Malay Minority Research Articles

Singapore Comes to Terms with its Malay Past: The Politics of Crafting a National History

ABSTRACT Ethnic tensions were central to Singapore’s birth as an independent republic, and they left the government in a quandary: how to talk about the country’s history when its birth was mired in contention between its dominant Chinese population and its large Malay minority? The surprising answer to this dilemma involved crafting a new national narrative that started in 1819, with the arrival of British imperialism. This move had the intended effect of excluding earlier centuries of Malay agency completely from the record, thus delegitimising the claims of one of the main communities in contention. The key element in the construction of the new national narrative was the implicit acceptance of colonial claims about Singapore’s achievements during the colonial era: that they were British achievements, building upon terra nullius. This mythology gave no credit or recognition to the Malays who had lived and traded in the region and on the island for centuries. This article explores the shifting politics of Singapore’s official historiography, paying particular attention to the role of scholars and education professionals in facilitating and reforming the national narrative. It posits that academic collaboration has been an overlooked feature of Singapore’s national myth-making.

CULTURAL AND IDENTITY SURVIVAL OF THE MALAY-MUSLIM COMMUNITY IN PERTH, AUSTRALIA

This article discusses the culture of the Malay minority which migrated to Perth, Australia from the Islamic aspect of identity. The purpose of this research is to identify the form and characteristics of Islamic and Malay cultural identity of this community, based on literature collection and field study through interviews and observation in Perth. Research finds that this Australian Malay minority has an identity and culture as well as Islamic characteristics almost similar to the parent Malay community in the Malay Archipelago. They are also proud of their identity and admit that they are Malays practising Islamic teachings even though living in a Westernised country of different religions and cultures. The three elements that preserve their Malay identity are adherence to Islamic religion, practising Malay culture and communication in the Malay language. There is no hindrance for them to practise Malay culture and observe Islamic teachings as Australia adopts a multicultural policy whereby citizens have the liberty to practice their respective cultures. The Islamic characteristics overtly displayed are rituals, particularly in aspects of Ibadah (worship) and observance of Islamic events and Eid celebrations. The style of physical appearance accentuated in the traditional design of apparel and home décor reflect Islamic and Malay cultural characteristics of the Archipelago.

MELAYU PATTANI THAILAND: MUSLIM MINORITY RELIGION EXPRESSION IN THE MIDDLE OF NON MUSLIM MAJORITY

Pattani Province in southern Thailand is the only province with the majority of the Muslim population. Besides Pattani the majority of Thai residents (67 million people) are Buddhists. Only 10% of Thai people are Muslims, including Pattani's Muslim Malay minority. Some data suggest that the Thai government made policies that often discredited and did not accommodate the interests of Malay Muslims. This became one of the reasons for the emergence of opposition to Thai government and ethnicity. For example, must use the Thai language (thaification Program) reinforced by the prohibition of the use of Malay language and nationalization of Thai society culture through language and customs. The cultural policies relating to the use of Thai language and customs are intended to promote Thai nationalism, while they erode the identity (religion and culture) of Pattani Malay. The Malay minority resistance was led by the scholar Tuan Guru Haji Sulong Al-Fathani. He also acted as negotiator with the Thai government in order to fight for Malay Muslim aspirations. His negotiations resulted in a policy of the enactment of Malay language education as a curriculum material at Pattani National School.

The Quest for Leadership Legitimacy among Singapore Malays

Much has been written about the problems and concerns affecting the Malay ethnic minority in Singapore. These include issues such as their socio-economic situation, relatively low educational performance, and increasing incidences of social ailments like high rates of drug addiction, divorce and youth delinquency. In the context of Singapore's multiracial and multi-religious fabric, little has been articulated about what is here argued to be a core issue of the ‘Malay plight’, namely, the legitimacy of the Malay political leadership. Apparently both the ruling-party-affiliated Malay politicians and their Malay opposition counterpart have been at odds with their perceptions and predispositions towards this particular issue. It is here that a bold, albeit controversial, alternative model called the ‘collective leadership’, was publicly goaded by the Association of Malay/Muslim Professionals in both their 1990 and 2000 National Conventions, which requires due consideration. Perhaps at a time of a changing Singapore society, this alternative or its variant could go some way towards mitigating, if not resolving, the long-standing Malay plight, and thus, benefit not only the Malay minority itself, but Singapore as a whole.

