(Mis)nomer me...(warning: very long)
(Tried to make it exciting with photos that i took, but flicker is not very cooperative today)
Yesterday, was the official opening of the Malay Heritage Centre in Singapore. Never before prior to this, have I actually given much thought to my identity as a ‘Malay’, until I saw a myriad of performances that reflects the diversity of this ethnic group. However, it is very inaccurate if anyone were to think that I do not consider myself a ‘Malay’ or that I am not proud of my heritage.
Nevertheless, I watched the performances yesterday with a mixed feelings of awe tainted with embarrassment (because I didn’t know them).
It takes of a bit of digging for you to understand where I am coming from. This background comes from many different angles, and since we are a sum of every little bit of our past, it does shaped my very own perception of my ‘Malay’ roots and to many it may seem confusing.
1) ‘Malays’ make up less than 15% of the population
Like many ‘Malays’ in Singapore, I am confident that a large percentage of our interaction is with friends from other racial groups. As the percentage of ‘Malays’ that move up the academic ladder is significantly smaller than the other races, ‘Malays’ who actually goes for higher learning (junior college, polytechnic, university) gets smaller in number. As a result, 95% of my friends are of a different racial group. The frequency that I use the Malay language in my daily conversation is thus limited, putting me in the ironic spot of being more conversant in the English language.
Its not that I don’t speak the Malay language well, in fact I speak it too well to the point that it is difficult to converse naturally with other ‘Malays’ like my family, cousins etc. Why? The Malay language that I speak is of academic in nature. I speak from the textbooks. I used to win essay writing competitions in Malay. In fact if I remember correctly, I was 2nd at National Level for Primary School, 3rd in the inter-secondary school competition and I won first prize at junior college. Funny huh…for someone that you don’t hear speaking Malay at all. But I don’t know how to speak the daily conversational Malay. I still remember when I was in secondary school, everybody uses the words “aku” and “engkau” to mean “i/me” and “you” in the daily language and I had no idea how to use them. I could only used “Saya” and “Awak” which were the polite/formal options, and often I was laughed at by my other Malay friends. The first time I started using ‘aku’ and ‘engkau’ was during National Service, and that was largely for survival and to fit in.
2) The Perception of the Malay Community
Often, the ‘Malays’ are associated with rich art and culture. In fact, the Malay film industry for Southeast Asia started off in Singapore with the Studio Jalan Ampas. It was vibrant, very rich in culture. You have the ever talented late P. Ramless, music composer, singer, film director, script writer, and actor. He was very talented and I think he reflected the soul of the ‘Malay’ art in the 60-70s. With the advent of the 80s, many ‘Malay’ artistes chose to go for the grungey, long haired heavy metal rock songs reflecting a change towards a more negative perception of art. With the evident, lagging behind of the ‘Malay’ community in the academic sense, to be strongly associated with the arts was considered “lazy, mediocre”. I still remember parents telling their children who wanted to join singing or dance classes as “nothing better to do” and often phrases like “asyik nak nyanyi aje, belajar malas” which literally translates to “you only want to sing, but lazy to study”.
I think that in a way affected me or built my perception. I grew up believing that the strong linkage between art-‘Malay’ as something that is not to be encouraged. I remember those days when the television had weekly entertainment series on ‘Malay’ artistes and I would switch off the television and tuned to Channel 5 instead.
3) The Gross Unjust of the Concept of Race
You might be wondering why am I using apostrophes(is that what they are called?) each time I write the word ‘Malay”? It is because the word ‘Malay’ does not exist. In fact, the racial classification (Malay, Chinese, Indians) that most former British colonies uses is an imagined classification. In the pre-colonial and colonial eras, the British created the concept of race to justify the colonization of other parts of the world. In fact, this racial concept in the way we understand them today is a recent phenomenon. It was used by the British to justify colonizing the east as a region of lesser civilization that needed to be ‘guided’ to modernity. In fact, the shape of the skull of the eastern people were compared to the skull of the West, as a comparison to the notion of ‘what is the perfect race’ with the perfect race being the considered to be the west.
