The Ethnic Implications of Contemporary Religious Movements and Organizations in Malaysia

Abstract

Religion and ethnicity in contemporary Malaysia1 are both sides of the same poli tical coin. The politically dominant Malays are Muslims by birth, while members of the other ethnic groups are predominantly non-Muslims. About 96 per cent of Malaysian Chinese are Buddhists or Taoists, and about 81 per cent of Malaysian Indians are Hindus.2 There are Christians and Muslims among the Chinese and Indians but they comprise a small minority in both ethnic groups. This religious pattern bears little resemblance to that on the Malay Peninsula two millenia ago. From the first to the fourteenth century A.D., the Peninsula was one of many states in Southeast Asia that came under the sway of Indian cultural influences. Buddhism and Hinduism, imported from India, not only affected the lifestyles of various Southeast Asian peoples but also provided symbols for political legitimation in the region.3 Islam did not make a significant impact in the region until after the twelfth century.4 By the nineteenth century, the Peninsula was settled en masse by Chinese and Indian immigrants whose labour was required by the expanding colonial economy. The Chinese, who were mainly tin miners and urban traders, practised a syncretic blend of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, while the Indians who worked largely in the rubber plantations and railways continued worshipping Hindu deities popular in their home villages in South India. Ironically, Buddhism and Hinduism as reimported religions were now peripheral to the state. The British colonialists did not fervently impose Christianity upon the Malays and succeeded in converting only some Chinese and Indian immigrants.5 The religious pattern in early twentieth century Malaya reflected to a great extent the pluralist policy of the British colonial administrators. In contrast to the efforts of some Christian missionaries, the Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists did not make any serious attempts at proselytization. Religious boundaries were seldom crossed, resulting in a religious mosaic, the pieces of which gradually came to be identified with particular ethnic groups. This mosaic began to assume a new dimension when Malay nationalism during the pre-World War II years gradually became fused with Islamic reformist ideologies imported by Malay returnees from the Middle East.6 The politicization of Islam served to reinforce Malay ethnic identity in contrast to the non-Muslims whose religious involvements had not reached the same level of political arousal. Even after the war, the aura of a politicized Islam did not fade away, as Malay radicals agitated for the 70