By Farish A. Noor

And so it would appear that Malaysia is, after all, an Islamic state.

This was the conclusion that many Malaysians have had to accept after the recent pronouncement on the part of the Prime Minister that the country has apparently been run and governed on Islamic lines all along; a startling revelation to say the least for most of us who were unaware of the fact that the arrests under the ISA, the crackdowns during Operation Lalang, Operation Kenari, the numerous declarations of Emergency, et al. were all done under the auspices of Muslim governance. And are we right to conclude that the innumerable corruption scandals, the weakening of the judiciary, the instances of blatant double-standards in the enforcement of the law, et al. were likewise exemplary moments of Islamic governance in action?

The Prime Minister’s recent announcement must surely have come as a blow to those of us who have been calling for a return to the secular democratic foundations of the Malaysian Federation. But now it seems as if even the history of this country has been appropriated by the government, and written and re-written at whim to suit the agendas and interests of the powers that be. After half a century of existence and five decades of nation-building programmes that have taken us nowhere fast, the goalposts have been moved once again. How can there be any significant, meaningful long-term development in the country when the very rules of the political game change again and again? And if the very foundational terms of political engagement in the country are being changed all the time, we need to ask why and for whose sake?

Assimilation and the Malay-Muslim comfort zone.

Lest we forget (and we need to be mindful of the fact that our nation’s history is being distorted and deformed as we speak) the Malayan (later Malaysian) constitution envisaged a multiracial and multireligious nation-state held together by a secular democratic constitution that spelled out citizenship as one of the core values that equalises all of us, as members and citizens of the same national community. It is on the basis of that shared universal citizenship that all of us are defined primarily as Malaysians and that as Malaysians we have a common status and standing before the law.

No Malaysian has the right to stand above the law or break it at will; no Malaysian has the right to place himself or herself above other Malaysians, and no Malaysian should be treated unfairly in relation to others. Furthermore being Malaysian and claiming Malaysian citizenship also implies that Malaysia should be the primary object of our political loyalties: not race, not religion, not class or other sectarian or parochial interests. The universal character of citizenship entails a shared common responsibility and shared common rights that equalises all of us, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender.

Yet the founding pact that brought the diverse communities of Malaya (later Malaysia) together has been eroded thanks in part to internal variable factors that none of the forefathers of the nation saw in the early 1950s: The demographic increase of the Malay-Muslim community, coupled with the steady stream of outward immigration on the part on the other communities, has radically altered the racial balance of the country to the point where many of us — including politicians and pundits alike — speak of the ‘growing Malay bloc’ as if it was a solid, homogenous entity.

Fear of upsetting the sensibilities of this ‘Malay bloc’ has led many of us to concede ground time and again to the ethno-nationalist demagogues who have presented themselves as the guardians of the Malay-Muslim interest, and who have unilaterally taken it upon themselves to also determine the bargaining position of that community. Thus the growing political clout of the Malay-Muslims (in terms of voters and votes) has been matched by an equally strident tenor in the political discourse of that community’s leaders, leading us to the shameful spectacles of keris-waving and hot-headed pyrotechnics we have been witness to over the past few years in particular.

Aggravating the situation further was the coupling of Malay communitarian ethnic interests with the demands and concerns of religion, where Islam was brought into the picture and, in time, grafted on Malay identity as yet another exclusive element to define the contours of that community. The Islamisation race that began in earnest from the early 1980s with former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir and his former Deputy Anwar Ibrahim merely added yet another layer of identity politics to an already complicated formula that was being strained at the seams.

The tragedy of postcolonial Malaysia lies here. Since the late 1960s, the route to political power in the country seems to have been configured in the following terms: That only a Malay-Muslim can aspire to the highest office of the land and that the terms of his (and it is always his, never her) rise to power is determined in turn by how well he plays the race and religion card. The ambitious Young Turks of UMNO proved as much in their successful bid to oust the Tunku, and the trend was set. In the 1970s Anwar Ibrahim played very much the same role as he rose to public prominence before being co-opted to joining UMNO, and since then every leader of UMNO’s youth wing has done the same. Are we surprised, therefore, to observe the disgraceful sight of kerises being waved in the air these days?

Thus far the state of race politics in Malaysia seems to have been set by a cast-iron logic that seems insurmountable. But is it? Were there not instances to the contrary, when alternative viewpoints were put across by more accommodating leaders who thought in terms of the national interest?