Hence, when independence came, Singapore, chose to retain the classification of the different ethnic group for convenience sake. Similar to the Chinese and Indians, the different ethnic groups under the so-called “Malay” umbrella were labeled as “Malays”. Hence under this group, you will find the Javanese, Bugis, Acehnese, and the different groups of ‘Malays’ from different parts of the Malay Archipelago. To further neutralise, the racial differences, the government chose to ‘depoliticise’ the management of the racial groups. Hence creation of the self help groups based on the 3 predetermined racial groups – Mendaki, SINDA and CDAC – where the management of the different racial group falls under the purview of each racial group themselves. Hence, the rise or the fall of each group was their own responsibility and how they managed the funds allocated to them. As a result, the different heritage and culture differences (no matter how small) between each groups within the umbrella “Malays” were eroded or simplified. Hence you many youths these days are totally unaware of their true heritage. Many people under these group assume themselves to be Malays and their mother tongue is the Malay language.
That’s why I never buy this concept of race, and as a result, I always identify myself as a Singaporean. Further alienating myself from my cultural roots….
As a point of interest, did you know that the ethnic roots of the different Malay groups can be traced to the Polynesian. Yes, the brownish skin people, who are largely sea nomads, stretching from the Hawaiian group of islands, to the indigenous group in Taiwan, down to Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives and all the way to the Madagascar island in Africa. The longest stretch of any ethnic group in the world. If you don’t believe me, compare the language of the Hawaiian people, Tagalog from Philippines, and the so called standard Malay used in Malaysia.
You must be confused by ethnicity and race. Ethnicity is having shared cultural roots, whereas race is an imposition to say that they are the same when they are not. Just like the Westphalian Treaty which carved out the countries in the world by imposing borders to create different sovereign states (USA, Italy, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and all the countries in the world). Ethnicity is like saying, “oh you are Javanese, I am Baweanese, we have common cultural roots, but we are different” but to be identified racially is like a Javanese man saying to a Baweanese “we are Malays and we speak Malay, theres no difference between us”.
4) The Malay Language
To further elaborate how the government in its attempt to simplify management of the people is the issue of choice of ‘mother tongue’ in school. I remember when my uncle wanted to enroll her daughter into a Mandarin class as she registered for Primary One, he was told that he is not allowed to, cause in his identity card he is classified as ‘Malay’ and he can only enroll his daughter into ‘Malay’ class which angered him, because being educated he knew the importance of the Chinese language with the rise of China into the world economy and he didn’t want his daughter to be at a disadvantage. 10 years later, I can see the effect of this. Each day I look through the classified and I see “Preferred English and Mandarin speakers” for more than 70% of the jobs. According to my friend who works for a recruitment agency, and that is only tip of the iceberg, cause many companies don’t even state it in black and white, but do take it into account when it comes to selection.
Many of my friends said that I should then go ahead and learnt Mandarin on my own. The thing is I tried, I took up a course in NUS, for one semester, we learnt 300 Chinese characters. To be able to speak confidently, you need to know a minimum of 3000, that means I have to spend 5 more years learning Mandarin on my own before I can compete in the job market!
To further add salt to the wound, every day I would see at least one or two advertisement on Channel 5 (the so-called English channel) that is in Mandarin. And two days ago on the classified for the The Straits Times (again the so-called English newspaper), I saw an ad for a job written in Mandarin!
Conclusion
My apologies if I offended anybody. I am not a racist person, and to my Chinese friend who may think I am against them, it is definitely not true. I am just sharing my view and grievances about the system that have handicapped many of my ‘Malay’ friends. Personally I don’t like to be identified as a member of any racial group, I would like to be identified as a Singaporean. And I want the system in Singapore to be just that we are Singaporeans and that we are not classified under any racial (mis)nomer.
That being said, it does not mean I am forgetting my culture and heritage. I just don’t want my affinity or interest in my roots to be a debilitating factor.
And for once, i hope when i meet a foreigner, and when i tell him/her that i am from Singapore, the response would be, "oh Singapore, a beautiful multi-cultural society" and not the usual, "Singapore? But you are a Malay? I have always thought Singapore was a Chinese country"
So now, I have a Malay Heritage Centre, I plan to make it one of the places that I periodically visit and support the way I periodically visit the museums. I want to re-learn the things about my roots and I think for a start, I will use the website of the Malaysian Ministry of Culture, the Arts and Heritage (http://www.heritage.gov.my/Papar.php?pageID=Home.php&lang=E&menusw=0) as a starting point to learn.
