Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

6.1 Conclusion
Malaysia will never move beyond ethnic politics if there are no genuine efforts to confront its past, especially the much contested period between WW II and Independence. One of the most contentious aspects on this era is the activities of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM). Various historical studies have shown that CPM was not a pure Chinese political movement as made out to be by the British and official rhetoric in Malaysia. Rather, it had good numbers of Malay/Muslim members holding post within its central committee.
Malaysia must put in efforts in correcting this misleading representation of national history. Even in December 2004, efforts to document history by Malaysian university were met with debate questioning the appropriateness of such move. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia took up the initiative to published two memoirs of Shamsiah Fakeh and Ibrahim Chik, “veteran leaders of the CPM” in Malay (Wong 2004). According to news report in malaysiakini, both Shamsiah and Ibrahim were veterans of CPM since the late 1940s.
This inability or refusal to face with the past will only allow the past to haunt nation-building efforts and deter Malaysians’ effort to put a close to that chapter of history. It is important to recognise CPM as a multiracial anti-colonial effort and to recognise CPM’s contribution to Independence.

Islamic resurgence
Much has been achieved in promoting unity and bringing Malaysians closer together since independence. While large number of Chinese in Malaysia identified with China in the period before WWII, it is no longer the case today. Among the three ethnic identifiers associated with Malay, only Islam has remained outside the experience of majority of the Chinese. Since the 1970s, there were moves to promote Islamic way of life among the Malays.
This trend might create a possible scenario of Islamic resurgence to redefine the boundary of ‘Malayness’. According to Shamsul (1996b), the appeal of Islam to the Malays as a new source of nationalism stems from its status as the “last bastion of Malayness”.
Tan (2000) also noted that only 0.4 per cent of Chinese in Malaysia are Muslim. This ‘resistance’ to Islam has to do with the close link of Islam to Malay ethnicity. Tan observed that Chinese equate embracing Islam as throwing away Chinese identity, as Muslim converts have to change their names.
In fact, as a response to the increasingly Islamisation pressure from PAS, Dr Mahathir had declared on 29 September 2002 that Malaysia is already an Islamic state (New Straits Times, 30 September 2002). This political rivalry between PAS and UMNO is a worrying development as it is essentially challenging the existing Constitution and the foundation of Malaysia. Dr Mahathir’s declaration was clearly an attempt to seize the Islamic initiative by presenting UMNO as the promoter of an authentic Islamic state rather than PAS.
Under Abdullah, this trend could continue. After all, one of Abdullah selling point is his Islamic credential.
This trend can open new fault lines within the society, as an Islamic state, by definition is exclusivist. Jomo and Ahmad (1992) noted that the foundation of an Islamic state is the syariah to which non-Muslims are excluded.
Lee (2004, p. 107) suggested that development in the international scene since the attack on United States might further fuel Islamic resurgence in Malaysia. The main concern of the non-Malays is that they are being excluded from this, as the debate, so far, has only been between UMNO and PAS.
Lee (2004, p. 92) also noted that “in the past when the ruling faction of UMNO or the party was under serious challenge, the instinct of the leadership was to move towards a more authoritarian approach and a more ethnic emphasis in its agenda”. Thus, Lee (2004, p. 93) predicted that UMNO, in its bid to revitalize itself, it may “choose to re-emphasise its role as protector of the Malays [as] this was a role that UMNO first assumed when it was formed”.
This ‘religious competition’ between UMNP and Pas is affecting public policies as well. For example, PM Abdullah announced on 19 October 2004 that his government will not allow Ascot Sports Sdn Bhd to operate betting concession in Malaysian (Lopez 2004). The agreement was secured with the previous Malaysian PM Dr Mahathir. This is not surprising, considering that religious credential is one of PM Abdullah’s selling point, and to save the government from being attacked by Malaysia’s conservative Muslim community and PAS.

