Interlok : the assimilation between Malays, Chinese and Indians towards Merdeka

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Title: Interlok
Author: Abdullah Hussain
Genre: Culture/Politics/Fictional/History
ISBN: 978-983-068-489-5
Publisher: Institut Terjemahan Negara Malaysia Berhad
Year: 1971

..........certain words breached the highest level of taboo in the Indian community in Malaysia (understandable) but when Interlok is being appreciated in its entirety, its literature contribution to the development of Malaysian history, culture and politics is beautiful...

nterlok caused a big uproar in the Malaysian political scene recently, particularly from the Indian community. The use of certain words that breached the highest level of taboo in the Indian community in Malaysia was understandable but when Interlok is being appreciated in its entirety, its literature contribution to the development of public's awareness in Malaysian history, culture and politics is beautiful - most appropriate in Najib's era of 1Malaysia. Politicians take advantage of this to create unnecessary racial tension. General public reacted quite efficiently to this irresponsible behaviour.

Really, anyone who is upset by this should pick up the book and start reading from page 1 to the last page 406. They will find that such "breach of taboo" is immaterial to the whole scheme of matters spiritually conveyed by the book. In fact, I suspect that not only the Indians, but the Malays and Chinese too would, or are entitled to, express their dissatisfaction - simply because the book painted the former as lazy/naive bunch of people and the latter as irresponsible opportunists.

Interlok is meant for contemporary ethnicity to take stock in the context of the current co-existence of the three major ethnic groups in Malaysia.

Set in the era of pre-Merdeka, Interlok dives into the struggle of each community (Malays, Chinese and Indians) via the saga of the families of Seman, Ching Huat and Maniam. Fictional as they may be, the effects of their stories are somewhat felt as though re-living history. These are not mere stories. They are meant for contemporary ethnicity to take stock of what the beginnings were and how relevant they are in the context of the current co-existence of the three major ethnic groups in Malaysia.

Seman, a Kampung boy, inherited a farm land which was surprisingly uncovered as assets pledged to a loan from a wealthy Chinese bussinessman. Naturally, being in the lower tier of the economic status, he lost possession of the land to the lender. When investigated, he understood that this was conveniently possible for the Chinaman given the unfair terms and conditions of the loan agreement his father had entered into.

Apparently, many others fell under the same trap. A trap that caused an unfortunate generalisation of Chinese being irresponsible opportunists whereby profits would be reaped from the uncivilised Malays via biased terms, conditions and most frequently, pricing. Such economic positions between the two potray what Malaya was at that time as a result of socio-economic disaggregation encouraged by the British colonial masters.

So great the promises perceived of the golden land (Malaya), many Chinese spent their entire lives in Malaya accumulating wealth to be brought back to China; except that they never left as there was nothing to go back to in China.

The story of Ching Huat started when he was a small boy. He travelled from the God foresaken land of Tung San in southern China to Golden Chesonese (Malaya), with his father, leaving behind his mother and sisters whom he never get to see again. So great the promises perceived by many of the great golden land (of riches and wealth), he (and many Chinese) spent almost their entire lives in Malaya accumulating wealth to be brought back to China. The plan went well except that they never left. In the end, there was nothing to go back to in China.

Although they managed to secure a handsome status in the economic hierarchy, they too had their share of struggle working almost like slaves in the mining industry. Fearing poverty, Ching Huat developed a shrewd character - a necessary trait that protected him from poverty but not necessarily doing any good in his inter-racial socialisation in Malaya - evident by the creation of an enemy by the name of Seman (You'd have guessed what Ching Huat had done).

India was also not without its economic problems. Many Indians of the poorer background travelled to Malaya to serve the British estate owners. Whilst not as wealthy as the Chinese (in fact far from being close), they value the standard of living that they had achieved in the estates compared to the struggle they had in India. This was where Maniam had put his bets on. Unfortunately, Maniam faced tremendous pressure upholding culture that was brought from India.

Stuck in the middle of this struggle, compounded by violence surrounding him, Maniam had to find better path, which he did, that was only possible when his life was saved by a Malay wanderer. To repay, at the very least, Maniam was only too happy to redeem himself by helping the wanderer's son, Seman, to rebuild his life (after being driven away from his farm land) by offering a job in the estate (although no Malay was ever accepted in the estate).

"What was the point of Malays going to school? Learning the Quran they believe was enough. Knowing to pray and how to recite the verses was enough for life."

The three families had their lives intertwined by fate unleashing many emotions that created tension. They were overwhelmed by sadness, hatred, confusion and fear but they were also equipped by determination, hope and courage. In the beginning, little that they know that the differences between them would be put aside for a better future. Hence, they indulged themselves in preserving the microsociety that they belonged to.