For those of you interested in the Malay Heritage Centre in Singapore, the link is http://www.malayheritage.org.sg/
imha, shahrin selamat
Yesterday, was the official opening of the Malay Heritage Centre in Singapore. Never before prior to this, have I actually given much thought to my identity as a ‘Malay’, until I saw a myriad of performances that reflects the diversity of this ethnic group. However, it is very inaccurate if anyone were to think that I do not consider myself a ‘Malay’ or that I am not proud of my heritage.
Nevertheless, I watched the performances yesterday with a mixed feelings of awe tainted with embarrassment (because I didn’t know them).
It takes of a bit of digging for you to understand where I am coming from. This background comes from many different angles, and since we are a sum of every little bit of our past, it does shaped my very own perception of my ‘Malay’ roots and to many it may seem confusing.
1) ‘Malays’ make up less than 15% of the population
Like many ‘Malays’ in Singapore, I am confident that a large percentage of our interaction is with friends from other racial groups. As the percentage of ‘Malays’ that move up the academic ladder is significantly smaller than the other races, ‘Malays’ who actually goes for higher learning (junior college, polytechnic, university) gets smaller in number. As a result, 95% of my friends are of a different racial group. The frequency that I use the Malay language in my daily conversation is thus limited, putting me in the ironic spot of being more conversant in the English language.
Its not that I don’t speak the Malay language well, in fact I speak it too well to the point that it is difficult to converse naturally with other ‘Malays’ like my family, cousins etc. Why? The Malay language that I speak is of academic in nature. I speak from the textbooks. I used to win essay writing competitions in Malay. In fact if I remember correctly, I was 2nd at National Level for Primary School, 3rd in the inter-secondary school competition and I won first prize at junior college. Funny huh…for someone that you don’t hear speaking Malay at all. But I don’t know how to speak the daily conversational Malay. I still remember when I was in secondary school, everybody uses the words “aku” and “engkau” to mean “i/me” and “you” in the daily language and I had no idea how to use them. I could only used “Saya” and “Awak” which were the polite/formal options, and often I was laughed at by my other Malay friends. The first time I started using ‘aku’ and ‘engkau’ was during National Service, and that was largely for survival and to fit in.
2) The Perception of the Malay Community
Often, the ‘Malays’ are associated with rich art and culture. In fact, the Malay film industry for Southeast Asia started off in Singapore with the Studio Jalan Ampas. It was vibrant, very rich in culture. You have the ever talented late P. Ramless, music composer, singer, film director, script writer, and actor. He was very talented and I think he reflected the soul of the ‘Malay’ art in the 60-70s. With the advent of the 80s, many ‘Malay’ artistes chose to go for the grungey, long haired heavy metal rock songs reflecting a change towards a more negative perception of art. With the evident, lagging behind of the ‘Malay’ community in the academic sense, to be strongly associated with the arts was considered “lazy, mediocre”. I still remember parents telling their children who wanted to join singing or dance classes as “nothing better to do” and often phrases like “asyik nak nyanyi aje, belajar malas” which literally translates to “you only want to sing, but lazy to study”.
I think that in a way affected me or built my perception. I grew up believing that the strong linkage between art-‘Malay’ as something that is not to be encouraged. I remember those days when the television had weekly entertainment series on ‘Malay’ artistes and I would switch off the television and tuned to Channel 5 instead.
3) The Gross Unjust of the Concept of Race
You might be wondering why am I using apostrophes(is that what they are called?) each time I write the word ‘Malay”? It is because the word ‘Malay’ does not exist. In fact, the racial classification (Malay, Chinese, Indians) that most former British colonies uses is an imagined classification. In the pre-colonial and colonial eras, the British created the concept of race to justify the colonization of other parts of the world. In fact, this racial concept in the way we understand them today is a recent phenomenon. It was used by the British to justify colonizing the east as a region of lesser civilization that needed to be ‘guided’ to modernity. In fact, the shape of the skull of the eastern people were compared to the skull of the West, as a comparison to the notion of ‘what is the perfect race’ with the perfect race being the considered to be the west.
