TRANSLATING BANGSA MALAYSIA

Abstract

This article seeks to interrogate the idea of “race,” nation, and multiculturalism in Malaysia from the perspective of cultural studies, in particular that of cultural translation and postcolonial theory. It employs the concept of cultural translation to examine the processes of cultural change and transfer both from the perspective of state policies and nationalistic discourses as well as the discourses and practices of the people. The central idea is to argue for a more flexible understanding of race identities in the move toward a conceptualizing of Malaysian-ness as a national and cultural identity that takes into account the social practices and experiences, imaginings, and expressions of the people. A reading of Yasmin Ahmad's film Sepet lends credence to the article's assertions about the emergence of trans-racial identities on the ground that contest the pedagogic stability of state-defined race identities. The article enters debates on the politics of race and identity in Malaysia through the controversial state-initiated concept of Bangsa Malaysia, which it here advances as an alternative model of multiculturalism and national belonging that effectively displaces the National Culture Policy as well as other hegemonic cultural formulations and political constructions.

Notes

^1. Bhabha 1990, 218.

^2. Mahathir 1991.

^3. Lefevere and Bassnett 1990, 8.

^4. Quoted in Honig 1985, 159.

^5. I am aware of the criticisms that have been made against cultural translation and its theoretical and literary proponents. One of the more vociferous opponents of cultural translation in both Cultural Studies and Translation Studies is literary critic Harish Trivedi, who has objected to the deviation of attention from a non-textual and non-linguistic sense in the practice of translation. Trivedi's indignation is largely directed at Homi Bhabha's use (and, in his view, diminution in value) of the concept of translation to describe the condition of postcolonial migrancy. From this perspective, writers of Indian or South Asian origin such as Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Hanif Kureishi, all born in or writing from theWestern metropolis to which they have migrated, are held up as exemplars of cultural translation when, Trivedi argues, they are not “original” Indians in the first place. This, Trivedi exclaims, is exemplified by the fact that none of these writers, including Bhabha himself, writes (or even speaks, as in the case of some of these authors) in Hindi or any other Indian language! See his article “Translating Culture vs. Cultural Translation” (iwp.uiowa.edu/91st/vol4_n1/pdfs/trivedi.pdf; accessed 11 September 2009), in which he raises and elaborates on these arguments. The same criticisms were again made of Bhabha and Rushdie (as well as Lahiri and Kureishi) by Trivedi in his keynote address delivered at the “Postcolonial Translations” conference held at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, on 5 October 2009. This article is an extended version of the paper I presented at that conference.

^6. Rushdie 1983, 29. Emphasis in original.

^7. Rushdie 1991, 17.

^8. Ibid., 210.

^9. See Bhabha 1994, especially the chapter entitled “How newness enters the world: Postmodern space, postcolonial times and the trials of cultural translation” (pp. 212–36). Stuart Hall also endorses Rushdie's privileging of hybridity as “the authentic voice, the credo of the post-colonial, the diaspora imagination.” See Hall 1991, 32.

^10. Iser 1996.

^11. Malaysia's population, which in 2009 stood at 28.31 million (as listed on the official website of the Department of Statistics Malaysia),comprises various ethnic groups, with Malays (who are by definition in the constitution also Muslims),making up the majority ethnic community. The state has accorded this group the constitutional status of “Bumiputera.” Together with other Bumiputera groups, they constitute about 65 percent of the total population. Malaysians of Chinese descent, who are perceived as holding considerable economic power, account for 26 percent while those of Indian ancestry make up 7.7 percent of the population. The category of “Others” (which includes the Eurasians) stands at around 1 percent.

^12. These overarching racial categories, which presuppose the existence of distinct communities of people, have been in currency and use since the 1891 Straits Settlement census. See Hirschman 1986, 356.

