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Christine B.N. Chin
1998
2. Arranging and Rearranging the Interior Frontiers of Society
| An enlightened ruler in regulating the livelihood of his people will make sure that in the first place they are well enough off to look after their parents and able to support wife and child, that in good years they get as much as they can, eat at every meal. . . . [O]nly when this has been assumed does he ‘gallop onto goodness,’ and the people will have no difficulty following him. |
| —Mencius, Mencius, circa 390–380 b.c. |
| The ruler’s subjects, on the other hand, are incapable of taking long views. What they hate is toil and danger, what they want is immediate ease and peace, and they are too stupid to see that ultimate safety can only be served by immediate discomfort and danger. If the ruler pesters them with laws and regulations and threatens them with terrifying penalties, this is the objective of ‘saving mankind from disorder and averting calamities that hang over the whole world.’ . . . No greater service to the people could be imagined; but there are some so stupid as not to realize this and insist upon regarding the ruler’s measures as tyranny. |
| —Han Fei Tzu, Han Fei Tzu, circa 350 b.c. |
The presence of low-wage migrant labor on Malaysian soil today is not unprecedented, since Malaysia is a country born, in part, of immigrant peoples. During the colonial period, low-wage migrant labor from China and India helped build a natural resource-based export economy. The presence of a growing population of Chinese and Indian migrant workers (many of whom eventually settled in the country) led the British to implement legislation that defined and protected specific Malay rights. A key consequence was the association of different peoples with different economic function and geographic space. In the late twentieth century, low-wage migrant labor from the Philippines and Indonesia would facilitate efforts by postcolonial elites to rearrange Malaysian society without undermining social stability in the multiethnic country and/or the economy’s competitiveness in the regional and global arenas.
This chapter analyzes the relationship between the colonial and postcolonial in-migrating waves of low-wage labor, and state strategies of coercion-repression and consent used to arrange and rearrange the interior frontiers of society. 1 The discussion sets the larger context of this study’s argument that the contemporary in-migration of Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers is integral to the postcolonial state elite’s defense of the New Economic Policy (NEP) 1971–1990, and to the normalization of the modern middle-class nuclear family.
Opening of the Immigration Gates: Colonial Arrangement of the Interior Frontiers of Malayan Society 2
In precolonial Malay society on the peninsula, rulers established their principalities along river estuaries to facilitate the collection of revenue:
They were rivermouth societies, for the most part, centered on port towns lying where the river debouched onto the sea, placed so as to control what came down and to participate in what passed by. The political power, the “state” or negeri, at the mouth of the river, sought to establish sufficient authority over the peoples upriver and, in the interior, to ensure a flow of produce that could be taxed or sold. . . . [S]tate boundaries tended to be vague and relatively unimportant, for what mattered was control of waterborne traffic, not land. 3
Malay peasant use of land was governed by usufructuary laws: a peasant owned land so long as he actively cultivated it. 4 A portion of the land’s produce was given to the ruler in return for physical protection and royal recognition of the peasant’s identity as a Malay or an individual who lived and served under a particular Malay ruler. 5
Malay society was organized hierarchically by political bonds linking Malay rulers (raja or sultan) at the top of the political structure to their peasant subjects (rakyat) at the bottom. 6 Malay rulers’ adoption of Islam (hence the raja became the sultan) circa the fifteenth century, and consequent diffusion of the religion throughout Malay society, failed to significantly alter the vertical bonds, or Malay folk religion. 7 Instead, existing hierarchical social arrangements became the major vehicle for transmitting Islam. 8
Malay women’s status and roles in the precolonial economy and society differed according to class. Aristocratic women were confined mostly to the socialization of children, although some were known to have been active traders. Peasant women, however, had reproductive and productive roles in their capacities as wives, mothers, daughters, and farmers. It is argued that with the exception of female debt-bondage (see chapter 3), Malay men and women had a complementary rather than a superior-subordinate relationship. 9
As early as the sixteenth century, European commercial interests were present on the peninsula. The entrépot of Melaka, which overlooked the Straits of Melaka on the west coast of the peninsula, was of immense strategic and commercial importance to the India-China trade route. Portuguese, Dutch, and British mercantilists successively conquered Melaka in 1511, 1641, and 1795. Of the three European mercantilist maritime powers, the British gradually penetrated, expanded, and consolidated colonial control over the peninsula. Colonial policies eventually would be embodied by the Kiplingesque notion of the “white man’s burden” in which the British assumed moral responsibility for civilizing their native nonwhite brethren, while developing a natural resource-based export economy. 10
Initial consent for British presence on the peninsula was solicited in the following way. Colonialists signed treaties with Malay rulers of the “Straits Settlements” of Penang, Singapore, and Melaka for the right to trade and establish military bases to oversee their India-China trade route. In return for British military and commercial presence, rulers were given physical protection from enemies within and beyond their principalities.
During the early years of colonial presence, a small population of Chinese men worked as sugar smallholders and tin miners. By the mid nineteenth century, Chinese tin mine workers eventually displaced their Malay counterparts as male-dominated Chinese secret societies’ organization and control over labor proved more efficient in generating revenue. Different rulers made alliances with different secret societies organized along clan lines.
Constant fighting between secret societies encouraged colonial military intervention to prevent the disruption of European trade. 11 From 1874 to 1930, the British extended their presence on the peninsula by signing treaties with the rest of the Malay rulers. The treaties expanded colonial administrative and bureaucratic rule throughout most of the peninsula.
The colonial system of rule, or the “resident system” as it was called, placed a resident advisor with each sultan in return for colonial guarantee of the symbolic continuity of Malay governance, the sultans’ position as protector of Islam, and the recognition of Malays as the indigenous peoples. 12 Decisionmaking power within the Malay political structure shifted to British hands as the resident advisor replaced the bendahara (chief minister to the ruler), and appointed colonial district officers who took over the responsibilities of Malay chiefs. 13
To facilitate capital accumulation, the British implemented the Torren Land Laws (patterned after the South Australian Torren Land Laws of the 1850s) that institutionalized the concept of private property complete with permanent and transferable rights to land. Colonial land legislation was implemented ostensibly to “protect” Malay society by clearly delineating land ownership in the midst of increasing foreign presence. In practice, the private property concept justified the alienation of large portions of unused or uncultivated land for commercial purposes: “Above all for British officials, this turning of the greater part of the peninsula into ‘State land’ offered an unparalleled opportunity to make land available in the future, at the most nominal rents, to settlers and to British and Chinese capitalists for their use.” 14
From the mid to late nineteenth century, American and British industrial and commercial demands hastened the growth of tin and rubber industries or the “twin pillars” of colonial Malaya’s export economy. Yet, weak colonial control over the supply of labor threatened to undermine the emerging economy. European capitalists, who were unable to attract Malay labor because of the availability of land for cultivation, responded by “importing” predominantly male migrant workers from China and India.
Colonial administrators had a reason for initially neither prohibiting the in-migration of Chinese and Indian labor, nor actively recruiting Malay peasants to work in the tin and rubber industries. Taxes on migrant consumption activities such as gambling, smoking opium, and visiting brothels provided the colonial state treasury with additional revenue. 15
Development in colonial Malaya was synonymous with the establishment and growth of an export economy geared toward supplying international demands for tin and rubber, as well as the import of manufactured British consumer goods. Infrastructural (especially public works) projects were designed to facilitate communication between the hinterland and coastal cities and ports, rather than to improve the living standards of the peoples. Instead of financing projects with taxes on the export of tin and rubber, and the import of manufactured goods, the British relied mostly on revenue from state monopolies on the sale of alcohol and tobacco, and taxes on migrant brothels, opium, and gaming dens.
Together with the demands for and consequent in-migration of Chinese and Indian male labor was the colonial construction of ascribed racial-gender traits and concomitant socioeconomic segregation of the Malay, Chinese, and Indian peoples. Below, I discuss how a racial-gender division of labor, or the association between occupational segregation and racial-gender traits began to emerge in response to the nexus of moral and economic justification for and of colonialism. In my analysis of British rule in Malaya, I have deliberately used the words “race” and racial groups as opposed to ethnicity and ethnic groups, specifically to highlight colonial perception and treatment of Malays, Chinese, and Indian peoples. Colonial construction of the categories of “Malay,” “Chinese,” and “Klings” presumed that physiognomic differences and subsequent lifestyles among the peoples could be traced to different biological foundations, hence the social construction of “races” of peoples—and concomitant hierarchical ordering—as opposed to a race of human beings. (Depending on the context in postcolonial Malaysia, government publications and official speeches categorize the peoples either according to racial or ethnic groups.)
Colonialists initially were unable to exercise extensive control over the in-migration and employment of Chinese male labor. The early stages of the mining industry were controlled by Chinese secret societies with well-developed financial and labor organizational networks. 16 Labor brokers or work leaders traveled back to their villages to recruit mostly male kin or village folk who, almost always, could not pay their own passage to Malaya. Many labor recruits migrated as indentured workers whose debts were deducted from future earnings. 17 By keeping labor costs to a minimum, the indentured labor system facilitated Chinese as well as European capital accumulation in Malaya.
Several pieces of legislation were introduced in the late 1800s that curbed wealthy Chinese miners’ ability to compete with their European counterparts in the production and distribution of tin ore. The Chinese Immigration Ordinance 1877 regulated labor in-migration; the Societies Ordinance 1889 outlawed Chinese secret societies; and the amended Labour Contract Ordinance 1914 banned indentured Chinese labor. 18
Prior to the Societies Ordinance 1889, Chinese secret societies’ control and influence over mining labor prompted the colonialists to protect another emerging commercial interest, i.e., rubber plantations. 19 Below is an excerpt from a letter written by a colonial officer to plantation owners:
To secure your independence, work with Javanese or Tamils, and if you have sufficient experience, also with Malays and Chinese, you can thus always play one against the other. . . . [I]n case of a strike, you will never be left without labor, and the coolies of one nationality will think twice before they make their terms, if they know that you are in a position that you can do without them. 20
This “divide and rule strategy” was used to police the migrant workforce. Of interest is that South Asian workers were not the first choice of alternative migrant labor to that of the Chinese.
In the mid to late nineteenth century, Malay peoples were known to migrate freely between the peninsula and the archipelago. What the British did was to formalize Malay migration mechanisms by establishing labor brokers in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies to facilitate in-migration from the neighboring island of Java.
Demands for Javanese labor quickly fell as the workers proved difficult to control because of illness, opium addiction, and recalcitrance. 21 Migrant labor from South Asia would be considered more suitable for estate work since the British believed that colonialism in India already had “conditioned” Indians for plantation and construction work: “The Indian labourer had none of the self-reliance nor the capacity of the Chinese but he was the most amenable to the comparatively lowly paid and rather regimented life of estates and government projects. He was well behaved, docile and had neither the education nor the enterprise to rise, as the Chinese did, above the level of manual labour.”22 22
The British controlled Indian labor at the sending (India) and receiving (Malaya) ends. In 1907, the Tamil Immigration Fund, which was administered by the Indian Immigration Committee, required all employers to finance Indian labor in-migration as a major way to eliminate indentured labor: (a) the kangany system in which kanganies or male head workers from plantations were sent back to India to recruit kin or village folk; and (b) the system of nonrecruits or “walk-ins” to the Malayan Immigration Commission in India. 23 The Fund financed both systems as a major way to eliminate indentured labor.
Migrant women from India and China were not a significant presence in colonial Malaya until the early decades of the twentieth century. The predominance of male migrants in the late nineteenth century was due to social customs in countries of origin that discouraged female out-migration (so as to induce the eventual return of the men). 24 In 1871, there were 307 Indian and 200 Chinese women respectively per thousand men from each ethnic group. By 1911, for every one thousand Indian and Chinese men respectively there were only 308 Indian and 249 Chinese women. 25
The predominantly single male migrant population in Malaya was seen as a potential threat to social stability and order. Entire Indian families were encouraged to migrate in order to ensure the stability of the Indian migrant community, and to provide a continuous supply of low-wage labor. The Indian Immigration Committee offered incentives for female in-migration: employers were taxed at lower rates per female laborer; recruiters were given higher allowances for the migration of entire families; and nonrecruits were given cash bonuses if children migrated with them. Since Indian men were paid a single wage as opposed to family wage in colonial Malaya, women and children then were compelled to work. 26
Even though scholars are divided over the extent of Indian women’s participation in the colonial economy, it is generally accepted that Indian women worked as rubber tappers and weeders in plantations/estates, and as laborers for state infrastructural projects. Little is known of the age or marital status of Indian women workers except for various historical references to separate estate housing for married women, migrant worker fights over women, and forced sex between Indian women and (European) plantation owners and (Indian) managers. 27 Historical records tell of incidences in which women were kidnapped from India to work as prostitutes on plantations/estates. The 1941 strike by Indian laborers in Selangor is revealing of the extent of sexual abuse on estates: among the striking workers’ demands was an end to the molestation of their womenfolk. 28
Colonial policy constructed dual roles for Indian women in Malaya—they were considered as both productive and reproductive workers. Women worked alongside men in the plantations; reproduced the future low-wage workforce; ensured stable home environments for Indian men; and provided European plantation owners and Indian managers with sexual services.
The colonial practice of capitalist-patriarchal ideology also shaped Chinese migrant women’s participation in the economy. During the late 1800s, female out-migration was actively discouraged by Ch’ing dynasty officials at ports of departure. Women who migrated did so primarily as wives of male workers, or they were kidnapped to work as prostitutes and mui-tsai (girl-slaves between the ages of six and thirteen). Chinese secret societies controlled the in-migration and employment of the latter two categories of migrant women. 29
The institutionalization of Chinese prostitution in Malaya reflected colonial dependence on Chinese women’s reproductive/sexual roles to stabilize the Chinese male migrant population. Between 1900–1927, legalized brothels were major revenue contributors to the state treasury. Prostitution was banned finally in 1930 in response to public outcry in Britain.
The mui-tsai system, in which families sold or pawned girl children to wealthier households in order to settle debts, was not legislated until the Domestic Servants Ordinance 1925. Wealthy Chinese families provided board and lodging, and “moral guidance” in return for the household services of young girl-slaves. Once the girls reached the age of eighteen or when debts were settled, they were either free to leave, or were taken as mistresses or daughters-in-law.
