Kwen Fee Lian and Narayanan Ganapath
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Abstract This article addresses how racialization can be applied to examine the state construction of Malay identity in Singapore. The conventional understanding of racialization is that it is a process that attributes differences to biological constitution, usually phenotypical characteristics. We take the broader interpretation that people racialize or naturalize differences and relations between races/ethnic groups even by referring to culture, religion, language, nation, or other issues. By examining the public and political discourses particular to some of these issues, we demonstrate how the state has racialized and influenced the development of Malay identity in various stages in the political history of Singapore: colonial, national, and global.
Keywords Malay · Identity · Racialization · Colonial
To make sense of the socially constructed and politically contested meaning of racial categories, identity and racialized experience, Omi and Winant (1994) proposed a theory of racial formation, which they define as the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, transformed, and destroyed. In this theory they proposed to relate racial structuration to racial signification. Race on one hand, they argued, is the subject of struggle at the level of social structure, which they referred to as stratification, institutions, political and legal systems. On the other hand the social signification of race—how race is meaningfully interpreted and represented by minority and majority participants—is also the outcome of contestation and conflict. Racial formation theory requires one to relate signification to structuration. Racial formation is a political process that involves elites, popular movements, state agencies, religions, and intellectuals engaged in what Winant (1992: 183) calls ‘racial projects’. A ‘racial project’ draws attention to how social structure is reorganized along particular racial lines, influences racial dynamics, and eventually shapes racial formation.
Racial formation, Goldberg (1992: 543, 553) argues, is fluid, transforming, historically specific dependent on theoretic and social discourses for the meaning it assumes at given historical moments. It is necessary to examine the social conditions which give rise to racialized discourse that eventuate in racial and racist expressions. We take Goldberg’s view (ibid: 556) that racialization does not necessarily advance its claims cloaked in biology, more importantly it tends to naturalize differences and relations between ethnic groups. Hence racialization is a political discourse that may originate from ideas and beliefs about class, nation, culture, religion or language. It is through such discourses that boundaries are constructed, whether by the majority or minority, to exclude or include—that is the whole point about racial formation.
In this chapter we identify key historical and political moments which have been critical to the racialization of the Malays and the construction of ‘Malayness’ in Singapore.
Colonial Racialization
Although the evidence is by no means conclusive Hirschman (1986: 343–45) suggests that the British only began to racialize the local indigenous populations in the late nineteenth century well after they committed themselves to a policy of active intervention in the Malay states in 1874. He attributed this to two developments. One was implicit. As the colonial economy took off with tin mining first and later the development of rubber plantations at the turn of the twentieth century accompanied by the construction of infrastructure, the British found it difficult to attract local inhabitants to participate in wage labour. They found an alternative supply in Chinese and Indian migrant workers, which led to the inevitable comparison that the Malays were less able than their non-Malay counterparts and had questionable capacity for work. It was also about the same time that the link between race and social Darwinism was made and popularized in Europe, to justify the view that Europeans were a more advanced population relative to coloured and colonized populations because of their innate superiority (Hirschman 1987: 568). This imagined hierarchy of races was imposed on the Chinese, Indians, and Malays in that descending order. Hence the racialization and valorization of the ‘Malay’ population in terms of their economic capacity may be attributed to colonial officials and colonists who put a premium on the ability of the coloured populations to contribute to the colonial economy.
This process of racialization was reflected in the nomenclature adopted by European administrators who managed the population censuses of colonial Malaya (Hirschman 1987: 561–63). The word ‘race’ first appeared in the 1891 census of the Straits Settlements and the broad ethnic classifications subsequently adopted in the unified censuses of all of colonial Malaya from 1921, namely: European, Eurasians, Malays, Chinese, Indian, and others. This so-called racial classification has been retained in Singapore until recently. The evolvement of census categories, Hirschman (ibid: 567–70) contends, is linked to changes in the racial beliefs and the imperial role of Europeans. The British perception of the Malay community had by the late nineteenth century led to an unquestioned acceptance of the weaknesses of the Malay character and the need for the colonial government to assume a paternalistic responsibility. By World War I, Butcher commented (in Hirschman 1987: 570), British colonial officials found it difficult to imagine a Malay society that did not conform to this image.