^13. The Malaysian government pursues a program of affirmative action to correct economic inequalities experienced and manifested along racial lines, largely as a legacy of British colonialism, through what is known as the New Economic Policy (NEP). Under this policy, conceived and implemented in 1971, preferential treatment is accorded to ethnic Malays in higher education, government employment, and particular occupations. This community is also granted special privileges in business licenses, land reservation, and the award of scholarships, education grants, licences, and permits. While the principle of social reconstruction behind the NEP itself is not problematic, its political manipulation is. A little more will be said of this policy in later notes.

^14. The Malays are not the only ethnic group who make up the category of Bumiputera, but they constitute a majority proportion of it. Thus, there is a hierarchy of power present even within this category, with Malays occupying the topmost level. Other non-Malay groups who are also defined as Bumiputera owing to their native or indigenous status but who do not enjoy the same privileges and hegemonic rights of this community are the aboriginals or Orang Asli (“Original Peoples”), who mostly inhabit the interior states of the Malaysian peninsula, and the indigenous people of the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, such as the Iban Bidayuh, Melanau, Orang Ulu, Kadazandusun, and Bajau. Several other quarters in society such as the Peranakan (Straits-born) Chinese, Indian (Chitty), and Indian Muslim (Jawi Pekan) communities, the Kristangs of Portuguese descent (who have been accorded partial Bumiputera entitlements), and Thai-Malaysians have long been agitating for the broadening of this category so as to also be defined as Bumiputera.

^15. See, for instance, Mandal 2008, 273.

^16. The place of religion is highly problematic in the Malaysian discourse of national culture and identity. In fact, it is religion, specifically in the form of the ascending Islamicization of state discourses and institutions and the accompanying rallying call of “Ketuanan Islam” (“Islamic Dominance” or “Islamic Supremacy”), used and referenced mostly by politicians, rather than race that is today the precipitating cause of social divisions in contemporary Malaysia.

^17. Bhabha 1990.

^18. Asad 1986.

^19. Bhabha 1989, 12.

^20. Kalra, Kaur, and Hutnyk 2005, 76.

^21. See Mandal 2004, 49–78. Mandal defines his coinage of “transethnic solidarities” as referring to “a variety of efforts whereby Malaysians actively participate in society without respect to ethnic background and by rejecting primordial notions of ethnicity.” His more recent study, Mandal 2007, 46–67, in the same vein offers an interesting examination of the ways in which lived social realities in Malaysia constantly exceed the fixity of racial classification underpinning dominant regimes of representation. Focusing on popular music in Malaysia, Mandal shows how young musicians in Tamil (the most popular spoken language of Indian origins in Malaysia) in their works have adapted to or interacted with other cultural and racial influences to formulate a distinctly transracial (musical) identity.

^22. Abdul Rahman 2001, 62.

^23. While I assert the salience of transethnic identities and identifications, I should point to the increasingly fractious intra-ethnic and inter-religious tensions that have also occurred in recent years. Such splits are especially evident within the Parti Islam SeMalaysia (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party), popularly known as PAS, largely over its younger, more liberal, echelon's attempts to reach out to Chinese, Indian, and non-Muslim voting blocs. These attempts, grounded largely on political expediency rather than on a genuinely transracial orientation, are being resisted by the power center in PAS, composed of the more conservative elements who retain control of the party. Thus, these and other forms of intra-ethnic splits and divisions do exist. But the fact that a party such as PAS which explicitly professes an Islamist ideology has come together with the ethnic Chinese-associated Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the People's Justice Party (Parti Keadilan Rakyat, or KeAdilan) to form the interracial opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat (People's Alliance), is a sign, however fragile or tenuous, of the times. For a fuller discussion, see Gomez, ed. 2007.

^24. It is important to note here that the idea of transethnic solidarities, as defined by Mandal, does not refer exclusively to the cultural and performative activities of social groups in contemporary Malaysia. Mandal argues that such solidarities can be traced to earlier moments in Malaysian history, which have been effectively erased by the workings of nationalist historiography.

^25. Hefner, ed. 2001, 12–19.