With the help of the Chinese Protector (colonial officer in charge of Chinese affairs) in 1885, wealthy Chinese businessmen established the Po Leung Kuk, which was charged with imparting economic skills to runaway mui-tsai. In practice, the institution, which originated from Chinese philanthropic activity, quickly became a supplier of properly trained young wives-to-be rather than one providing the skills for independent living. 30
It has been argued that the mui-tsai system persisted because of British failure to control the in-migration of Chinese girl-slaves. 31 The question is that if prostitution could be legalized, then why not the mui-tsai system? Until the Domestic Servants Ordinance 1925, legislative silence on young girl-slaves could not have been largely due to the failure to control the immigration gates. First, there was not a perceived need to regulate mui-tsai in-migration because the latter, unlike prostitutes, did not contribute to state revenue. Second, young girls were crucial to the stability of the Chinese male migrant population. Given the low numbers of Chinese women in Malaya between the late 1800s and early 1900s, the partnership between colonialists and wealthy Chinese businessmen (embodied in the institution of the Po Leung Kuk) ensured the socialization of runaway mui-tsai as eligible and desirable wives for single Chinese men.
The majority of Chinese female migrants arrived in Malaya between 1933 and 1938. Worldwide economic depression prompted the British to pass the Aliens Ordinances 1930 and 1933, which instituted a quota system severely restricting the in-migration of male workers, but that did not exclude women. Since the passage for one male quota ticket was made considerably higher, a labor broker would take a male migrant only if four women bought tickets to travel with him. Within five years, approximately 190,000 Chinese women had arrived in Malaya, and they worked as domestic servants, construction laborers, dulang washers (the process is a method of salvaging residue tin ore), and rubber tappers. 32 In these occupations, women were paid less than men. Particularly in the mining industry, women were restricted to dulang washing, and they were prohibited from working underground or tending machines. Such rules ostensibly protected women from physical danger. However, protection had the effect of denigrating or devaluing women’s work: they were hired as piece rate workers with salaries substantially lower than men, and they were not provided with board and lodging. Mine owners assumed that women lived with their husbands or fathers, and that women’s wages were supplementary income or what is now commonly known as “pin money.”
Even before the mass arrival of Chinese women, colonial concern for the growing number of Chinese and Indian migrant workers led to the Malay Reservation Land Enactment (MRL) 1913 that set aside land to be used, sold, and mortgaged only among Malays. Table 2.1 shows that in 1911, Malays constituted more than one-half of the population in colonial Malaya. By 1931, Malay share of the population had dropped below 50 percent.
Table 2.1
Percentage Distribution of Population by Ethnicity
| Year | Malays | Chinese | Indians | Others |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1911 | 58.6 | 29.6 | 10.2 | 1.6 |
| 1921 | 54.0 | 29.4 | 15.1 | 1.5 |
| 1931 | 49.2 | 33.9 | 15.1 | 1.8 |
| 1947 | 49.5 | 38.4 | 10.8 | 1.3 |
| 1957 | 49.8 | 37.2 | 11.1 | 1.9 |
| 1970 | 53.1 | 35.5 | 10.6 | 0.8 |
The colonial policy of protecting traditional Malay lifestyle by segregating land for exclusive Malay use did not prevent Malays from threatening the processes of European capital accumulation. Wealthy Malay landowners, and Chinese businessmen who were given proxies by them, purchased reservation land for commercial agricultural production. Equally significant was that Malay peasant smallholders began cultivating rubber on reservation land for sale to Chinese and European traders: “By 1921, there were no less than 415,799 acres of peasant rubber ‘smallholdings’ in the Federated Malay States, comprising 33.4 percent [italics mine] of the total planted rubber acreage.” 33
Colonial fear of economic competition from Malays led to the Rice Lands Act (RLA) 1917 that prohibited the cultivation of any cash-crop other than rice on reservation land. A colonial officer provided the official rationale for the RLA:
Our trusteeship for the Malay people demands that we administer the country on lines constant with their welfare and happiness, not only for today but for the future ages. That end will be attained by building up a sturdy and thrifty peasantry living on the lands they own and living by the food they grow than by causing them to forsake the life of their fathers for the glamour of new ways which put money into their pockets today but leave them empty tomorrow, and to abandon their rice-fields for new crops which they cannot themselves utilize and the market for which depends on outside world conditions beyond their orbit. 34
In practice, the RLA was a double-edged sword colonialists wielded to eliminate an emerging competitive Malay capitalist class, and also the rising cost of importing food for migrant workers: “[RLA] stipulated that all Malay land which had originally in name been alienated for padi [rice] production had to be cultivated in padi. The legal penalties were confiscation of the crop and money fines.” 35 Rice had become the largest import item in British Malaya from the late 1800s to the 1920s. 36 Insatiable low-wage labor demands of the colonial export economy, and the consequent rising cost required to maintain the migrant labor force, had begun to undermine European capitalists’ rates of return on their investments. Colonialists anticipated that rice produced on reservation land would curb the unacceptably high food bill.
The MRL and RLA that constituted the colonial set-aside land program to ensure the socioeconomic survival of Malay peoples prevented the emergence of a Malay capitalist class. Subsequently, the set-aside land program was expected to increase, or at the very least maintain, capitalist profit margins by producing enough rice to feed the migrant population. 37
Colonial trusteeship of Malay peoples was reinforced further by an education policy that naturalized the socioeconomic segregation of Malays, Chinese, and Indians. English medium schools were established for male children of the Malay elite; vernacular schools for the rest of Malay peasantry; and Chinese and Tamil vernacular schools for the children of migrant workers. The education policy helped lay the foundation for the emergence of the Malay middle classes who were dependent on the state. English-medium schools supplied white-collar Malay male labor for the lower echelons of the bureaucracy (the Malayan Administrative Service), while the British retained control of the more powerful upper echelons (the Malayan Civil Service). 38 Malay vernacular schools, on the other hand, were not structured to impart any vocational skills that could improve peasants’ socioeconomic welfare. Rather, textbooks used were translations of palace literature (e.g., those of the hikayat genre), and Malay oral stories. The intent was to construct a more “cultured” Malay yeomanry. 39
By encouragement and teaching, the Malays are not incapable of being led on to industrious pursuits . . . [T]here exists no reason why the Malay should not become in all points a good citizen; and though he may not possess the native intelligence of the Chinese as a trader and artisan, nor the shrewd cleverness of the Kling [Indian] in his business and monetary transactions, he will be found no whit behind them in agricultural pursuits . . . 40
The later establishment of separate schools for boys and girls legitimized gendered roles and identities for Malay peasants: girls were instructed in housework and boys learned to be literate farmers and fishermen.
By the early twentieth century, colonial construction of different identities for different peoples was well underway. “Benevolent” colonialism and its labor, land, and education policies arranged the physical, social, and mental interior frontiers of Malayan society according to the association of racial-gender traits with economic function and geographic space. At the community level, Malay and non-Malay identities were constructed in opposition to one another: migrant workers (particularly the Chinese who had more economic clout as a group than the Indians) almost always were perceived and treated as more intelligent, more hardworking, but more conniving than Malays, the lazy but peaceful heirs of the country. 41
The dyadic or oppositional construction of racial identities conflated colonial efforts to prohibit Malays from actively participating in capitalist accumulation, led by the Europeans, with that of protecting Malays from political and social emasculation by the Chinese and Indian migrant populations. Colonial protection basically took the form of physical and socioeconomic segregation: Malays were to be seen predominantly as farmers on reservation land, the Chinese mostly as entrepreneurs in rural and urban settlements, and the Indians primarily as plantation and public works laborers. 42 Malay women’s roles were left largely intact, whereas Chinese and Indian women were encouraged to participate in the colonial economy.
The divide and rule strategy of racial-occupation-gender segregation not only mitigated the formation of horizontal interethnic class bonds (instead, segregation was seen to provide the social order needed for capital accumulation), but also, and more importantly, it deflected Malay attention from European to Chinese economic activities. This strategy sowed the seeds of interethnic contestations that would arise at key points in twentieth-century Malaysian history.
Toward the end of colonial rule, European trading or agency houses owned at least two-thirds of the economy, as they controlled approximately 65 percent of the export-import trade, while Chinese share of the economy amounted to 16 percent. 43 Even though the mining industry initially was controlled by alliances between Malay royalty and the Chinese, the introduction of European technology coupled with European control of international finance and trade networks displaced Chinese mining methods and the small local clan-based financial and distribution networks. Yet, Malays eventually would associate the Chinese with control of the economy because “it was probably the ubiquitous presence of Chinese traders and shopkeepers in nearly every village that was to make the Chinese economic role seem more threatening and exploitative to the Malays than the European rule, although the Europeans were far more dominant economically.” 44
Road to Independence and Closing of the Immigration Gates
Segregationist policies pursued by the British did not prevent Malays from confronting the need to reconstruct their identities vis-á-vis non-Malays on the peninsula. The early decades of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of nationalist discourse that grappled with the meaning of Malayness in a growing sea of non-Malays. 45
Malay demands for independence from Britain were bolstered by the Japanese who occupied Malaya during World War II. Malay support for the Japanese would be juxtaposed with what appeared to be Chinese nationalist and communist support of initial British resistance to the Japanese invasion. 46 British military retreat from Malaya identifiably left the Malayan Communist Party, which was predominantly Chinese, engaged in a lonely and protracted anti-Japanese insurgency that could only exacerbate Malay-Chinese relations.
The British, upon their return to Malaya after the war, proposed a Malayan Union in which all eleven “states” on the peninsula were to be unified under a central government administered by the British. Included with the proposed plan was the granting of citizenship to all who were born or who had lived in Malaya for at least ten years. 47 The proposal elicited overwhelmingly negative responses from the Malay community because of the belief that the British and the Chinese would dominate the country’s political and economic systems. Malay rejection of the Malayan Union proposal, together with the Malayan Communist Party’s growing influence over labor unions, finally convinced the British that Malayan independence was the only viable route to sustaining capitalist development. 48
Malayan public discourse soon focused on who would govern, under what conditions, and in what form. 49 Chinese and Indian migrant workers who eventually settled in Malaya insisted on citizenship as a symbol of their legitimacy in the birth of a new country. The question of acknowledging non-Malay presence, contributions, and demands without negatively affecting Malay claims to political power, was resolved in what is known as the “Bargain of ’57”: Chinese and Indians were granted citizenship in return for Malay dominance of the political process and state structures. 50
The Bargain of ’57 was the result of “consociational” alliances between elite men from the three major ethnic political parties that were nurtured and supported by the British: United Malays National Organization (UMNO), Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), and Malayan Indian Congress (MIC). Collectively, they formed the Alliance party that was dominated by UMNO, and that led the country to independence. Leadership transferred from the British to conservative Western-educated, pro-British male elite in the three political parties: e.g., Tunku Abdul Rahman (UMNO), Tan Siew Sin (MCA), and V.T. Sambanthan (MIC).
Women in Malaya had no clearly defined voice or role in the independence movement. Within UMNO, Malay women formed Kaum Ibu to organize women’s participation. Nonetheless, Kaum Ibu only played a supportive role to UMNO. The organization became Wanita UMNO in the early 1970s when younger generations of Malay women assumed leadership and pressed for changes within UMNO’s governing structure. Neither MCA nor MIC had a women’s section until the 1970s. 51
On August 31, 1957, the postcolonial state of Malaya or the Federation of Malaya, was born and armed with a Federal Constitution that defined executive, judicial, and legislative responsibilities. The president of UMNO, Tunku Abdul Rahman, became the country’s Prime Minister or head of the executive branch. The bicameral legislature consisted of an elected and appointed Senate (Dewan Negara) and an elected House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat). Governance in the newly independent country took the form of a federal government that oversaw the eleven “states” of Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan, Selangor, Perak, Pulau Pinang, Pahang, Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, and Trengganu.
The official definition of Malay identity was inherited from colonialism: “The modern Malaysian constitution’s definition of a Malay is derived from a 1913 colonial enactment in which a Malay was ‘a person belonging to any Malay race who habitually speaks the Malay language . . . and professes the Muslim religion.’ ” 52 Enshrined in Articles 152, 153 and 181 of the 1957 Federal Constitution were Malay Special Rights/Privileges or the collective term for Malay reservation land; Malay quotas in education, business, and civil service; the continuation of Malay royalty’s symbolic role as protectors of Islam and leaders of the peoples and country; Islam as the national religion; and Malay as the national language. Nonetheless, the political ascendancy of Malays occurred without a restructuring of Malay, Chinese, and Indian peoples’ participation in the economy, or a prior deconstruction of social identities based on physiognomy and sex that placed certain peoples in certain occupational positions.
In 1957, the immigration gates were closed officially to the mass in-migration of low-wage foreign labor so as not to disrupt the delicate ethnic balance. Malays constituted approximately one-half of the total population of 6,278,758 in Malaya. The Malay, Chinese, and Indian share of the population respectively were 49.8 percent, 37.2 percent, and 11.1 percent (see table 2.1). 53
A series of events between 1963 and 1965 would leave Malays the undisputed numerically dominant ethnic group in Malaya. Communist threat to capital accumulation (the Malayan Communist Party that was driven underground by the British in the 1950s gradually had infiltrated labor unions in Singapore and Malaya) led to the 1963 inclusion of Singapore into the Federation of Malaya. Since Singapore’s 75 percent Chinese population would upset the already slim Malay majority, Sabah and Sarawak (the British protectorates on Borneo island) also were included in the Federation to balance the ethnic distribution of the Malayan population. 54
The Federation of Malaya became the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. The total Malaysian population jumped from approximately eight million to eleven million. Singapore left the Federation two years later because of irreconcilable differences between Chinese and Malay political elites over Malay political dominance of the country. By 1970 the population distribution was 53.1 percent Malay, 36.5 percent Chinese, and 11.4 percent Indian and others (see table 2.1).
Postcolonial Rearrangement of the Interior Frontiers of Malaysian Society
In the mid 1980s, the immigration gates were reopened officially to the mass in-migration of low-wage foreign labor. At issue is not whether industry demands for labor led to the reopening of the immigration gates, but rather the manner in which the postcolonial in-migrating wave of low-wage foreign servants, and construction and agriplantation workers, resulted from the state elite’s efforts to balance demands that emanated from within and from beyond the geopolitical borders.
