– from ‘The Origins and Evolution of Ethnocracy in Malaysia’

Dr Geoff Wade who researches Sino-Southeast Asian historical interactions has been kind enough to give his permission for the Centre for Policy Initiatives to reproduce his paper titled ‘The Origins and Evolution of Ethnocracy in Malaysia’.

We will be publishing an abridgement of Wade’s work on Ethnocracy (ARI Working Paper No.111) in three parts. – Editor, CPI

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PART 1

The socially inequitable situation in Malaysia is compounded by Najib Razak’s 2007 announcement of no time limit for ending the ‘Malay Agenda’.

By Dr Geoff Wade

How is it that today in the diverse, multi-ethnic polity of Malaysia (where government figures give a population breakdown of 65% Bumiputra, 26% Chinese and 8% Indian), a single ethnic group completely controls – and occupies virtually all positions in – the judiciary, public administrative organs, the police, the armed forces and increasingly the universities?

While Malays constitute a majority of the population of this nation, their presence in all these spheres of power far exceeds their ratio within the general population.

How did this situation emerge and how has it evolved?

It will be argued below that the injustices currently observed in Malaysia together with the ethnic streaming derive essentially from the 1948 Constitution which was created by the British in alliance with Umno following the breakdown of the 1946 Malayan Union structure, partly on the basis of British Cold War fears of the Chinese.

The Constitutionally-mandated special place for the Malays provided for in the 1948 Constitution and subsequently in the 1957 Constitution has been used as a basis for all manner of exclusionist and discriminatory policies which have become increasingly socially encompassing, producing a situation where non-Malay members of Malaysian society feel themselves excluded and thereby ignored in terms of access to ‘public’ facilities, funds and opportunities.

The March 2008 election results were in part a reflection of sentiments over this socially inequitable situation.

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Mahathir Mohamed (Prime Minister 1981-2003)

Prime Minister Mahathir is perhaps the best-known advocate of Malay rights and dominance.

Mahathir probably did more than anyone else in Malaysia’s history to strengthen and enforce the divisions between Malaysia’s ethnic groups. While producing a richer Malaysia, with the "privatisation of profits and socialisation of losses," he gave rise to a possibly eternally fractured society.

It was his premiership which allowed the then Umno Youth Chief Najib Razak to threaten, during an Umno Youth congress in 1987, to bathe a keris with Chinese blood.

It was during his period in office that anti-Chinese sentiments were encouraged and exacerbated, and it was during his period in power that most of the abuses of Malay ethnocracy noted below came to pass.

His creation of a solely Malay capital at Putrajaya reflects excellently his attitudes to how he wanted this multi-ethnic nation to develop. There are sufficient good books on Mahathir’s period of rule to obviate the need here for even an overview of his period in power.¹

Various aspects of ethnocracy during the Mahathir years will be examined below.

Manifestations of ethnocracy in Malaysia

There was no ‘natural’ condition of Malay dominance and hegemony, but rather a process of very targeted human agency intended to create a structure where Malays dominate the political and almost monopolize the administrative life of the country.

The nature of this hegemony or ethnocracy will be examined below. The avenues and measures by which ethnocracy is implemented will be discussed first.

Constitutional Provisions

There are a number of provisions under the Malaysian Constitution which mandate a special position for Malays. Article 160 defines a Malay as follows:

“Malay??? means a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language, conforms to Malay custom and –

a) was before Merdeka Day born in the Federation or in Singapore or born of parents one of whom was born in the Federation or in Singapore, or is on that day domiciled in the Federation or in Singapore; or

b) is the issue of such a person;

The best-known of these Constitutional provisions is perhaps Article 153 which provides: “It shall be the responsibility of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to safeguard the special position of the Malays and natives of any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak and the legitimate interests of other communities in accordance with the provisions of this Article.???

The Article then proceeds to list the various aspects of society (public service positions, scholarships, permits, licenses, etc) which the king may assign to the “the Malays and natives of any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak.???

However, this provision was intended only as a transitional measure. The Reid Commission in 1956 saw the danger in one community in the country enjoying preferential treatment into the indefinite future. Although the Commission reported it did not find opposition to the continuance of the existing privileges for a certain length of time, it stated that "there was great opposition in some quarters to any increase of the present preferences and to their being continued for any prolonged period."

