User:Johnleemk/A History of Malay Special Rights Post-World War II

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Introduction

thumb|250px|The nature of Malay rights has always been controversial, and discussions pertaining to it have often been accompanied by irrational outbursts.

Since the existence of civilization in Peninsular Malaysia (or West Malaysia), the Malay people have been accorded unique rights and privileges. Despite the entrance of colonialist powers in the 16th century, special rights for the Malays persisted, and may have been encouraged to keep them complacent. The Reid Commission, who drafted the Constitution, found extensive privileges had been enacted by the British during their administration of what was then called Malaya.

The infusion of other ethnicities, mainly Chinese and Indian, in the 19th century did not affect the status of the Malays. Many, especially the Chinese, remained loyal to their home countries well into the 20th century. It was not until the formation of an independent Malaya that non-Malay Malayans began shifting their allegiance to where they resided instead of where they came from. But before we turn to that, let us briefly discuss pre-World War II Malaya.

The British gradually colonised Malaya over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries through a series of agreements with the local Sultans of each state. Although de jure, the Sultans remained sovereign, the British ran the show.

The British maintained an immigration policy that opened Malaya to all comers. By 1931, the Chinese and Indians comprised 53.2% of the population, while the Malay percentage was 44.7%. The Chinese participated in small business enterprises or tin mining operations, while the Indians worked on rubber plantations. The Chinese were confined to the cities and towns, while the Indians were concentrated in the plantations. The Malays, left alone to till their fields in the villages, were increasingly being left behind by economic development. Alarmed by the influx of foreign immigrants, the British throttled back the rate of immigration. 60 years later, a semblance of balance had been restored, with the Bumiputras (Malays and indigenous peoples) comprising 55% of the population.

The British, recognising the Malay sovereignty (in name) and as the indigenous people, created specific reservations of land for them. The local civil service was also largely populated with Malays. However, British governance was abruptly ended by the Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1942. Although Malay privileges were discontinued, the Malays were treated less roughly than other Malayans by the Japanese. The Chinese, who were treated with more brutality, joined the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), a communist-led guerilla organisation. Many, however, saw themselves as fighting for China instead of Malaya. The Japanese fought back with police forces recruited from the Malays. During the two weeks between the Japanese surrender and the return of the British, the communists brutally attacked the Malays, who they saw as collaborators with the Japanese. It is this racially-tense environment that set the background for the history we are about to investigate.

The Malayan Union and UMNO

Upon resuming power, the British set about the process of decolonisation by announcing the formation of the Malayan Union. Under the Malayan Union, the Sultans, an important element of Malay culture, were placed on an equal level as councils populated by laymen, and made subordinate to the Governor of the Malayan Union. The Sultans' jurisdiction would now be officially limited only to matters of Islam and Malay culture. The Malayan Union also introduced loose citizenship policies based on the jus soli principle, allowing anyone born in the Malayan Union to become a citizen. The traditional Malay system of government was due to be eradicated.

Dato' Onn Ja'afar, a Malay civil servant, formed the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), a Malay-based political party. UMNO rejected the concept of the Malayan Union, and insisted on a federation for the whole of Malaya. Jus soli was rejected, and demands were made for the Sultans' sovereignty to be restored.

The British agreed to the concept of a federation, forming the Federation of Malaya in 1948. Under the Federation, the Sultans ruled as constitutional monarchs in their own states. The Malays were given special protection by the British High Commissioner, and citizenship conditions tightened. The Federation, which still heavily involving British administration, remained until independence in 1957.

From Independence to Racial Rioting

In 1956, the Reid Commission was formed to draw up a constitution for the new proposed Federation of Malaya, which would no longer be governed jointly by the British High Commissioner and the Sultans. While proposing a constitutional monarchy under a Westminster Parliamentary system, the Reid Commission also discussed the subject of Malay privileges in its report. The Commission had been specifically requested to safeguard the "special position of the Malays" in the Constitution, while providing a "common nationality for the whole of the Federation", two goals they found difficult to reconcile.

