Malay identity work

Abstract

In an intriguing essay, published a few years ago, Anne Booth discusses Indonesia's chances to survive as a unitary state. Obviously, this question is posed against the background of the composite nature of this enormous country, which has a multitude of islands, ethnic groups, traditions, reli gions, languages and dialects within its borders. Booth tries to assess the possibilities of a future disintegration of this indeed hybrid amalgam called Indonesia that is held together by strong central control. Although her general conclusion is that up until today there has really never been a region or an ethnic group actively trying to secede including the regional rebellions in the late 1950s but with the exception of East Timor she sees enough latent sources of discontent, social unrest and resistance to make her speculate that this situation might well change drastically in the near future. In the present context it is important that, since her point of view is predominantly economic, she focuses mainly on a few resource-rich regions, among them Riau. Interestingly, with respect to this province she states: Tt is perhaps surprising that the oil boom of the late 1970s did not bring with it any demand on the part of the producing provinces to retain a large share of the profits. In fact most of the oil came from two provinces, Riau in central Sumatra and East Kalimantan. Both were small [sic] and isolated, conspicuously lacking in strong regional identities or in much tradition of regional nationalism' (Booth 1992:39). Booth may well be right in supposing that until some ten to fifteen years ago there was as yet no sign of a strong regional identity in Riau, which, because Riau is the Malay heartland of Indonesia, must necessarily mean a Malay identity. However, I shall try to show that meanwhile an increas ingly strong, collective effort is being made especially by certain indi viduals, groups and institutions in and around the provincial capital Pekan baru to define what it means to be Malay in this particular world and at this particular juncture. I shall focus on the 'how' of this Malay identity work, on the tools of identity which, when taken together, might be called an identikit, that is, 'an inventory of elements that one might use in putting together an identity of one's own' (Hannerz 1983:355). Of course, 'identity' is a troublesome term that today seems to be used in ways that are reminiscent of the use of the term 'culture' in former days, in spite (or because) of an intense debate that has been going on in recent years.1 For clarity's sake we can preliminarily adopt Hannerz's definition