Hence, when independence came, Singapore, chose to retain the classification of the different ethnic group for convenience sake. Similar to the Chinese and Indians, the different ethnic groups under the so-called “Malay” umbrella were labeled as “Malays”. Hence under this group, you will find the Javanese, Bugis, Acehnese, and the different groups of ‘Malays’ from different parts of the Malay Archipelago. To further neutralise, the racial differences, the government chose to ‘depoliticise’ the management of the racial groups. Hence creation of the self help groups based on the 3 predetermined racial groups – Mendaki, SINDA and CDAC – where the management of the different racial group falls under the purview of each racial group themselves. Hence, the rise or the fall of each group was their own responsibility and how they managed the funds allocated to them. As a result, the different heritage and culture differences (no matter how small) between each groups within the umbrella “Malays” were eroded or simplified. Hence you many youths these days are totally unaware of their true heritage. Many people under these group assume themselves to be Malays and their mother tongue is the Malay language.
That’s why I never buy this concept of race, and as a result, I always identify myself as a Singaporean. Further alienating myself from my cultural roots….
As a point of interest, did you know that the ethnic roots of the different Malay groups can be traced to the Polynesian. Yes, the brownish skin people, who are largely sea nomads, stretching from the Hawaiian group of islands, to the indigenous group in Taiwan, down to Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives and all the way to the Madagascar island in Africa. The longest stretch of any ethnic group in the world. If you don’t believe me, compare the language of the Hawaiian people, Tagalog from Philippines, and the so called standard Malay used in Malaysia.
You must be confused by ethnicity and race. Ethnicity is having shared cultural roots, whereas race is an imposition to say that they are the same when they are not. Just like the Westphalian Treaty which carved out the countries in the world by imposing borders to create different sovereign states (USA, Italy, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and all the countries in the world). Ethnicity is like saying, “oh you are Javanese, I am Baweanese, we have common cultural roots, but we are different” but to be identified racially is like a Javanese man saying to a Baweanese “we are Malays and we speak Malay, theres no difference between us”.
4) The Malay Language
To further elaborate how the government in its attempt to simplify management of the people is the issue of choice of ‘mother tongue’ in school. I remember when my uncle wanted to enroll her daughter into a Mandarin class as she registered for Primary One, he was told that he is not allowed to, cause in his identity card he is classified as ‘Malay’ and he can only enroll his daughter into ‘Malay’ class which angered him, because being educated he knew the importance of the Chinese language with the rise of China into the world economy and he didn’t want his daughter to be at a disadvantage. 10 years later, I can see the effect of this. Each day I look through the classified and I see “Preferred English and Mandarin speakers” for more than 70% of the jobs. According to my friend who works for a recruitment agency, and that is only tip of the iceberg, cause many companies don’t even state it in black and white, but do take it into account when it comes to selection.
Many of my friends said that I should then go ahead and learnt Mandarin on my own. The thing is I tried, I took up a course in NUS, for one semester, we learnt 300 Chinese characters. To be able to speak confidently, you need to know a minimum of 3000, that means I have to spend 5 more years learning Mandarin on my own before I can compete in the job market!
To further add salt to the wound, every day I would see at least one or two advertisement on Channel 5 (the so-called English channel) that is in Mandarin. And two days ago on the classified for the The Straits Times (again the so-called English newspaper), I saw an ad for a job written in Mandarin!
Conclusion
My apologies if I offended anybody. I am not a racist person, and to my Chinese friend who may think I am against them, it is definitely not true. I am just sharing my view and grievances about the system that have handicapped many of my ‘Malay’ friends. Personally I don’t like to be identified as a member of any racial group, I would like to be identified as a Singaporean. And I want the system in Singapore to be just that we are Singaporeans and that we are not classified under any racial (mis)nomer.
That being said, it does not mean I am forgetting my culture and heritage. I just don’t want my affinity or interest in my roots to be a debilitating factor.
And for once, i hope when i meet a foreigner, and when i tell him/her that i am from Singapore, the response would be, "oh Singapore, a beautiful multi-cultural society" and not the usual, "Singapore? But you are a Malay? I have always thought Singapore was a Chinese country"
So now, I have a Malay Heritage Centre, I plan to make it one of the places that I periodically visit and support the way I periodically visit the museums. I want to re-learn the things about my roots and I think for a start, I will use the website of the Malaysian Ministry of Culture, the Arts and Heritage (http://www.heritage.gov.my/Papar.php?pageID=Home.php&lang=E&menusw=0) as a starting point to learn.
