MALAYSIAN CULTURE: MOSAIC OR MELTING POT?

Malaysia, before the glorious of its independent on 31th August 1957 has relished juxtaposes of diverse multiculturalism. This is anticipated to the policy of the colonial power-British- that liberated the coming of the immigrants from outside Tanah Melayu especially from China and India in order to suit the employment vacancies in industrial and estate fields (the British brought in Chinese and Indians to work in on the mines, plantations and fill up the void in professional expertise.) On the other hands, Malays at the very beginning as the original people of the land were subjugated under British rules to dominate the traditional workplaces. Tanah Melayu at that time witnessed the impact of the detachment of the work fields by British which the economic gap vastly wide spread between indigenous people and the immigrants; that is Chinese immigrants successfully dominated the wealth of industrial field while on the opposite, Malays greatly struggle on their own land to survive difficultly in traditional workplaces especially in villages.

The history of multiculturalism after Malaysia reached its independent is not a romantic idea to enjoy. The multiculturalism depicted through the media very idealistic but in reality, it is not easy to live side by side in multiculturalism practices, different religions and beliefs, customs as well as language are among sensitive things that always raise riot among the multi-communities in Malaysia. The black day of 16 Mei racial riots of 1969 is one of the crucial results of ethnic tensions that if possible tried to erase from the history of Malaysia, and even the Malaysians do not willing to remember those societal disaster as they already adapted to the view of romantic multiculturalism. It sought to address the significant imbalance in the economic sphere where the minority Chinese population had substantial control over commercial activity in the country.[i]

Malaysia enjoys the large number of population in its multi-cultural identity, multi-ethnic, multi- lingual as well as multi religions society with Malays comprises 52% out of more than 27 millions of the whole populations, followed by Malaysians of Chinese descent with 23.7%, Malaysians of India descent comprises 7.1% of the population and others, consists of various tribal groups especially from Sabah and Sarawak comprise 11%.[ii] Does this scenario of Malaysia landscape of diverse ethnicity able to sustain its peace in the pipeline? Does Malaysia experience of multiculturalism turns its cultural landscape into mosaic instead of melting pot? Malaysia is on its way to the architecture of mosaic culture- a multitude of different cultures in a society or some areas in a city where people of different cultures coexist and they should preserve their cultures and the different cultures should interact peacefully within one nation- [iii] that will blissfully keep the juxtaposes of diverse community without melting their customs or beliefs to another product of culture (melting pot).

In the first place, history of Malaysia throughout its 52 years of independent proves the economic sectors always dominated by the Chinese. Chinese in their sustainable success and domination in economic sectors shows that the wealth of the country should not be shared by other ethnics. They may live side by side with Malays or India, but there still vast gap economically that giving people from different ethnicity that Chinese will forever control the economy of Malaysia, especially. The worst riot of Mei 16 of 1969 between Chinese and Malays lead to the introduction of the New Economic Policy which aimed to reduce the economic disparities between ethnic groups. Since that, more new policies introduced to encourage the unity among the ethnic groups in Malaysia such as Rukunegara and promoted the festival such as Deparaya and Kongsi Raya.[iv] Furthermore, the intensive policies made by government seem hard to merge the ethnicity groups to understand the need of having balance economic distribution of wealth. It may due to the attitudes of the Chinese whom widely known as hardworking nation compare to Malay stigmatized by all people as lazy. Thus, Malaysia economically distribute to the widespread of the cultural mosaic, where the diverse ethnicity can still live side by side in harmonious way, but fail to merge and share the prosperities own by particular ethnics. Malay as the majority population and the Bumiputera should be noted as a nation that is well- kin to their customs and heritage.

Second, cultural mosaic in Malaysia will keep on going due to the political factors that seem imbalance distribution of power for the non-Malay or Bumiputera but is regarded as high privilege of the Bumiputera to maintain its domination in the country especially in the governmental positions. Malaysia implemented democracy parliamentary system that the king (Yang Di-Pertuan Agong) held the highest position followed by the prime minister. The power of Agong in the religion and custom should not be questioned by the citizens since it is very sensitive issue for the Malay communities. But, this privilege given to Bumiputera does not terminate the position in ministry level to be employed by the non-Malays. The political struggles among politicians to hold the important position in government indicate the disintegration of same thought as Malaysian. The non- Malay communities feel pessimistic on the selection of the Prime Minister for 5 decade to be Malay men. Though the selection is done by democracy election, but they still feel that Malay Prime Minister will only serve for the Malay communities and he will struggle the best to sustain the right of the Bumiputera regardless in some occasions denying the right of non-Bumiputera. It gives a view that every ethnic wanted to have their own representative in the governmental making-decision levels that fortunate or unfortunately force the government to at least vacant some positions in the government to the non-Bumiputera. This is to avoid the ethnic tensions that may rise due to the prejudice and unsatisfactory among the diverse non-Malay ethnic groups. It depicts the multiculturalism that shapes the cultural mosaic of ethnicity group in Malaysia as something tensions and to be worried in the future. Every ethnic group does not want to submit to any policy that requires imbalance power distribution in the national level. This is among the main reasons lead to the manifestation of politics by the citizens such as Hindraf and ISA strike, recently.

