Multiethnic Malaysia - T.G. Lim et al. (eds)

LIM TECK GHEE, ALBERTO GOMES & AZLY RAHMAN, EDS.

Multiethnic Malaysia: past, present and future

Petaling Jaya: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre (SIRD) ;

Kuala Lumpur:  Malaysia Institute of Development and Asian Studies (MiDAS) at UCSI University, 2009.

xxv, 530pp. ISBN 978-983-3782-78-9, (pb) ; 978-983-3782-81-9 (hb).

Reviewed by V.T.  King, University of Leeds

If it’s a book on Malaysia then it’s very probably going to say something about ethnicity and identity. Multiethnic Malaysia says a lot about ethnicity: it’s a mammoth undertaking with 25 chapters, a brief editorial introduction, and introductions to the five sections of the book. The contributors comprise some of Malaysia’s senior historians and social scientists and a sprinkling of rising stars.  Indeed the list of contributors and their achievements reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of the Malaysian Academy.

The editors have an agenda; they wish to inform, engage and provoke.  As the sub-title of the book suggests, not only do they wish to take stock of what has happened and been happening to the ‘distinct ethnic, religious and cultural communities’ in the country from the pre-colonial period onwards, but also to address the current status of identities and inter-ethnic relations, and then to hazard what the future might and, more pertinently from the majority view of the contributors, should hold for Malaysia.  More particularly the book presents an alternative prospectus or manifesto (or in the words of the editors a ‘”counter-hegemonic” body of writing’) to that which is referred to as ‘the dominant body of knowledge and curriculum found in the official or government-sanctioned view of Malaysian history and society’ (p. 1). Clearly one development which has prompted this volume is the Malaysian government’s relatively recent move to introduce a compulsory module on ethnic studies into the curricula of local universities. This state-directed and -supported move invites considerable criticism from the editors.

In the spirit of opening up wide-ranging debates on ethnicity in Malaysia Lim, Gomes and Azly Rahman also state firmly that they have wanted to encourage the presentation of ‘a diversity of views and perspectives’. In seeking to do this, when they approached potential contributors they gave them a relatively broad remit and left them to decide what issues and events should be given due attention and what analytical and political perspectives should be adopted in attempting to understand the origins, development, trajectory and character of ethnic relations in Malaysia. Although they conclude that they have been unable ‘to find common ground on these vital events and processes’, the editors also hope that the collection of essays will stimulate open and free discussion and debate among young Malaysians. Despite differences of view the book is concerned to promote ethnic unity and common purpose rather than demarcation, division and segregation, to encourage an open and democratic approach to instruction and learning rather than a closed and controlled one, and to promote a liberal, multicultural approach to cultural diversity rather than a ‘backward-looking and chauvinistic’ one (p. 4). The editors and those contributors who examine the current situation and future prospects for the country speak with passion and conviction about the need ‘to change the present in order to build a better future’ for Malaysia (p. 4).

The book is divided into five parts: (1) Historical Roots of Identity in Malaysia (with chapters by Khoo Kay Kim, Cheah Boon Kheng, Ariffin Omar, Lee Kam Hing and Sheila Nair); (2) Politics, Economics, Culture and Identity (P. Ramasamy, Maznah Mohamad, John Saravanamuttu, Edmund Terence Gomez and Alberto Gomes; (3) Education, Culture and Identity (Lee Hock Guan, Lim Teck Ghee and Alberto Gomes, Zainah Anwar, Syed Husin Ali and Azly Rahman); (4) Marginalised Communities, Marginalised Identities (Alberto Gomes, Shanthi Thambiah, Zawawi Ibrahim, S. Nagarajan, Diana Wong and Wazir Jahan Karim); and (5) Future Prospects: Azly Rahman, Ooi Kee Beng, Ong Puay Liu and Lim Teck Ghee. Some of the interesting sub-themes addressed in the collection include the debates between ‘primordialists’ and ‘constructivists’; the processes and factors underlying assimilation, accommodation and ethnic integration and separation; the politics of race and communal consciousness; the relations between ethnicity and national identity, and processes of social engineering; the political economy of identity; the interactions between class and identity and the politics of the middle class; language, education and identity; the construction of minorities; and the issue of immigrant labour.

There is much in this volume that will be very familiar to Malaysia-watchers, but there is much that is also empirically new. In my view it realises what the editors desire for it. Multiethnic Malaysia presents a collection of critical and reflexive essays on those issues which lie at the heart of the modern nation-state of Malaysia and it sets out, in broad outline at least, what must be addressed and debated if Malaysia is to continue to develop and prosper and its citizens to live in peace and harmony in a multicultural society.