Identity Nationhood And State Building In Malaysia

Identity, loyalty and nation building are key global challenges today. In the first part of this book, Emeritus Professor K.J. Ratnam, a leading Malaysian social scientist, discusses multiple identities in complex societies, political loyalty, and the challenges that ethnic and religious differences pose for social cohesion. In the second section of the book, done in conversational style, he talks to researcher-writer Patrick Pillai about the importance of regaining the middle ground in Malaysian politics. He expresses a clear preference for civic over ethnic nationalism, arguing that, by embracing all citizens, it provides a more sustainable basis for loyalty. Among key issues discussed are whether Malaysia is a 13-State or a three-State federation, democracy and governance, ethnic politics, and electoral reform. Professor Ratnam also analyses current political alignments and their impact on ethnic relations, the perils of ethnic stereotyping, and the need for a national consensus on foundational issues. He says visions, narratives, national ideologies and constitutions may be useful in bringing people together, but are not enough for holding them together, and suggests some practical ways this problem can be overcome. Sweeping in scope yet detailed in analysis, this publication will interest scholars, students, policy makers and laymen, and encourage reflection on useful ways of facing up to the many complex challenges confronting multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies like Malaysia.

The politics of nation-building has always been a central issue in Malaysia. Whilst the country has been able to sustain a relatively stable politics since the 1969 tragedy, and hence generate a rapid economic development (at least until the 1997 Asian economic crisis and later in the post 2008 General Election), the project of nation-building remains a basic national agenda yet to be fully resolved. The book explores the delicate process of nation-building in Malaysia in the post 1970s, especially in the context of the vision constructing the Bangsa Malaysia or ‘a united Malaysian nation’ enshrined in Mahathir’s Vision 2020 project which was introduced in 1991. It discusses the underlying socio-political parameters that shape and influence the politics of nation-building in the country and the construction of Bangsa Malaysia. As such, the book provides an alternative perspective in the analysis of ethnic relations and nation-building in Malaysia, thus broadens the understanding of Malaysian politics and society.

Focuses on Malaysia's four Prime Ministers as nation-builders, observing that each one of them when he became Prime Minister was transformed from being the head of the Malay party, UMNO, to that of the leader of a multi-ethnic nation. Each began his political career as an exclusivist Malay nationalist but became an inclusivist.

The book addresses questions such as: how should historians treat the earlier pasts of each country and the nationalism that guided the nation-building tasks? Where did political culture come in, especially when dealing with modern challenges of class, secularism and ethnicity? What part do external or regional pressures play when the nations are still being built? The authors have thought deeply about the issues of writing nation-building histories and have tried to put them not only in the perspective of Southeast Asian developments of the past five decades, but also the larger areas of historiography today.

Since independence in 1965 Singapore has strengthened its own national identity through a conscious process of nation-building and promoting the active role of the citizen within society. Singapore is a state that has firmly rejected welfarism but whose political leaders have maintained that collective values, instead of those of autonomous individuals, are essential to its very survival. The book begins by examining basic concepts of citizenship, nationality and the state in the context of Singapore's arrival at independence. The theme of nation-building is explored and how the creation of a national identity, through building new institutions, has been a central feature of political and social life in Singapore. Of great importance has been education, and a system of multilingual education that is part of a broader government strategy of multiculturalism and multiracialism; both have served the purpose of building a new national identity. Other areas covered by the authors include family planning, housing policy, the creation of parapolitical structures and the imporatnce of shared `Asian values' amongst Singapore's citizens.

This text contains an examination of processes of cultural citizenship in peninsular Malaysia. In particular, it focuses upon the diverse residents of the southwestern state of Melaka and their negotiations of belonging and incorporation in Malaysian society. Following political independence and the formation of the Federation of Malaysia in 1957 Malaysian citizenship was extended to most members of these diverse social identities. In this post-colonial context, Timothy P. Daniels examines how public celebrations and representations, religious festivals, and patterns of social relations are connected to processes of inclusion and exclusion.

This a study of national identity in a plural society, Malaysia is a plural society divided by racial, linguistic, and religious cleavages. It had attempetd to forge a national identity overriding these primordial identities. This study probes the extent to which national identity exists among these groups. It also attempts to detect the relationship between national identity and political attitudes towards the nation and political knowledge.