Third reason leads Malaysia to nurture its mosaic culture is through the identity of the ethnicity itself. Each of the ethnicity members want to be recognized as one of their ethnicity group. A sense of belonging to the particular group in Malaysia is strong and it seems the hope of the current Prime Minister, YAB. Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak of his ‘1 Malaysia’ is worth for nothing. People from different communities in Malaysia will not regard themselves as truly Malaysia. They merely choose to be recognized by their inherit descent nations. Malays, Chinese and even Indian would rather be called as Malay, Chinese and Indian though they admit the advantages and disadvantages carried by their own nations. The Malay will forever say Malaysia formally known as Tanah Melayu as their native land and other ethnicity who hundred years ago known as immigrants believe Malaysia is only the land of Malay people. Question rises, does 1 Malaysia would finally turn Malaysia into melting pot culture which everybody in the future voluntarily admit their nationality as truly Malaysian? Or it will drown as time goes by in future as what already experience to the previous motto of the former prime ministers to unite the diverse ethnicity as one- One Malaysia-?

In Addition, the official language of the Malaysia is Bahasa Melayu. The word Bahasa Melayu changed for several time. At one time, the official language of Malaysia known as Bahasa Malaysia which connoted the idea of regardless of any ethnicity comprise the population of Malaysia, everyone should master Bahasa Malaysia. Bahasa Malaysia at one time is used to promote the unity of the different communities under one language that is Bahasa Malaysia. This is to ensure every language speaker of different communities not to feel isolated and no language spoken in Malaysia superior over one another. But, the citizens still regard Bahasa Malaysia belongs to the Malay community. The official as well as the masses language are spoken and written in Malay. After revealed the fact to ‘Malaysialization’ of Bahasa Melayu failed to unite the diverse ethnicity living in Malaysia, the government finally bit their tongue by changing Bahasa Malaysia to Bahasa Melayu. Again, does this idea able to reunite the multi-ethnicity in Malaysia? Does Bahasa Melayu able to unite the country with people unconsciously puzzle into mosaic culture? Or it is a great indicator that language fail to unite the people? ‘Satu Bahasa, Satu Bangsa dan Satu Negara’ had been promoted before is viewed as idealistic to the country that enjoys the multiculturalism like Malaysia. Language is regarded by its native speakers as prestigious, honorable and an identity of particular nations. Everyone intuits to preserve his/her own language. ‘Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa’ is a very strong proverb to indicate the pertinent to preserve the language of the community. There lay a hope to maintain the existence of the nation, because where there is a language spoken, there live the nation.

Furthermore, when we talk on culture, we cannot run away from the custom practicing by diverse communities and ethnicities in Malaysia. The custom of the people are greatly shaped by the religions and beliefs they confess to. The dissimilarity in practicing the religions somehow leads to the social tension when people fail to understand the culture of others. The issue of the pig farm always disturbing Malay communities. They want to have not any pig farm projects in Malaysia because they regard pig as haram (prohibited) and dirty as truly Islam determined about it. But the issue is what about the Chinese people who regard pork as their everyday meals? And plus eating pork does allowed by the Buddhism or other ideologies practicing by them. The lack of understanding and self-prejudice among another are the reason lead to this problem unsolved. The policy of government that make a compulsion to wear a batik shirt and dress once a week for the governmental official look ideal from the outside appearance, but does it really indicates those different people from different background willingly melting their custom to suit with the government policy?

Last but not least, a very sensitive issue among others is the official religion in Malaysia that is Islam. Though Islam is universal religions that widely spread all over the world but, in Malaysia, people still regard Islam is the religion of Malays, not Chinese or Indian. The pessimistic idea play in non-Malays minds that Islam will ultimately become official religion as long as the country governed by the Malay Prime Minister. As mention earlier, the Agong symbolizes a pertinent role in maintaining Islam as the formal religion of the country and nothing can change the custom except the monarchy institution demolish which seems impossible. If monarchy institution happens to be demolished by anti-Malay parties, Malaysia will face big disastrous riots in future and the idea of romantic multiculturalism will turn to blood and sword. This is to say that, apart from living harmoniously in multicultural country and shaping the mosaic culture, any disagreement emerges among diverse ethnicity may lead to the chaos of the country, economically, politically as well as socially.

In conclusion, the multiculturalism has greatly shaped the country to experience the mosaic culture. Multiculturalism is always regarded as a glorious for the country that successfully able to bring different people from different ethnicity, religions and beliefs, customs as well as different language to leave side by side in a harmonious environment under one flag. But, it is not an easy task for the government to maintain the peace in the post-independent period after 5 decades of its independent. Malaysia is a country that experiencing the mosaic culture realizes that it is not something to be proud of in multiculturalism country. Many social tensions are emerged from this mosaic culture. This mosaic culture is like a beautiful rainbow, different colors live side by side harmoniously, but the process of combining and uniting the different ethnicity is not solute over a night. It may successfully maintain the peaceful and may unfortunately create a chaos for the country that welcoming multiculturalism, like Malaysia.

[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism retrieved on 8/8/09
[ii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia retrieved on12/8/2009.

[iii] http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/canadian-cultural-mosaic-american-melting-pot retrieved on 8/9/2009
[iv] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism retrieved on 8/8/09