Racial Violence and Security
If racial formation in colonial society was framed in economic terms equally important, though this came later, was the role of religion in contributing to the racialization of the Malays. In contrast to Sumatra and Java, Islam played a limited role in the politicization and political development of the Malays in the peninsula in the 1950s. The reason stems from circumstances in the pre-war period (Stockwell 1986: 334–35). The secular and religious establishments had mostly enjoyed a close alliance. The British largely left the rural economy and community intact and supported the Islamic authorities in continuing their influence. It is in this context that we will discuss the Maria Hertogh incident and the significance of violence and security in racial formation.
Maria Hertogh was a Dutch-Eurasian girl who was left in the care of a Malay woman after her parents were interned following the Japanese invasion of Java. She was brought up as a Muslim girl and moved to the east coast of Malaya with her foster mother in 1947. When her Dutch parents located her they successfully applied to the Singapore judiciary in 1950 to be returned to them. Maria was 13 at that time. What followed was a series of court proceedings over her custody that inflamed the Muslim population, and precipitated a major race riot in which 18 people were killed, 173 injured and about 200 vehicles were damaged. What is politically significant about this event is that the riots were not the result of Sino-Malay antagonism; in fact the victims who suffered fatalities and injuries were mostly European and Eurasians (Stockwell 1986: 330), those closely associated with colonial rule. The leaders who played a critical role in mobilizing support and organizing funding in support of Maria against her impending removal to Holland were anti-colonial activists associated with the Indian independence movement and the left-wing Malay nationalist party with close connections to the anti-colonial struggle against Dutch and British rule (ibid: 328–29). The moderate nationalist party UMNO first led by Dato Onn refused to be drawn into the controversy preferring to leave it to judicial process. His successor the Tunku (1977: 190–91, Aljunied 2009: 42), though careful in not inflaming Muslim sentiments, took a more active role in raising public funds and initiating a petition to commute the death sentences given the men who were found guilty of killing the Europeans during the riots. There was no doubt that UMNO took pains in distancing itself from left-wing Malay nationalism and political violence so as not to jeopardize its position in negotiating with the British government for independence and political succession in the years ahead. However, the Tunku could not resist the opportunity to use the Maria Hertogh case to garner Malay support for his fledgling party.
In July 1964 an estimated 20,000 Malays and Muslims and representatives from some 73 associations including political parties staged a procession in the streets of Singapore for the annual celebration of Prophet Mohammed’s birthday (Lau 1998: 161–69). Violent clashes between Malays and Chinese broke out during the day resulting in 4 killed, 178 persons injured and 113 arrests made. This was the first major race riots involving Malays and Chinese in Singapore. The circumstances that led to racial clashes have been well covered (Leifer 1964, 1965; Milne 1966; Lau 1989). Nearly, a year before the riot occurred Singapore had joined Malaysia in a political merger, ushering an intense period of political acrimony and contestation between UMNO and PAP as both sought to mobilize the support of racial electorates in each other’s territory. In the only state election held in Singapore since merger in 1963, UMNO lost all the three predominantly Malay seats it contested to the PAP. The widespread Malay support the PAP had mustered at that time was attributed to its skill in promoting local Malay interests—enhanced by merger in Malaysia—and to its defeat of the left-wing faction (Turnbull 1996: 279).
In the federal election in 1964 several months before the riots, the PAP put up candidates in Malaysia and campaigned strongly on the platform of a ‘Malaysian Malaysia’, portraying the UMNO-Alliance as a government intent on realizing a ‘Malay Malaysia’. The concept of a multiracial society so assiduously promoted by Lee Kuan Yew was viewed by most Malays as an insidious plan to deprive them of their privileges as the indigenous population (Leifer 1965: 70), and would eventually result in the political dominance of the Chinese. It was in this charged political atmosphere, in which Malay ‘ultra’ nationalists accused Lee of neglecting the economic interests of the Malays in Singapore and the Malay vernacular press interpreted every move of the PAP government as a strategy to seize political power in the new federation, that the racial clashes occurred.
The months following the riots were acrimonious as both sides levelled accusations against each other for instigating the violence. Waged publicly through the popular media UMNO extremists charged Lee and the PAP for oppressing the Malay population on the island and for ignoring the special rights of the Malays whilst Lee expressed the belief that the ultras were intent on creating a situation for the federal government to intervene and replace the PAP (Lau 1998: 175–79). There was also widespread disquiet in the Chinese and Malay populations. The Chinese believed that the Malay security forces sent by Kuala Lumpur to restore order had not been entirely impartial. The Malays on the other hand were more convinced of the federal government’s version than Lee’s explanation of the violence and the PAP feared that whatever Malay votes it had won in the 1963 election had been lost (ibid: 180). The long-term ramification of the 1964 riots is that relations between the two races would never be the same and would influence the 6 The Politics of Racialization and Malay Identity 103 PAP management of and policies towards the Malay minority in the years following separation. The seeds of mutual suspicion and mistrust had been sown. In the immediate aftermath of the riots Chinese who lived in Malay majority areas moved out and sold their homes and vice versa (Lee 1998: 563).