The Commission investigated the nature of existing Malay privileges at the time, determining that there existed "extensive Malay reservations of land", and quotas for the civil service, business licences, scholarships, bursaries, etc. Although "little opposition ... to the continuance of the present system for a time" was found, great opposition existed to their renewal "for any prolonged period". The Commission found it necessary to continue the privileges because otherwise "[t]he Malays would be at a serious and unfair disadvantage". However, it stressed that eventually, the "preferences should be reduced and ... ultimately cease". The Commission also recommended no new privileges be introduced, and that a review of the Malay economic status be conducted 15 years after independence, upon which Parliament would decide whether to preserve the policies. Ultimately, these recommendations were incorporated into Article 153 of the Constitution.

In 1963, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak combined with Malaya to form Malaysia. This immediately brought about new complications, with influential Singaporean politician Lee Kuan Yew heatedly condemning the privileges afforded the Malays by Article 153. Lee asked, "Is it the answer to make a few Malay millionaires with big cars and big houses?" and criticised Article 153 as creating an unjust distinction between different Malaysians. He reasoned that as the Malays had migrated from Sumatera in Indonesia only a few hundred years ago, they did not have the right to dictate terms of citizenship to other Malaysians, as had been done in what is now called the social contract. (The social contract refers to the granting of citizenship to non-Malays in return for the granting of Malay special rights.) Lee was branded a racist by the government, and eventually, Singapore was expelled from the Federation.

In the 1969 general elections, opposition parties opposing Malay special rights made major gains, coming close to toppling the UMNO-led government. On May 13, racial rioting broke out during a political rally in the election aftermath, costing 200 lives. In the wake of the incident, Parliament was disbanded, the executive branch ruling alone until 1971. The New Economic Policy (NEP) was implemented, aiming to eradicate poverty irrespective of race by expanding the economic pie so that the Chinese share of the economy would be reduced relatively instead of in absolute terms. The aim was for the Malays to have a 30% equity share of the economy, as opposed to the 4% they held in 1970. Due to the uproar following the riots, Article 153 was never reviewed. Instead, the NEP, which provided a host of new privileges for the Bumiputra, had an expiry date of 1991 set.

Mahathirism and beyond

Not long after the riots, Mahathir Mohammad, who had been expelled from UMNO for his controversial book The Malay Dilemma advocating the expansion of Malay privileges, was rehabilitated by new Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak. Mahathir rose quickly through the ranks, and assumed the premiership in 1981. Mahathir intensified the policies prescribing special rights for Malays, and under his administration, which saw the replacement of the NEP with the National Development Policy, the following privileges were granted to the Bumiputras/Malays:

• Quotas for admission to public universities, with 55% of the seats awarded to Bumiputras. Some universities are open only to Bumiputras. (In 1998, then Education Minister Najib Razak revealed that without quotas, only 5% of local undergraduates would be Malays.)
• Disbursement of 30% of equity in all new publicly-listed companies to Bumiputras at substantial discounts; the new owners tend to sell their shares immediately upon receipt.
• Quotas on housing lots for Bumiputras. Most real estate and automobile purchases were/are also subsidised for them.
• Only bids for government projects from Bumiputra-owned companies would be accepted.
• Permits for the importation of vehicles were largely awarded to Bumiputras.

Although Mahathir's policies created a previously non-existent Malay class of tycoons, his administration was plagued with charges of corruption and ignoring rural Malays. Mahathir was also challenged in the 1980s by claims he abandoned the Chinese public education stream in favour of the "Malay" national education stream. This caused a backlash from several UMNO politicians, including Najib Razak, who threatened to bathe the keris (Malay dagger) with Chinese blood. Eventually, Mahathir launched Ops Lallang, detaining several Chinese educationists and opponents of Malay privileges under the Internal Security Act.