The Chinese were traders and as such they always wrote down the things that they traded. This necessitate the need for education. On the contrary, the Malays ask themselves "What was the point of Malays going to school?" Learning the Quran they believe was enough. Knowing to pray and how to recite the verses was enough for life. As a result, many funds were made available by Chinese for Chinese schools while Malays were more than happy to sacrifice their wealth to the mosques as investments for afterlife.

Meanwhile, the Indians struggled to pool enough funds for the education of their children in the estates. Instead, they demanded Tamil schools to be built by estate owners claiming that Malay schools are unfit for their purpose as they do not want their children to become Malay and to forget India - because one day, they will return to India (or so they hoped). The Indians believe that the Malays had borrowed Indian culture - evident by the Sarongs, betel nut and the marriage ceremonies. Hence, it is stupid for the Indians to be in Malay schools when Malays had no culture of their own.

The different concepts of education by Malays, Chinese and Indians not only resulted in an impossible assimilation of those three groups, it also extended the problem to generations that came subsequently. This was to be the main contributor to the socio-economic landscape in Malaya - One of which is infested by hatred between those ethnic groups.

".. why do you want to be like the Huan Na (Malays)? They are lazy, and they don't know how to make money. I don't want you to be like them."

Interlok reveals the inter-racial disregard for each other in great transparency potraying what reality would have been. Cing Huat was so strong of a believer that the Malays were lazy that he uttered to his son ".. why do you want to be like the Huan Na (Malays)? They are lazy, and they don't know how to make money. I don't want you to be like them."

Maniam on the other hand, quite innocently made a generalisation remark "They (Malays) have a good life and have padi lands and villages. They are happy with what they have (explaining that the Malays would not bothered to work hard giving the opportunities for foreigners to the land to do the work)." It seems that only Indians were accepted to work in estates, Chinese in the mines and Sikhs as guards. The Malays did not belong to any working class at all other than farming.

The Malays generally felt that Malaya is a Malay country and that the riches of the land should be shared with the Malays without causing difficulty for the foreigners (Chinese and Indians). The Malays blamed all this on the white man - they had made the mistake of colonising this country and allowing the Malays to be left behind. The negative feelings between the ethnic groups disappeared almost overnight when the Japanese claimed themselves as the masters of the land supressing Malayans of their basic rights regardless of whether they were Malays, Chinese or Indians. Against the Japanese, the three ethnic groups united at their own accord fighting for justice.

... the common purpose of achieving independence for their country, Malaya - a concept the Chinese and Indians had begin to accept after realising that India and China have become foreign to them...

Post-Japanese occupation, the Malays begin to be active in their nationalistic views against the Malayan Union. There was a need for a Malayan society. Malays, Chinese and Indians lived within their own communities - Indians in the estates, Malays as farmers, fishermen and state officials; and Chinese in the mines and in commercial activities. There was no unity. Whatever the circumstances were, the Chinese and Indians had also helped in building up the country and they had to be given a chance to seek a living in Malaya.

In the end their coalition extended beyond the wars into the realm of politics with the common purpose of achieving independence for their country, Malaya - a concept the Chinese and Indians had begin to accept after realising that India and China have become foreign to them. The Chinese and Indians also realised that they must unite and co-operate with the Malays to make Malaya their own country. In the end, Seman, Ching Huat and Maniam became good friends with a common purpose, Independence of Malaya, Merdeka.

Interlok is beautiful. Despite the negative descriptions of Malays, Chinese and Indians, it provides a strong foundation on the back of that very negativity, for a stronger tie between those ethnic groups. Page 406 of Interlok ended the book with the below:

... Yew Seng (Ching Huat's son who lost his leg when warring against Japanese) had chosen to accept a wooden leg contributed by the Malay, Indian and Chinese communities...

* kopihangtuah



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The Medicine Man for the Malay Dilemma

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Title: A Doctor in the House
Author: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad
Genre: Memoir/Politics/History
ISBN: 978-967-5997-22-8
Publisher: MPH Group Publishing
Year: 2011

.... the irony of it all - here we are having social tensions between Malays, Chinese and Indians but thousands of years ago, the Malays were geographically derived from Chinese (Yunnan) and culturally derived from Indians (Hindusm).

un Mahathir (Tun M) had recently released his memoir. Everybody rushed to the MPH book stores to get a copy and later found out that there were plenty of it in Tesco - even today. Nevermind that. What is apparent is that Malaysians, both Bumiputeras and Non-Bumiputeras, both supporters and enemies, bought his book. I presume they wanted to know what secrets he had revealed in his memoir regarding the various success stories as well as hullabaloos created by him, surrounding him or associated to him. He is simply charismatic both ways, negatively or positively. This is his attempt of retelling his life story that progressed in tandem with the milestone of the modern Malaysia that we see today.