More than a year later and several months after separation, Lee stated in Parliament the need to provide constitutional safeguards so that no one group will be able to assert its dominance over others on the basis of race, language, and religion. In his words, ‘we have invested in multiracialism and a secular State, for the antithesis of multiracialism and the antithesis of secularism holds perils of enormous magnitude’ (Low 2001: 448). Given that the formative years of his political development were dominated by his exposure to religious and racial conflict and violence—first as defence lawyer for four of the Malays charged with murdering Europeans in the 1950 religious riots following the custody battle over Maria Hertogh, and as one of the major protagonists in the political aftermath of the 1964 race riots—this was the most public declaration of the PAP leader to a government that would be committed to secularism and multiracialism.
The role of religious sentiments in the riots—directly in 1951 and indirectly in 1964—had also deeply impressed upon the PAP leadership the threat that political Islam could pose to the state, especially when religion was unequivocally associated with the identity of the Malay minority. The first generation of ulamas had been trained in the region and readily accommodated the practices of the local population as well as the British colonial authorities (Kadir 2006: 361). By the late 1960s a second generation of Islamic scholars, educated in Egypt and exposed to religious developments in the Middle East in the 1970s, were more inclined to adopt a stricter interpretation of Islam and Shariah. They directed their work towards raising the religious consciousness of local Muslims. PERGAS, the association of Islamic scholars and teachers of Singapore, concentrated on eradicating non-Islamic practices and beliefs and educating the community to be better Muslims. It chose not to engage the state on religious issues. In 1968 the government established MUIS (Islamic Religious Council of Singapore) and the office of the Mufti to oversee and manage all matters that concerned the Muslim community (Kadir 2006: 363). By establishing a religious bureaucracy which included managing all existing mosques and the building of larger centralized ones to cater to a rehoused population in HDB estates, the government could now monitor any religious developments amongst the local Muslim population.
It was no coincidence that several years after the 1964 riots, several Malaydominant electoral constituencies were redrawn (Rahim 2008: 109). In 1967 the largely Malay Southern Islands constituency was abolished, Geylang Serai was split into two merging with other constituencies that had significant non-Malay voters, and Kampong Kembangan was redrawn to reduce Malay influence. Over the years massive urban resettlement undertaken by the HDB also dissipated the Malay population into other constituencies. The ethnic-based political party, the Singapore Malays National Organization, which attempted to fill the void after separation failed to gain any traction in constituencies where Malay support had largely been diffused.
Developmentalism and Racial Formation
The period between 1965 and 1980 has been described by Brown (1994: 80–81) as the politics of an ethnically neutral meritocracy. Gaining full authority and independence after separation, the government turned its energy towards economic development and industrialization. To this end it assiduously promoted the values of discipline and self-reliance. Above all its leaders believed, taking a Social Darwinist perspective, that for Singapore to survive in a competitive environment it can only do so as a meritocratic society. At the same time the government, facing little political opposition, minimized the politicization of racial and industrial unrest which had bedevilled the island in the past 20 years by using a combination of authoritarian measures and promoting the ideology of survival. It constantly drummed into Singaporeans the message that they lived in a society under siege, namely: its economic fragility because of the British withdrawal and the absence of natural resources, its vulnerability as a predominantly Chinese country in a Malay-dominated region, and the threat to its security by the communists (ibid: 85). In particular it neutralized the politicization of racial interests and aspirations by channelling them into a state-sponsored multiculturalism that recognized and promoted the cultural identity of the ‘founding’ races, Chinese, Malays and Indians.
The 1970s marked one of the most successful decades in Singapore’s economy. It liberalized the economy by providing attractive incentives to international investors. Growth in the manufacturing industry accelerated targeting both the export and regional markets, accompanied by the expansion of the commercial and financial sectors (Regnier 1987: 54–55, 113). It focused on developing human capital by heavily investing in education from the primary to the tertiary level. During these years the economy achieved an annual growth rate of 10 %. This impressive economic performance continued through the first half of the 1980s with a shift towards nurturing the development of high technology and advanced services. Despite the recession in 1986 the economy made a rapid recovery by 1988. Singaporeans generally reaped the fruits of growth and enjoyed a significant improvement in living standards in the 1980s. The attention shifted invariably to how each race fared in an increasingly competitive environment.