Singapore’s Ethnic Relations’ Scorecard

This is an assessment and analysis about the Singapore government’s management of its multiethnic, plural society; particularly its ethnic minority, the Malays. It appears that, in spite of its relative success in pursuing the national integration quest, the State (read: Government) is still grappling with some pertinent socioeconomic and religious identity issues besetting its Malay citizens. Not only has the latter’s malaise lagged behind their Chinese and Indian counterparts but have also persisted since Independence. Arguably, the State, given its dominant and preponderant power, could mitigate the Malay dilemma if it acknowledges the reality that in Singapore’s globalizing culture, the Malay minority, if left without greater State intervention, has little chance to progress and keep pace with other citizens – thereby impeding, if not impairing the Republic’s hard-won stability and prosperity.

Religious Education and Reformist Islam in Thailand's Southern Border Provinces: The Roles of Haji Sulong Abdul Kadir and Ismail Lutfi Japakiya

Scholarship about Muslims in Thailand has rightly maintained that Thai Islam has enjoyed a long and vibrant tradition, and that the country has been home to a wide variety of representations of Muslim identity. Predictably, Muslim heterogeneity has also generated multifarious patterns of dissonance and contestations. While differences between the state and Muslim society, as well as between Malay and Thai identities, have sparked considerable press and academic coverage of late, this paper focuses on contestations within Thailand's Malay minority community as it seeks to negotiate identity and authenticity in the southern provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat.

Prison's Spoilt Identities: Racially Structured Realities Within and Beyond

This article begins by seeking an explanation for the solidarity between Malay inmates and guards in perpetrating abusive and discriminatory treatment towards Malay transvestites. In the course of explaining an empirical phenomenon in the Singapore prison, this article has examined Singapore's history and ethnic demography, the ethnic Malay minority's lack of socio-economic development and modernisation vis-à-vis the ethnic Chinese majority, geo-politics, the ideology and strategic choices of the state's political elite and their implications for inter-ethnic interactions between Malays and Chinese. As this article will argue, prison culture, rather than being divorced from larger society, is in effect able to articulate and elaborate on the processes of social exclusion faced by ethnic Malay minorities and male transvestites in Singapore society. By shifting the conceptual focus from ‘prison in society’ to ‘prison of society’, a new analytical dimension of informal inmate culture and social structure has been realised; one which suggests immense possibilities for prison literature.

The Roar of the Lion City

Although the Singapore Armed Forces is one of the most technologically advanced militaries in Southeast Asia, it suffers from a number of institutional weaknesses. Singapore's multiethnic but Chinese-dominated society and unique geographical and political characteristics result in challenges in both the recruitment and retention of high-quality personnel into the armed forces as well as in developing the proper role in the military for Singapore's Malay minority (whom the government historically has seen as a security risk but who also have a strong cultural inclination toward military service). This article contends that in meeting these challenges, Singapore has reduced the effectiveness and professionalism of its military significantly by unwisely preventing Malay participation systematically in key areas of the armed forces, by limiting the positions women can hold in the military, and by using a promotion system that is based more on education and scholarships than on proven competence.

