The state, development, and identity in multi-ethnic societies: ethnicity, equity and the nation ; Race and multiculturalism in Malaysia and Singapore

NICHOLAS TARLING & EDMUND TERRENCE GOMEZ (eds)

The state, development, and identity in multi-ethnic societies: ethnicity, equity and the nation London: Routledge, 2010 

230pp.  ISBN 978-0-415-58691-7, pb £23.50

DANIEL P.S. GOH, MATILDA GABRIELPILLAI, PHILIP HOLDEN, & GAIK CHENG KHOO (eds)

Race and multiculturalism in Malaysia and Singapore 

London: Routledge, 2009

242pp. ISBN 978-0-415-48225-9, hb £80

Reviewed by Graham Brown

University of Bath

The Routledge Malaysian Studies Series has been publishing original monographs on diverse aspects of Malaysian politics and society – from feminism to privatisation and healthcare – since 2004 but in these latest two offerings, the series focuses on topics with which the country is most widely associated in social science fields: ethnicity, inequality and multiculturalism.  These two books, however, are explicitly comparative in their perspective, looking beyond Malaysian shores for insights from Singapore, Sri Lanka and other Asian countries, and even further afield to Europe and the United States.  

Ethnicity and inequality have, of course, not only been the focus of much academic interest in Malaysia, but have also been the dominant trope through which Malaysian politics is played out in reality.  Both these collected volumes are driven by dissatisfaction with a prevailing political economy perspective that sees multi-ethnic societies as inherently prone to violence and instability and, consequentially, accept certain forms of political restriction (e.g. limitations on democratic norms) or economic restructuring (e.g. affirmative action) as necessary to maintain stable postcolonial countries.  Goh et al. tackle the idea that ethnic diversity is inherently unstable by pointing to the ways in which the discourse of ethnicity is used to promote particular ethnic and individual interests and contribute towards the argument that this is the root cause of ethnic tensions.  In a mode following the perspective of Rogers Brubaker and Frederic Cooper (2000), ethnicisation rather than ethnicity is seen to be the problem.  The contributions collected in Tarling and Gomez’s volume are driven by similar sets of concerns, but while Goh et al. are primarily anthropological and cultural in their perspectives, Tarling and Gomez focus on political economy explanations.  Taken together, these two volumes hence provide a rich range of critical disciplinary perspectives on the relationship between ethnicity, identity and politics in Malaysia and beyond.

In introducing their collection, Goh and Holden set the thematic focus with a discussion of the changing dynamics of ‘racial governmentality’ in Singapore and Malaysia from independence to the modern era, exploring how the ‘official’ categorisation of ethnicity serves particular political agenda and excludes or marginalises other cosmopolitan voices.  The opening gambit of the book is that a shared experience of racial governmentality under the British in Singapore and Malaysia has been perpetuated by postcolonial regimes in both countries, but in very different ways.  The subsequent contributions bring primarily ethnographic and critical theoretic perspectives to the representation and ‘performativity’ of identity in artistic venues – literature, film, art, and music – as well in more traditionally political venues, including history textbooks and the discourse of ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy) and ethnic Indian mobilisation in Malaysia and the ‘Confucian turn’ and foreign workers in Singapore.  

Following the tradition of previous scholars such as Sumit Mandal (2001; 2004) and Joel Kahn (2006), these contributions seek to uncover alternative narratives on and possibilities for multiculturalism and, in doing so, certainly enrich our understanding of the contestation of official categories of race and ethnicity in these two countries.  The better contributions weave together expertly cultural analysis with political dynamics and state ideology, for instance Khoo Gaik Cheng’s reading of the films of Yasmin Ahmad and Helen Ting’s discussion of history textbooks in Malaysia.  

As a collection, however, the book suffers from some shortcomings.  The first is precisely that many of the contributions do not locate the cultural phenomena they explore within the broader political economic context.  In looking for the ‘good guys’ – social and cultural trends that rail against the ethnicisation of society and contest the ‘racial governmentality’ of dominant regimes in Malaysia and Singapore – some of these contributions focus on cultural arenas that are largely invisible in the countries themselves, let alone beyond.  Michelle Antoinette’s reading of the art of Malaysian painter Wong Hoy Cheong argues that he ‘uncovers how experiences of migration, diasporicity, cultural displacement and Otherness are central to Malaysia’s history and, consequently …  should be paramount in forging critical multicultural visions for Malaysia’s future’. Unspoken in this analysis, however, is the extent to which engagement with artists like Wong is the provenance of a tiny cohort of urban, middle class Malaysians. Given what we know about the more tolerant, pan-ethnic sociology of urban West Coast Malaysia, is Wong simply preaching to the converted?  This is not to say that analyses of cultural phenomena such as this are not useful or interesting, but rather that denuded of their political economic context, we may sadly over-estimate the ability of these phenomena to achieve progressive change in social and political attitudes.