The racialization of the Malays in terms of economic capability, which has its roots in colonial society and politicized in bitter UMNO-PAP contestation after merger, took a turn in the public and political discourse of a society that enjoyed a sustained period of economic prosperity. There were two groups that played a critical role in articulating the so-called ‘Malay problem’ and influenced how the Malays were represented. One was scholars and researchers and the other was political leaders; both groups included Malays and non-Malays.
Lee (2006: 186–87) summarized the progress that the Malays made during this period. Between 1966 and 1972 the economic position of the Malays seriously declined relative to the Chinese. Malay household income improved from 1973 and 1980, a period when the Singapore economy had one of the highest growth 6 The Politics of Racialization and Malay Identity 105 rates in the world, but it decreased from 1980 to 1995. During the same period 1966-1995, the comparative educational position deteriorated persistently. In this general context scholars and researchers highlighted and debated the educational and economic underperformance of the Malays, relative to the Chinese and Indians.
We refer in some detail to Li’s (1989: 168–82) discussion of the development of the culturalist interpretation of the relative deprivation of the Malay community. One of the early recorded critical views of the Malays in the print media is attributed to the writings of Muslim reformists based in Singapore at the turn of the nineteenth century. They highlighted the backwardness and complacency of Malay society. For the next 50 years the issue of Malay underdevelopment was publicly discussed at various political and academic forums; inevitably such discourses led to a search for causes. In particular the link between economic behaviour and cultural disposition and attitude was established and referred to regularly. The opening address of a seminar on Malay participation in the national development of Singapore in 1971 described how Malay culture had been influenced by colonial education policies which made Malays contented, obedient, and uncritical. It was suggested that in the insulated world of the kampong the Malays were preoccupied with religion and had no interest in material progress. This was the familiar refrain in many theses written by both foreign and local scholars and in public articulations of the issue by political and community leaders in Singapore. To cite one of many instances of this, one Minister at a community dinner in 1991 argued that the Malays have remained socially marginal because they have not been able to adapt to living in modern high-rise housing after being relocated from a semi-rural environment (Rahim 1998: 54). The cumulative effect over the years is summed up by Li (1989: 173):
Each set of writings referred to previous ones in the same vein, and by repetition and amplification this interpretation of the Malay predicament, past and present, became ‘authoritatively’ established as an orthodoxy among the Malay elite. Taking the lead from some of these written sources and also from the unwritten, often inarticulate explanations for Malay backwardness deriving from the contexts of daily life in Singapore, this idea about Singapore Malay culture has become further popularized in the press, and has also entered official publications.
It is now referred to as cultural deficit discourse by Rahim (1998: 51), who critiqued it for contributing to the racialization of Malay underachievement and for obscuring the cause of Malay poverty—which she argues has more to do with the structural condition and the class position of the Malays. The use of ‘cultural deficit’ by Rahim has also inadvertently contributed to its wide currency, particularly in academia. However, cultural deficit is more than discourse for it has evolved into a racial ideology that is well entrenched in Singapore society. There is no other explanation that is as pervasive and potent than the belief that the Malays have not been able to keep pace economically with the Chinese because of a perceived cultural weakness. It operates at all levels of society from political and community leaders to academics, teachers, and employers; and in how Singaporeans in their everyday lives make sense of a particular racial minority. It is rarely if ever applied to the other significant racial minority, the Indians. There is substantial evidence of teachers in schools generally holding negative attitudes towards Malay pupils who are unable to match their Chinese counterparts in a competitive educational environment and Chinese employers who discriminate against Malays (Li 1989: 110–11; Stimpfl 1997; Rahim 1998: 206). Cultural deficit, Li states (1989: 178), ‘has come to play an ideological role in legitimizing the inequalities in educational opportunity and in economic reward that have characterized Singapore since Independence’. Such a racial ideology has been established over decades of a racialized discourse that has been sustained at all levels of Singapore society. It has become deeply entrenched and widespread in society.
