IF Americans know more than average about Malaysia, they know it is multi-ethnic, and because I have an Arabic name and look Chinese, they will diplomatically wonder what I am. I am now good at pre-empting this. Our constitutional definition of ‘Malay’ intrigues them, because they have no equivalent in their constitution. They’ll ask if we have affirmative action for minorities, so I explain that our New Economic Policy was designed not based on the size of the defined populations (and hence ‘minority’ is misleading), but based on an economic imbalance left by the British. (At this point my interlocutors often take a stab at the shared imperial oppressor, despite earlier having complimented me on my British accent – though I think some really mean: “How come your England so powerful ah?”)
And then they will ask how the policies translated into reality, and I talk about the noble intentions of early leaders and the successful uplifting of millions out of poverty. Then I explain how elements of the policy were lost or subverted, to the extent that some beneficiaries today are different from those the formulators of the policy envisaged. This is readily understood: “Yeah, that happens here too.”
Then, the discussion turns to how the legacy of the policy continues to affect politics and society, and still we find similarities, such as how race is deliberately used in formulating policies and for electoral purposes.
But there is another aspect of the two experiences that is often overlooked. While I have greatly increased my knowledge of the story of civil rights in America – particularly during the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon – my extended travels have also put me into contact with the people, culture and history of American Indians.
[Like many outsiders, I had assumed that Native American was now the more politically correct term to refer to the diverse peoples whose presence in the American continent predated the arrival of Europeans, because American Indian was based on the Eurocentric assumption that Christopher Columbus had landed in India. But proud members of tribes have told me that the term American Indian is preferred, though Native American is acceptable. This could cause confusion for us Malaysians, because while we would describe, say, Deborah Henry as a Malaysian Indian, someone like Nina Davuluri (Miss America 2014) is described as an Indian American – and the same format is used for American citizens of other origin eg Korean Americans, African Americans (sometimes hyphenated)].
In one of my earlier meetings, a leader of an American Indian organisation told me that American Indians and African Americans both suffered in the white history of the United States, but of the impact of the African American civil rights movement on American Indians, he reticently said “not much”.
An African American academic of a public policy school I met later explained that the vastly different experiences are due to one key fact: American Indians were conquered, but African Americans were subjugated. While tribal leaders who represented theoretically sovereign nations signed treaties with the United States (which still remain in effect), black slaves had no such recognition – and yet they were in the homes and plantations of their owners who were citizens of the USA.
Because of this, the terms of engagement with these two groups were entirely different. This point became clear when, in rural Illinois – a world apart from Chicago – I discovered that Abraham Lincoln, the ‘Great Emancipator’ who fought the Civil War (1861-65) on the issue of slavery, was a captain in the Black Hawk War (1832) which aimed to remove a tribal leader from land ceded by his tribe to the United States in 1804 (however, he never saw combat, instead suffering mosquito bites).
Here, finding parallels with Malaysia breaks down, principally perhaps because the dominant polity that coexisted with the native people was itself dominated, leading to different trajectories. Indeed, once I explain the concept of Bumiputera, with its inclusion of Malays, Orang Asli and natives of Sabah and Sarawak, my new American friends begin to crack.
Adding to the complexity are particular historical experiences: the emergence of the Peranakan communities, for instance. And long before the Malaysian government decided that there should be an Orang Asli Affairs Department, the Minangkabau migrants of Negeri Sembilan had developed treaty relations with the indigenous people they encountered, resulting in the creation of a new clan called Biduanda into their socio-political system.
I wonder if any penghulus, witnessing the influx of Chinese migrants to the towns of Kuala Pilah, Bahau and Mantin (originally ‘mine tin’), ever thought of inviting these communities into the adat fold. If they did, race relations in Malaysia might have taken an altogether different turn.
Tunku Abidin Muhriz is president of Ideas.