Specifically, the in-migration of Filipina and Indonesian servants is related to the demands for household labor from the Malaysian middle classes. As Joel S. Kahn argued, the growth of the Malaysian middle classes should be understood within the three interlocking factors of an enlarged state with parastatal limbs; the effects of changes in transnational economic structures and processes; and the practice of “money politics” in Malaysia. 55
In the rest of this chapter, I first examine the strategies of coercion-repression and consent that were used to legitimize different development paths pursued by the postcolonial state elite. The three factors that encouraged the growth of the middle classes, together with the gendering of state apparatus and power, will be discussed in this context. The last section offers an analysis of the political economic conditions in Malaysia from which emerged the demands for, and state regulation of low-wage foreign migrant labor.
The Era of The New Economic Policy 1971–1990
| The Plan aims at the creation of a viable and dynamic commercial and industrial community of Malays and other indigenous people, and the emergence of a new breed of Malaysians, living and working in unity to serve the nation with unswerving loyalty. |
| —Tun Abdul Razak, second Prime Minister of Malaysia, 1971 |
For at least a decade after independence, the postcolonial state basically retained the ethos of its predecessor. With the exception of introducing the policy of import substitution industrialization (ISI) to reduce the economy’s dependence on imported manufactured goods, the state apparatus ensured a conducive context for non-Malay capital accumulation. Economic wealth remained primarily in the hands of European trading houses, and a small but growing number of Chinese conglomerates. 56
Inherent ISI contradictions and the global spatial reorganization of production (New International Division of Labour or NIDL) prompted a shift in the industrialization policy from ISI to a mixture of ISI and EOI (export-oriented industrialization). 57 Industries in the advanced industrialized countries that wanted to relocate certain steps in the production process to countries with low-wage labor markets were invited to invest in Malaysia. 58
The addition of EOI to existing ISI policies came too late. Different social forces’ perceptions that the postcolonial state elite had been mortgaging the material and symbolic aspects of their future found expression in what the British had so painstakingly nurtured during colonialism, i.e., the identification of ethnicity with economic function and geographic space. In spite of and because of the contradictory positions of protecting Malay rights; ensuring interethnic social order and stability; and facilitating capital accumulation at the very same time, the Western-educated pro-British leadership was unable to define and/or to meet the demands of new social forces that were engendered by development. 59
The Malay state elite’s (for example, Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman) laissez-faire relationships especially with non-Malay capitalists were blamed for rising economic gaps not only between the Malays and Chinese, but also within the Malay community. 60 In 1965, the First Bumiputera (Malay) Economic Congress, which mainly consisted of the small but growing population of the Malay middle classes (such as professionals, academicians, civil servants, and small businessmen) chastised the state for its failure to protect Malay rights, since most Malays neither owned nor controlled Malaysian companies. 61 A key colonial legacy left unaddressed was that most Malays lacked the capital, and the technological and organizational skills, to develop a viable Malay entrepreneurial or business class. Hence, the “Ali-Baba” relationship emerged wherein Malays (“Ali”) sold their business quotas, i.e., licenses and permits to non-Malays (read: Chinese or “Babas”) who, after decades of colonial tutelage, were more experienced in managing companies. Chinese businessmen financially compensated their Malay “sleeping partners” for the privilege of using the latter’s names in business contracts and so forth. Four years later, the Second Bumiputera Economic Congress assailed the state for the way in which a handful of Malays had come to monopolize major corporations’ boards of directors. The low numbers of successful Malay businessmen reinforced the Malay middle classes’ sense of continued market closure to Malays as the country developed.
While the Chinese business elite took advantage of their relationship with Malay politicians and bureaucrats, middle-class Chinese voiced their dissatisfaction with Malay quotas in education and employment. Chinese fears rose when the Malay state elite discussed reducing subsidies to schools that used Chinese as the medium of instruction. 62 Preferential Malay access in education and employment fueled the fear of eventual market closure to the Chinese community.
The postcolonial state’s growing legitimation crises would be compounded by its capital-intensive industrialization policy that relied heavily on the expertise of expatriates. Unemployment rose from 2 percent in 1957 to 8 percent in 1968. The legitimation crisis climaxed in the aftermath of the May 1969 elections or what Malaysians would come to call the “May 13” riots, an event that led to severe restrictions on the future expression of civil-political rights.
In the election, the ruling multiethnic Alliance Party had lost the coveted two-thirds majority needed for amending the Constitution without prior consultation with opposition parties. The Democratic Action Party (DAP), which was predominantly Chinese, celebrated its electoral gains with a victory parade in Kuala Lumpur. Verbal altercations erupted between Chinese celebrants and Malay bystanders. UMNO Youth retaliated by staging a demonstration that ultimately disintegrated into bloodshed. 63
An Expansive State with Parastatal Limbs
Physical violence between Malays and Chinese made evident postcolonial state elites’ unavoidable task of redressing a key legacy of British colonialism. Just as the British constructed a racial division of labor that facilitated predominantly European capital accumulation, the postcolonial state elite were compelled to rearrange the interior frontiers of Malaysian society. The question was how and on what grounds?
The 1969 riots immediately led to an approximate two-year repression of civil-political rights: the suspension of Parliament and the Constitution severely restricted the right to free speech and association in society. Under siege from real and perceived criticisms of his close ties to the British and Chinese elites, Tunku Abdul Rahman stepped down as Prime Minister (1957&-;1970) and he was replaced by Tun Abdul Razak (1970–1976). Among the changes implemented when Parliament reconvened in 1971 were the replacement of the old guards within UMNO by young Malay leaders (e.g., Dr. Mahathir Mohamad) who were more nationalistic and vocal in their pro-Malay stance. The Alliance Party was restructured into Barisan Nasional (National Front), which coopted several opposition parties. UMNO remained the dominant partner in Barisan Nasional. Constitutional amendments were passed to prohibit public discussion, including parliamentary debates on Malay Special Rights/Privileges. It was assumed that interethnic contestations could be eliminated in part by suppressing public discourse on the “sensitive issue” of Malay Special Rights/Privileges. 64
Paradoxically, the blueprint for restructuring society that was introduced in the same year could only heighten and reinforce the production of difference in almost every aspect of Malaysian social life. The blueprint was the NEP, a twenty-year development plan with a two-pronged objective of eradicating poverty regardless of ethnicity, and restructuring society in a way that eliminated the identification of ethnicity with economic function and geographic space:
The plan incorporates a two-pronged New Economic Policy for development. The first prong is to reduce and eventually eradicate poverty, by raising income levels and increasing employment opportunities for all Malaysians, irrespective of race. The second program aims at accelerating the process of restructuring Malaysian society to correct economic imbalance, so as to reduce and eventually eliminate the identification of race with economic function. 65
The first decade of the NEP oversaw the transformation of a small state apparatus inherited from the British, to an expansive state with parastatal limbs. The state’s constitutionally defined role as trustee for Malays would be placed firmly in the foreground. The NEP marked the beginning of an era of “development by [overt] trusteeship,” 66 which legitimized the transition from unregulated capitalism to “planned” capitalism. 67
Implicit in the NEP were strategies of garnering consent from the Malay community, and conversely coercing non-Malays to adhere to state-led capitalist development that was conceptualized with a specific slant toward uplifting the socioeconomic welfare and status of Malays vis-á-vis the Chinese and Indian communities. Existing state financial and nonfinancial enterprises were enlisted and new ones were established to realize the two-pronged objective. Examples of Financial Public Enterprises (FPEs) are Bank Bumiputera and Bank Rakyat. Among the Non-Financial Public Enterprises are the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA), Federal Land Consolidation Authority (FELCRA), and Urban Development Authority (UDA).
FPEs and NFPEs were expected to create a Bumiputera Industrial and Commercial Community (BCIC) or a community of Malay bourgeoisie and middle classes. 68 A key intent was the transfer of corporate wealth from non-Malays to Malays: in 1970, Malays owned only 2.4 percent of total corporate wealth. The NEP target was 30 percent Malay corporate ownership by 1990. 69
The growth of the Malay middle classes was tied to the expansion of the state apparatus. Education, employment, credit, and urban in-migration policies and legislation had the task of disassociating the notion of Malayness with rural subsistence and lifestyle. 70 Malay quotas in tertiary and vocational education, and fellowships for local and overseas study, would increase the number of Malay students, while public universities such as Universiti Malaya admitted three Malays for every non-Malay student. 71 In the area of employment, between 80 to 90 percent of civil service jobs on all levels were reserved for Malays, and a quota of 30 percent Malay employees was implemented in the private sector:
Toward this end, the government has not only openly displayed hiring preferences in the public sector, but has also pressured private enterprises to add Malays to their payroll. This is especially obvious in the civil service, where an estimated 90 percent of employees are Malays, heads of departments are almost always Malays and nearly all employers in the powerful Public Services Department, responsible for hiring and promoting civil servants are Malays. 72
By way of coercive policies toward non-Malays, the NEP began to “indigenize” (to increase the number of Malays in) urban areas and employment sectors that previously were “sinicized” (or made Chinese) during colonial rule. Of the three ethnic groups, Malays experienced the highest rate of urbanization: from 2.2 percent in 1970 to 5.2 percent in 1980. In large towns of 75,000 or more inhabitants the Malay share increased from 21.9 percent in 1970 to 38.2 percent in 1980, compared to the Chinese share of 61.4 percent in 1970 and 49.4 percent in 1980. 73
Policies that brought about “state capitalism” in the 1970s were not at all premised on capital accumulation per se. 74 Rather, the NEP’s “redistribute first, growth later” philosophy was implemented to increase Malay participation in, and ownership of the economy—albeit with the Malay or UMNO-controlled state as trustee. The initial overriding objective was not the pursuit of export-oriented industrialization.
The expansive state with parastatal limbs was informed and characterized by more than a specific class-ethnic nexus. State apparatus and power increasingly were gendered as well: the implementation of the NEP was based on the assumption that the needs and conditions of women in general, and Malay women in particular, were similar to and could be subsumed under the respective aegis of society and community. Emphasis was on the relationship between ethnicity and class, in spite of the officially acknowledged need to restructure Malaysian society and economy.
Women made little overall progress in the public arena. In politics, for example, although the ratio of male to female members of parliament gradually decreased (see table 2.2), the number of Malay women in cabinet positions remained few and far between. Chinese and Indian women have yet to be appointed to cabinet positions. During Tunku Abdul Rahman’s tenure as Prime Minister there was only one Malay female minister. The number increased to two female ministers during Tun Abdul Razak’s tenure. His successor, Tun Hussein Onn (1976–1981) appointed three women to his cabinet. By 1996 there were two female ministers and two female deputy ministers in Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s cabinet.
Table 2.2
Ratio of Male to Female Members of Parliament
| Year | Ratio of Male: Female |
|---|---|
| 1959 | 33.7:1 |
| 1969 | 71:1 |
| 1974 | 30:1 |
| 1978 | 21:1 |
| 1982 | 18.3:1 |
The NEP period legitimized what Jamilah Ariffin called the “feminization of government jobs.” 75 Although many more women were employed in government service by 1987 (see table 2.3), the majority of women were in the positions of Grade C and D low level support staff (see table 2.4 ). Specific intersections of gender-class-ethnic ideologies then became the basis of and shaped the expansive state apparatus in Malaysia.
Table 2.3
Percentage of Male and Female Staff in Government Service
| Sex | 1957 | 1960 | 1967 | 1980 | 1987 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male | 86.3 | 82.9 | 79.0 | 73.0 | 69.4 |
| Female | 13.7 | 17.1 | 21.0 | 27.0 | 30.6 |
Table 2.4
Distribution of Women According to Salary Groups in Government Jobs
| Salary Group | 1968 | 1987 | Growth Rate | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | % | No. | % | (%) | |
| Group A (university degree) |
244 | 1.1 | 19,032 | 8.9 | 22.9 |
| Group B (diploma & higher school cert.) |
748 | 3.2 | 15,066 | 7.0 | 15.8 |
| Group C (Malaysian cert. of education) |
15,804 | 68.5 | 104,153 | 35.6 | 9.9 |
| Group D (no Malaysian cert. of education) |
23,064 | 27.2 | 76,563 | 35.6 | 13.2 |
| TOTAL | 23,064 | 100.0 | 214,814 | 100.0 | |
Changes in Transnational Economic Structures and Processes
The relocation of production plants from advanced industrialized to developing countries facilitated the NEP’s two-pronged objective. Foreign firms were exempt from taxes if they employed a certain number of workers, and if they located their industries in special areas targeted by the state. 76 Free Trade Zones (FTZs), established under the Free Trade Zone Act 1971, began the process of integrating the Malaysian economy into the NIDL, and at the very same time increasing Malaysian employment opportunities. While the state was the largest public employer of Malays, FTZs were major private sector employers of rural-urban migrants (see chapter 6 for further discussion on Malaysian women and the NEP). 77
From 1971 to 1975, the Malaysian economy grew at an average annual rate of 7.3 percent, while the last half of the decade witnessed an average growth rate of 8.6 percent per annum. 78 The discovery of offshore oil and global increases in the price of commodities during the 1970s provided the necessary revenue for state expenditure in the NEP’s first decade. State-led development, however, remained predominantly the export of primary commodities. Tin, rubber, oil, and timber exports consistently out-performed nonresource-based exports. 79 By 1980, the export of manufactured products merely constituted 18.8 percent of total exports (see table 2.7).
Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s ascent to the Prime Ministership in 1981 marked a shift from an emphasis in light to heavy industrialization in preparation for Malaysia’s entry into “NIC-dom.” The “Look East” (1981) and “Malaysia, Inc.” (1983) slogans called on Malaysians to emulate the East Asian (especially Japanese and South Korean) work ethic and to support state-led industrialization programs.
The shift to heavy industrialization occurred in a context in which the economy did not have access to transnational markets, a skilled labor force, a developed domestic market, or the technology and capital. 80 In a period of global economic downturn, the emphasis on heavy industrialization contributed to the 1985–87 economic recession in Malaysia.