We referred earlier to the significance of the 1980s in marking a deterioration of the socioeconomic position of the Malays. The 1980 Census revealed that the Malays had been outpaced by the other ethnic groups in terms of income and education. Some of the indicators of the educational and economic performance of the Malays are telling. In a report published by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports (undated) only 16 % of the Malay cohort for 1980 obtained at least five ‘O’ level passes, which would enable them to progress to higher education. The proportion of the Malay primary one cohort entering tertiary institutions was 1.3 %. In the same year over 65 % of Malays employed were in manual work (production, cleaners, and labourers). In contrast only 2.6 % were in administrative, managerial, and professional occupations. The economic position of the Malays relative to the Chinese had been deteriorating since 1959 (Li 1989: 102). Furthermore, the government’s policy of excluding young Malay men from compulsory national service from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s created obstacles for them in the job market as employers took into account such service in their recruitment (Aljunied 2010: 311). As a result of their over-representation in the military at the time, appointments and promotions of Malay military personnel were curtailed. The 1951 religious and 1964 race riots had undoubtedly coloured the PAP government’s view of Malay participation in the police and armed forces. By the 1980s the Malays could justifiably be regarded as a politically and economically marginalized community, viewed with some suspicion by the ruling party and as a challenge to the nation-building project.
Alarmed by this, Malay MPs in the PAP called for a congress on education which was attended by some 180 representatives of organizations in the Malay community (Zoohri 1987: 189–93). Prime Minister Lee, in opening the congress, remarked that the government would give unqualified support to any initiative from the community to improve the educational levels of Malay children. A self-help organization, he believed, could achieve far more than any state-funded scheme in helping a community make progress. The outcome of the congress was the establishment of Mendaki, to be funded by ‘voluntary’ contributions from the Muslim and non-Muslim communities; the bulk of the funding was channelled into tuition for and financial assistance to Muslim students. The Mendaki programme also included promoting social and Islamic values for the purpose of strengthening the family and preparing Malay/Muslim children to live in a modern and competitive environment. The Mendaki model of self-reliance was later 6 The Politics of Racialization and Malay Identity 107 extended to similar initiatives in the Chinese and Indian communities to support their underachieving co-ethnics. The willingness of the government to sponsor and provide significant funding on a racialized basis—to empower the Malay community to introduce programmes towards ameliorating the plight of youth and families at risk—sits well with the migrant work ethic embodied in the founding ideology of the PAP first generation leadership, meritocracy.
Malay Identity as National Project
In the late 1980s two episodes (Hill and Lian 1995: 205–06) precipitated the next stage of racial formation in the Malay community. The first was the official visit of the President of Israel in late 1986 in response to an invitation by the Singapore President. The occasion provoked a strong and popular reaction from Malaysia, especially from UMNO, and incurred the widespread disapproval of the Malays on the island. Malay leaders called on the government to exercise greater sensitivity towards the community. Soon after in early 1987 Lee Hsien Loong who was Minister of Defence, publicly expressed his reservation in having Malays in combat positions in the military—the first time the government had confronted the Malays about their loyalty to the Republic. The reaction from Malaysia was predictably adverse; the PAP leadership was accused of chauvinism. In the same year four Malays were arrested under the ISA for spreading rumours of impending racial violence on May 13, the anniversary of the first major race riot in Malaysia in 1969 and its fallout in Singapore (Hill and Lian: 206). As a consequence, Aljunied (2010: 315–18) argues, the government resolved to reformulate Malay identity in such a way that would legitimate the authority of the state over Malay and Muslim issues, and in the process discipline the politicization of ‘ethnicity’. He identifies several strategies deployed by the state at that time, which reflected the preferred and tested PAP modus operandi of initiating, defining, and dominating a public and political discourse; and where appropriate creating a moral panic that would justify the use of authoritarian measures. The controversy created over the visit of the Israeli President and the very public questioning of Malay loyalty to the Republic provided the government the opportunity to define and promote a Singapore ‘Malayness’ that could be distinguished from their counterparts in Malaysia and Muslims in neighbouring countries, thereby establishing symbolic if not social boundaries. Such a Malayness was also incorporated in multiracialism—the national ideology the PAP expounded since independence in 1965— which assured that the rights of Malays as a minority would be protected by the state.
