The Illegitimate trio of multiculturalism, democracy and secularism
So what if we know that the root cause of our problem goes all the way back to the unresolved nation-building question in 1946? some ask. They want a solution, cut and dry.
Wong Chin Huat, TMI
Some others believe perhaps no solution is the only solution as time will take care of that.
To me, no solution can be possible unless we appreciate fully and calmly the problem, or at least the largest of its implications: the legitimate crisis suffered by multiculturalism, democracy and secularism.
An illegitimate trio
Multiculturalism, democracy and secularism are illegitimate because they are seen as the post-colonial new political order imposed on the indigenous population.
In other words, Malaysia – or subconsciously, Tanah Melayu – would not have a multi-ethnic population, multiparty democracy and secular system if the British had not been here.
In the imagined pre-colonial Alam Melayu, the natives lived unexploited because everyone spoke Malay and professed Islam, and the Malay rulers benevolently protected their subjects.
Political order was governed by the notion of social contract laid down by the legendary Sang Utama Sri Tri Buana (the claimed ancestor of all Malay royalties) and Demang Lebar Daun who represented the subjects.
Embracing multiparty democracy and secularism would be psychologically difficult for two reasons.
First, it causes cognitive dissonance if you have all the while believed in a simplified anti-colonial discourse.
Simply, if colonial rule is what caused the problem of multiculturalism, and the colonialists were here to exploit us, it is emotionally stressful to think that we owe something we appreciate today to these people we despise.
It requires minimally an appreciation of the idea of “unintended consequence”.
At the most, it requires a sophisticated understanding of the global integration and modernisation process the world has been undergoing since Columbus’s return to Spain in 1493 after his first voyage to America.
The post-colonial order would be more accurately perceived as a “plural order” encompassing cultural-linguistic pluralism, political pluralism and religious pluralism, brought about by the post-1493 ongoing migration, transformation and integration of human groups.
Neither of these – the disconnection between intent and consequence, and a sophisticated modernisation discourse – works well for nationalist mobilisation among the indigenous population, which naturally values simplicity over sophistication and uniformity over heterogeneity.
Second, related to the first point and more importantly, both multiparty democracy and secularism normatively assume impartiality of the state, which would mean a shift from the 1957 compromises.
In other words, an impartial state is exactly antithetical to the intended Malay nation-state, a paradigm shared by Umno and its rivals for the Malay constituency notwithstanding the differences in conceptualisation and emphasis.