This saga of his touches all aspects of politics, economics and social lives of Malaysian. It covers the story of how he became a Prime Minister; his views of fellow Malays; his childhood and family; his early education and career as a medical doctor; Malaya pre and post independence; the political party he firmly believes in (UMNO and Barisan Nasional); multiple-economic sagas and his struggle against prominent figures such as Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tengku Razaleigh, Lee Kuan Yew, Dato' Sri Anwar Ibrahim and even George Soros, none of which dampened his spirit despite being expelled from UMNO in the early years of becoming a member of parliament.

In his attempt to make sense of history, the Malayan history, he transformed legacy into visions that became reality today - setting a conducive landscape for what Malaysia is to be by 2020 (Vision 2020) - a journey that rocked many boats (Royalties' Immunity, the Judiciary, Islam, Privatisations, the Western Superpowers and UMNO itself) but gave rise to pride of the nation such as Petronas Twin Towers, Proton, Langkawi, Sepang F1, Putrajaya, Multimedia Super Corridor and many more that put Malaysia on the map of the world.

I am sure whoever reads this book will find that it is satisfying to finally see what is in the grey matter between the two ears of this magnificent man. Some ideas may not be favourable to certain sections of the population but one thing is for sure, he is an epitome leader - the one that you don't find enough nowadays. Many readers tend to excite themselves with controversial issues such as his fight against his deputies (Musa & Anwar) or his war against Western intruders (US, UK, Australia, IMF & Hedge Funds) or his everlasting saga with his nemesis Lee Kuan Yew. In my case, I am only interested in his views about the socio-economic DNA of Malaysia particularly the Bumiputeras. Hence my attempt to carve and extract Tun M's thoughts on this matter.

It was also this attribute (social etiquette), which was mistakenly applied as unappropriate politeness (Tidak Apa attitude) that led the Malays into social economic trap of living in the village and being denied (by the British) trading activities which they were once experts in (the masters of Melaka entrepot that ended in the 1500's)

Tun M's words are provocative. He says things as if he doesn't mind a legal action may come his way. He refers to Malays as lazy and lacking in intellectual capacity in his example of racial tags that are tainting Malaysia. Naturally, he had to also give examples for Chinese and Indians - the former tagged as money-grabbing and the latter violent drunks. These references were made in Chapter 3 - A provocative start to many more racial sentiments in his book. Nevertheless, you do find positive mentions of the various ethnic groups which kept the balance for readers to avoid hatred from stopping them reading the book.

He believes that there are many positive attributes of the Malays. Even in art, i.e. proverbs and sayings that every Malay child used to learn gives guidance surrounding traditions (Adat) to social etiquette and sound basis for political common sense and wisdom. It was also this attribute, which was mistakenly applied as unappropriate politeness (Tidak Apa attitude) that led the Malays into social economic trap of living in the village and being denied (by the British) trading activities which they were once experts in (the masters of Melaka entrepot that ended in the 1500's).

Tun M studied the origins of Malays in great interest. His readings include texts that suggest that Malays made their way to the Malay Peninsula from southern China, the Yunnan Province, and developed civilisations influenced by Hindu cultures from India. This is the irony of it all - here we are having social tension between Malays, Chinese and Indians but thousands of years ago, the Malays were geographically derived from Chinese and culturally derived from Indians.

The Chinese became significant in this land (Malaya) predominantly due to their trading expertise. They started to replace Malay ships with Chinese Junks and they provided valuable service to the Malay rulers in effectively collecting taxes. For such efficiency, they were given license to operate opium, nutmeg, pepper and other monopolies. The Malays were initially the region's traders trading spices, forest products and many more. Later, the Chinese developed spice gardens for which the Malays supplied. This positioned them as middlemen for spice trade. A business strategy that made them (Chinese) able to meet both the Western colonists' and local communities' needs.

Something had to be done to repair this, i.e. to undo the close identification of race or ethnicity with economic function and status, a legacy of the organised division of labour created by British rule.

In time, their (Chinese) numbers had to be increased that assimilation was no longer possible. This was the start of Chinatowns, and the eventual polarised ethnic society in Malaysia. When the British colonised Malaya, Chinese community dominated Straits Settlement to the point where Singapore only had 15% Malays in the early 20th century. The volume, coupled with Malays' (as well as Colonists') dependency on Chinese' supplies and services were the 2 main ingredients that led to this. Initially, the Malays still shape and form the social and political order in which trading activities were carried out - but all this changed when the European domination denied the Malays of such role - sidelining them (Malays) to become the poorest people in their own country.

