Transcending 1946: accepting colonial past, embracing plural future

It’s time for us to accept our colonial past so that we may honestly embrace a multi-ethnic future in the increasingly globalised world.

The 1946 question

“Where Malaysia is heading, with sensational news from Muslim-only Allah, hudud for all, body-snatching, wedding gate-crashing, police defying the Common Law Courts, to now Muslims buying only from Muslims?”

This was the question I posted six months ago when I started this column. Today, to this question, we may need to add to this “vilification of dog-touching” and “explaining floods with the absence of hudud”.

I argue that the root cause of Malaysia’s problem goes all the way back to 1946, when the British encountered, in their preparation for Malaya’s decolonisation, what I called “the 1946Question” of nationhood and citizenship: “can citizens be different yet equal?”

As long as we are still stuck in the 1946 frame of mind, we can never have our transformation, and the long transition period will only get more painful as the forces of the past struggle to stay relevant and dominant.

As I am ending this column, allow me to offer my preliminary thought on how we may transcend beyond 1946.

Historical narrative of wounds from colonisation

The first thing we must do is to learn who we were so that we can choose who we want to be. Malaysia’s official narrative of colonial history is fundamentally one of wounds, or specifically two wounds: the subjugation of Malay political authorities, and the emergence ofplural society.

In this narrative, Malaysia would have stayed as a myriad Malay absolute kingdoms ratherthan a parliamentary democracy; been governed under Shariah laws rather than predominantly English Common Law; and lastly, been populated by only Malay-Muslimsrather than a multi-ethnic population.

Naturally, one may then conclude that, for the historical wounds to heal, full decolonisation must eventually place some real political power in the hands of the Malay Rulers, replace the English Common Law with Shariah Law and assimilate or reduce the proportion of the non-Malays.

This narrative builds in a natural demand for “restoration” of the political system and social order in the imaginary great pre-colonial yesteryears, say before 1874 (when Britain began to intervene in the Malayan inland), 1786 (when Britain acquired Penang) or even 1511(when Portugal conquered Malacca).

The inconvenient sides in colonial history

This “wound narrative” conveniently ignores a few historical facts.

First, the emergence of plural society in Malaya was more the outcome of global capitalist development than colonisation per se. Chinese miners in Perak and Selangor were much brought in by rivalling Malay chieftains, with whom they later took sides in the Malay civilwars, which eventually led to the British intervention. Most tellingly, Chinese immigrants in Johor were mainly brought in by Temenggung Ibrahimand his son Sultan Abu Bakar, who had not a single drop of English blood.

Second, in the Malay protectorates at least, British colonisation was very much an Anglo-Malay joint venture with the Malay aristocrats as the junior partners. In place of fragmented authority held by local chieftains, the British created a moderngovernmental apparatus with the Malay Rulers as the figurehead, as they ended civil wars and/or arbitrated succession rivalry from Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Johor to Pahang.

Anti-British Malay heroes celebrated in our history textbooks today did not have their Sultan’s support in their uprisings except in Perak, where Sultan Abdullah was personallyinvolved and eventually sent in exile to the Seychelles Islands.

By 1946, the Malay conservative elites were so more afraid of the threat of non-Malay dominance post-colonisation than the British colonisation that they initially were not keen for early independence.

Thirdly, and most importantly, this is only history from the Malayan eyes.

The colonial rule of Sarawak and Sabah by Britain, and before 1946, by the Brookes dynastyand the British North Borneo Company were viewed rather favourably by the locals – and not just the Christianised natives.

In Sarawak, for example, a young Malay teacher Rosli Dhobi assassinated British Governor Duncan Steward in 1949 in his pursuit of an independent Sarawak Kingdom under CrownPrince Anthony Brooke.

By the time Britain was prepared to relinquish Sabah and Sarawak around 1961, many opinion leaders of these two states preferred a longer colonial rule under the British rather than a hastily-constructed Malaysia for the fear of Malayan and Singaporean dominance.

An inclusive decolonisation discourse

A simplistic anti-colonial discourse would see colonial legacies as fundamentally evil and invariably construct a frame of political correctness based on one’s distance from the colonial past. Renaming roads to erase colonial history is but one of its common manifestations.

But what good does it bring with such gung-ho anti-colonial sentiments?

Malay right-wing nationalists may accuse some Bornean nationalists of having a “colonised mentality” for their nostalgia for the British or the Brookes’ rule.

But many leftists – Malay and non-Malay alike -- too may see Tunku and his ministers as neo-colonial puppets for the British. For them, independence won through peaceful negotiation – and not through violent revolution as Indonesians under Sukarno did – is compromised andnot real.

Regardless of its variants, such discourse will inevitably lead us to denounce some of ourcolonial heritage which can be useful to us – democracy, secularism, liberalism or even English.

We need a more inclusive “healed” decolonisation discourse with at least three features.

First, the post-colonial state should be recognised as a new-born, the successor of the colonial state, rather than the restoration of some pre-colonial states, as colonisation rarely respects existing boundaries. 

Such recognition is important to not turn decolonisation into internal colonisation of some “peripheral” regions of the post-colonial polity by its “core”. All regions and all citizens should stand at equal footing.

Second, the ultimate goal of decolonisation should be the attainment of democracy for allwho live in the decolonised territories, and not the nationalist replacement of a foreign colonial power with a domestic/regional one.

Thirdly, the positive legacies of colonialization should not be abandoned or denied. This means that Malaysia should be recognised as the successor of British Malaya and British Borneo on the basis of 1963 Malaysia Agreement, rather than the restoration of the Malaccan Sultanate, which never controlled an inch of Bornean soil. And the federation should be built to advance the freedom and interests of all Malaysians across the South China Sea, not as an expansion of Malaya.

She should also preserve the positive aspects of British legacies, from Westminster parliamentary democracy, Common law, judiciary independence, administrative neutrality to English.

Inclusive nationhood with historical continuity

For many, the decolonisation discourse above, which would create an inclusive nationhood, sounds blasphemous and a denial of history.

It needs and should not be so. Inclusiveness should be rooted in history. Nation-states should not become faceless and identical by being inclusive. An inclusive Malaysia should embrace her civilisational, linguistic and spiritual roots.

First, the territories that constitute Malaysia today were part of the Nusantara world in the millennia before the emergence of nation-states.

Mostly of Polynesian stock, peoples living in the wide archipelagos – from Aceh and Trang in the westernmost to Manila and Ambon in the easternmost – moved around, traded, fought wars, and made peace with each other. As time passed, their civilisation was shaped by Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity.

The greatness of Srivijaya, Majapahit, Malacca, Johor-Riau, Brunei empires and the brave heroes of anti-colonial struggles should be celebrated.

Second, Malaysia should uphold and promote the use of the Malay language – the regional lingua franca for millennia which ties us to Indonesia, Brunei, Southern Thailand and Brunei. This needs not be in a trade off with linguistic freedom, as one can master several languages.

Thirdly, Malaysia should uphold Islam in the model of Westphalian secularism. In this form of soft secularism, the state is free to promote its established faith without imposing it on the citizens of other faiths or discriminating them.

So, how is this discourse different from the official one? Here, we are “psychologically” healed from colonialisation. We can live in peace with our past. We can choose and pick the best from our civilisational roots, without having to glorify and revert to every old institution.

An inclusive nationhood with a firm respect for its historical roots then promises the room for pluralism, not only for the peripheral regions and minority communities, but also within the dominant region and community, Malayan Malay-Muslims – which is what Malaysia lacks most today. – December 27, 2014.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.