a Malaysia for Malaysians

source : Project Malaysia commentary: “Onion theory” of identity not useful yet

Therefore, my honest question for our current leadership of Malaysia, can we ever really and truly ever become a nation which considers ourselves Malaysian first and ethnic second?

The logic of the above argument; where feelings of ethnicity give way to a more comprehensive Malaysian mindset can be understood in one of two ways, based on my worldview analysis model. Such an analysis can be done either from the outside in or from the inside out. Humans are much like onions; with layers and layers of social, cultural and religious filters, which define our personal, communal, and ultimate loyalties based on our worldviews. These worldviews are sociological and cultural constructs we hold about our world and life views.

How do I (not) express my anger at this article in a polite and rational manner? Jeez. Frankly speaking, I do not like it and I personally feel it is poorly written and thought out. I can credit it for containing some commentary about the state of Malaysia, having done its homework for interesting sources and containing readable snippets of Malaysian life, I think it completely fails at analysis.

This article fails at analysis despite giving a model of analysis. In fact, that really is all it gives, a model for analysis and hastily concludes with another set of questions that it really should have answered for itself. So I quote:

So, why is it then so important to have race-based parties, race-based everything defining everything else? What should it matter if the Prime Minister is a Malay or Kadazan or Murut so long as he is head of the party leading in Parliament with the highest number of supporters? Why is his religion really important, when the Federal Constitution and the Council of Rulers will always protect and preserve that interest in Islam?

Since he hasn’t given a proper analysis, the answers are not readily apparent. In fact, I’ll try to demonstrate why his “model” doesn’t actually give a useful answer. So to do that, i’ll have to try to show the inherent flaws in his model and argument.*crack knuckles*

Okay, so he goes that according to his worldview analysis model, Malaysians, just like the author, have five different levels of identities. First, the national, then the religious, then the ethnic-communal, then psychological, and finally the conscientious. He attempts to reduce each layer to show that everybody’s really the same at each level, thus proving that Malaysians are not all that different after all, and hence an obvious “it isn’t important at all!” answer to the rhetorical questions in the conclusion.

opening criticism: The onion anology is a poor analogy.

While it seems commonsensical that identities should be ordered in that 5-4-3-2-1 way, the actual reason is that the “outer layers” are sociallly constructed and have more primacy, and the “inner layers” are more pre-defined and have less primacy.

I would think that both (and many) identities often come into conflict with each other, and often times wes struggle to prioritize them. Our conscience “doing the right thing” can conflict with our national identity “kill the enemy soldier for your country”, or even national “let’s not bring up racial questions” against the communal “our community is being neglected”. There is no primacy between identities and logic of each identity.

first criticism: nationalism first

The author gives a poor reason for nationalism being first. While the author and Tun Dr. Mahathir, former prime minister both can trace their geneology to Malayalee, he is an Indian while Dr. Mahathir is considered Malay. The concept of the “Malay race” is a veil for a social construct designed to satify political conditions set by ultra nationalists. Thus, there really is no difference between both of them and they both must be equal Malaysians.

Unfortunately for the author, the constitutional definition for a Malay is a person who speaks Malay, practises Islam and follows Malay culture. It’s simply not an geneological-ethnic definition, but a pure cultural one. I’m no expert on law, but it sounds possible that a Chinese baby adopted into a Malay family could be considered Malay.

second criticism: religion second

Likewise also, in the case of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed too, I am sure his family has been Muslim for many generations; probably even before the Malays of Malaysia. What does that really mean for both of us, as Malaysians? We are both Malaysians first, but that we are Muslim and Christian second, respectively; based on our genealogies and current worldviews of choice. Consequently, although our faiths may differ and define who we really are and what we believe, we are Malaysians all the same.

I really don’t see the argument here that they are Malaysians first and religious persons second. It does not follow. The whole debate about secularism that continues today is about why we shouldn’t put religion first ahead of national issues. Ever heard about the Iranian revolution? Iran was a secular state, just like Malaysia now, until the Shah got overthrown.

He then goes on to comment on the failure of the judiciary in the Lina Joy case. I don’t see how that’s relevant in proving that the religious is indeed secondary to the national, but only relevant to ought to be. (Keep that in mind).

third criticism: Ethnicity and community third

Now, with mixed marriages, the culture gets infected with each others’ cultural values, but the nationality need not be and the faith need not be. Therefore, we can argue that nationality is a more primary form of identity, before faith and before even ethnicity.

What? Doesn’t religion change, even more so that culture?

Ethnicities are embedded in our past and are natural to us, but not so our faith and nationality.

What what? Didn’t he just say that ‘These worldviews are sociological and cultural constructs we hold about our world and life views’? So is ethnicity and community a construct or a naturally occuring phenomenon? A naturally occuring social construct is somewhat of a contradiction.

I won’t bother to riddle “conscience” with holes.

Concluding criticism:

The author’s mode of analysis is somewhat misguided and disarrayed. When one is presenting a paper in the format of a model-analaysis, FIRST, one explains the model and justifies why the model is not wrong. THEN only can the model be used for analaysis. The author fails at doing both.

First, his model is a shaky one. He doesn’t give firm reasons for us to believe that there is such a hierarchy, and deep down he is conflating (mixing up) ought and is. Have our national identities always overriden our subjective consciences? No, really, he’s giving a case for WHY it shouldn’t be. He’s giving a normative (value judgement) model of primacy of identities. The overarching pattern of his argument is “This is the model of how things should be and this is how it isn’t in reality” when a useful analysis should be “This is the model and the model explains why things are as they are in reality.” Only in the latter will the former provide a value-neutral roadmap for understanding Malaysia.

Secondly, the former mode would eventually entail how these these interact in Malaysia. The ideas of multiple identities might be useful. We know that identities are fluid. I am not the same today as yesterday or tomorrow. I might be religious today, but secular tomorrow by some causal chain. It is entirely plausible that broad changes cause trends in individual shifts in primary identity, and their implications for Malaysia as a whole. (However, that also renders personality and conscience “dead” concepts). All he needs to do is to identify such sweeps and how to react to such changes such that the Malaysian identity attain primacy among others.

This article had a lot of potential. Really, I wanted to like it because it touched on salient issues. But it suffers from a lot of unnecessary detail, isn’t to the point and difficultly coherent. After sifting through it, I found that he’s doing a comparison of a ‘Malaysian Dream’ to ‘Malaysia in real life’ instead telling us why we’re not all Malaysians first.