The interplay between global, regional, and national economic restructuring processes during the first half of the 1980s left an indelible mark on the direction of development in Malaysia. On the global level, the decline in commodity prices and the debt crises signalled and legitimized the expansion of neoliberalism. The World Bank and IMF responses to the crises were to attach conditionalities to future loans: structural adjustment and stabilization policies dictated public sector expenditure. Consequently, economic liberalization, privatization, and/or deregulation were pursued throughout the developing world. It was within this global context that the Malaysian state elite found it necessary to modify the fiscal and overall development policies:
[T]he state was increasingly beset by debt and revenue difficulties exacerbated by declines in taxes obtained from the oil sector . . . Public sector debt jumped from M$11,349 million in 1981 to M$30,199 million in 1985, from 21% to 41% of GNP. . . . When the recession of 1985/86 arrived the government could no longer simply borrow its way out of trouble. In 1986, it was forced to cut development expenditure to M$13.6 billion, substantially down from M$18.7 billion in 1982. 81
The changing Asian regional division of labor would only hasten the need to redefine the state’s role in development in general, and the specificities of export-oriented industrialization. Singapore, in an attempt to insert itself in the hierarchy of higher value added goods and services between Japan and the rest of Southeast Asia, pursued its “second industrial revolution” policy. 82 Following Hong Kong’s lead, Singaporean firms began specializing in small-batch, high-cost semiconductors, while Malaysian firms were left with the large-batch low-cost assembly work. 83
Malaysia’s ability to attract and retain transnational electronic industries increasingly was jeopardized by emerging low-wage competition from Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines. 84 Yet, it was not easy to shift to value-added goods and services, in part, because policymakers had failed to encourage human-resource development in the country.
The Industrial Master Plan (IMP) 1986–1995 that was released in 1986 highlighted the causes of Malaysia’s economic malaise. Among them were the NEP goal of 30 percent Malay ownership in the economy, and the lack of human-resource development. Solutions included relaxing the 30 percent equity rule; liberalizing foreign investment; reducing tariffs in protected industries; strengthening export promotion; and integrating FTZs with the rest of the economy. In sum, the IMP laid the groundwork for the state’s apparent retreat from the economy: key enterprises were to be sold to private-sector interests. Nonetheless, economic privatization centered mostly on the transfer of state assets to key individuals, and investment conglomerates owned by the three dominant mainstream ethnic political parties of UMNO, MCA, and MIC. 85
The policy of industrial deepening in the 1980s encouraged the rapid growth of the Malaysian Malay and non-Malay middle classes. It is estimated that the Malaysian middle classes constituted at least 37.2 percent of the workforce by 1986. 86 Particularly in the electronics industry, demands for skilled workers and professionals such as lawyers, computer scientists, engineers, and middle-level managers increased. Together with this came a growth of related service-industry personnel such as lawyers, bankers, and architects. 87
Private-sector employment did not evince any serious attempts at wage equalization between men and women. For example, the 1992 Ministry of Human Resources’ report of employment occupations and average monthly wage rates for men and women in the manufacturing industries paint a bleak picture, as seen in table 2.5. Women were not even represented in upper-level management positions and their monthly wages were higher than men’s wages in mostly low-level positions traditionally occupied by what can be called the “nurturing” sex.
Table 2.5
Average Monthly Salaries for Men and Women in Manufacturing Industries by Select Occupations
1992
| Occupation | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| General Manager | $4674.50 | — |
| Managing Director | $5497.77 | — |
| Executive Director | $2547.74 | — |
| Accountant | $3342.35 | $2861.37 |
| Sales/Marketing Manager | $3247.22 | $2372.21 |
| Confidential Secretary | $1155.41 | $1346.64 |
| Stenographer | — | $818.57 |
While the Malaysian Malay, Chinese, and Indian middle classes have expanded, wage rates for women in government service and the corporate world continue to lag behind those of men. 88 Although the NEP increased Malay control and ownership of the economy, the practice of what Sylvia Walby in a different context called “public patriarchy” continues to define women’s activities in public space. 89 The notion that women who work beyond the home are considered and treated as appendages to men is reinforced by and reinforces the practice of “private patriarchy” within the household. The interplay between public and private patriarchy will strongly influence state policies and legislation on women in the workplace, and real and perceived middle-class demands for transnational migrant domestic labor.
Money Politics
During the NEP period, the boundaries between the state and UMNO blurred. As the Malay-controlled state apparatus encroached in the economy, so too did the reach of UMNO. Gomez’s research of the “money politics” phenomenon in Malaysia ascertained that UMNO’s entry into the corporate world had begun in earnest during the early 1970s when Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (then treasurer of UMNO) formed Fleet Holdings Sdn. Bhd. to acquire The Straits Times Press. That which began as an effort to Malaysian-ize the country’s leading English-language newspaper, led to the close linkage among the corporate, political, and bureaucratic worlds. During the 1970s and 1980s, UMNO, MCA, and MIC respectively would build and control complex webs of interlocking corporations. Of the three, UMNO’s dominance of Barisan Nasional and the state apparatus meant that the Malay politico-bureaucratic elite and their supporters overwhelmingly controlled FPEs and NFPEs. 90
By the second decade of the NEP, the Malay middle classes had become the major base of UMNO, as the Malaysian middle classes in general were becoming key social forces of the state. The number of Malays among all registered professionals (architects, accountants, engineers, dentists, doctors, veterinary surgeons, lawyers, and surveyors) increased from 47 percent in 1970 to 58.8 percent by 1990. The NEP’s apparent success in restructuring Malay employment was evident in higher Malay employment rates in the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. Similarly, Malay ownership of wealth increased from 2.4 percent in 1970 to 20.3 percent in 1990 (see table 2.6).
Table 2.6
NEP Restructuring Targets and Achievements
| Target (%) |
Achieved (%) |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | 1990 | 1990 | |
| EMPLOYMENT RESTRUCTURING | |||
| Bumiputera/Malay | |||
| Primary Sectora | 67.6 | 61.4 | 71.2 |
| Secondary Sectorb | 30.8 | 51.9 | 48.0 |
| Tertiary Sectorc | 37.9 | 48.4 | 51.0 |
| Non-Bumiputera/Non-Malay | |||
| Primary Sector | 32.4 | 38.6 | 28.8 |
| Secondary Sector | 69.2 | 48.1 | 52.0 |
| Tertiary Sector | 62.1 | 51.6 | 49.0 |
| OWNERSHIP RESTRUCTURING | |||
| Bumiputerad | 2.4 | 30.0 | 20.3 |
| Other Malaysian | 32.3 | 40.0 | 46.2 |
| Foreigners | 63.3 | 30.0 | 25.1 |
| Nominee Companiese | 2.0 | — | 8.4 |
The Malaysian economy’s annual growth rate averaged 8.8 percent in the last half of the NEP’s second decade. The incidence of poverty declined from 49.3 percent in 1970 to 15 percent in 1990 or 1 percent better than the 16 percent target set by the state. 91 Exports of manufactured products improved vastly. In 1970, manufactured products only contributed 6.5 percent of the total value of exports. By 1990, manufactured products constituted over 50 percent of the total value of exports (see Table 2.7).
Table 2.7
Export Structure by Select Categories
| 1970 | 1975 | 1980 | 1985 | 1990 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Value of Exports (millions) |
1686.6 | 3846.6 | 12,944.7 | 15,637.9 | 29,418.7 |
| Agriculture & Other Raw Materials (%) |
50 | 34.1 | 30.9 | 18.3 | 11.3 |
| Manufactured Goods (%) |
6.5 | 17.3 | 18.8 | 27.2 | 54.2 |
However, heightened public discourse on corruption and theft in parastatals coupled with the internal crisis within UMNO during the second half of the 1980s, would bring about state strategies of coercion-repression and consent that were used respectively to silence opposition to the NEP, and to manage the politics of the expanding Malay and non-Malay middle classes (see below).
Polanyian Double Movement: The Rise and Response of New Social Forces
In spite of statistics indicating the NEP’s success in restructuring society, the affirmative action development policy was extended beyond 1990, in the form of the National Development Policy (NDP) 1991–2000. 92 The NDP places greater emphasis on export-oriented development with an increased role for the private sector; on upgrading human resource and agricultural development; and on the growth of the BCIC. The Malaysian economy, like its Southeast Asian neighbors, continues to move away from a reliance on primary commodity exports to that of exports in manufactured products (see table 2.8).
Table 2.8
Merchandise Exports of Select Southeast Asian Economies
| % Share of Merchandise Exports | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Fuels, Minerals, Metals |
Other Primary Commodities |
Machinery & other Equipment |
Other Manufacturers |
Textile Fibers Clothing Fibers |
|||||
| 1970 | 1993 | 1970 | 1993 | 1970 | 1993 | 1970 | 1993 | 1970 | 1993 | |
| Malaysia | 30 | 14 | 63 | 21 | 2 | 41 | 6 | 24 | 1 | 16 |
| Philippines | 23 | 7 | 70 | 17 | 0 | 19 | 8 | 58 | 2 | 9 |
| Indonesia | 44 | 32 | 54 | 15 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 48 | 1 | 16 |
| Thailand | 15 | 2 | 77 | 26 | 0 | 28 | 8 | 45 | 8 | 15 |
| Singapore | 25 | 14 | 45 | 6 | 11 | 55 | 20 | 25 | 6 | 4 |
The NDP’s overall objective is to ensure Malaysia’s coveted membership in the group of developed countries by 2020, hence the slogan “Vision 2020.” The construction of the modern caring Malaysian family is expected to be the social foundation of a developed Malaysian society. As Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad put it, the goal is to establish “a fully caring society and a caring culture, a social system in which society will come before self, in which the welfare of the people will not revolve around the state or the individual but around a strong and resilient family system.” 93
The expansion of the Malaysian middle classes is considered a key component of successful export-oriented development. In 1991, the Prime Minister insisted that, “A developed Malaysia must have a wide and vigorous middle class [emphasis mine] and must provide full opportunities for those in the bottom third to climb their way out of relative poverty.” 94 Chapter 6 presents a detailed analysis of the official vision for the Malaysian middle classes, and the role that Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers are expected to play in this vision.
While economic statistics may reflect the successful rearrangement of the interior frontiers of Malaysian society, they do not speak to the different ways in which opposition to the NEP emerged during the 1970s and 1980s. The period of the NEP gave rise to a Polanyian double movement in which certain groups within society mobilized and demanded protective measures against the real and perceived negative socioeconomic consequences of Malaysia’s integration into the global capitalist economy. 95 Such opposition was met, most visibly, by the repressive powers of the state apparatus.
Aside from what may be considered the “usual and expected” contestations between Malays and Chinese over issues such as education and language, the most potent challengers emerged from within the Malay community. 96 Fiscal policies that privileged the industrial sector had had an adverse effect on rural Malays.
The Malay peasantry increasingly were exposed to global fluctuations in commodity prices without state support that could buffer the peoples against downward trends. Peasant protesters would be joined by mostly Malay university students who rallied against a capitalist development path that neglected the poor and the rural. On several occasions, peasants and students clashed with the authorities, e.g., the 1974 Baling incident over declining rubber prices, and the 1980 Kedah strike over state elimination of cash subsidies. The University and University Colleges (Amendment) Act 1975 was implemented to prohibit on and off-campus demonstrations by students and staff. To quell middle class support for peasants and students, civil servants were coopted by wage raises. 97
Many of the Malay students who participated in peasant strikes also were members of Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM) or the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement, which was led by local and foreign-educated Malay students. 98 During the 1970s, ABIM openly criticized the Malay state elite’s promotion of a Western capitalist development path that was perceived to encourage the socioeconomic and cultural decline of the Malay community. The NEP was accused of promoting un-Islamic attitudes and values since it was premised fundamentally on ethnic, religious, and class discrimination.
ABIM called for the establishment of an Islamic state complete with Islamic judicial and economic systems. Other dakwah (literally, to proselytize) groups such as Darul Arqam and Tabligh, soon joined the Malayo-Muslim critique of the state. 99 The dakwah groups were far from united in their critique and response to the direction of Malaysian development. Tabligh, for example, focused on proselytizing activities, whereas Darul Arqam advocated a retreat from capitalist modes of production and western lifestyles. 100 Collectively, however, they projected an anti-Western and anti-capitalist assault on the NEP, hence state legitimacy:
Suggestions raised by some elements of the dakwah brigade that serious Muslims should be prepared to substitute spiritual for material values and that excoriate all forms of materialism, in general, particularly when derived from the west, thus clearly strike at the very heart of the government’s economic philosophy, and undermine its strategies for creating a united Malay front, and vote, as the basis of its own power. 101
Parti Al-Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), the only registered Islamic (opposition) political party, added to the chorus of Islamicists by framing UMNO’s promotion of capitalist over Islamic values in terms of “kafir-mengafir” (literally, to be infidel-ized). 102 Public discourse gradually focused on the issue of whether the state and its pro-state Malay supporters were true Muslims or infidels. Islamicists painted a picture of the way the Malay state elite had successively mortgaged Muslim lifestyles and values for a Westernized culture and society. A recurrent theme was the perceived increasingly “loose” morality and sexuality of female factory workers in FTZs (see chapter 6).