For those of you interested in the Malay Heritage Centre in Singapore, the link is http://www.malayheritage.org.sg/
imha, shahrin selamat
15 Comments:
wah so long ah read abit first, come back and read more k..hehe
What started as a comment, went on to become a blog post. :)
Please see my blog as well.
impressed with your train of thought and your vast quotation of history text..:)
Regarding ethnicity, many a times i do question my identity of being a Chinese as well, well i speak English and write and think in English, no recollection of Chinese history other than our 39 years of Singapore history maybe, guess as the recent newspaper says being Singaporean, we have kinda erased our traces to our beautiful heritage for the overall picture of racial harmony. Sometimes I wonder why cant Singapore be modelled differently like in Canada where diversity is celebrated.
I do agree on the unjust system of the education system for mandarin language, hell 20 years ago, and actually not that far back, we have our VERY own Chinese pple, migrating to other ctys where their poor kids dont have to take Mandarin as their 2nd lang coz its too tough!!!
ah...such a coincidence that i came across this article...and how much i felt connected to this article...strangely...
why is this strange? coz im a chinese...the difference is that im a malaysian chinese...i would have to say...the racial divide in my home country is definately worst than singapore...*deep in thtoughs...*
Hi Joon
Actually there is a difference here, in Malaysia it is clearly stated and it is made outright clear. The official and national language is Malay. there is no second guessing on that.
I agree with you the situation is similar or in your opinion worse in Malaysia. I dont challenge that, but i do salute the outright openness of your government to admit it. Unlike mine.
In Malaysia, they make it outright clear the official language is Malay and the bumiputeras will get a certain of level priviledges, all in black and white. So actually you have a choice of accepting and living in it. Whereas in my condition, how do you argue against something that is 'invisible'?
And Ying, I was from NUS Arts & Social Science where i majored in Psychology and Geography and minored in Southeast Asian studies.
These are issue that we have to be au fiat with, decipher, challenge and discuss to the point that it just get stuck in my head
This post has been removed by the author.
(hmm canot edit one...so i repost again)
but...the fact dat it is in black n white doesnt make the situation logical n reasonable...n certainly doesnt mean that it can never be challenge...in a way i agree with u that something "invisible" is much more tougher than something clear to be challenge...
mayb i shld blame the fact that our ancestors accepted this without a fight..but i wouldnt wan to blame tis to historical factor as ther r many complicated factors to be consider as well...(they did gave a tough fight on this after all :p)
for me...i would rather focus on future and see what i could do to change e situation :) how abt u?
@cers = change agent rite? haha...
in reply to ying...i think to certain extends...strats that spore gov took is quite effective...as they always mentioned that 39 yrs ago, spore is a "new" country with diff races and "country"'s royalty...but without a strong togetherness...
by "creating" one identity for all, this wil address to the problem in a direct manner...
to me...indonesia took a similiar route as well...
but they could haf took a diff route...
Dear Joon
this blog entry was not a whining segment, it was a moment of reflection for me. i am not an AIESECer, we dont whine, we make changes. Thats wat the entry was meant to serve, ie. making the invisible visible. The first step in making a change is to create awareness, which will temporarily prevent reoccurences of such matters (and in my case, i would not like a classified ad written in Mandarin, or any other language other than English, on the English paper The Straits Time). Then you proceed with subsequent course of action.
Like i said, i have no qualms about anyone claiming their heritage or identifying themselves in anyone. I think it should be respected. I dont claim for it to be a solely Singaporean issue, and again like i said, many former colonies adopted the racial classification like Malaysia, Indonesia etc.
My point is this, personally i dont condone the racial classification cause i think it is unnecessary. However, it is not a problem unless it has debilitating effects on a person. And in this case, it does. An example, it has prevented anyone to take up a language of another race as a second language subject. Why should that have happen? This is just an example. Another one is, why should a Malay or a Muslim be made to contribute to Mendaki (the self help group for Malays)? Just because i am Malay? shouldnt contribution be a willing or opted for option?