^26. According to J.S. Furnivall (1941, 61), a “plural society” comprises “three or more component sections, living side by side but separately, and with no common social life.” A conspicuous feature of plural societies, Furnivall argued, is their social segregation and caste-like division of labor, in which each ethnic or religious community performed their own roles. Furnivall believed that the different ethnic groups that make up plural society are so different from one another that they have little in common other than their marketplace exchange.

^27. Shamsul 2007, 143.

^28. Zawawi 2009.

^29. On this day, racial clashes broke out in Kuala Lumpur due to Malay anger and resentment following the massive victory experienced by the mostly Chinese-led opposition in the justconcluded general elections. The politically dominant Malay community, already insecure over its weak economic standing, now felt newly threatened by the political inroads made by the economically superior ethnic Chinese community. These tensions, the oppositional dynamics of which were largely Chinese vs. Malay in orientation, culminated in mass killings that lasted a few days. “May 13th” proved to be the most significant event in the history of the Malaysian nation; it led to radical and controversial modifications to the cultural, political, and economic life of the nation through a systematic program of social engineering in the form of the New Economic Policy (NEP), implemented from 1971 and in force until 1990. It was succeeded by the National Development Policy (NDP) in 1991, which has continued to pursue most of the policies of the NEP.

^30. Song 2003, 145–46.

^31. Bhabha 1994, 307.

^32. In Malaysia, the discourse of race and the questions surrounding it, especially if they relate to the special rights of the dominant community, are officially described as isu-isu sensitif (sensitive issues). The Sedition Act of 1970 specifically prohibits any discussion of what constitutes Malay identity as well as the privileges accorded to this community.

^33. Like her films, the life of Yasmin Ahmad (1958–2009) transgressed racial boundaries with impunity; her first marriage was to an ethnic Indian and the second to an ethnic Chinese. In her blog (yasminethestoryteller.blogspot.com), she defined her own cultural identity in meticulous terms, as “half Javanese, a quarter Bugis, and a quarter Japanese”—no doubt to mock all those who viewed themselves as defenders of the purity of Malay-ness. Unsurprisingly, not all sectors in society applauded the films she made. In addition to being severely criticized by conservative Muslims and Malay-language purists, they ran into problems with the Malaysian Censorship Board and the media. A forum on Sepet organized by the Ministry of Information and aired on national television in 2006 branded Yasmin a pencemar budaya (cultural polluter). Her films also stirred interest in Parliament, with one parliamentarian being quoted as saying that “the love story between a Chinese boy and a Malay girl is ‘nothing great’ and does not reflect the national identity.” (Quoted in Khoo 2006, 229.)

^34. Long and loose-fitting traditional dress worn by Malay women.

^35. Mandal 2004, 49. Although Mandal himself uses the phrase “ethnic background” in this quotation, my substitution of “ethnic” with “race” shares the same ideological and conceptual concerns. In fact, ethnicity and race are often used interchangeably in official and public discourse in Malaysia.

^36. In a move subversive of Furnivall's trope, and to textualize the nation's transformation from a “plural” society to a “transracial” one, the marketplace in Yasmin's Sepet is not that site of superficial meeting and exchange, but a “third space” of encounter and overlap; the marketplace is where the Malay and Chinese characters meet and fall in love at first sight. See footnote 26 above.

^37. Amir 2009, 70.

^38. Traditional dress worn by Malay women, and more tight-fitting than the baju kurung. In this instance, the mother's kebaya marks Ah Loong's mother as a Peranakan rather than as a member of the Malay community. The Peranakan are members of the Straits-born Chinese community, which has historically, and inevitably, adapted itself to local customs and culture.

^39. These policies, in addition to the Bangsa Malaysia concept, included the reinstatement of English as the medium of teaching mathematics and science subjects in the national school education system in the early 1990s. The state also lifted a long-standing ban on the “lion dance” (a cultural performance associated with the Chinese community), eased travel restrictions to China, and the then-Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim also made a wellpublicized visit to China in 1994, professing the importance of Chinese ideas and philosophy. Analysts have read these ostensible moves towards cultural liberalization as acts that were merely politically expedient and as having little to do with the real endorsement of the expansion of minority interests in the political and cultural spheres. See Gomez 1999.

