New Malays, New Malaysians: Nationalism, Society and History

Summary

Nineteen ninety-five was a watershed year for Malaysia. Commentators on national affairs were almost unanimous in asserting that a long period of national struggle had reached its culmination. A new post-colonial generation was entrenched in the political succession. The economic restructuring of the New Economic Policy (NEP) lay in the past, growth rates soared and Malaysia had graduated as an “upper middle income country” with a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) above that of Greece. Malaysia was looking outwards, articulating a sense of pur- pose and cultivating a new patriotism. It was a time of visionary public works, lit by the torch of technology. The world was coming to Malaysia and applauding its achievements. The April 1995 National Front electoral landslide provoked parallels with the first Alliance victory on the eve of independence in 1955. Indeed, one could see the ruling alliance surging forward in a similar wave of triumphalism, a similar promise of prosperity. One man dominated Malaysian politics to an unprecedented extent: 1995 was Mahathir's meridian. It seemed also that an era of opposition politics had come to a conclusive end. These epochal moments caused new questions to be voiced about the future. Did this represent the “end of politics” in Malaysia, the end of Malaysia's post-colonial history? Were Malaysians witnessing the demise of ethnic politics and the birth of a new kind of society — the founding moment of a new Malaysia even?

Historians tend to be wary of such talk. It smacks of bad history, the kind of rigid teleological narrative into which the histories of nations are often com- pressed. Historians now emphasize the dissonances that arise in the development of a nation or a nationalism. They chart prospective histories that look forward from the past and emphasize the variety of historical outcomes that were possible at every stage. They observe how nationalism is continually reinvented in response to new ideological challenges and social change.