Before stepping down, Mahathir told Malays to abandon their "crutches", and implemented a policy of "meritocracy" in higher education by dropping quotas. However, Mahathir was criticised for streaming Bumiputras and non-Bumiputras into examinations of different levels, and disadvantaging the poor Malays.

Mahathir's successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi also stirred up controversy when his underlings made disputed statements about the nature of Malay privileges. At the 2005 UMNO Annual General Meeting, Education Minister Hishamuddin brandished the keris while calling for the restoration of the NEP as the New National Agenda. A year earlier, veteran UMNO politician Badruddin Amiruldin waved a book on the May 13 riots while declaring "Let no one from the other races ever question the rights of Malays on this land," echoing UMNO Youth Information Chief Azimi Daim's 2003 statement that "In Malaysia, everybody knows that Malays are the masters of this land. ... Any one who touches upon Malay affairs or criticizes Malays is [offending] our sensitivities." This rhetoric fits in with the racialist principle of ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy) — that Malays possess special rights by virtue of their sovereignty.

In 2005, more controversy was stirred up when cabinet member Lim Keng Yaik called for a review of the social contract, claiming it threatened national unity. His statements were condemned as racist by UMNO politicians and members of the Malay press. Lim adamantly replied, "How do you expect non-Malays to pour their hearts and souls into the country, and to one day die for it if you keep harping on this?" He later reversed himself, saying he had been misquoted. Hishamuddin ended the issue by warning people not to "bring up the issue again as it has been ... endorsed by the Constitution." Lim could have even been detained, as Article 10 (4) of the Constitution permits Parliament to make it illegal to question, among others, Article 153 of the Constitution. Under the Sedition Act, questioning Article 153 is indeed illegal.

Conclusion

Malay rights have always been a sensitive issue. Attempts to question them have often been silenced by the Malay-dominated government. However, they appear to have been removed from their original purpose as a salve for the economic disadvantage of the Malays, and used instead as a method of bullying the non-Malays that the Malays may receive their "birthright". Nevertheless, the fact remains that the original intent of these rights were to be an economic scaffolding for the Malays to build their own economic structure. No scaffolding can be permanent — it is only right to expect it to be removed once the structure is complete. This simple fact, endorsed by the Reid Commission's report, has consistently gone unnoticed by the proponents of Malay rights, particularly those hailing from the Mahathir era.

The May 13 riots and the success of the NEP in avoiding further bloodshed have proven the need for such affirmative action. However, this need no longer exists. Indeed, recent rhetoric has shifted from defending Malay rights as necessary scaffolding to being the birthright of the Malays. However, this has only further succeeded in dividing a nation already tested by the nature of its multiculturalism. Recent events, notably Lim Keng Yaik's outburst, appear to indicate this conclusion is being reached by administrators. Perhaps Malaysia may yet be able to emulate Lee Kuan Yew's subsequent success in uniting Singapore, as illustrated by the Eurasian politician who, when told by Lee he would be the last Eurasian in Singapore, replied, "No, not the last. We don't have Eurasians now. Only Singaporeans."

Bibliography and Further Reading

• Goh, Cheng Teik (1994). Malaysia: Beyond Communal Politics. Pelanduk Publications. ISBN 967-978-475-4.
• Kamarudin, Raja Petra (Sept. 26, 2005). "Article 153 of Malaysia's Federal Constitution". Malaysia Today.
• Liu, Ronnie Tian Khiew (Dec. 10, 2004). "UMNO should stop claiming Ketuanan Melayu". Malaysia Today.
• Musa, M. Bakri (1999). The Malay Dilemma Revisited. Merantau Publishers. ISBN 1-58348-367-5.
• Ye, Lin-Sheng (2003). The Chinese Dilemma. East West Publishing. ISBN 0-9751646-1-9.
• Yeoh, Oon (June 4, 2004). "Meritocracy: The truth must be well told". The Sun.