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Abstract
The relationship between religious, ethnic and national identities in Malaysia has long been fraught with uncomfortable tensions—especially for the 50 percent of Malaysians who are outside the dominant Malay-Muslim communal grouping. Until the accession of Dr Mahathir to the prime ministership at the beginning of the 1980s, it was clear that ethnic identity trumped religious identity, even though being Muslim was already intrinsic to being accepted as Malay. Being a non-Malay Malaysian was to accept a subordinate, but not a drastically uncomfortable role in the nation. Since the 1980s, however, religious identity appears to have replaced ethnicity as the central element of nation identity as the society has been systematically—even aggressively—Islamised. Yet appearances can be deceiving, and there is a strong case to be made that Islamisation in Malaysia is basically a variation of the original Malay ethnonationalism, using the nearly complete symbiosis between Malay and Muslim identity as the point of articulation that allows religious nationalism to serve as a cipher for ethnonationalism—but a version of ethnonationalism that is much less accommodating of minorities than was traditional Malay nationalism. This article places contemporary events in a historical context and then focuses on just one aspect of Malaysia's program of Islamisation that is both contemporary and central to national identity—developments in the education system, and particularly within the secondary school history curriculum—to demonstrate that in this instance at least, religious nationalism is operating as a surrogate for ethnic nationalism and has, in fact, intensified ethnic nationalism by raising the stakes for the communities that are outside the core national group.
Notes
1. The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers who made such useful recommendations for the improvement of this article.
2. Of the total population, 39.6 percent are members of religions other than Islam, including Christians, Hindus, animists, and followers of Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist Chinese religions (Riddell Citation2005: 163), and 52.8% are not Malay. These are mainly Chinese, Indians and non-Malay indigenes (Daniel Citation2006: 711).
3. It is beyond the scope of this article to explore it in detail, but it should be noted that the conception and direction of Malay nationalism was also the subject of serious contestation over the twentieth century, with the raja-centric, conservative version that became dominant struggling at times against the broader concept of a Melayu Raya (‘Greater Malaya’) and even that of a Indonesia Raya (‘Greater Indonesia’, including Malays on the peninsula) (Rahim Citation2009: 150). These were based more on modern concepts of Malays as a ‘people’ (bangsa) rather than Malays as the subjects of a raja. Malay nationalist activists and movements have spanned the political spectrum and some have been overtly leftist in their politics (see Barnard and van der Putten Citation2008).
4. In one state of colonial Malaya, Indians could be accepted as Malays, but this was the only exception to the rejection of Chinese, Europeans and Indians from ‘Malayness’ (Shamsul Citation2004: 141).
5. Dato Onn did take some steps to build opposition to the rulers’ leadership role in Islam, but only in the last days of his membership of UMNO, when he was desperately looking for new bases of support within the organisation. It did not gain traction, even among the ulama, who stood to benefit if the bid had been successful (see Harper Citation2001: 337–8).
6. This describes how the relationship between Islam and the state has developed in Malaysia, but CitationShad Saleem Faruqi (n.d.: 40) argues that the architects of the original Malayan constitution never intended Islam to have more than a ceremonial role that would barely impinge upon the de facto secularity of the state.
7. It is important to note that these state powers are circumscribed somewhat by federal control over important matters like corporal punishment, and that Melaka, Pinang, Sarawak and Sabah do not have traditional rulers, so responsibility for Islam in these states defaults to the federal government.
8. This is not intended as a commentary on the ‘authenticity’ or otherwise of the Malay version of Islam. Barr has argued elsewhere that because of its lack of a transnational authority of governance, Islam is ‘localised’ in this fashion everywhere, which is why contemporary anthropologists urge that the study of doctrinaire Islam not be isolated from the study of real-life Muslims (Barr Citation2002: 130–1). This observation on the localisation of Islam should not be assumed to apply only to the rulers’ and UMNO's version of Islam. It is beyond the focus of this article, but it is significant to note that the main Islamic-based opposition party—Parti al-Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS)—claims to advocate a purer form of the faith, but Farish (2003) argues eloquently that it, too, has adopted a highly localised interpretation of the faith.
9. This observation does not presume that all Malays actually did or do fully identify with this Malay-Muslim identity, or that they all did so in the simplistic UMNO-centric fashion that UMNO desired. Indeed, the results of the 2008 general elections, where many Malays voted for non-communal parties or for PAS, suggest that the roots of this identification may have been more shallow than had been previously thought.
10. For extensive explorations of the impact of the Islamisation program on government building architecture, see King (Citation2008) and Willford (Citation2007).
11. For a selection of reports on these matters, see Bernama Daily Malaysian News ( Citation2004 ), New Straits Times ( Citation2003 ) and Straits Times ( Citation2006 ,Citation2009 ).
12. An example of such a parliamentary exchange can be viewed on YouTube at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaE79RWoiL0>.
13. This pattern of non-Muslim subservience within the governing coalition has continued under Dr Mahathir's successor. In 2006, nine non-Muslim members of the Federal Cabinet submitted a memorandum to then Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi asking the government to review Article 121 (1A) of the Constitution which established the supremacy of Syariah courts over civil courts (Malaysiakini Citation2006a). Two days later, the memorandum was retracted under pressure from UMNO (Malaysiakini Citation2006b).
14. The basic principles of Islam Hadhari are officially set out as follows: ‘Faith in and piety towards Allah, a just and trustworthy government, free and liberated people, a rigorous pursuit and mastery of knowledge, balanced and comprehensive economic development, a good quality of life for the people, protection for the rights of minority groups and women, cultural and moral integrity, safeguarding of the environment and strong defence capabilities’ (Department of Islamic Development Malaysia Citation2005: 12).
15. The history textbooks for Forms 1 to 3 are designed to provide a basic overview of Malaysian history. They have a significant bias towards Malay nationalism but are free of any Islamist bias (see Ministry of Education Malaysia, Citation2004 ,Citation2005a ,Citationb).
16. All translations are by Anantha Raman Govindasamy.
17. The information about the authors is derived directly from the back cover of the Sejarah Tingkatan 4 Buku Teks (Form 4 History Textbook).
18. The use of the term masyarakat (‘community’) in this context is anachronistic because there was no conception of a Malay community until the twentieth century. See extensive discussions on this matter by several contributors to Barnard (Citation2004).