Ethnic relations in Malaysia

SYED HUSIN ALI

Ethnic relations in Malaysia: harmony and conflict

Kuala Lumpur: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, 2008, xxiv, 169, ISBN 978-983-3782-59-8 (pb)

Reviewed by Victor T. King, University of Leeds

Syed Husin Ali is one of the most distinguished social scientists in Malaysia and has long had a sociological interest in the topical issues (including inter-ethnic relations, social class, inequality and poverty) which animate Malaysian academic and political life. Indeed he has been engaged in active and critical political dialogue with the governments of the day which in the early part of his career resulted in his detention without trial in Kamunting from 1974 to 1980 under the Internal Security Act. He has been both a scholar and a social and political activist, demonstrating above all that action and application have to be based on a considered and evidence-based social conscience.

However, I discovered with a little regret that the book is a compilation of mainly published work, much of which I already know: from his edited book Ethnicity, class and development (1984), and the chapters in Challenging politics: indigenous people’s experiences with political parties and elections (2001) and Out of the Tempurong: critical essays on Malaysian society (2008), from the widely read and recently revised The Malays: their problems and future (1981/2008), his article on ‘Economic growth, stratification and ethnicity’ (1976), plus articles in the popular media (The New Straits Times [1996], Malaysia Today/The Sun [2007], Malaysiakini [2000], and Newsweek [2000]). However, there is a newly written introduction on the theme of national unity and recent inter-ethnic conflicts in which Husin Ali gives us some of his views on recent political events and social issues in Malaysia. There is also an adaptation of some published material from Ethnicity, class and development which serves as a general orientation on the characteristics of ethnicity in Malaysia, and the inclusion of a previously unpublished talk entitled ‘Southeast Asia (especially Malaysia) following 9/11 and 10/12 Attacks’ which was delivered in several British universities in 2003.

In fairness to Husin Ali he has a reasonable case for not updating or revising much of his earlier writings because he wishes his readers ‘to understand them in the context of their time’ and ‘observe the common thread and the trend of views and ideas that link them to the recent articles’ (pp. vi-vii). In this connection therefore Husin Ali’s long engagement with the subject matter serves to demonstrate significant transformations in action, behaviour, ideas and understandings in relation to ethnicity in Malaysia. But more especially what the collection does is to demonstrate the continuity and steadfastness in much of Husin Ali’s social and political worldview and the persistent interconnections which he makes between ethnicity, social class, political processes and development. There is an academic objectivity in his work, but both in his more seriously scholarly writing and in his popular pronouncements there is a passion and commitment to causes which always shine through. The collection expresses in part at least a personal scholarly and political journey and it cannot be read without understanding this autobiographical context.

We all recognise that no one, least of all a sociologist, can ignore the vital and all-pervasive social organisational, behavioural and ideational principle of ethnicity or identity in attempting to understand the structures and transformations of Malaysian society. Indeed, one seldom finds a social scientific study of Malaysia which does not address relationships within and between ethnic categories and groupings in one way or another. Husin Ali also warns that in both the academic and popular literature these relationships are sometimes referred to incorrectly and unhelpfully in terms of the concept of race which for him is a ‘myth … constructed and manipulated by human beings themselves, often by small minorities greedy for wealth and power’ (p. 156). However, we have to acknowledge the fact that ethnic identities are also constructed and manipulated (Malay, Chinese, Indian, Dayak, Orang Asli and so on); they are products of history, interaction and political action; ethnicities are internally differentiated, permeable and cross-cutting; and in studying them we have to make distinctions between what people do, how they behave, the roles they play and what people say, think and sometimes believe. I think Husin Ali could have been much more explicit and detailed in his treatment of these properties and distinctions. Nevertheless, with his very early interest in issues of social stratification and inequality, what he does do in some depth is argue that we shall not understand ethnicity if we do not examine how it interacts with social class and power, and for former colonial dependencies like Malaysia, how these in turn interrelate with developmental possibilities and constraints.

Husin Ali’s overriding commitment has always been to the importance of Malaysians and those who govern them building and sustaining inter-ethnic relations and cooperation, founding and supporting multi-ethnic political parties, and promoting social equality and justice in the interest of a genuine nationhood – an ideal of national identity expressed eloquently and forcefully in the merdeka proclamation. Who would not agree with Husin Ali when he says ‘inter-ethnic relations should be encouraged and promoted in schools, playgrounds, clubs and organizations, especially among the young; state politico-administrative institutions and private economic organizations should be planned and encouraged to include reasonable multi-ethnic participation’? (pp. xxiii-xxiv). Of course by its very nature ethnicity can generate conflict because it is an organisational principle which differentiates and divides, particularly when political parties and identities are configured in relation to it. What dismays Husin Ali above all is the political use of ethnicity in exercising control, operating patronage relations and exacerbating divisions, and the associated processes of undermining democratic institutions, an independent judiciary and university sector, human rights and various individual and collective freedoms. He bemoans the inexorable increase of authoritarianism in Malaysia.

Of course, there are those who might wish to qualify some of Husin Ali’s more passionate pronouncements, but as a set of statements made with authority and emotion the book is most certainly worth reading, or in large part re-reading, even for those who are very familiar with his work and its guiding principles. Has the preoccupation with ethnicity been overdone in Malaysia? This is definitely not the case for Husin Ali because for him there is a continuing need for independent scholarly enquiry ‘into the factors that cause the increase or decrease of ethnic conflicts … [and] ... the circumstances most conducive to the growth of ethnic understanding and the establishment of national unity’ (p. 6).