Alot of people would argue, contribution to society, why not? Question should be "why yes"?
Joon
And like you said, the government strategy was to re-create the identity of Singaporeans...so why should race matter since we are all one identity?
Convenience?
why create the unnecessary? Especially one that has debilitating effect.
I know of a single mother who is a Muslim, who gets monthly deduction of her salary to Mendaki. When she tried to apply for bursary for her kids, she was denied. Why? Cause he husband was an Indian Muslim, so her kids have no right to claim from Mendaki but has to go to SINDA (the indian self help group). Isnt that weird?
Wouldnt it have been better, if there was no racial segregation, but to have ONE pool of educational fund, and everyone who needs assistance apply to the same pool of fund? Isnt that a more effective mechanism?
oops the earlier comment should have read "i AM an AIESECer" and not as it is stated
hi shahrin...
mayb u misunderstood in some ways, by saying that we should look to the future, it doesnt mean that i thought you are whining :) e fact is, i admired u of exposing the "invisible". And by speaking about singaporeean government being "effective", it certainly doesnt mean that I agree with singapore government's "direct" approach which results in racial segregation.
as a chinese, i personally don't like to see mandarin show being shown on mobile TV, i felt uneasy and inconsiderate, its supposed to b a public media and will be unfair for others who dun understand mandarin. It would be the same for Malaysia, except that the common language is malay instead of english.
As u mentioned racial classification, it is well known(or was it not?) in malaysia that this has really bad effects on non-malay/bumiputras. take university education for example, i have no qualms as well, on the fact that giving aids to students whom family are facing financial issues, or having special allocation to ensure a minimum amount of entries for any particular(well if there is no racial system, we will not need to do so at all!) races. But how about when the aids and allocations are twisted in such a way, that non-bumiputras student with straight As in STPM(A level) can't even enter public universities, but bumiputras with a below average results are in the prestigious medical program?or non-bumiputras student with good results but financial difficulties can't get any scholarships or loans, yet almost all bumiputras with below average results and above, are almost all awarded with some form of scholarships/loans?
how abt when the entry requirement for uni are "designed" such that, two diff courses/exams are being offered seperately to bumiputras and non-bumiputras, one of them being one year matriculation program almost specially for bumiputras(only less than 5% of non-bumiputras get to enter the matriculation program), another being a 2 yr program which r as tough as A levels if not tougher. Imagine, they are comparing these two program in a direct manner: an A in STPM is equivalent to an A in the matriculation program. While i might be biased to say that the matriculation program is easier to score, the fact is two program varies in terms on syllabus and also the way it is being conducted. Try comparing a durian and an apple? and try look into the syllabus of the matriculation program, and you will know whether im biased on this.
This is very true situation in msia, and this is only tip of the iceberg, not to mentioned discrimination in other sectors. Why racial segregation? which in turns leads to racial discrimination? Malaysian or Singapore...or anywhere in the world, i would always condemn racial segregation, no one is supposed to be a class above anyone in watever sense.
haha...i was wondering...why are u claiming that you are not an @cer?
nway...if this were to be discussed in public in msia, im almost sure to be send to jail with no prosecution(ISA)...hehe...so pls dun sabo me :p
Just 2 thoughts about the race classification and its purpose.
Do you know that there is a pre-arranged ratio of mix in the HDB blocks you are staying to ensure that there is interaction between the races? That is when you apply for HDB flats, stating your race, you will get allocated accordingly taken the race mix into consideration to forge a platform for multiracial interaction ( At least this was what my secondary school history teacher told me )
Next, to comment on the story where the Malays are not allowed to take mandarin as the 2nd language in school. I just feel that since the young Chinese generation in Singapore a already gradually losing their foundations in the language, with the fusion with western influence there is a threat that any race will lose their heritage in future. The idea is, since local chinese are unable to spread the language and put it into use properly, allowing the degration in the mandarin course to Chinese B exam. Why not let Singaporean, be it Malay, Indian, Chinese etc or even PR to take that language, I am sure that races apart from Chinese could also do a better job in handling the langauge and benefit Singapore as a whole. Would hope to see a Singaporean Malay or Indian establishing a strong business in China. Why not? So long as the education is more open, the Nation will be able to benefit. There will definitely be more racial harmony right? =)
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