Constitution
Ethnic politics will remain the central theme in the future of Malaysian politics based on the current trends and political arrangement. As noted by Johan (2004, p. 89) ethnic politics had been institutionalised since Day One of Malaysia history. As long as the dichotomy of the Bumi and non-Bumi exists formally in the Constitution under Article 152, there will remains a divide among Malaysians. This dichotomy will always be the sore point in achieving the elusive Bangsa Malaysia. The Malays will always use this to justify the better treatment for them, and the non-Malays will always feel that the Bangsa Malaysia rhetoric is mere window dressing because they will never enjoy full citizenship under this present arrangement. After all, as pointed out by Cheah (2004, p. 1), “Malay ethno-nationalism is still the strongest force in Malaysia, relying on Malay nationalist ideologies and Islam to weld the Malay people together”.
Likewise, the ruling government will have to sustain the policies which favour the Malays under the pretext of special privileges for the Malays. Thus, we can expect policies like quota in education, public services, and armed forces to continue to be the contentious points among Malaysians. Cheah (2004, p. 2) noted that “ethnic revival occurs in Malaysia every now and then whenever the issue of ethnic rights, language, religion, minorities, poverty and nation-building are debated”.
As long as Article 153 of the Constitution exists, ethnicity will fuel passionate debate. However, to move beyond that is not easy, as it means amending the Constitution, and in the process, changing the foundation of a nation.

Political culture
The political culture also points towards the direction of ethnic politics. As long as the monoethnic political parties like UMNO, MCA and MIC exist in Malaysia, ethnic politics will exist. Otherwise they will look extremely out of place. What would UMNO exist for, if not to fight for the supremacy of the Malays? Likewise, MCA will justify their existence as a platform for the Chinese to negotiate the existence of Chinese language education in Malaysia, as well as other culture rights with UMNO.
We can always observe how the Malays will be reminded of the perceived threats from the non-Malays by UMNO during their general assembly every year. During general elections, papers of various languages will also published articles regarding these threats according to their target readers.
On the other hands, during National Day and festive seasons, politicians will remind Malaysians that we are indeed lucky for we are among the few countries that enjoy ethnic harmony. These constant swings of rhetoric will only keep the discourse of ethnic politics fresh in Malaysians’ minds. What would these politicians be doing if not rallying for support from their grassroots members?

Economy
The third factor that will ensure that ethnic politics will remain relevant in Malaysia is the economic cycle of Malaysia. In the history of Malaysia, social and political tensions will follow economic crisis. The shrinking economic pie will increase social tension, and result in political struggles within UMNO. This happened in 1987 which resulted the leadership challenge and Operasi Lalang, and 1997 which resulted another leadership challenge and the split in Malay community. Cheah (2004, p. 3) pointed out that “economic recovery helped to ease ethnic tensions, but economic crisis again fuelled ethnic tensions”. As economy is cyclical in nature, we could only expect resurgence of ethnic tension in the future.

Moving on
For Malaysia to move on from the ethnic politics, the ruling elites must have the political will to do away with the institutionalised dichotomy that exists. As long as this point of contention is not deal with, ethnic politics will always be around.
By doing away with the classification of citizenship we can also move on from the preferential treatment of the Malays. Malay community has to be encouraged to achieve their full potential and to be confident of their own ability. Without confidence, Malay community will constantly believe that they are under threat by the ‘immigrant races’.
Likewise, by doing away with the preferential treatments, the non-Malays will have to respect the Malay community achievements purely on credit, not because of race. They will not feel that they are being treated as second class citizens – a common protest heard among the non-Malays these days.
In conclusion, for Malaysia to move on from this colonial relic, we have to admit the source of contentions and then deal with it. In another word, we have to rebuild Malaysia from bottom up, starting by amending Malaysia’s supreme law – the Constitution.

6.2 Limitation of Research
The major limitation of this thesis is the lack of command of Mandarin by the researcher. Thus, data from Mandarin language papers was translated by a Malaysian journalist. This researcher had to rely on the understanding of that translator and the translated texts, which is definitely limited, for information on the framing of Chinese language papers on the Suqiu episode. The ability to understand Mandarin would certainly increase the amount of information available to this researcher, and contribute to a better analysis of the data.



6.3 Recommendations
Future research on ethnic politics in Malaysia could perhaps include the period of Suqiu episode after the 1999 general elections until the agreement that was reach between UMNO Youth and Suqiu Committee in early 2001. An aspect in this period worth studying is to find out the general reactions of the Chinese electorates and their voting patterns during the Lunas by-elections in relations to the framing of Suqiu as ‘extremists’ and ‘chauvinist’ by Dr Mahathir’s infamous 2000 Merdeka speech particularly, and the media generally. Lunas is a region in the northern state of Kedah and its by-elections was the first elections held after the 1999 general elections.