The authorities had become particularly sensitive to religious activity in the Muslim community in the wake of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 and the rise of radical Islamic fundamentalism in neighbouring states and in Malaysia. In 1982 members of a banned organization were arrested for provoking Malay Muslim resentment and violence against the government (Mutalib 2011: 1169). In 1987 four foreign ulamas were prohibited from speaking in Singapore for purportedly inciting Malays to unite against the non-Muslim majority population in Singapore. By highlighting the spread of deviant Islamic teachings as fundamentalist and extreme the state raised anxiety amongst many sections of the Singaporean population. The potential use of violence by religious extremists and its threat to public security warranted a swift and authoritarian reaction.
Disciplining Race
In post-independence Singapore Malay political representation in Parliament and the Cabinet was restricted to no more than a handful of ethnic Malays, usually co-opted by the PAP from the ranks of the better qualified in the education sector. In 1990 a group of young Malay professionals formed the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP) as a response to what they considered to be a problem of legitimacy of Malay MPs, whom they believed were unable to articulate the real concerns of the community. In particular it singled out the lack of religious credentials amongst the Malay political elite, and called on the government to recognize a ‘collective leadership’ that would be independent and represent a broader section of the Malay community including religious leaders (Mutalib 2012: 85–87). The government chose not to respond to this proposal but declared its willingness to fund the association if it channelled its work towards developing the community, in line with its commitment to support the initiative of self-help from ethnic groups. Although the AMP over the years did not abandon the concept of an independent and alternative Malay leadership, it was publicly chastised by Prime Minister Goh in 2000 for directly challenging the Malay MPs and a threat to racial harmony (Mutalib 2012: 88). Subsequently several former AMP leaders were appointed to leadership positions in the government. Once again the PAP proved adroit in co-opting ethnic leaders who had the potential to be a political opposition; and by claiming to exercise moral authority in protecting racial harmony effectively headed off the politicization of the Malay minority.
Globalization, Islam, and Malay Identity
In January 2002 the parents of four Malay Muslim girls beginning their first year in primary school insisted on them wearing the tudong (headscarf). The authorities refused to allow them to attend school unless they conformed to the rules of standard attire applied in all national schools, provoking a public controversy that caught the attention of many Singaporeans. The girls’ parents threatened to take the state to court for depriving their children of the right to practice religion provided by the constitution. Realizing the political sensitivities of this incident soon after 9/11, the government with the help of Malay MPs and community leaders 6 The Politics of Racialization and Malay Identity 109 made a concerted effort to convince the public of its position and defuse the controversy. Prime Minister Goh stated that the time was not right to allow the tudong to be worn, arguing that he wanted to build a successful multiracial society first (Law 2003: 55–56). Relaxing the rule, Goh continued, would reduce the ‘common space’ the state has maintained—referring to a public and secular sphere free from racial/religious influence—and disrupt racial harmony and social cohesion.
At another level the state’s discourse on the controversy may be interpreted in terms of how successful Singapore has established itself as a comprehensive developmental state carefully nurtured over three decades since its exclusion from Malaysia and is critically dependent on the strength of a global economy that spans Europe, North America, and Asia. After the Asian financial crisis in 1997 many countries in the region had struggled to recover. The Prime Minister and his ministers called on the Malays to put their children’s education first rather than let religious issues distract them from doing their best to prepare their children in a competitive economy (Law 2003: 60–62). He warned that following the recent arrests of Muslim radicals many people had lost their trust in Malay Muslims and that Chinese employers might no longer hire them. Internationally, the Singapore government took great pains not to be perceived as encouraging Islamist initiatives after declaring its support for the anti-terrorism campaign led by the US and for fear of driving away foreign investments.
In the wake of the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York in September 2001, the government arrested 36 members of the Singapore cell of the Jemmah Islamiah—the Indonesian radical Muslim group involved in the Bali bombing in October 2002—between December 2001 and August 2002. Most of those arrested were educated and middle class with no record of previous association with radical Islam, some of whom had been educated in schools in Singapore and had served national service (Abuza 2002: 457). The series of incidents that have been recounted alarmed the local population and raised much anxiety and suspicion towards Muslim Singaporeans. The government’s response was to publicly raise the issue of Islamic radicalism as a national problem because it was a direct threat to national security, cohesion, and the economy (Tan 2008: 34–35). Prime Minister Goh urged Muslims in Singapore to stand up against religious extremism and intolerance. In April 2002 the Minister for Muslim Affairs announced the launch of the Singapore Muslim Identity Project to be spearheaded by MUIS. The Project set out to articulate a Malay Muslim identity as a fully participating citizen in a secular and plural society and committed to progressive ideals (Tan 2008: 37). The public discourse on Malay identity was centred on a clear distinction between ‘moderates’ and ‘extremists’. The government garnered the support of Muslim organizations, mosques, and religious teachers and through the mass media promoted the message of moderate Islam. It also instituted the Religious Rehabilitation Group consisting of Muslim scholars tasked to counsel Muslim detainees and the Inter-Racial Confidence Circles, community groups working in constituencies to promote inter-ethnic trust.
