Of different Malays: The problem of boundaries

The recent mishap caused by the Discovery Channel which asserted Pendet, the Balinese dance, into Malaysian culture had re-opened an old wound of Indonesians who believe that Malaysian has stolen Indonesian cultural heritage, again and again. Rasa Sayange, angklung, and reog Ponorogo, among others. For most Indonesians, the act of Malaysian government in asserting these cultural artifacts as part of Malaysian culture is bewildering. Regular Indonesians would indisputably associate these three intangible cultural heritages with three different origins. Rasa Sayange of Ambonese/Maluku, Angklung of Sundanese, and reog of Javanese Ponorogo.

Most Malaysians, including the government of Malaysia, however, fail to see these as of different cultural lineages. They would lump them as belong to Malay (Melayu) culture.

The term Malay culture is visualized by Indonesian in reference to dances of Lilin, Randai, or Serampang Dua Belas. It does not have any direct connection to Javanese gamelan, reog, or angklung. It is directly associated with traditions and customs of the ethnic group within the boundary of the Malay peninsula. Malaysians seem to see a different boundary of Malay culture. How does this happen?

Knowledge and narratives on local culture in Indonesia are developed in association with ethnic based regional boundaries. They are endorsed by the state and they are part of nation building. Since elementary school, Indonesian kids have learned about national heritage by memorizing names of dances, melodies of folk-songs, and visual representations of traditional costumes. Practices of documenting and selecting material artifacts of local cultures are part of the larger political process of inclusion that stresses nationalism and the national unity of Indonesia. Selective preservation of regional and/or local art forms, in constructing the ‘national culture’, is, therefore, part of the politics of exclusion.

Indonesia surely has its own problems in constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing local and national cultures — which while deserves an attention, is not the topic of this article.

Recognizing this pitfall, however, ways in which local culture is framed in Indonesia are much less crude than those in Malaysia. It is still assigned and identified with a certain cultural context/geographical (of origin). While being partial and reductionist, multifarious contexts and diverse locales still have some space in the narrative of Indonesian national culture.

Malaysia adopts a different route in approaching its national and local cultures. The modern nation-state of Malaysia frames national culture by clustering cultural artifacts into cultures of Malay, Chinese, Indian and indigenous tribes (orang asli). The term Malay here, differs than that of Indonesia, refers to and is influenced by several concepts.

First, as enacted in the term ‘Malay is Muslim, Muslim is Malay’, it is a form of ethno-religion. It is entangled with the concept of ethnic nationalism that has become today’s Malaysia’s dominant state-religion relations in which the state is fused to a particular ethnic group and religion functions as a signifier of ethnic identity. Any Javanese, Acehnese, or just any Indonesians, migrate to Malaysia will be classified as ‘Malay’ and they are (supposed to be) Muslims. Chinese Indonesians, though, can box themselves to ‘Chinese’ thus do not have to be Muslim.

Second, it is used in association with Malay race (bangsa Melayu) instead of Malay ethnicity (suku Melayu). This concept is originated in Blumenbach’s racial classification system which divide the world’s races into the prime race-Caucasian/white race, the Mongolian/yellow race, the Malayan/brown race, the American/red race, and the Negroid or black race.

His human-skulls-based concept has been rejected by many anthropologists recognizing the enormous complexity of classifying races.
He considered the inhabitants of Southeast Asia, including the Marianas, the Philippines, the Malukus, Sundas, as well as Pacific Islands as Malayan. Blumenbach wrote: “Malay variety. Tawny-coloured; hair black, soft, curly, thick and plentiful; head moderately narrowed; forehead slightly swelling; nose full ..”

The concept Malay race is also a historical heritage of colonialism. European planters and British officials in Malaysia were keen to obtain laborers from the Dutch East Indies as they were regarded as better suited to climate and would assimilate more easily with the local Malays. Indonesian migrants were viewed as originating from the same racial stocks as the Malays, regardless their ethnicities. In the early colonial Malaysia, the Straits Settlements censuses of 1871 and 1881 both listed Malay, Achinese, Andamanese, Boyanese, Bugis and Javanese separately. In 1891 census, however, there were major structural changes in the classification of ethnicities.

The forty-eight different ethnicities were sorted under the major (hierarchical) classifications of ‘European and Americans’, ‘Eurasian’, ‘Chinese’, ‘Malays and other Natives of the archipelago’, ‘Tamils and other Natives of India’ and ‘Other Races.’ The creation of the category of ‘Malay and other Natives of the Archipelago’ and the inclusions of the various ethnicities in it contributed toward formalizing the boundaries of Malayness. The modern nation-state Malaysia cultivates this heavily politicized classification by clustering Malaysians into ‘Malays’, ‘Chinese’, ‘Indians’, and ‘indigenous tribes’.

Tracing the origin of the term ‘Malay’ used in Malaysian context, we thus can understand that the Malaysian version of Malay is more a product of political reconstruction (of colonialism and a modern ethnic-nationalism) and is rooted in the politics of race and identity rather than the geographical boundary of origin.

As people move around globally, cultures flow in all directions. Tracing histories and origins (of culture), thus is always a complicated task. Lumping various artifacts together into one Malay culture whose boundary is heavily politicized is certainly not the most plausible method to complete the task. It fails to recognize the complexity of cultures of the archipelago. Thus removing them from their multifarious contexts and locales; and dis-embed these cultures from the people who shape and are reshaped by them.
On another note, lessons for Indonesia, it is time for the government to recognize and appreciate local cultures not by treating them as mere symbols to justify the ‘unity and diversity’ but by supporting and caring for people who work tirelessly in preserving and maintaining these cultures. (By Merlyna Lim).

(Re-published with permission. Prof Lim is an Indonesian professor researching and teaching at the Consortium of Science, Policy and Outcomes and School of Social Transformation (Justice and Social Inquiry program) at Arizona State University. She is also a prolific academic writer as well as a notable blogger.)