^40. For the first time in Malaysian history, the ruling government (the Barisan Nasional, or National Alliance) lost control of five states and its two-thirds majority of parliamentary seats. All its three constituent and key race-based partners—the United Malays' National Organization (UMNO,) the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), and the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) —lost a significant portion of their seats. Importantly, the electoral results led to the emergence of a multicultural political opposition in the form of the Pakatan Rakyat (People's Alliance), which raised hopes for a viable alternative vision of a more inclusive Malaysian nation. However, it must be said that the UMNO–dominant Barisan Nasional's electoral loss had multiple causes, and was not primarily due to the emergence or existence of transracial solidarities. For references to the multicultural nature of the voting patterns in the 2008 elections, see Moten 2009.

^41. Chua 2007, 1–21.

^42. See Harper 2001 for a perceptive argument in relation to the point that the state project of wielding hegemony through Malay dominance was not abandoned with the inception of the call for a Bangsa Malaysia in 1991. In fact, Harper argues that the ideological reason behind the Mahathir regime's push for Bangsa Malaysia was to create a new class of Malays (Melayu Baru, or New Malay) with a Malaysian consciousness that would take the lead economically to enable the nation to take its rightful place in the global community while not overlooking its agenda to consolidate Malay hegemony (371). The argument here is that Bangsa Malaysia as first articulated by the state was not so much a social or cultural discourse as it was an economic one. The fact that the idea was introduced by Mahathir Mohamad (prime minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003) in his “Wawasan [Vision] 2020” speech delivered at the inaugural meeting of the Malaysian Business Council lends credence to this view.

^43. Clifford 1997, 252.

^44. Rushdie 1988, 8.

^45. Bassnett and Trivedi, eds. 1999, 15.

^46. The insertion of non-Malay cultural performances (in the form of dance and music and other elements such as food and dress) into National Day celebrations and in posters and campaigns promoting annual cultural festivals such as “Malaysia Fest” and “Visit Malaysia Year” offers visible examples of such state-sponsored representations of Malaysian multiculturalism.

^47. Lim here alludes to the “rojak,” a Malaysian fruit and vegetable salad made distinctive by its dressing of sweet black sauce, prawn paste, and chopped peanuts. The dish's mélange of flavors is commonly invoked as a fecund symbol of the Malaysian nation's multicultural composition. Lim 2001, 45.

^48. The Malaysian national politic practices, and in fact prides itself for, the ethic of “tolerance” in its discourses, where the presence of minority cultures in the nation is said to be “tolerated” by the state and/or majority culture. While such terminology is deeply revealing of the play of power and privilege in the rhetoric and practices of the nation-state, it also uncovers the essentialist view of cultures and races as untranslated, and untranslatable, categories. To be sure, “tolerance” is a virtue practiced and proclaimed not only by the state but also by the various ethnic communities who often perceive themselves (as they are also perceived by non-Malaysians) as “tolerating” one another so as not to exacerbate social tensions. It is often said, always uncritically, that it is “tolerance” that binds together Malaysia's delicate social fabric.

^49. Bhabha 1994, 55.

^50. Buden 2006.

^51. Some examples of this discrepancy can be seen in the term “Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu” (the Malay for the “United Nations”) while in the well-worn Malay adage “Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa” (“Language is the Soul of Race”), the same word “bangsa” now stands for “race.”

^52. Mahathir 1991.

^53. Balibar 1991, 37.

^54. Hall 1992, 310.

^55. Bhabha 1994, 54.

^56. On 19 August 2009, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyddin Yassin was quoted by the major newspapers of the country as stating that the Cabinet was studying the proposal to drop the requirement for the people to indicate their “race” on all official forms and documents.