “special” people who needed a lot of government assistance. Economically weak, the Malays lagged behind the other races in education, commerce and finance, and seemed unable to compete with the other races. Although Malay Sultans were the sovereign rulers of nine Malay states, they did not have executive power; they appeared merely as symbolic heads of state. Malaya’s Prime Minister was a Malay. Malays outnumbered non-Malays in the Cabinet, in the armed forces and in the police. But there were Chinese Cabinet Ministers and an Indian Cabinet Minister, and most of the top civil service posts were still held by non-Malays. The image of the country did not appear, therefore, as one of Malay political supremacy, but of power-sharing among the races. Most Malays were acutely conscious of this illusion constructed by the Government. For this reason, Malay nationalists had urged the UMNO-led Alliance Government to adopt Malay as the National Language immediately and start making Malay political dominance a reality. Until the National Language Act was introduced in 1967, this issue alone gave the Malay nationalist movement the excuse to begin demanding that the Government demonstrate that Malaya was a “Malay country”. Leading this agitation Contesting Nationalisms • 51© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore were the “language nationalists”, especially the Malay schoolteachers and academics, Malay writers and Malay journalists as well as the PMIP, which adopted a very high nationalistic profile in 1962 by its attempts to put on record in the Constitution that Malaya belongs to the Malays. The PMIP...