Racism in Malaysia

Malaysia is a multi-ethnic country, with a predominately Muslim population. Accusations of racism stem from racial preferences embodied within the social and economic policy of the Malaysian government, as well as broader tensions between various ethnic groups.

While 179 countries have ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), Malaysia is not one of them. The Pakatan Harapan government that replaced Barisan Nasional in 2018 had indicated a readiness to ratify ICERD, but has yet to do so due to the convention's conflict with the Malaysian constitution and the race and religious norms in Malaysia established since its independence.[1][2]

Demographics

Malays make up the majority — according to the 2010 census figures, over 50% of the 28.3 million population (including non-citizens) are Malays. About 22.6% of the population is Chinese Malaysians (Malaysians of Chinese descent) and Indian Malaysians (Malaysians of Indian descent) comprise about 6.6% of the population.[3][4] People of Indians descent are derogatorily called Keling in Malaysia.[5] There are also a very small minority of aborigines whose ancestors or Orang Asli arrived in what is today Malaysia well over 7,000 years before the Malays arrived from what is today Taiwan roughly 3,000 years ago. These ancient people also split with some heading to Sulawesi and others progressing into Java, and Sumatra. The final migration was to the Malay Peninsula roughly 3,000 years ago. A sub-group from Borneo moved to Champa in Vietnam roughly 4,500 years ago. The Champa group eventually moved to present day Kelantan in Malaysia. There are also traces of the Dong Song and HoaBinh migration from Vietnam and Cambodia. There was also the Southern Thai migration, from what we know as Patani (Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala, South Songkhla) today. All these groups share DNA and linguistic origins traceable to Taiwan, if not to southern China. Yet the Malay and Chinese (and also Indian) communities in Malaysia today appear at times at odds with each other given the polarisation caused by various policies under the Bumiputera policy.

Some had attempted to tie the racism in Malaysia to the history of the country, have assumed that the friction between Chinese and Malay started since Japanese Occupation of Malaya(1941 - 1945) whereby misunderstanding of that Malays cooperated with the Japanese army. According to this theory, the Chinese population was marginalized behind by Japanese, whereby the Malays were allowed to partially take part in the governing of the country under the Japanese colonisation then. And with this the seeds of dissatisfaction among Chinese people was started. The British, who had colonised what is now the Malaysian Peninsula starting in 1876, had recognized the Malay states, as recorded by numerous literature by Frank Swettenham, Hugh Clifford and many more of their scholars. It is proposed that the British "divide and rule" practice, as evident in their other colonies such as India, is the contributor of the present racism.[6] Under the British, the Chinese were more or less isolated in their tin mining areas. In addition, some Chinese were settled around the major towns while the Malays, had established their own villages. The legacy of the "Malay Supremacy" of Mahathir, who is only half-Malay as his father came from Kerala, India, has created a chasm cutting through the fabric of Malaysian society. Indeed, in 2017, Mahathir insinuated former Prime Minister Najib Razak was a robber due to his Buginese racial background.[7] During the lead-up to the 2018 elections in Malaysia, an election Mahathir won, he fanned anti-Chinese sentiments in the country by warning of an influx of foreign Chinese property owners.[8] Such exploitation of race and religion for power has shattered the concept of a "Malaysian Malaysia" proposed by Lee Kuan Yew, with talent being lost to foreign countries due to exclusive job opportunities for the Malays.

Presently, Malay is the national language of Malaysia. While it is unique that more than four languages are spoken widely in Malaysia today (English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil), the ethnic languages are mainly used by the ethnic groups respectively. The divide is quite prominent, especially in west Malaysia, since the Malays mostly attend the Malaysian national schools but the Chinese and also the Indians, have created their own vernacular schools, placing importance on their respective languages.

Tools of persecution

Human rights of religious and ethnic minorities in Malaysia, including Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Indians and Malaysian Chinese, are systematically, officially and legally violated regularly in an institutionalised manner.

