Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

A.B.SHAMSUL 105
When the Malay nationalist movement first initiated its political and economic
agendas, it was during the Great Depression and in the colonial era. The priority was
quite clear then: politics first and economics second. This was eventually translated
into action in the form of the creation of a ‘Malay nation’ first, and then the creation
of an economy with Malays playing an active role along with other ethnic groups,
particularly the Chinese. The political agenda became a reality when Malaysia
became independent in 1957; but not the economic agenda, not until thirty-five
years later, and even then it did not result in the control of the economy by the
Malays. Nonetheless, the Malay economic presence had become strongly felt and
widely recognised, especially after the NEP was implemented. The expansion of
the Malay middle class was definitely rapid, but the expansion of the Malay new
rich was even faster and more extensive, if not phenomenal. However, it did not
arise without a ‘cultural cost’.
The recent success of the Malay nationalist economic agenda has rendered the
original political agenda, especially the ‘three pillars of Malayness’, open to public
discussion and interrogation, especially by the OKBs. This has been interpreted by
some observers as a sign of the growth of Malay ‘social reflexivity’ among the
highly educated Malay middle class. This has resulted in a dislocation between
knowledge (about nationalist discourse, ideals and history) and control (via
implementation, governance, state intervention, planning and social engineering).
Both knowledge and control, when combined previously, formed the
‘authoritatively defined social reality’ for Malays. This could be observed and
interpreted only as Malayness or as the Malay nation. Now that the authoritatively
defined social reality is being questioned and doubts are raised about it by the
Malay new middle class and other groups within the Malay new rich, particularly
at the individual level, what was once accepted as ‘constructed certainty’ (for
example, Malayness) has now transformed into a kind of ‘manufactured
uncertainty’ (whither the three pillars of Malayness). This is exactly what the
cultural predicament of the Malay new rich is all about–Who is the new Malay?
Are we Malay first or bumiputera second, or the other way around? When do we
become Malaysian?
This tension characterises a post-traditional social order in Malaysia, in which
the collaboration between modernity and tradition, crucial to the earlier phases of
post-war and post-colonial social development, has been redefined and moved into
another phase. As a result, tradition, as a medium for the reality of the past, does
not disappear but only changes its status into a form that is open to discourse and
interrogation rather than accepted blindly as it once tended to be. Thus,
‘Malayness’ and ‘Malay tradition’, as authoritatively defined social realities, are now
being questioned, debated and refuted by some extremely influential, wealthy
Malay corporate figures, and by others from within the equally well-off Malay new
middle class. This critical stance reflects the way in which these ‘new rich’
experience everyday social reality, in particular the process of globalisation, and
the transformation of the individual actor’s personal contexts of social experience.
The latter often stands in opposition to the former because it encourages ‘false