Preferential treatment for rural supporters of UMNO contributed to the perception that the UMNO-controlled state apparatus was intent on undermining Islamicists. There were cases in which rural peoples were “punished” for refusing to support UMNO during key elections: development aid to certain areas either was delayed or at times simply ignored. 103
The widening economic gap between elite and poor Malays was important in fueling the argument that state-led capitalist development had become the bane of Malay social existence. Senior and retired politico-bureaucrats who managed the resources of NFPEs and FPEs had used their positions to accumulate wealth and to dispense patronage to supporters of UMNO. 104 Rural and urban Malays who did not enjoy access to state resources and patronage were marginalized from the processes of redistributing old wealth and generating new wealth. 105 Some Malays felt increasingly disinherited, especially since official rhetoric of improving the socioeconomic lot of all Malays meant, in practice, reinforcing the processes of wealth accumulation by those who already were in positions of power and by those who had access to bureaucrats and politicians. 106 During the NEP’s first decade, intraethnic income inequality had surpassed that of interethnic income inequality. 107
The Third Bumiputera Economic Congress demanded that state enterprises relinquish their control of acquired corporate assets to privately owned Malay businesses. 108 State authorities responded by establishing the Amanah Saham Nasional (ASN), or National Unit Trust Scheme in 1981 to purchase Permodalan Nasional Berhad’s assets and to transfer them to the private sector. To keep corporate assets in Malay hands, ASN shares could be bought and sold only through ASN. By 1987, 2 million Malays had purchased ASN shares. However, 75 percent of the shares were owned by 1.3 percent of the Malays. Put simply, wealthy Malays continued to accumulate wealth at an uninterrupted pace. 109 Conventional wisdom among Malay small-business owners was that the average Malay (“Ali”) was no longer a “sleeping partner” of a Chinese (“Baba”) businessman. Rather, he had become the “sleeping partner” of Malay-controlled state enterprises such as Majlis Amanah Rakyat Malaysia (MARA) that were responsible for promoting Malay entrepreneurship. General sentiment was reflected in a popular phrase during that period: “First it was the Ali-Baba relationship, now it’s the Ali-MARA relationship, soon it’ll be all MARA and no Ali.” 110
The NEP was seen to have nurtured a “statist capitalist class,” a “bureaucratic capitalist class,” or “a business/capitalist class,” that exhibited rent-seeking behavior. 111 High-level Malay bureaucrats, politicians, and members of the Malay royalty, together with a handful of Malay and non-Malay capitalists, gradually came to control Malaysia’s economic resources. 112
Newspaper reports (especially by the foreign press) of corruption and mismanagement in NFPEs and FPEs reinforced public perception that the NEP had benefitted only a small number of elite Malays, and simultaneously had legitimized irresponsible behavior among state bureaucrat-managers. 113 Chinese capitalists and political leaders also were not immune to criticisms from the Chinese and Malay communities. The 1980s failure of MCA-supported Deposit Taking Cooperatives had fragmented the Chinese community. 114
Given the context of modern Malaysian politics, Islamic criticism arguably was the only politically legitimate avenue by which Malays could challenge the UMNO-controlled state and its policies that engendered wide economic gaps between elite and poor Malays. 115 In the context of export-oriented development, the Malay middle classes’ pursuit of distinctive lifestyles had pitted Malays against one another. Heightened Islamic discourse in public space helped fragment the Malay middle classes according to different categories of social identity such as “Malayness in Muslim dress” or “Malayness in modern dress.” 116 Some scholars have maintained that the dakwah movement enjoyed a degree of urban middle-class Malay support partly because Islam provided the spiritual foundation for coping with rapid physical and social dislocation brought about by the NEP. 117 The NEP’s objective of creating a BCIC via the series of interrelated policies discussed earlier meant that urban Muslim and/or modern middle-class Malay lifestyles were remarkably different from that of the fisherman and farmer.
The state’s coercive-repressive apparatus was unabashedly employed in response to public discourse on corruption in FPEs and NFPEs, and to the Islamicist challenge. A slew of repressive legislation (and later amendments to some of them) was used to silence oppositional discourse and public dissemination of information critical of state policies: the Internal Security Act 1960, the Official Secrets Act 1972, the Printing Presses and Publi-cations Act 1984, and the Societies Act 1966 are but a few of the repressive legislative weapons.
In the early 1980s, ABIM’s charismatic leader Anwar Ibrahim was coopted by an offer to become the Minister of Culture (today, he is Deputy Prime Minister). The state elite also overtly pursued an Islamization program to emphasize that their policies could be and were more “Muslim” than the Islamicists. Officially sanctioned dakwah groups, and various Islamic institutions such as the Islamic International University, the Islamic Foundation and Social Welfare, and the Islamic Insurance Scheme, reflected the Islamic orientation of the state. 118
As the Islamicist threat abated, opposing opinions arose from within UMNO. Prior to 1970, 62.3 percent of UMNO’s constituency were rural Malays. By 1985, that proportion had dropped to 41.3 percent as the Malay middle classes, e.g., professionals, bureaucrats, academicians, and the small-business owners gradually came to dominate UMNO’s rank and file. 119 The expanding Malay middle classes had become major social forces of UMNO and the state.
The second half of the 1980s would characterize overt state encroachment in the realm of civil-political rights. Unresolved political differences between the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister led to the latter’s resignation. Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s selection of Ghafar Baba to replace Musa Hitam in 1986 continued the in-fighting within UMNO. 120 The crisis intensified in 1987 when a breakaway faction of UMNO politicians assumed the lead in criticizing the way in which the NEP had been used by certain high-level bureaucrats and politicians for self-aggrandizement purposes. At the UMNO General Assembly meeting, Musa Hitam and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (then UMNO’s most senior Vice-President) challenged the incumbents for the presidency and deputy presidency of UMNO. The election winners would take control of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Ministership, assuming that the UMNO-led National Front coalition retained its majority.
The challengers, dubbed “Team B” by the media, accused “Team A,” the incumbents, of perpetuating inequality within the Malay community by disbursing NEP funds to garner favor, influence, and patronage. 121 The fight for control over UMNO, and thus the country, fragmented members of the General Assembly. When the votes were tabulated, Team A had won by a slight margin, and the dispute disintegrated into a lawsuit filed by Team B. 122
In that very same year, the Chinese community mobilized over the issue of the UMNO-controlled state’s promotion of non-Mandarin speaking Chinese headmasters in Chinese vernacular schools. 123 When the major Chinese mainstream and opposition political parties organized a protest rally, UMNO’s Youth division responded with a proposed rally of its own to oppose Chinese cultural self-determination. It seemed as if the May 13, 1969 riots were on the verge of resurrection. The state resorted to “Operation Lallang.” Malay and non-Malay mainstream and opposition political party members, academicians, professionals, labor union members, artists, activists, and Islamicists were arrested under the Internal Security Act that empowered the authorities to retain anyone for two years without trial or justification. 124
In this period, the powers of the judiciary and the Malay royalty—the two legitimate avenues to which dissidents could appeal—were severely circumscribed. The Lord President of the Supreme Court was dismissed, and Malay royalty’s legal immunity gradually would be eroded by a series of politico-legal maneuvers. 125
The frequent exercise of repressive legislation was seen by the state elite as necessary to ensure social order in the midst of restructuring the economy and society in Malaysia. Scholars of Malaysian development would identify the 1980s with a distinctly authoritarian mode of governance. 126 Nonetheless, the NEP era also embodied a key strategy of garnering consent that involved the in-migration of low-wage labor from the Philippines and Indonesia.
“Guest” Workers
In spite of the NEP, rapid economic growth allowed Chinese and Indians to continue participating in the labor force. From 1970 to 1980, Malay, Chinese, and Indian participation rates respectively increased from 48.4 to 50.6 percent, 47.7 to 50.8 percent, and 48.5 to 53.5 percent. 127 Within the Malay community, the rate of labor force participation in the agricultural sector dropped from 73 percent in 1970 to 46.8 percent in 1980, as Malay participation rates in the service and industrial sectors respectively increased from 5.6 to 26 percent and from 2.7 to 11.8 percent. 128 Malaysian Malay, Chinese, and Indian women continued to be associated primarily with jobs such as nursing, teaching, and clerical work, that highlighted their reproductive role. 129
A key consequence of the NEP in general, and the establishment of TNC-owned factories to FTZs in particular, was the decline in the low-wage labor supply. In the late 1970s, Malaysians already were employing female domestic servants, and female and male construction and plantation workers from Indonesia and the Philippines.
[The NEP’s] simultaneous emphasis both on urbanization/industrialization and rural development created an acute labor shortage in the agricultural sector when the rural Malay population moved into urban areas in response to the government’s urbanization policy. The short-fall in labor in the rural sector was overcome by the solicitation of Indonesians by contractors and sub-contractors such as FELDA (Federal Land Development Authority) RISDA (Rubber Industry Small Holders Development Authority), and FELCRA (Federal Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority). Such labor, it appears, was brought in surreptitiously, either through illegal syndicates or informal social networks. 130
Table 2.9 shows that the unemployment rate averaged approximately 6 percent in the second half of the 1980s. Malaysian employment of illegal foreign or “guest” workers was related, in part, to the NEP’s urbanization and employment policies that had heightened expectations of rural Malays for better-paying white-collar employment in urban areas. The predominant Malay perception was that white-collar urban employment, as more “modern,” carried with it a higher social status.
Table 2.9
Participation & Unemployment Rates
| Total Labor Force |
Employed | Unemployed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | (’000) | (’000) | (%) |
| 1976 | 4662 | 4376 | 6.1 |
| 1979 | 4955 | 4700 | 5.2 |
| 1980 | 5122 | 4835 | 5.6 |
| 1983 | 5727 | 5429 | 5.2 |
| 1986 | 6222 | 5707 | 8.3 |
| 1989 | 6850 | 6390 | 6.7 |
| 1990 | 7042 | 6686 | 5.1 |
| 1991 | 7241 | 6926 | 4.3 |
| 1992 | 7441 | 7148 | 3.9 |
| 1993 | 7646 | 7371 | 3.6 |
Between 1978 and 1985, the declining supply of low-wage labor had threatened to undermine the viability of export industries based on natural resources, hence the economy’s competitiveness overseas. The rubber industry reported severe labor shortages that resulted in the loss of more than 50,000 tonnes of rubber at a cost of RM123 million. 131 The oil palm industry faced similar problems. Even during the mid-1980s economic recession with an average unemployment rate of approximately 8 percent (see table 2.9), these two industries failed to attract local labor.
It was reported that Malaysians, especially the youth, increasingly refused to work in plantations because of low wages and bad working conditions. Wage differentials between the industrial and agricultural sectors were identified as the major cause of declining local labor supply. 132 Agriplantation employers consistently refused to raise wages to attract local labor since raising wages on one level would necessarily entail raising wages on all levels, which then would decrease profits.
In 1979, major newspapers reported approximately 100,000 illegal Indonesian and Filipino migrant plantation workers respectively in Johor and Sabah. Mainstream and opposition political party members, together with labor unions, responded to the reports by demanding that the Immigration Department put an end to the illegal in-migration of foreign workers. Critics argued that illegal migrant workers were threats to national security (e.g., Indonesian “communist” infiltration and covert Philippine-Christian proselytizing activities). 133 In spite of protests, the federal government refused to regulate or ban illegal migrants, asserting instead that migrant workers “were necessary to fill the manpower needs of the state [in reference to the issue of illegal migrants in Sabah].” 134
I argue that the initial refusal to regulate or to ban illegal migrant labor was due to two key reasons. It was not politically feasible to undermine the NEP’s pro-Malay urbanization policy by openly encouraging rural Malays to be agricultural workers in private and state-owned agriplantations, or to work in the low-status occupation of urban domestic servant. The irony, in the case of the agricultural sector, is that agriplantations managed by NFPEs such as FELDA, were designed to increase rural Malay employment opportunities. There also was no economic justification, especially within the multiethnic context, to officially open the country’s immigration doors: “Malaysian officials note that the country has a 6 per cent unemployment rate [in 1980]; hence there are locals available to do estate work, but they are too ‘choosy.’ ” 135
According to Richard Dorall, implicit in non-Malay public criticism of state authorities’ refusal to ban especially illegal Indonesian migrant workers (many of whom were the ethnic, religious and cultural cousins of Malays), was the belief that the Malay-controlled state apparatus had wanted to increase covertly the Malay population at the political, economic, and social expense of the non-Malay communities: “From the very beginning, non-Malay objections to the large-scale and uncontrolled presence of Indonesian migrant workers were based less on economic reasons . . . but more on their fears that the Indonesians, being Muslims and culturally almost identical to the Malays, would in fact stay as immigrants and numerically increase the Malay population number.” 136 Yet, if state authorities officially banned the in-migration of illegal Indonesian workers, then the low-wage labor woes of the agriplantation industry (of which NFPEs were major participants), would be left unaddressed.
Newspaper reports of the growing presence of illegal Indonesian migrant workers highlighted a potential clash between state authorities, non-Malays, and even Malays who objected to their presence: by 1983, there were approximately 300,000 to 600,000 illegal Indonesian migrants in Malaysia. The political leadership acted by signing the 1984 Medan Pact with Indonesia to control illegal migration. Specific procedures were delineated for the legal in-migration of Indonesian workers. 137 Three years later, the pact was rescinded because it could not effectively control the in-migration of illegal Indonesian workers: migrants considered the legal route too time-consuming, complicated, and costly. 138
As the Malaysian economy began to recover from the 1985–87 economic recession, employers from all ethnic groups openly complained of the increasing difficulty in hiring Malaysian workers for domestic service, plantation, and construction work. The Ministry of Labour (which was later renamed the Ministry of Human Resources) was pressured to officially acknowledge the economy’s demands for low-wage foreign migrant labor:
In Malaysia, as in the case with most countries, unemployment and labor shortages exist. These shortages are concentrated in the plantation and some agricultural sectors in low paying and low status jobs. Given the general rise in the standard of living and improved job opportunities in Malaysia, the youth of today are not prepared to undertake these jobs and prefer to migrate to urban areas in search of better jobs. Some would even “wait” for better employment opportunities. Towards the end of this period, the government began to initiate the process of legalizing the use of migrant labor to alleviate these shortages. 139
The confluence of several factors prompted the formal reopening of the immigration gates: the NEP’s objective of restructuring society; the state and private sector-owned industries’ common goal of maintaining the competitive edge in Malaysian commodity exports; and the IMP recommendation of improving Malaysian human-resource development in response to changing regional economic structures and processes. At the very same time, the transnationalization of migrant labor provided an easy solution for public and private sector employers. Labor out-migration from neighboring countries supplied the Malaysian economy with an unending stream of legal low-wage plantation, construction, and domestic workers (see chapter 4).
At the outset, there appears to be nothing surreptitious about the Immigration Department’s willingness to reopen the gates and regulate the in-migration of “guest” workers. 140 Similar to the in-migration of Chinese and Indian workers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the in-migration of Filipino and Indonesian workers in the late twentieth century is encouraged to sustain capitalist accumulation. However, the timing and content of postcolonial state regulation of foreign female domestic workers is crucial to understanding the relationship between contemporary domestic service and the strategy of consent.
During the second half of the 1980s, the negative socioeconomic consequences engendered by the NEP had put into question the continued viability of the development path. In this context, the mutually reinforcing processes of Malaysian demands for domestic servants and the transnationalization of migrant female domestic labor would help maintain state legitimacy. A closer analysis of specific rules governing the in-migration and employment of foreign female domestic workers reveals the state elite’s strategy of garnering consent from key social forces, namely the expanding Malaysian Malay and non-Malay middle classes. In the next chapter I discuss how and why official regulation of the in-migration and employment of Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers addressed indirectly criticisms that the NEP had not benefitted Malays, and subsequently allowed the state elite to police the form and content of the Malaysian middle classes.