The Commission recommended that the existing privileges should be continued as the "Malays would be at a serious and unfair disadvantage compared with other communities if they were suddenly withdrawn." However, "in due course the present preferences should be reduced and should ultimately cease."

Although Article 153 would have been up for review in 1972, fifteen years after Malaysia's independence in 1957, it remained unreviewed. In 1970, a Cabinet member declared that Malay special rights would remain for "hundreds of years to come,??? while in 2007 [the then] Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak said that there would be no time limit for the expiration of the ‘Malay Agenda’.

Land Reservations

The earliest legislation on Malay reservation land seems to be the Selangor Land Code of 1891 introduced by the then Resident of Selangor, W.E. Maxwell, where land was reserved for the use of ‘Mohameddans’.

Article 89 of the Federal Constitution provides for the continuance of Malay reservation land which existed before Merdeka and defines reserved land as follows:

“In this Article ‘Malay Reservation’ means land reserved for alienation to Malays or to natives of the state in which it lies: and ‘Malay’ includes any person who, under the law of the state in which he is resident, is treated as a Malay for the purposes of the reservation of the land.???

It is estimated that today approximately 4.5 million hectares of land are under Malay reservation, which usually precludes their use by other Malaysians.²

New Economic Policy

The New Economic Policy (NEP) is a socio-economic restructuring programme launched by the Malaysian government in 1971 under Tun Abdul Razak. The NEP was renamed 1990 as the National Development Policy (NDP) in 1991, which appears to have been targeted at encouraging and grooming Malay entrepreneurs and business tycoons.

The NEP uses economic and administrative affirmative action policies to improve the participation of the Malays in the economy. It targeted a 30 per cent Malay share of the economy by 1990, which would have, it was anticipated, led to a ‘just society’ quotas in education and the civil service were expanded under the NEP, as was government intervention in the private sector.

Specific measures include:

• Publicly-listed companies must set aside 30% of equity for Bumiputras and 30% of all shares in initial public offering s will be disbursed by the government to selected Bumiputras at substantial discounts.
• Virtually all real estate is sold to the Bumiputra discounted at rates ranging from 5% to 15%, and set percentages of new housing estates are set aside for Bumiputras.
• Companies submitting bids for government projects need to be Bumiputra-owned or at least have major participation by Bumiputras.
• A range of government-run (and profit guaranteed) mutual funds called the Amanah Saham Nasional are available for purchase by Bumiputra buyers only. This provides return rates approximately 3 to 5 times that of local commercial banks.
• Approved Permits (APs) for automobiles preferentially allow Bumiputra to import vehicles.

While these measures have been instrumental in the creation of a Malay middle-class, there is great debate as to what percentage of equity Malays now own. The Government claims that the targeted 30 percent has not yet been reached, while a study by economists at Asli suggested a figure of 45 percent, based on ownership of 1,000 publicly-listed companies. After government complaints, the claim was withdrawn and lead economist Lim Teck Ghee resigned in protest.

In a recent development, some Umno members have called for the Malay equity target to be increased to 70%, in line with the ‘Malay Agenda’.

Education

As a component of the projects to expand Malay participation in the economy and society, a range of education agenda are being pursued. These include:

• Quotas on Malay acceptance into universities. These were introduced under Mahathir. In 1998, then Education Minister Najib Razak stated that without quotas, only 5% of undergraduates in public universities would be Malays. Najib argued this justified the need for the continuance of quotas. In 2004, Dr Shafie Salleh, the newly appointed Higher Education Minister, stated that he "will ensure the quota of Malay students' entry into universities is always higher."
• Access to scholarships for study domestically and abroad. Over 90% of government scholarships for studying abroad are awarded to Malays.
• Some public universities, such as Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) admitting only Bumiputra students.
• Many organisations in Malaysia such as Bank Negara, Petronas, Telekom and Tenaga Nasional, provides overseas scholarships only or mainly to Malays.
• Preference to Malays in appointment as university lecturers. Malay appointments as university lecturers have increased from 30 percent to 95 percent.