The answer to this question is yes. One such voice was that of Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmy’s, who was one of the earliest Malayan nationalists who not only fought against colonial rule but who also envisaged the creation of a Malaya that was open and fair to all communities. Dr. Burhanuddin was one of the members of the ‘Kaum Muda’ generation who later became one of the leaders of the PKMM (Malayan Nationalist Party), and later was made the President of PAS in 1956 (to 1970). Today many of us have all but forgotten the man and few Malaysians have bothered to look him up in the history books. Yet Dr. Burhanuddin stands alone, a singularly unique figure in the landscape of Malaysian politics, for his refusal to concede to racist sectarian and communitarian demands. Furthermore he did the unthinkable thing during his lifetime by de-racialising the concept of ‘Malay’ itself.

In his writings like Asah Falsafah Kebangsaan Melayu (republished, 1963) and Perjuangan Kita: 17 Ogos 1945 hingga 17 Ogos 1946 (1946), he stated that the goal of Malayan independence would have to be the development of a broad-based nationalism that embraces, rather than excludes, all the communities in the country. Dr. Burhanuddin went as far as calling for a ‘nasionalisme Melayu’ that defined a ‘Melayu’ as anyone who was born, lives in and regards Malaya as his or her home. By doing so he had turned ‘Malayness’ from a racial category (invented by the colonial census) into a category of universal citizenship instead. Throughout much of his political career Dr. Burhanuddin urged his supporters to accept citizenship as the basis of their political participation in the country, and warned of the dangers of ethno-nationalism and racialised politics. But sadly the man was detained during the years of Malaysia’s Konfrontasi with Indonesia and died shortly after his release from the ISA later. Till today, there has not emerged a Malaysian leader from the Malay community who is able to match Dr. Burhanuddin’s commitment to an anti-racist and deracialised politics for the country. Instead, what we have is the opposite: a deliberate and sustained attempt to move the goalposts of the country further to the right and to impress upon the nation the sectarian demands of the Malay-Muslim community in particular, as understood and interpreted by the leaders of UMNO.

The pitfalls of assimilation

It is against this backdrop of an expanding Malay-Muslim comfort zone as defined by UMNO that the other communities of Malaysia are being told to integrate and assimilate. Before proceeding any further, let us debunk certain myths that have been lingering for too long already: For a start, it would be ridiculous to ask any Malaysian today to integrate any further as most of the non-Malay citizens of this country are in fact descendants of third, fourth if not fifth generation migrants who have long since become part and parcel of the Malaysian landscape. Yet as every communal crisis reaches its peak, the non-Malays are reminded that this is the fabled ‘Tanah Melayu’ and that they are ‘kaum pendatang’ who have to integrate and assimilate. But to what end and when does one finally qualify as a full citizen of Malaysia?

I raise this question as a Malaysian who happens to live and work in Europe, where today the calls for integration are being made again, more often than not by right-wing racist demagogues who harp on and on about the need for foreigners to accept the mainstream of European life. But what if that mainstream also happens to be a racist one, where racialised discourse has become normalised and hegemonised and where foreigners are constantly being kept on the margins of society? And what if that European mainstream still cannot accept the reality of a multicultural Europe where racial, ethnic and religious pluralism are realities; and where other non-European religions such as Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are also now part of the European social landscape?

The dilemma I face as a Malaysian Muslim in Europe is similar to that faced by non-Malays and non-Muslims in Malaysia today. How can the right-wing ethno-nationalists of the Malay-Muslim community expect others to assimilate to the mainstream culture of Malaysia when that very mainstream has been defined almost exclusively by the Malay-Muslims themselves? How can other communities find their place in Malaysia’s history when that history ignores and sidelines the vastly important role played by other communities in the development of Malaysia, as well as Malaysia’s pre-Islamic past and its multi-religious present? Malay right-wingers demand non-Malays and non-Muslims to become part of the nation, but the national imaginary has now been decidedly painted by a distinct, particular and exclusive Malay-Muslim brush. Where is the space for assimilation then?

The root of the problem is the culture of racialised identity politics that reigns in the country till today, a throwback to the colonial era that was taken up with gusto by UMNO and the component parties of the ruling Barisan Nasional. As long as this culture of divisive politics prevails in the country, then the UMNO party will — despite its frothy liberal rhetoric at times — be an exclusive sectarian party enacting a politics that is divisive and communitarian.

Fifty years after our independence, we still entertain the myth of a ‘Tanah Melayu’ that is a privileged homeland for some and not others. And as long as the UMNO party maintains this divisive approach to politics and sees the Malay-Muslims as its primary constituency, the situation is not likely to change for the better. We are nowhere closer to realising the dream of a Malaysian Malaysia where citizenship is the common gift bestowed upon all her citizens. Instead the gift of a multicultural and multi-religious nation has been stolen from us, before our very eyes, by the very same ruling elites who claim to be the ‘leaders of all Malaysians’, while in their deeds they have shown that their commitment to plural democracy is only skin deep. What a shameful end to what could have been a beautiful story.