Notes on the Epigraphs
(In order of appearance): Arthur Waley, ed., Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China (Garden City: Doubleday, 1939), pp. 111, 161; Tun Abdul Razak, “Foreword” to Second Malaysia Plan 1971–1975, Government of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Government Printing Press, 1971), p. vi.
Endnotes
Note 1: The phrase “interior frontiers” is borrowed from Fichte. For an excellent analysis of different colonial manipulations of the interior frontiers of Southeast Asian societies, see Ann Stoler, “Sexual Affronts and Racial Frontiers: European Identities and the Cultural Politics of Exclusion in Colonial Southeast Asia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 34, no. 3 (1992): 514–551. Back.
Note 2: For at least six years after independence in 1957, the formal name of the independent geopolitical entity was the Federation of Malaya, which consisted of eleven “states” on the peninsula. In 1963 with the inclusion of the three British protectorates of Singapore, Sabah, and Sarawak (the latter two are on the island of Borneo), the official name was changed from the Federation of Malaya to the Federation of Malaysia. Until recently, it was common to use the nouns West Malaysia and East Malaysia in reference to the two geographically separate subunits of the Federation of Malaysia. Today, official discourse has replaced East Malaysia with the names of the two “states” of Sabah and Sarawak so as to avoid confusing the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia with East Malaysia. Subsequently, “West Malaysia” was replaced with “Peninsular Malaysia.” Back.
Note 3: David Joel Steinberg, et. al., In Search of Southeast Asia: A Modern History, revised edition (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), p. 77. Back.
Note 4: “He, who, by clearing or cultivation, or by building a house, causes that to live with which was dead (meng-hidup-kan bumi), acquires a proprietary right in the land, which now becomes tanah hidup (live land) in contradistinction to tanah mati (dead land). His right to the land is absolute as long as occupation continues, or as long as the land bears signs of appropriation.” W. E. Maxwell, quoted in Paul Kratoska, “The Peripatetic Peasant and Land Tenure in British Malaya,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 16, no. 1 (1985): 19. Back.
Note 5: Judith Nagata, Reflowering of Malaysian Islam: Modern Religious Radicals and Their Roots (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1984), p. 3. Back.
Note 6: J. M. Gullick, Indigenous Political Systems of Western Malaya (London: Athlone Press, 1958); and Steinberg, et. al., In Search of Southeast Asia. Back.
Note 7: Islamic scholars were present in Malaya as early as the thirteenth century. Mary Turnbull argues that Islam did not gain a strong foothold until the fifteenth century because of fundamental differences between Muslim tenets and practices, and traditional Malay animism. According to the earliest known written record of Malay social life (Sejarah Melayu), the Melakan ruler dreamt of the Prophet who told him that a missionary from Jeddah would arrive on the Melakan coast (see especially Richard O. Windstedt, “The Malay Annals or Sejarah Melayu” Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 16, no. 3 [1938]: 1–226). The prophecy manifested the very next day, after which the Malay ruler and his subjects converted to Islam. For a concise history of precolonial Malaya, see Mary Turnbull, A Short History of Malaya, Singapore and Brunei (Singapore: Graham Brash, 1980), pp. 21–23. Back.
Note 8: “[T]he limits of Malay identity, while stretched and partly democratized by Islam, were still constrained by political loyalties and by ties to a certain kind of established authority. By the end of the nineteenth century, most Malay rulers had succeeded in formalizing this association between royal and religious authority by appointing official interpreters of the religious law (mufti, or in some states, Syeikh al-Islam) who were dependent on princely patronage and upheld the moral power, or Brahmin-like, even added to its aura. These mufti were empowered to issue doctrinal rulings (fatwa) regarded as valid and legally binding on all Muslim residents in the sultan’s domain. It follows that, in some cases, their rulings tended to support the political status quo.” Nagata, Reflowering, pp. 11–12 Back.
Note 9: Wazir Jahan Karim, Women and Culture: Between Malay Adat and Islam (Boulder: Westview, 1992). Back.
Note 10: Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden” belonged to part of the larger Romanticist movement that was preoccupied with the construction of “otherness.” During the nineteenth century, the combination of the already-proven effectiveness of typography, with that of British mercantilist expansion further stimulated the Romanticist quest for difference, arguably only to culminate in social Darwinism (e.g., the construction and ordering of sociobiological categories). See Jacques Barzun for the argument that Romanticism was not an enemy of “science” or the “scientific project.” Barzun did not consider the novelist/poet and the scientist as fundamentally different in their schemata for understanding social life (Classic, Romantic and Modern [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975]) Back.
Note 11: W. L. Blythe, “Historical Sketch of Chinese Labour in Malaysia,” Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Asiatic Society 20 (1947): 64–114; R. N. Jackson, Immigrant Labour and the Development of Malaysia, 1786–1920 (Kuala Lumpur: Government Press, 1961); and Saw Swee Hock, The Population of Peninsular Malaysia (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1988). Back.
Note 12: C. Northcote Parkinson, British Intervention in Malay 1876–1887 (Singapore: University of Malaya Press, 1960); and C. D. Cowan, Nineteenth Century Malaya: The Origins of British Colonial Control (London: Oxford University Press, 1961). Back.
Note 13: Gullick, Indigenous Political System, chapters 4 and 5, passim; and, Steinberg, ed., In Search of Southeast Asia, part 1. Back.
Note 14: Donald Nonini, British Colonial Rule and the Resistance of the Malay Peasantry, 1900–1957, Monograph series no. 38 (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, Yale Center for International and Area Studies, 1992), p. 52. Back.
Note 16: Members of secret societies “were bound together by the rituals of sworn brotherhood around a charismatic and semi-mystical head. Being tightly knit, and glorifying martial prowess, they were particularly suited to the task of colonization and self-protection demanded on a pioneering community.” Heng Pek Koon, Chinese Politics in Malaysia: A History of the Malaysian Chinese Association (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 15. For detailed descriptions of secret society rituals, see J. D. Vaughan, The Mannerisms and Customs of the Straits Chinese (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1879); and Mak Lau Fong, The Sociology of Secret Societies: A Study of Chinese Secret Societies in Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1981). Back.
Note 17: Blythe, “Historical Sketch,” p. 104. Back.
Note 18: Ibid., pp. 68–97. Back.
Note 19: “The comparative Chinese success in the tin mines was an affront to European expertise. An effective spread of European plantations might retrieve not only profits but also face.” Philip Loh, The Malay States: 1877–1895: Political Change and Social Policy (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 155. Back.
Note 20: Colin E. R. Abraham, “Racial and Ethnic Manipulation in Colonial Malaya,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 6, no. 1 (1983): 24. Back.
Note 21: It is known that labor contractors also lied to the migrants by promising a better life in Malaya. Upon arrival, many migrant workers refused to work in deplorable conditions found in the plantations. Kernial Singh Sandhu argues that tenuous Dutch-British relations also contributed to administrative problems in regulating Javanese migrants (Indians in Malaya: Some Aspects of Their Immigration and Settlement (1786–1957) [London: Cambridge University Press, 1969]). See also Saw, Peninsular Malaysia. Back.
Note 22: Abraham, “Racial and Ethnic Manipulation,” p. 24. Back.
Note 23: Saw, Peninsular Malaysia, pp. 23–24 Back.
Note 24: Julian Lim, “Social Problems of Chinese Women Immigrants in Malaysia, 1925–1940,” Malaysian History 23 (1989): 101–109; Sharon Lee, “Female Immigrants and Labour in Colonial Malaya 1860–1947,” International Migration Review 23, no. 2 (1990): 309–331; and Lai Ah Eng, Peasants, Proletarians and Prostitutes: A Preliminary Investigation Into the Work of Chinese Women in Colonial Malaya, Research Notes and Discussion Papers no. 59 (Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, 1986) Back.
Note 25: Lee, “Female Immigrants,” pp. 314–316. Back.
Note 26: Frank A. Swettenham wrote that Indian workers were preferred over Chinese laborers because “[T]hey have this advantage over the Chinese, that while the Indian women and children emigrate with the men of the family, the Chinese do not” (The Real Malay [London: J. Lane, 1900], p. 40). See also, J. Parmer, Colonial Labour Policy and Administration (New York: J. J. Augustin, 1960) Back.
Note 27: See especially C. Kondapi, Indians Overseas: 1838–1949 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1951); Ravindra K. Jain, South Indians on the Plantation Frontier in Malaya (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970); Sandhu, Indians in Malaya; and Michael Stenson, Race and Colonialism in Western Malaysia: The Indian Case (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1980). Back.
Note 28: Prakash Jain, “Exploitation and Reproduction of Migrant Indian Labour in Colonial Guyana and Malaysia,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 18, no. 2 (1988): 189–206. Back.
Note 29: Julian Lim (“Social Problems of Chinese Women Immigrants”) identified three categories of prostitutes: sold, pawned, and voluntary. He argued that the last category of women were not “coerced” into prostitution—i.e., the women were not financially obligated to work as prostitutes. I take issue with his category of “voluntary” prostitutes because “voluntary” implies a degree of “free” choice. It is hard to assume that women would have favored prostitution over other kinds of work. Perhaps, further historical research on this category of sex-workers will shed more light on the matter. For more discussion on the mui tsai system, see Bruno Lasker, Human Bondage in Southeast Asia (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1972); and Janet Lim, Sold For Silver (Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1958). Back.
Note 30: Lee, “Female Immigrants”; Lim, “Social Problems of Chinese Women Immigrants”; Lai, Peasants, Proletarians and Prostitutes; and Kenneth Gaw, Superior Servants: The Legendary Cantonese Amahs of the Far East (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1991). Back.
Note 31: Lim, “Social Problems of Chinese Women Immigrants,” p. 106. Back.
Note 32: Lee, “Female Immigrants,” p. 316. Back.
Note 33: Nonini, British Colonial Rule, p. 73 Back.
Note 34: Cited in William R. Roff, The Origins of Malay Nationalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 125. Back.
Note 35: Nonini, British Colonial Rule, p. 74 Back.
Note 36: Li Dun Jen, British Malaya: An Economic Analysis (New York: The American Press, 1955), p. 40 Back.
Note 37: See especially Paul H. Kratoska, “Rice Cultivation and the Ethnic Division of Labor in British Malaya,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 24, no. 2 (1982): 280–314, and “The Peripatetic Peasant.” Back.
Note 38: For example, R. J. Wilkinson, the Federal Inspector of Schools said, “The best and most promising boys, who will form the nucleus of proposed Lower Division of the Civil Service, can be kept on for three years more for advanced studies in England, and for the study of law, history and literature” (quoted in Rex Stevenson, Cultivators and Administrators: British Educational Policy Towards the Malays, 1875–1906 [Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975], p. 179). Back.
Note 39: For more in-depth discussion of the consequences of the introduction of mass literacy and the contents of textbooks in Malay schools, see Amin Sweeney, A Full Hearing: Orality and Literacy in the Malay World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). Back.
Note 40: Stevenson, Cultivators and Administrators, p. 10. Back.
Note 41: “Not a single Malay can be pointed out as having raised himself by perseverance and diligence, as a merchant or otherwise, to a prominent position in the Colony. The Klings, natives of the Coromandel Coast, are an active, industrious race it is true, but neither can it be said that any of them has risen to any distinction. The Chinese are sober, industrious, crafty, proud, conceited, treacherous.” J. D. Vaughan, Mannerisms and Customs, p. 1. See also, Syed Hussein Alatas, The Myth of the Lazy Native: A Study of the Image of the Malays, Filipinos, and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th Century and its Function in the Ideology of Colonial Capitalism (London: Frank Cass, 1977). Back.
Note 42: Leslie O’Brien critiques mainstream scholars’ reliance on Furnivall’s concept of the “plural” society to describe colonial and postcolonial Malaysian society. She argues that Malaysian society was not as “plural” (distinct but parallel social institutions for each group of peoples) as we have been led to believe by scholarly reconstructions of social life (“Class, Gender and Ethnicity: The Neglect of An Integrated Framework,” Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 10, no. 2 (1982): 1–12). I agree with her to the extent that the plural society framework neglects the possibilities of horizontal bonds, i.e., class formation, maintenance, and contestation. However, the issue here is not whether the “races” intermingled in their everyday lives—especially during the colonial period. The point is that colonial intentions were to keep them apart. Hence, the perceived existence of a plural colonial society Back.
Note 43: James Puthucheary, Ownership and Control in the Malayan Economy: A Study of the Structure of Ownership and Control and its Effects on the Development of Secondary Industries and Economic Growth in Malaya and Singapore (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1960), p. xiv Back.
Note 44: James Jedudason, Ethnicity and the Economy: The State, Chinese Business, and Multinationals in Malaysia Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 32 Back.
Note 45: In colonial Malaya during the 1920s, Muslims educated in the Middle East (especially in Egypt), questioned the legitimacy of the religious bureaucracy that the British had constructed. The debates between Kaum Muda (foreign-educated reformists) and Kaum Tua (Malay-educated conservatives) during that decade revealed radically different interpretations of Islam’s role in emancipation from colonialism. Reformists argued that the development of Malay society depended on the modernization of Islam, i.e., to eliminate the institution of Malay monarchy (since monarchies were considered by some to be anti-Islamic); and to “purify” Malay culture of adat (customary law). Conservatives however supported the continuation of the status quo.
A significant development during this period was the construction of different categories of Malay identity. Members of Kaum Muda either were foreign-born Muslims from the Middle East, India, and Indonesia who settled in Malaya, or Malays of mixed descent. Members of Kaum Tua, on the other hand, were Malays born in Malaya. Kaum Tua members saw themselves as Melayu Jati or “true Malays,” whereas the following categories were constructed for members of Kaum Muda: Darah Keturunan Kling (lit: descended from “Klings” or South Indians) for Indian-Muslims, and Darah Keturunan Arab (lit: descended from Arabs) for Arab-Muslims. In the next two decades, Kaum Tua members would prevail in retaining traditional Malay institutions and restricting non-Malay Muslim entry into the community of Malays. See Roff, Origins of Malay Nationalism. Back.
Note 46: Gordon P. Means, Malaysian Politics, 2nd. ed. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1976), p. 69. Back.
Note 47: Albert Lau, “Malayan Union Citizenship: Constitutional Change and Controversy in Malaya 1942–48,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 20, no. 2 (1989): 216–243. Back.
Note 48: Jedudason, Ethnicity and the Economy, pp. 42–43 Back.