Perhaps that criticism belies my own disciplinary leanings, but a more serious omission from this collection could come from within a cultural studies perspective as from without. The editors and authors are clear that they wish to move beyond essentialising ‘racial’ distinction epitomised in Singapore by the CMIO acronym (Chinese, Malay, Indian, Other).  We are hence treated to rich studies of subaltern and hybrid ethnic identities within the two countries.  But all the studies relate to the cultural movements of the first three broad categories here: Chinese, Malay, and Indian.  Scant passing reference to the Orang Asli in Malaysia is made, but there are no studies of other minority communities in either country – Kadazan, Bidayuh and indeed East Malaysia as a whole is completely missed out in the volume, as are other communities in Singapore, including the large European community that might have been fruitfully examined. Ironically enough, in a book largely concerned with ‘Othering’ processes, those classified by the states concerned precisely as ‘Others’ are silent.  

Nicholas Tarling and Edmund Terence Gomez’s volume takes a very different disciplinary perspective and wider ambit, bringing together broadly political economy perspectives on ethnicity and inequality from a range of case studies including Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Burma in Southeast Asia; and wider perspectives from Sri Lanka, China, New Zealand, Britain and the US.  The book grew out of a conference discussing critically the influential book World on Fire by Amy Chua (2003), which argued that the combination of ‘market-dominant minorities’ in many developing countries with free-market economic liberalisation and democratic political structures is a dangerous combination and tends to lead to ethnic hatred and conflict.  While Chua’s book has generally been well received in many policy circles and popular debate, its reception within academia has been more critical, both in terms of those faulting the book’s argumentation as anecdotal and imprecise (Ginsburg 2004; Green 2005) and empirical studies that have rebutted the validity of her claims (Bezemer and Jong-A-Pin 2007).  In this book, Tarling and Gomez contribute further to that critical reception by bringing together this wealth of case studies all of which find Chua’s thesis wanting.

In contributing to this important debate in a serious manner, this book is a valuable addition, but again the book has some serious shortcomings.  The first three substantive chapters in this book – a theoretical account of ethnicity by Tarling; a comparative study of the Chinese community in Britain and Malaysia by Gomez; and, a comparative study of political structures in Spain, Malaysia and Belgium by Emile Kok-Kheng Yeoh – are all valuable pieces that bring novel insights to the topics they raise.  Yeoh’s contribution provides an interesting typology of migrant and minority communities and demonstrating how different regimes have sought to create institutions to manage that diversity with varying degrees of success. But a carefully wielded scalpel might have usefully reduced it somewhat; its analysis is in places meandering and the chapter is replete with maps and graphs of time-series data that are not really well integrated into the discussion.

Later chapters in the book are not so strong, however, and tend towards generic and journalistic accounts rather than carefully weighed and evidenced argumentation.  The chapters on Sri Lanka, Burma and New Zealand read rather more like the first draft conference papers from which they clearly derive than substantive contributions to academic debate.  Similarly, the chapters on Singapore and the Philippines, although each a competent restatement of mainstream critiques of ethnic politics within these countries, do not bring any real novel analysis.  The main contribution of these chapters, one senses, and possibly the main reason for their inclusion, is that they explicitly rebut Amy Chua’s thesis.  

While both books have their shortcomings, however, taken together they contribute to the emerging body of literature that rejects essentialised notions of ethnicity and ethnic conflict and that highlight the key role of the state in creating and manipulating ethnic categories to serve particular interests and agenda.  The argument here is not a novel one, but these contributions certainly strengthen it.

References

Bezemer, D. and R. Jong-A-Pin 2007. World on fire? Democracy, globalization, and ethnic violence. Research Institute SOM Research Report 07006. Groningen: University of Groningen.

Brubaker, R. and F. Cooper 2000. Beyond 'identity'. Theory and Society 29(1): 1-47.

Chua, A. 2003. World on fire. London: Heinemann.

Ginsburg, T. 2004. Democracy, markets, and doomsaying: Is ethnic conflict inevitable? Berkeley Journal of International Law 22: 310-35.

Green, E.D. 2005. Review of Amy Chua, World on Fire. Nations and Nationalism 11(1): 166-68.

Kahn, J.S. 2006. Other Malays: nationalism and cosmopolitanism in the modern Malay world. Singapore: Singapore University Press.

Mandal, S. 2004. Transethnic solidarities, racialisation and social equality. In E.T. Gomez (ed.), The state of Malaysia: ethnicity, equity and reform.  London: RoutledgeCurzon, pp. 49-78.

Mandal, S.K. 2001. Boundaries and beyond: whither the cultural bases of political community in Malaysia. In R.W. Hefner (ed.), The politics of multiculturalism:  pluralism and citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.  Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, pp. 141-64.