The language of administration during the colonial times was English. Naturally English-educated Indian and Ceylonese were brough into administration. By the early 20th century, an ethnic stratification emerged with white officers at the top, followed by Eurasians, the Ceylonese Tamils, the Indians and the Chinese. At the bottom of the ladder were the Malays. The three races were kept apart (by the British): Malays immersed in peasant life in rural areas, Chinese concentrated in urban areas and Indians in rubber estates. The Malays were reluctant to leave the kampungs (villages) where they grow rice and does fishing - an act that further sidelined them (Malays) away from development.

Later the British wanted to introduce Malayan Union, a state of homogeneous citizenship for Malays and non-Malays alike - which would imperil Malay rights to land and opportunities that widened the disparities between the ethnic groups putting Malays as the most deprived group in their own country. This was compounded by the prospect of the Chinese and Indians extracting wealth out from Malaya back to their home countries as there were no prohibition from having dual-citizenzhip - a model that discouraged national pride. The Malays then developed fear, fear of being dispossessed in their own ancestral land, a land that was theirs to begin with, with the possibility of becoming servants of others. This fear was borne out of real disadvantage accumulated over the years (or even centuries) from deprivation of education, opportunities, knowledge and power.

Something had to be done to repair this, i.e. to undo the close identification of race or ethnicity with economic function and status, a legacy of the organised division of labour created by British rule. This was how the Bumiputera considerations introduced in the New Economic Policy (NEP) were justified. It was important to do so in the overall context of the reduction and elimination of poverty in Malaysia. The NEP, when introduced by Tun Razak, was meant to restructure the economy both to eliminate poverty irrespective of race, and the identification of race with economic function. It was clear that the latter statement meant Malay participation in the country's economic activities and non-Malay participation in the public sector.

If the actions favouring the Malays are removed from NEP, they will become deprived and marginalised community in their own country again. If the NEP remains as it is, they become permanently dependent people, like the Native Americans. A position best fitting the Malay sayings "Telan mati mak, luah mati bapak" (If you swallow, your mom dies. If you spit it out, your father dies)

In the end, 36 years after the NEP, they (Malays) have only managed to achieve 20% ownership of economic equity (of which 12% is via trusts by various government institutions) when 30% was the original target. On the bright side, it was only 2% when we achieved independence. A point to note would also be the country's professionals (doctors, lawyers, architects, accountants, etc) that are mainly non-Malays - A status the Malays regarded as failure to their aspirations of what Merdeka should mean to them.

Over the years, such privilege provided by the NEP caused racial tension. This was mainly because Malays have come to think that the NEP is a recognition of their "superior" position as the indigenous people of this country. They (Malays) claim that because they are the Tuan (Masters) of Malaysia, this discrimination in their favour must be permanent. This is, in Tun M's latest opinion, is the new Malay Dilemma. If the actions favouring the Malays are removed from NEP, they will become deprived and marginalised community in their own country again. Extreme disparity in wealth between Chinese and the Malays needed to be corrected. If not, tension and animosity would never be erased. The last time that resentment surged, the 1969 riots came to life.

If the NEP remains as it is, they (Malays) become permanently dependent people, like the Native Americans. A position best fitting the Malay sayings "Telan mati mak, luah mati bapak" (If you swallow, your mom dies. If you spit it out, your father dies). Nevertheless, on overall basis, Tun M believes that the NEP has helped the Malays without disrupting, too greatly, the overall economic rights of the non-Malays. Sadly, the Malays fail to take full honest advantage of this. Many who were given the opportunities to own equity shares, contracts, licences and permits immediately sell (to the non-Malays) these valuable opportunities after they were allocated. This defeated the original purpose of it all.

The Malays blamed the Government for not doing enough for them, they blamed the Chinese, they blamed everybody but themselves and their own inability to achieve or even attempt to attain new levels of competence and confidence. Whilst such behaviour arose from the Malays, the non-Malays cannot be ignored entirely. NEP was revised into National Development Policy (NDP) where if Bumiputeras did not respond or they were incapable of availing themselves of the opportunities created, then non-Malays would be eligible. The 30% rule was made flexible and some Portuguese and Thai decendent Malaysians were allowed to purchase national unit trusts. More scholarships were also given to the non-Malays and many more places in tertiary institutions were allocated to them - To ask the non-Malays to stand aside and wait while so many of the Bumiputeras are happy to play around and not study is unfair.

Tun M is a strong supporter of the affirmative action. He believes that there is still much that we need to do to repair the damage that was left to us. What we have already done under the NEP is momentous. No other affirmative action scheme anywhere in the world has, to his knowledge, worked better, and Malaysians ought to be proud of this achievement. Such believe (in NEP) was only confirmed when he (Tun M) wrote "We need apologise to no one"

Such believe (in NEP) was only confirmed when he (Tun M) wrote "We need apologise to no one"

* kopihangtuah



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