Recently, the issue of whether Muslim women should be allowed to wear the tudong when carrying out official duties was raised at a public forum on racial harmony (Straits Times, 12 September 2013). A Polytechnic lecturer questioned why nurses were barred from wearing the headscarf, sparking a discussion on whether frontline officers in the civil service should have the right to do so. The government was forced to respond as discussion and views became widespread amongst Singaporeans, especially on the Internet. The Deputy Prime Minister, while acknowledging the interest and concern of the Malay community on the subject, cautioned that the government has the responsibility to balance the different community requirements with the need to maintain social harmony (Straits Times, 5 November 2013), echoing the view of the Prime Minister in 2002 when the tudong controversy was publicly raised, more than ten years ago. The issue will remain a barometer for measuring the state of race relations in Singapore for many years to come, as the government comes to terms with the extent of concessions it is willing to make to its Muslim citizens.
Conclusion
There are five key moments in the racial formation of the Malays in Singapore. In the colonial period, the early years of state formation in the late nineteenth century, the racialization of Malays was economistic. They were measured relative to the economic ability and contribution of the other races, the Chinese and Indians, and were found wanting. Such a view resonated with the colonial officials’ sympathy with Social Darwinist understanding of differences of population groups at the time. The official construction of the ‘Malays’ was institutionalized by the colonial census of the 1890s, so began its cumulative reification that has continued to this day.
The next phase began when the end of the War ushered two decades of decolonization, until Singapore achieved independence in 1965. For the first time, racial discourse emanated from religious conflict. The riots precipitated by the custody battles over a Dutch girl and on the occasion of Prophet Mohammed’s birthday were significant because Islam was demonized and politicized through its potential for violence and threat to security. The former was racial violence targeted at Europeans and the latter over deadly clashes between Malays and Chinese. In both instances the protagonists involved had political agendas, the first to bring to an end colonial rule and the second the assertion of Malay will against a Chinese-dominated island. The PAP regime, on independence, resolved to tame political Islam and dilute the ghettoization of the Malay population.
A sustained period of economic growth and prosperity for the next 15 years resulted in the relative economic decline and deprivation of the Malay community. As the alarm was raised by Malay leaders by 1980, the official discourse shifted towards a ‘culturalist’ explanation of Malay underperformance. The arguments offered in ‘cultural deficit’ fitted well into the PAP founding ideology of meritocracy. The ruling party’s solution was to introduce concrete support for the Malays to help themselves. A culturalist discourse soon evolved into a racial ideology.
By the late 1980s the measures initiated appeared to have been effective as the Malays showed signs of economic improvement. The PAP turned its attention towards incorporating ‘Malayness’ into the national project, the politics of identity. Its leaders challenged the Malay community to redefine its position in Singapore society, exhorting them to distinguish themselves from Malays in the region. It nationalized Malayness by calling on them to identify with the project on multiculturalism. At the same time it sought to depoliticize attempts to assert Malay autonomy. Malay political discourse was subsumed within a national project, and in the process race was disciplined.
The last critical moment came in 2000 with the rise of global Islam and its intimate association with international terrorism. A nationalist discourse could no longer suffice in containing a universal and radical resurgence of Islam which threaten to engulf marginalized and dissenting Muslim voices throughout the world. In contrast to other regional governments which adopted a low profile, the PAP decided to take the battle to the global stage by allying Singapore with the West. It shifted the public debate to a stark and mutually exclusive choice between moderate and radical Islam, applying pressure on local Muslims to take a stance.
In this chapter we have sought to track Malay racial formation by examining the political discourses of race in Singapore since the colonial period. What we have uncovered is that the racialization of the Malays has undergone five turns: as economic, religious, cultural, national, and global projects.
References
K.F. Lian
Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam,
Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
e-mail: kwenfee.lian@ubd.edu.bn
N. Ganapathy
Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016
K.F. Lian (ed.), Multiculturalism, Migration, and the Politics of Identity
in Singapore, Asia in Transition 1, DOI 10.1007/978-981-287-676-8_6