New Economic Policy as institutionalised mechanism to persecute non-Muslim minorities

Government policies of positive discrimination favour the Malay majority and the Bumiputera status, particularly in areas such as housing, finance, governance and education. Economic policies designed to favour Bumiputera, including affirmative action in public education, were implemented in the 1970s in order to defuse inter-ethnic tensions following the May 13 Incident in 1969.[9] However, these policies have not been fully effective in eradicating poverty among rural Bumiputeras and have further caused a backlash especially from Chinese and Indian minorities. The policies are enshrined in the Malaysian constitution and questioning them is technically illegal.[10][11]

Both major ethnic groups, Malays and Chinese, have their own spheres of control and power. UMNO, the ruling party since Malaysia's independence from Britain - until May 2018 depended on the majority Malay population for votes by using laws that give Malays priority over other races in areas such as employment, education, finance, and housing. Such policies has been cited in Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia.[11] UMNO also promotes ketuanan Melayu, which is the idea that the ethnic Malays (Bumiputeras) should get special privileges in Malaysia.

Pro-Bumiputera Malays claim that The Federation of Malaya Agreement signed on 21 January 1948 at King House by the Malay rulers and by Sir Edward Gent as the representative of the British government lets Malays be the leaders among three races. However, others have claimed that the Agreement promises equality to all three races who made up the population of Malaysia. Those were the original terms of The Federation of Malaya Agreement, which Dato' Onn Jaafar - then heading UMNO - had looked to abide by . However, in 1951 the UMNO began enshrining the rights of Malays over all other races in law. Today, Malays dominate in politics at both national and state levels, in the civil service, military and security forces.[12][13] The Chinese have traditionally dominated in the economy and live in large numbers in urban areas of Malaysia.

The Malay-controlled government ensures that all Bumiputeras of Malay origin are given preferential treatment when it comes to the number of student places in Government universities,[14] and many Chinese and Indians have chosen to study in private universities.[15] Government benefits for Malays include discounts for new houses and preferential treatment in public housing, cheaper burial plots, that all key government positions to be held by Malays including most sporting associations, a minimum of a 30% Malay Bumiputera equity to be held in listed companies, full funding for mosques and Islamic places of worship, special high earning interest trust funds for Bumiputera Malays, special share allocation for new share applications for Bumiputera Malays, and making the Malay language a compulsory examination paper.[16][17][18][19]

While the government has given special provisions and rights to the Malays through documented legal texts, they have also allowed certain practices by the Buddhist, Hindu and other religious minorities to be practised according to their religious beliefs, as is enshrined in Article 3 of the Federal Constitution.

The lack of meritocracy in the Malaysian education system is a valid concern, and this creates even more disparity between various groups in Malaysia. In the tertiary education system, one of the options after taking the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia is the matriculation system. However, matriculation is highly limited for non-Malays, with 90 percent of the available spots going to Malays.[20]

In 1968, Prof. al-Attas, a member of the GERAKAN, engaged in a debate with Lim Kit Siang and the Opposition from the Democratic Action Party (DAP)6 on the subject of Indonesian literature being made as part of the corpus of Malay Language literature, and on the idea of a Malaysian Malaysia. Responding towards Lim Kit Siang's claim that adopting Malay as the national language is racist and chauvinistic, Prof al-Attas argued that Malays cannot be accused as racist because a Chinese who becomes a Muslim and speaks the Malay Language can be considered a Malay; a Malay, however, can never be a Chinese.[21] By this definition, however, a Malay that renounces Islam is no longer a Malay.

In 2010, a Malaysian court sentenced a Malay to just a week in jail and only fined 11 others for a brandishing a cow's head during a protest against the construction of a Hindu temple. Critics said the light sentences would further strain race relations between the majority Malay Muslims and minority Hindu Indians, Chinese as well as Christians of various races who complain of discrimination. The 12 were from a group who had marched in August 2009 with the bloodied head of a cow, to protest a plan to build a Hindu temple in their mainly Muslim neighbourhood. Hindus, who consider the cow to be a sacred animal, were offended and angered.

Racism in the Job Environment

A study by Centre for Governance and Political Studies (Cent-GPS) they made an experiment by sending 3,829 resumes to over 500 jobs with fictitious details and fictional characters to job vacancies across the Klang Valley. The study noted that headhunters are actively looking for Chinese candidates with some companies are really adamant about winning the Chinese candidates. The study had 3 hypothesis, first ethnic Malay applicants will be discriminated against in Malaysia’s private sector compared to their non-bumiputera peers. The study found out that the fictitious Chinese candidates dominated the callbacks by a huge margin. Both male and female Chinese candidates obtained more job callbacks than their Malay and Indian counterparts combined.