The Language Rights of the Malay Minority in Thailand

The Language Rights of the Malay Minority in Thailand

Jihad in Paradise

Jihad in Paradise explores cultural and religious interaction in Singapore andcompares this with the intolerant radical Islamism threatening the countryand Southeast Asia in general. Millard, a senior journalist who first workedon East Asia and then Southeast Asia, artfully conveys his descriptive yetanalytical narrative of how Southeast Asia underwent radical change due, in large part, to the influence of global and regional terrorism. Meanwhile,Singapore has yet to move forward by allowing greater political freedom anddeveloping mutual dialogue and cooperation between its different religiouscommunities. The Malay minority must also adjust itself to such pragmaticeconomic and political climates. Singapore’s future depends on how well itmanages multicultural diversity and balances its economic progress andpolitical democracy.The book is divided into six chapters. In his introduction, Millardobserves how Singapore and Southeast Asia were generally prosperous andpeaceful until the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, 9/11, and the 2002 Balibombings. He realizes that his book is not an “inside story,” for he regardshimself as only journalist who is deeply interested in human realities andtheir regional and global dimensions ...

Singapore's Malay-Muslim minority: Social identification in a post-‘9/11’ world

Fundamental within Singapore's modernisation push ‘From Third World to First’ was the long-term strategy of establishing a Singapore identity based on multiracialism, multilingualism, multiculturalism and multireligiousity (the ‘4Ms’). But while wholesale landscape changes have largely removed earlier associations between ethnicity and residence, government promotion of a shared Singapore identity has been frustrated by the lagging educational and socio-economic achievements of Singapore's Malay minority. Prior to the events of ‘9/11’ government concern had centred on the growing popularity of private Islamic schools, or madrasahs, which in the government's view could affect educational standards in the city-state. However, following the destruction of the World Trade Center government attention was quickly shifted to the promotion of ‘racial harmony’ and Singaporeans were urged to ‘get to know your neighbours’ in a tacit admission that 40 years of ‘racial’ assimilation had yet to produce ethnically integrated, cross-cultural community spirit. Subsequent events, particularly the arrest of local Jemaah Islamiyah operatives and the destruction in Iraq, have impacted most strongly upon Singapore's Malay-Muslim community and posed challenges to its identity within a multicultural society.

Assimilation as multiracialism: The case of Singapore's Malays1

The myths of meritocracy and multiracialism ‘explain’ between them both the ‘fairness’ of the Singapore system and the subordinate role of the non-Chinese minority races. They also purport to assure the minorities that they enjoy full status as members of the nation-building project and that their cultural and religious mores are embraced and protected within its framework. Using the Malay minority as its case study, and arguing from archival, oral, official government and secondary sources, this paper argues that the Singapore systems of meritocracy and multiracialism have not been concerned primarily with intercommunal tolerance since the 1970s, but are now programmes of assimilation of the racial minorities into a Chinese-dominated society.

The Thai Muslims

C ONTROL OVER southern Thailand has been disputed many times in the past by the Thai state in the north and a variety of kingdoms lying to the south. Having changed hands repeatedly, this relatively remote frontier zone is now ethnically mixed. The presence there of a large Malay minority known as Thai Muslims or Thai Malays has special significance for contemporary Thai politics. This group is representative of a northward movement of Malays who were incorporated into the Thai nation as a result of Thailand's southern expansion toward Malaya in the early 19th century. The ethnic Malays who live in this area are the second largest indigenous minority in Thailand. As a homogeneous group, they have steadily resisted assimilation into the Thai national culture. The growing disaffection of a significant number of the socalled Thai Muslims, whose goal is to organize a separatist movement, together with the persistent efforts of Communist terrorist remnants from the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), contribute to conditions of instability in the region. This situation is a test for the ingenuity and capability of Thailand's political apparatus. The Thai Muslims total approximately one million persons. They are concentrated in southern Thailand, especially in the provinces of Satun, Songkhla, Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat. The geographical accessibility of these provinces to Malaysia, and the racial, linguistic, and cultural affinities of the people on both sides of the Thai-Malaysian border make communications easier to maintain with Malaysia than with the other provinces of Thailand. Malays constitute the majority of Thailand's Muslim population, the remainder consisting of ethnic Thai and a small group of Pakistani immigrants. Their language is Malay (most cannot communicate in Thai), and their villages resemble Malay kampongs. The inability of the Malays to speak Thai is evidence of their opposition to Thai religious beliefs, since Malays equate the