The Position of Islam

The Malaysian Constitution defines Malays as Muslims, and it has been a major element in Umno (and PAS) policy to invoke Islam in as many aspects of daily life as possible. Islam was also defined in the Constitution of the Federation of Malaya (Appendix 1, Article 8)³ as the official religion of the Federation.

The Alliance’s memorandum to the Reid Commission during the drafting of the Constitution did not propose to include Islam as the official religion in the Constitution and neither was it suggested in the Draft Constitution. However, it was suggested by Abdul Hamid, the Pakistani representative in the Reid Commission, in his separate memo attached to the Draft Constitution. Subsequently, in the Working Party which deliberated on the Constitution, the Ummo elites successfully argued for its inclusion in the Constitution.⁴

This role of Islam is manifested in various respects:

• There is, from various sources, funding for mosques and other Islamic places of worship.
• It is official government policy to "infuse Islamic values" into the administration of the country.
• Government funds support an Islamic religious establishment.
• Muslim children receive extra education through enrichment programs funded through the Religious Affairs Department which receives the zakat tax from Muslims.
• Property developers must include a mosque or surau in every new development. No such provision for houses of worship of other religions. It is estimated that some 3,000 mosques have been built throughout the country since 1970.

In September 2001, the then Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad declared that the country was an Islamic state (negara Islam).

 

Public Service and Administration

Over the last 20 years, there have been continuing efforts to largely replace non-Malay civil servants with Malays.

In the 1950s, the Reid Commission reported the practice of “not more than one-quarter of new entrants [to a particular service] should be non-Malays. However, over the last 40 years, this has been effectively disregarded and since 1969, well over 90% of new employees of the various government departments have been Malay. This is particularly so of the police and armed forces, where the figure exceeds 96%. Such hiring practices are also pursued in government-linked or owned companies such as Petronas, Tenaga Nasional and so on.

From the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Wisma Putra,⁵ one is able to ascertain the ethnicity of officials assigned to foreign missions by the Malaysian government. Through a survey of 100 Malaysian overseas missions listed on this website, one finds that diplomatic staff (including military attaches and a few Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board staff had an ethnic breakdown as follows:

The Malaysian government has 28 federal ministries. If one examines, for example, the staff of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage ( Kementerian Kebudayaan, Kesenian dan Warisan ) as provided on the Malaysian Government official portal website,⁶ one arrives with the following figures for officers (pegawai);

The Minister of Defence (Kementrian Pertahanan) administration officers website⁷ details staff of the Ministry (excluding armed forces staff). Of the 692 persons listed, 670 or 96.8 percent of the total are Malay.

The Malay-ization of the entire public service and defence forces was apparently the aim of the Mahathir government, as complete control over the public administration is an important aspect in achieving and maintaining Malay ethnocracy.

Prime Minister Mahathir went further than this, by creating an essentially Malay administrative capital, by moving government departments to the administrative capital at Putrajaya, where today only civil servants (Malay) and their servicing economic partners (mainly Malay) live and work.

Part 2 of this article, on minority interests relegated to insignificance, will appear tomorrow.

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* The ARI Working Paper Series is published electronically by the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore.

** Geoff Wade is currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, having previously studied and worked in Australia, Malaysia, China and Hong Kong. An historian, he researches various aspects of Sino-Southeast Asian historical interactions over the last 1,000 years and has recently been concentrating on 20th-century interactions between Southeast Asia and China.

 Footnotes

1. See, for example, Khoo Boo Teik’s Paradoxes of Mahathirism (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995) and his Beyond Mahathir : Malaysian politics and its discontents, (London: Zed 2003).
2. Shaikh Mohd Nor Alam Sheikh Hussein and Basiran Begum, Malay Reservations: Meeting the Challenges of the Millenium, http://www.econ.upm.edu.my/~peta/shaikh/shaikh.html
3. This has now been given huge prominence in by the inclusion of an expanded version of this provision as Article 3 of the Malaysian Constitution.
4. For fuller details, see Joseph M. Fernando, “The Position of Islam in the Constitution of Malaysia???, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 37, 2006, pp. 249-66.
5. http://www.kln.gov.my/?page=mission
6. http://www.heritage.gov.my/kekkwa/viewdirektoripegawai.php?idbahagian_kementerian=1
7. http://www.mod.gov.my/index.php?option=com_contact&Itemid=17