The second hypothesis was Mandarin is a key factor in helping or boosting a candidate’s chance of securing a job interview. The study find that when companies list “Mandarin required” in their advertisement, it is actually a filter to hire Chinese candidates. Their third hypothesis was the hijab plays a crucial factor in determining a candidate’s successfully job application. The study found out that a Malay girl without a hijab gets more callbacks than a Malay girl who wears a hijab.

The study concluded that even as candidates had the same qualifications, education and experience, the ethnicity of a candidate still plays a vital role in the success of a job application. The implications of the study paint a devastating future for Malaysia’s youth. If this trend continues, many more will be marginalized simply due to the color of their skin. Hard working Indian and Malay students will not get the opportunity they deserve, creating a dangerous future of inequality and social instability.[22]

See also

• 2001 Kampung Medan riots
• Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia
• Hindu Rights Action Force
• Ketuanan Melayu
• Perkasa
• Racial politics in Malaysia

References

1. Norshahril Saat (16 December 2018). "Commentary: Malaysia's anti-ICERD rally a reality check for Pakatan Harapan". Channel NewsAsia.
2. Bernama (11 November 2018). "Muhyiddin: No constitutional breach with Icerd ratification". malaysiakini.
3. "2010 Population and Housing Census of Malaysia" (PDF). Department of Statistics, Malaysia. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 May 2014. Retrieved 17 June 2012. p. 15
4. Chinese in Malaysia
5. M. Veera Pandiyan (10 August 2016). "'Keling' and proud of it". The Star online.
6. Hirschman, Charles (Spring 1986). "The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya: Political Economy and Racial Ideology" (PDF). Sociological Forum. 1 (2): 330–333. doi:10.1007/BF01115742. S2CID 53659419.
7. "Malaysia Racial Discrimination Report, 2017" (PDF). International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Selangor, Malaysia: Pusat Komas: 30. 2018.
8. Reeves, Holly (28 January 2017). "Mahathir hits new low: blaming the Chinese for poor politics is a coward's way". ASEAN Today.
9. Brant, Robin. "Malaysia questions ethnic preferences". BBC. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
10. Kua, Kia Soong (2007). May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969. ISBN 978-9834136765.
11. Joseph R. Rudolph Jr., ed. (7 December 2015). Encyclopedia of Modern Ethnic Conflicts, 2nd Edition. ABC-CLIO. pp. 376–377. ISBN 9781610695534.
12. Hong-Hai Lim (2007). "Ethnic Representation in the Malaysian Bureaucracy: The Development and Effects of Malay Domination". International Journal of Public Administration. 30 (12–14: Comparative Asian Public Administration): 1503–1524. doi:10.1080/01900690701229731. S2CID 154855816.
13. Muthiah Alagappa (1 September 2002). Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia. Stanford University Press. p. 259. ISBN 978-0804742276.
14. Jennifer Pak (2 September 2013). "Is Malaysia university entry a level playing field?". BBC.
15. "Malaysia's system of racial preferences should be scrapped". The Economist. 18 May 2017.
16. Dimitrina Petrova (22 November 2012). "Affirmative Action versus Equality in Malaysia". Oxford Human Rights Hub.
17. Boo Su-Lyn (11 April 2014). "Even in death, no escape from rising prices". The Malay Mail.
18. http://iphira.tripod.com/smih/spm.htm
19. "Race-based affirmative action is failing poor Malaysians". The Economist. 18 May 2017.
20. https://www.suaram.net/2019/04/25/regressive-matriculation-policy-perpetuates-discrimination/
21. ""The Malay Language and its role in nation building"- Summary of Saturday Night Lecture 14th September 2013". UTM. 24 September 2013.
22. Cent-GPS - Centre for Governance and Political Studies. Racism in Recruitment: A Study on Racial Bias For Entry Level Jobs in Malaysia.

Articles

James Chin, The Malaysian Chinese Dilemma: The Never Ending Policy (NEP), Chinese Southern Studies (2008)