Note 49: R. S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy, Politics and Government in Malaysia (Singapore: Federal Publishers, 1978); Means, Malaysian Politics; and Cynthia Enloe, Multi-Ethnic Politics: The Case of Malaysia (Berkeley: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, 1970). Back.
Note 50: “Essentially the bargain provided for Malay political domination in return for a free enterprise system which would allow the continuation of Chinese economic power. Specifically, it offered liberal citizenship requirements as a major concession by the Malays in return for non-Malay concessions on special rights, religion and community.” Milne and Mauzy, Politics and Government, p. 130. Back.
Note 51: Virginia Dancz, Women and Party Politics in Peninsular Malaysia (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1987) Back.
Note 52: Aihwa Ong, “State versus Islam: Malay Families, Women’s Bodies, and the Body Politic in Malaysia,” American Ethnologist 17, no. 2 (1990): 259. Back.
Note 53: Saw, Peninsular Malaysia, p. 65. Back.
Note 54: Indonesia opposed the creation of the Federation of Malaysia and accused Malaysian leaders of pandering to the British (hence, slogans of “neocolonialism”). Consequently, the Indonesian state embarked on a “konfrontasi [confrontation] policy” of using overt and subversive military tactics to harass the coastal areas of the peninsula. The confrontation ended when Indonesian President Sukarno fell from power in 1965–1966. Back.
Note 55: Joel S. Kahn, “Growth, Economic Transformation, Culture and the Middle Classes in Malaysia,” in The New Rich in Asia: Mobile Phones, McDonalds and Middle-Class Revolution, eds. Richard Robison and David S. G. Goodman (London: Routledge, 1996). Back.
Note 56: A few years before independence, the World Bank published a report identifying the Malayan economy’s dependence on commodity exports, the lack of human resource development, and high wages as major obstacles to sustained economic growth (see World Bank/International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, The Economic Development of Malaya [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955]. A key solution, according to the World Bank, was to impose tariff protection to nurture and to protect infant manufacturing industries. While colonialists were reluctant to follow the World Bank’s advice because of objections from entrenched European business interests, the postcolonial state elite appeared to depart from their predecessors’ policy in their willingness to impose export duties and excess profit taxes on corporations; to undertake deficit spending to finance development projects as opposed to ensuring annual balanced budgets; and to implement ISI. Even though the postcolonial state elite put into practice Articles 152, 153 and 181 of the Constitution, they continued the colonial legacy of a laissez faire attitude toward non-Malay ownership of the economy, i.e., Europeans retained ownership and management of key industries. Within the context of ISI, traditional European agency houses merely “diversified” by adding palm oil to their list of commodity exports, and substituted the import of foreign goods with that of semi-assembled or semi-processed goods (cigarettes, soap, nonferrous metals and automobile parts) for final assembly/processing and sale in the protected domestic market. By the late 1960s, foreigners owned more than 60 percent of share capital in agriculture, manufacturing, and trading companies. Meanwhile, Chinese business interests began to transform from the role of middleman/broker for Malays and Europeans, to that of nascent conglomerates in property development, manufacturing, and so forth (see Jedudason, Ethnicity and the Economy; Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Growth and Structural Change in the Malaysian Economy [New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1990]; and George Cho, The Malaysian Economy: Spatial Perspectives [London: Routledge, 1990]). Back.
Note 57: Folker Fröebel, Otto Kreye, and Jürgen Heinrichs, The New International Division of Labour: Structural Unemployment in Industrialized Countries and Industrialization in Developing Countries, trans. Peter Burgess (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). Back.
Note 58: The Investment Incentive Act 1968 charged the Federal Investment Development Authority or FIDA (formed in 1965) with the responsibility to attract foreign investments. Labor laws were amended to provide a more depoliticized work environment for foreign firms. Back.
Note 59: See Lim Mah Hui, “Affirmative action, ethnicity and integration: the case of Malaysia,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 8, no. 2 (1985): 250–276, and “Contradiction in the Development of Malay Capital: State, Accumulation and Legitimation,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 15, no. 1 (1985): 37–63; Fatimah Halim, “The Transformation of the Malaysian State,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 20, no. 1 (1990): 64–88; and Jomo, Growth and Structural Change. Back.
Note 60: “In 1957/8, intra-ethnic inequality was highest for the Chinese and lowest for the Malays, but by 1970 and 1973, this ranking was reversed. Anand (1973) and Ishak and Rogayah (1978) found that nearly 90 per cent of overall income inequality in Peninsular Malaysia in 1970 was due to differences within ethnic groups, rather than between them.” Jomo, Growth and Structural Change, p. 91. Back.
Note 61: The noun “Bumiputera” or “sons of the soil” is synonymous with the noun Malay. “Bumiputera” was coined during the 1920s to symbolize Malay peoples’ claim to their status as the original peoples in Malaya: “Non-Muslim indigenes are thus Bumiputera, whereas Muslims of ‘non-indigenous’ races are not. Put another way, all Malays are Bumiputera, but not all Bumiputera are Malays.” Nagata, Reflowering, p. 194. See also Judith Nagata, “What is a Malay? Situational Selection of Ethnic Identity in a Plural Society,” American Ethnologist 1, no. 2 (1974): 331–50. In the 1970s, the postcolonial Malaysian state replaced the noun “Malay” with “Bumiputera” in official discourse so as to include all aboriginal peoples in the NEP, while legitimizing the status of Malays as the indigenous peoples. Today, the nouns “Bumiputera” and “Malay” are used interchangeably Back.
Note 62: Karl Von Vorys, Democracy without Consensus: Communalism and Political Stability in Malaysia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 216. See also Donald R. Snodgrass, Inequality and Economic Development in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1980). Back.
Note 63: Mainstream scholars insist that physical violence between Malays and Chinese occurred because of a breakdown of consensus or democracy among elite ethnic leaders (see R. K. Vasil, The Malaysian General Elections of 1969 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1972); Felix V. Gagliano, Communal Violence in Malaysia 1969: The Political Aftermath [Athens: Center for International Studies, Ohio University, 1970]; and Means, Malaysian Politics). Put simply, it is argued that the Malay and Chinese elite no longer consented to abide by the unstated rules of the “Bargain” that institutionalized Malay political supremacy in return for continued Chinese domination of the economy. This argument, however, neglects the phenomenon of new social forces that, given the colonial legacy of ethnic relations and development in Malaysia, found their only viable channel of expression along the ethnic as opposed to the class dimension. This does not mean that “class” was the cause of the riots. Rather, development structures and processes fragmented Malaysian peoples along a specific class-ethnic nexus that led to the crisis (see Martin Brennan, “Class, Politics and Race in Modern Malaysia,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 12, no. 2 [1982]: 188–215). Back.
Note 64: Means, Malaysian Politics, p. 403. Back.
Note 65: Government of Malaysia, Second Malaysia Plan 1971–1975 (Kuala Lumpur: Government Printing Press, 1971), p. 1. Back.
Note 66: Ozay Mehmet, Development in Malaysia: Poverty, Wealth and Trusteeship (London: Croom Helm, 1986). Back.
Note 67: Jomo Kwame Sundaram, cited in Loong Wong and Beverly Blaslett, “Manipulating Space in a Postcolonial State,” in The State in Transition: Reimagining Political Space, eds. Joseph A. Camilleri, Anthony D. Jervis, and Albert J. Paolini (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995), p. 177. Back.
Note 68: “The second prong of the NEP strategy sought to restructure society by eliminating ideas of race with economic function. This objective was to be achieved through restructuring of employment patterns, ownership of share capital in the corporate sector and creation of BCIC.” Government of Malaysia, Second Outline Perspective Plan 1991–2000 (Kuala Lumpur: National Printing Department, 1991), p. 32 Back.
Note 69: For detailed analyses of non-Malay ownership of corporate wealth during the 1950s, see Puthucheary’s Ownership and Control. For more recent studies, see Lim Mah Hui, Ownership and Control of the 100 Largest Corporations in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1981); and McVey, ed., South East Asian Capitalists (Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1992). Back.
Note 70: “The introduction of modern industries in rural areas and the development of new growth centers in new areas to the migration of rural inhabitants to urban areas are essential to economic balance between the urban and rural areas and the elimination of race with vocation as well as location.” Government of Malaysia, Second Malaysia Plan, p. 45. In order to ensure a continuing stream of Malay urban in-migrants together with the economic viability of migrants in the cities, state agencies offered Malays liberal credit (e.g., below market interest rates) to facilitate the purchase of low and medium cost housing and transportation required for urban living (see Cho, Malaysian Economy). Back.
Note 71: Y. M. Liang, “Malaysia’s NEP and the Chinese Community,” Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs 21, no. 2 (1987): 131–142; and G. Sivalingam, “The NEP and the Differential Economic Performance of the Races in West Malaysia 1970–1985,” in Economic Performance in Malaysia: The Insider’s View, ed. Manning Nash (New York: Professors World Peace Academy, 1990). Back.
Note 72: Pavalavalli Govindasamy and Julie Da Vanzo, “Ethnicity and Fertility Differentials in Peninsular Malaysia: Do Policies Matter?” Population and Development Review 18, no. 2 (1992): 249. Back.
Note 73: Saw, Peninsular Malaysia, pp. 96–101. See also, M. S. Sidhu and G. W. Jones, Population Dynamics in a Plural Society: The Case of Peninsular Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: UMCB Publishers, 1981). Back.
Note 74: For example, the Industrial Coordination Act 1975 (ICA) empowered the Minister of Trade and Information to revoke or refuse to issue manufacturing licenses if it was determined that they were not in the “national interest.” Even though the concept of national interest was never defined, it can be inferred from the context of the NEP that national interest was synonymous with the state’s perception and definition of the overall interest of the Malay community. The ICA elicited negative responses, e.g., foreign investors complained about the state’s direct involvement in regulating manufacturing industries. It quickly became clear that ICA was directed to control or limit Chinese participation in the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing licenses were awarded on the following conditions: (a) firms that produced for the domestic market must have a 70 percent Malaysian ownership with at least a 30 percent Malay equity; (b) 30 percent Malay ownership of all distributorships; (c) if possible, local materials were to be used in the production process; and (d) ministerial approval at all stages from conception to implementation of production plants. Since most Chinese firms were operated as family businesses, the ICA then was seen as an incursion in Chinese families’ private decisionmaking structures and processes. The gradual decline of foreign and Chinese capital from the manufacturing sector prompted the state to amend the ICA several times during the 1970s and early 1980s. See Jedudason, Ethnicity and the Economy, pp. 135–137. Back.
Note 75: Jamilah Ariffin, Women and Development in Malaysia (Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications, 1992), p. 121. Back.
Note 76: Cho, Malaysian Economy, p. 198. Back.
Note 77: Ibid. See also Jürgen Ruland, Urban Development in South East Asia: Regional Cities and Local Government (Boulder: Westview, 1992). Back.
Note 78: Jedudason, Ethnicity and the Economy, p. 38 Back.
Note 79: According to Jedudason, revenues from resource-based and nonresource based exports respectively in 1975 were RM9.2 billion and RM1.86 billion. By 1980, resource-based exports remained the larger source of revenue: RM28.2 billion as opposed to RM6.3 billion from non-resource based exports (Ethnicity and Economy, p. 121). Back.
Note 80: Heavy Industries Corporation of Malaysia (HICOM) was the leading publicly owned corporation to initiate heavy industrialization, e.g., cement, steel, and automobile projects. The most famous and successful HICOM project is the production of Proton, the national car. Lacking sufficient capital and technological knowhow, HICOM solicited help from Mitsubishi Corporation to manufacture the automobile. As Jomo wrote: “[A]lthough the Mitsubishi Corporation and the Mitsubishi Motor Corporation each hold only 15 percent of stock [in the Proton project], they have already reaped handsome profit from supplying the production and assembly technology, as well as about 70 percent of Proton car components and various consultancy, training and other service, besides charging patent, design and other fees—regardless of whether Proton makes money” (Growth and Structural Change, pp. 131–132). For detailed critiques of the industrialization policy, see Jomo Kwame Sundaram, ed., The Sun Also Sets: Lessons in Looking East, 2nd. edition (Kuala Lumpur: INSAN, 1985). Back.
Note 81: Richard Robison, “Structures of Power and the Industrialization Process in Southeast Asia,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 19, no. 4 (1989): 381. See also Jomo Kwame Sundaram, “Economic Crisis and Policy Response in Malaysia,” in Southeast Asia in the 1980s: The Politics of Economic Crisis, eds. Richard Robison, Kevin Hewison, and Richard Higgott (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987), pp. 113–148. Back.
Note 82: Garry Rodan, “The Rise and Fall of Singapore’s Second Industrial Revolution,” in Southeast Asia in the 1980s, eds. Robison, Hewison, and Higgott; and “Industrialization and the Singapore State in the Context of the New International Division of Labour,” in Southeast Asia: Essays in the Political Economy of Structural Change, eds. Richard Higgott and Richard Robison (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985). Back.
Note 83: The Singapore state legislated pay raises to induce higher level skills training and application. A few years later, the pay raise was reverted as a result of declining investments by transnational corporations. See J. W. Henderson, “The New International Division of Labour and American Semiconductor Production in South East Asia,” in Multinational Corporations and the Third World, eds. C. J. Dixon, D. Drakakis-Smith, and H. D. Watts (Boulder: Westview, 1986), and Globalisation of High Technology Production: Society, Space and Semiconductors in the Restructuring of the Modern World (London: Routledge, 1989). Back.
Note 84: The irony is that in 1979, the country’s revenues from the electronics industry only registered a surplus of US$30 million (US$4020 million export revenue minus US$3990 million import cost) before discounting royalty fees for technology, the repatriation of profits, and so forth. See Jomo, Growth and Structural Change, p. 137; and Chris Dixon, Southeast Asia in the World Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 187. Back.
Note 85: In 1986, Bumiputera corporate equity holdings increased 108-fold as a result of privatization. See Fang Chan Onn, The Malaysian Economic Challenge: Transformation for Growth (Singapore: Longman, 1989), pp. 75–77. Also see R. S. Milne, “Privatization in the ASEAN States: Who Gets What, Why and With What Effect?” Pacific Affairs 65, no. 1 (1992): 7–24. For excellent mapping of the networks of cross-ownership by UMNO, MCA and MIC, see Edmund Terence Gomez, Politics in Business: UMNO’s Corporate Investments (Kuala Lumpur: Forum, 1990), Money Politics in the Barisan Nasional (Kuala Lumpur: Forum, 1991, and Political Business: Corporate Involvement of Malaysian Political Parties (Queensland: James Cook University of North Queensland, 1994). Back.
