Melayu

Chapter 2 Like a Shady Tree Swept by the Windstorm: Malays in Dissent

34 Maznah Mohamad Chapter 2 Like a Shady Tree Swept by the Windstorm: Malays in Dissent Maznah Mohamad Situating Melayu in a Postcolonial Malay World Outsde of the Malay Pennsula, t was only n East Sumatra and Brune that there was the exstence of a strong Malay sultanate n colonal tmes. But n East Sumatra, the movement toward a postcolonal Malay dentty formaton was thwarted wth the demse of the kerajaan,1 through a volent socal revoluton aganst the Malay royals n 1946 whch paved the way for a republcan Indonesa.2 There and then, one could say that the Malay race-makng project smply faded nto rrelevance. In Sngapore, after ts separaton from Malaysa n 1965, Malays exper enced an overnght mnortzaton of ther demographc status, from beng 56 percent n the Malaysan federaton nto just 14 percent of the total populaton n ther new “forced” ndependent naton.3 But unlke n Indonesa, where the conscousness of a Malay ethncty was poltcally subsumed by the narratve of the homogenous Bangsa Indonesia, the conscousness of beng Malay n the Sngapore context s kept alve around debates and polcy mperatves of racal competton and one-upmanshp — the Malay mnorty s perceved to be lower down the developmental scale because of ther socal and economc underachevement,4 as well as, from tme to tme, ther assocaton wth Islamc terrorsm (see chapter by Aljuned, ths volume). In Malaysa, on the other hand, the poltcs of Malayness s wrt large, strong and domnant. It s only n ths part of the archpelago that the sustanablty of the trope of Malayness has become a natonal and state responsblty, f not burden. What 34 Malays in Dissent 35 s beng llustrated by these snppets s that race-makng s a socal constructon, or even more drectly, a cogntve process, and one that s enlvened by the contestaton around ts meanngs and assgnatons wthn a multplcty of governance structures.5 Here, I look at an elte constructon of Malayness as expressed by a select group of poltcal essaysts n Pennsular Malaysa. That beng so, ths study does not attempt to capture the everyday, emboded, and unconscous experence of Malayness. What wll be ntroduced n these pages are dscursve acts rather than palpable actvtes enacted by the authors. For the last 50 years, the Melayu6 consoldaton and cogntve project was really the purvew of elte movers and thnkers who occupy the prvleged poston of beng able to define and outlne the scrpture of Melayu that everyday lves could not.7 It s n moments of poltcal and cultural crses that the Melayu becomes enlvened. It s through lvng the “myth of permanent cultural crss” that authors paradoxcally find ther effectve cultural dentty.8 We are seeng the constructon of the modern Malay movng away from the kerajaan vortex, even away from the lngustc lfelne that used to consttute the germane and authentc Melayu.9 But what and where s the source of ths crss? The Malay sensblty as gleaned from popular proverbs s known to be one of resgnaton, as n the magery of an “earth drenched by ran” (seperti bumi ditimpa hujan), wth the weak forever subjugated by the strong. In folklore, t s rare that the personalty of the rebel s extolled as a model of herosm or vanguard of change. One of the few analoges to depct dssent or a strong expresson of crtcsm s contaned n th...