Note 86: J. Saravanamuttu cited in Kahn, “The Middle Classes,” p. 50. Back.
Note 87: Kahn, “The Middle Classes,” p. 63. Back.
Note 88: See especially Jamilah Ariffin, Women and Development. Back.
Note 89: Sylvia Walby, “Woman and Nation,” International Journal of Contemporary Sociology 33, nos. 1–2 (1992): 81–100. Back.
Note 90: See the studies of Edmund Terence Gomez (note 85). Back.
Note 91: Government of Malaysia, Second Outline Perspective Plan 1991–2000 (Kuala Lumpur: National Printing Department, 1991), p. 46. Back.
Note 92: Government of Malaysia, Second Outline, p. 15. “The National Development Policy will continue the efforts to correct economic imbalance to create a more just, united, peaceful and prosperous society.” Back.
Note 93: Ahmad Sarji Abdul Hamid, ed., Malaysia’s Vision 2020: Understanding the Concept, Implications and Challenges (Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications, 1993), pp. 397–402 Back.
Note 95: Karl Polanyi argued that disruptions caused by the development of market economies give rise to society’s demands for defensive/protective measures (The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time [Boston: Beacon Press, 1944]). A classic example of the Polanyian double movement was the emergence of the welfare state with policies and legislation that buffered the more vulnerable groups against the negative effects of a self-regulating market system. Since the 1980s, the gradual decline of the welfare state in the United States and Great Britain, signalled the reemergence of neoclassical economic orthodoxy. For the very interesting conceptualization of Asian Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs) as modified versions of the welfare state, see Catherine Jones, “Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan: Oikonomic Welfare States,” Government and Opposition 25, no. 4 (1990): 446–462. Back.
Note 96: A series of material and symbolic contestations occurred between the Malay-dominated state and the Chinese community. The 1982 National Cultural Policy attempted to legitimize Malay culture as the foundation of a national culture. Put simply, the symbolic dimension of the state’s hegemonic historic bloc would, in part, be constructed out of Malay cultural symbols, e.g., religion and language. Non-Malay fear of cultural desecration further intensified when the Melakan state government in 1984, proposed the commercial development of the oldest Chinese cemetery in the country. Chinese mainstream (MCA) and opposition parties (DAP) joined ranks to oppose the state which in turn, relented to Chinese demands by registering the cemetery as a historic preservation site. Back.
Note 97: Lim, “Development of Malay Capital,” p. 57. Back.
Note 98: Suhaini Aznam, “From the Campus Back to the Mainstream,” Far Eastern Economic Review (January 22, 1987), p. 22. Back.
Note 99: See Nagata, Reflowering; Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Ahmad Shaberry Cheek, “The Politics of Malaysia’s Islamic Resurgence,” Third World Quarterly 19, no. 2 (1988): 843–869, and “Malaysia’s Islamic Movements,” in Fragmented Visions: Culture and Politics in Malaysia, eds. Joel S. Kahn and Francis Loh Kok Wah (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992); and Clive S. Kessler, “Malaysia: Islamic Revivalism and Political Dissatisfaction in a Divided Society,” South East Asian Chronicle 75 (1980): 3–11. Back.
Note 100: Darul Arqam offered its members an alternative to capitalist modes of production by creating a consumer goods business organized along Islamic principles. Today, popular consumer support for the group’s products has transformed Darul Arqam into a commercial powerhouse in the domestic and regional production and distribution of Muslim food products. According to Jonathan Karp, “[Al-Arqam] . . vilified by the Malaysian Government for its messianic teachings and deemed reactionary for its Islamic communes, cult-like devotion and distinctive attire—is a budding international business empire with estimated assets of MR400 million. The state has tried to control the group by insisting that it is a threat to national security” (“Allah’s Bounty,” Far Eastern Economic Review [September 1, 1994]: 78). Back.
Note 101: Nagata, Reflowering, p. 71. Back.
Note 102: PAS was coopted into the National Front (which emerged from the Alliance Party’s cooptation of several opposition parties) after the 1969 riots. However, it was expelled from the National Front in 1978 for holding extremist views. PAS’s explusion only increased Islamicists’ fervor. In fact, conflicts between PAS and the state sometimes disintegrated into bloodshed, e.g., the 1978 Kerling Incident in which Islamicists sacked a Hindu temple, the 1980 Batu Pahat Islamicist attack on a police station, and the 1985 Memali tragedy in which PAS members clashed with police. Back.
Note 103: Chan Looi Tat, “A Storm in the North,” Asiaweek (24 Aug 1984): 30. Back.
Note 104: Jomo, Growth and Structural Change, p. 156. Back.
Note 105: Ruland, Urban Development Asia, p. 259. Back.
Note 106: For a list of wealthy Malay politicians and businessmen, see Lim, “Development of Malay Capital.” Back.
Note 107: Michael Kusnic and Julie Da Vanzo, Income Inequality and the Definition of Income (Santa Monica: The Rand Corporation for the Agency of International Development, 1980). Back.
Note 108: Jedudason, Ethnicity and the Economy, p. 115 Back.
Note 109: Ibid., p. 160. Back.
Note 110: Milne and Mauzy, Politics and Government, p. 345. Back.
Note 111: Malay bureaucrats or trustees collected “quasi-rents” and also failed to reinvest revenues to generate additional profit or productivity. See Ozay Mehmet, “The Social Costs of Trusteeship: Deficits, ‘Distributional Coalitions,’ and Quasi-Rents,” in Development in Malaysia. Yoshihara Kunio argues that the Southeast Asian brand of capitalism or “ersatz capitalism,” is not capitalism grounded in indigenous efforts (The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in South-East Asia [Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988]). Ruth McVey and her contributors in the edited volume, South East Asian Capitalists, take issue with Kunio’s position in their discussions on the role of big business in Southeast Asian economic development. Back.
Note 112: See Lim, Ownership and Control of 100 Largest Corporations; Richard Robison, “Structures of Power and the Industrialisation Process in Southeast Asia,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 19, no. 4 (1989): 371–397; Cheong Kee Cheok, et al., Malaysia: Some Contemporary Issues in Socio-Economic Development (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Economic Association, 1979); Tan Tat Wai, Income Distribution and Determination in West Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1982); McVey, ed., South East Asian Capitalists; and Edmund Terence Gomez’s studies.
To be sure, the Malaysian middle classes, especially the Malay middle classes, had expanded as a result of education and employment opportunities. And Malay control of corporate wealth increased. The question was, “Who really controlled the redistributed wealth, and did the wealth trickle down to the majority of Malays?” Heng Pek Koon writes: “Government statistics . . . show that Malay ownership of corporate wealth in the country has grown from 2.4 percent in 1970 to 17.8 percent in 1985 while the foreign share has dropped from 63.3 percent to 25.5 percent. During the same period the non-Malay (largely Chinese) share grew from 34.3 percent to 56.7 percent. These figures, however, have been strongly disputed by Chinese political and business leaders. . . . There is reason to think they are right. The holdings of nominee companies and locally controlled subsidiaries of foreign-based corporations, in which Malay ownership is considerable, have been counted in their entirety as non-Malay owned” (“The Chinese Business Elite of Malaysia,” in Southeast Asian Capitalists, ed. Ruth McVey, p. 130). Back.
Note 113: For example, Bank Rakyat, which was established in the 1970s to facilitate the distribution of credit to rural Malays, had lost approximately RM100 million. Investigations into the loss implicated the bank’s chief executive officer and the chief minister of Selangor in the misappropriation of bank funds. In the early 1980s, Bank Bumiputera’s officers used funds to speculate in the Hong Kong property market. The bank lost approximately RM2 billion, which was more than its RM1.2 billion paid-up capital. Politicians at the highest levels were accused of covering up irregular and concealed payments to a corporation in Hong Kong (Gordon P. Means, Malaysian Politics: The Second Generation [Singapore Oxford University Press, 1991], p. 56). Back.
Note 114: MCA, the largest Chinese political party (and arguably the most organized and financially well-endowed of predominantly Chinese political parties) in the National Front coalition, had been rendered relatively politically ineffective by the NEP. To compensate for its political impotence, MCA pooled the Chinese community’s economic resources to establish Multi-Purpose Holdings Berhad (MPHB), the party’s corporate investment arm. MPHB initially was formed as MCA’s self-help answer to the NEP. MCA politicians and key supporters also controlled a number of Chinese Deposit-Taking Cooperatives. In the 1980s, over RM3.6 billion cooperative funds were lost as a result of fraud, theft, and the economic recession (which substantially devalued the cooperatives’ institutional investments). See Means, Second Generation, pp. 120–3. Back.
Note 115: For arguments based on culture or ethnicity, see Nagata, Reflowering; and Chandra Muzaffar, Islamic Resurgence in Malaysia (Petaling Jaya: Penerbit Fajar Bakti, 1987). For a class analysis of Islamic revivalism, see Kessler, “Malaysia: Islamic Revivalism.” Back.
Note 116: Nagata, Reflowering, p. 72 Back.
Note 117: Ibid, p. 71. See also Ong, “State Versus Islam.” Back.
Note 118: Prior to Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s ascent to power, Prime Minister Hussein Onn explained the state’s Islamization program in the following way in 1980: “You may wonder why we spend so much on Islam. You may think it is a waste of money. If we didn’t, we would face two major problems. First, Parti Islam [PAS] will get at us. The party will and does claim that we are not religious and the people will lose faith. Second, we have to strengthen the faith of the people, which is another way to fight against communist ideology” (Ameer Ali, “Islamic Revivalism in Harmony and Conflict: The Experience in Sri Lanka and Malaysia,” Asian Survey 24, no. 3 [1984]: 299). Back.
Note 119: Means, The Second Generation, p. 147. Back.
Note 120: Ibid., p. 199. Back.
Note 121: For example, Team B accused Team A of awarding the North-South Highway contract (the largest in Malaysian history) to the latter’s supporters. Harold Crouch asserted that there were no major policy differences between Teams A and B (“Authoritarian Trends, the UMNO Split and the Limits to State Power,” in Fragmented Visions, eds. Kahn and Loh). However, Khoo Kay Jin (“Grand Vision: Mahathir and Modernization,” in the same edited volume) argued to the contrary in that the underlying cause of the challenge was fundamental policy differences between the competing teams: Team B wanted more aggressive bureaucratic efforts to shift economic resources into Malay hands, while Team A moved to relax equity rules for foreign participation in the economy. Back.
Note 122: Subsequently, Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad restructured the judicial system by removing Supreme Court justices who had ruled against Team A in several key cases. The justices were accused by the state of undermining its ability to govern Malaysian society. Gordon Means posited that the ultimate blow to the independent judiciary was its acceptance of Team B’s lawsuit against Team A. To cut a long story short, UMNO was deregistered as a result of the legal suit. The Prime Minister immediately reregistered UMNO as UMNO Baru (New UMNO). Back.
Note 123: “Many Chinese viewed this move as a violation of the 1986 election manifesto pledge and as the first move in a ploy to undermine or possibly eliminate Chinese-medium primary schools.’ ” Means, The Second Generation, p. 208. Back.
Note 124: Rehman Rashid, who is a Malaysian journalist, offers a humourous yet bittersweet description his experiences in a police interrogation room (A Malaysian Journey [Petaling Jaya: Rehman Rashid, 1993]). Back.
Note 125: See Means, The Second Generation for more detail. Back.
Note 126: Loong and Wong argue that, in spite of coercive-repressive legislation, the Malaysian state enjoyed much “support” from the populace primarily because of the ability to resurrect the memory of the 1969 ethnic riots as a weapon of fear that controls the nature and extent of dissent (“Manipulating Space,” in The State in Transition, eds. Camilleri, Jervis, and Paolini). Michael Peletz makes a similar argument (“Sacred Texts and Dangerous Words: The Politics of Law and Cultural Rationalization in Malaysia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 35, no. 1 [1993]: 66–109). While I would readily agree with the cogency of this argument, one still needs to explain why and how Malays and non-Malays are encouraged to support, if not strengthen, the path of export-oriented development. Reminding peoples of the possibility of another interethnic riot may very well be an effective tool in silencing or subverting dissent. Yet, the success of encouraging Malaysians to act in ways that strengthen the development and expansion of capitalist markets is a somewhat different issue Back.
Note 127: Saw, Peninsular Malaysia, p. 225. Back.
Note 128: Ibid., p. 238. Back.
Note 129: Jamilah Arrifin, Women and Development, p. 34. Back.
Note 130: Azizah Kassim, “The Unwelcome Guests: Indonesian Immigrants and Malaysian Public Responses,” Southeast Asian Studies 25, no. 2 (1987): 267. Back.
Note 131: Patrick Pillai, People on the Move: An Overview of Recent Immigration and Emigration in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Institute for Strategic and International Studies, 1992), p. 8. Back.
Note 133: Richard Dorall, “Foreign Workers in Malaysia: Issues and Implications of Recent Illegal Economic Migrants from the Malay World,” in The Trade in Domestic Helpers: Causes, Mechanisms and Consequences, Asian and Pacific Development Centre (Kuala Lumpur: Asian and Pacific Development Centre, 1989). Back.
Note 134: Straits Times February 17, 1981. Back.
Note 135: Asiaweek December 19, 1980, cited in Dorall, “Foreign Workers in Malaysia,” p. 298. Back.
Note 136: Dorall, “Foreign Workers in Malaysia,” pp. 299–300. Back.
Note 137: “Based on the amount and type of labor needed by Malaysia, the Indonesian Manpower Ministry would recruit workers and facilitate their entry into Malaysia by such means as providing them with travel documents and exempting them from exit taxes.” Azizah Kassim, “The Unwelcome Guests,” p. 268. Back.
Note 138: According to Patrick Guinness, only 750 migrants were processed, of which 498 ran away from their place of employment during that period (“Indonesian Migrants in Johor: An Itinerant Labour Force,” Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 26, no. 1 [1990]: 127). Back.
Note 139: Ministry of Human Resources, Labour and Manpower Report 1987/88 (Kuala Lumpur: Ministry of Labour/Ministry of Human Resources 1988), p. 2 Back.
Note 140: Malay Mail May 10, 1987. Back.
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