Author: Zhun Yee Chew

Malaysia is a mixing pot of multiple races and ethnicities, but whether the components mix well has always been questionable. The seeming racial unity in our country has been publicized in textbooks and media, but in reality, racism still runs rampant in every layer and corner of Malaysia, from education system and politics, to employment, housing and economics.

There are two types of racism – institutional racism and daily racism. (Carrett, 2020) Institutional racism is racism happening at a more macro-level, embedded and enshrined in laws and regulations of a society. This type of racism can lead to discrimination based on race in education, employment, criminal justice, healthcare and politics.

For instance, as we shall see discussed later, race-based policies are ingrained in Malaysian politics, used to advance the interests of specific racial and ethnic groups. Vernacular education system in Malaysia divides students according to race, and employment and housing systems in Malaysia are often observed to use race-based selection criteria. Racism also happens at a more micro, interpersonal level between individuals, from the interaction between a cashier and a customer, to casual racial, derogatory remarks towards other races. In this context, racism is known as daily racism.

In this article, I propose that racism exists and persists in Malaysia because people believe that race is real. And they believe it is real from one or a combination of three levels – biological, social and political. (James and Burgos, 2020)

Race as a Biological Construct

Firstly, I argue that racism is the result of the belief that race is biologically real.

Racial Essentialism

According to the view of Racial Essentialism or Naturalism, race reflects a biological foundation or “essence”, which is characterized by a set of shared genetic and biological traits or phenotypes that all and only the members of a race have.

People who hold this view also believe that these biological traits that form the building blocks of a race are heritable and passed on from generation to generation, and they identify each race with specific geographic origin, typically in Africa, Europe, Asia, or North and South America. (James, 2012)

A cursory inspection of the social dynamic in Malaysia reveals that this conception of race is still prevalent.

Examples of Racial Essentialism in Malaysia

For instance, you can find it especially in conversations among the elders, “We are Chinese. China is our homeland.” Racist comments used by politicians also revealed their biological conception about race. For instance, politicians in Malaysia can be seen as holding a biological conception of race where race is tied to one’s geographic origins. A politician in Malaysia was observed to offer racist remark “Where are you from? China? No wonder…” to a journalist, associating people originating from China as unable to differentiate facts from assumptions. And another politician was observed to use the word “keling”, a derogatory racial term that is used to denote a person or immigrant originating from the Indian subcontinent.

The Problems of Racism Essentialism

The problem with Racial Essentialism is twofold.

Firstly, this view is misleading and has been debunked by scientists and thinkers alike. Racial skeptics, such as Anthony Appiah (1995, 1996) and Naomi Zack (1993, 2002) contend that the term “race” cannot denote anything real in the world, if race is taken to mean a set of criteria that belongs all and only to a specific group of people.

To further this line of thinking, the geographic origins of populations do not correlate perfectly with the physical traits associated with specific racial groups. Variations in biological traits and phenotypes that are usually used to define race like skin colour and hair texture are also gradual rather than discrete, so the lines drawn between “racial groups” are arbitrary at best. (Zack, 2002) These variations come not from “race” but from geographical and climate conditions like exposure to sunlight.

For instance, it was found that dark skin is an evolutionary response to prevent skin cancer from more sunlight. In short, there is no scientific basis for “race”.

Secondly, this view has often been weaponized to dehumanize others of another race by grounding racism on putative biological inferiority, as shown in the examples above. (Blum, 2002) And this is unacceptable. 

At this point, you might say, the fact that there lacks scientific evidence for the existence of race does not entail that races do not exist. So you may argue that we ascribe someone with a specific race through their shared culture, experiences, history or even status or power. Or you may ascribe someone a specific race through their skin colour, but you deny that skin colour is the necessary determinant of someone’s race.

If that is the case, you are a racial constructivist. Race Constructivism can be understood in two ways – race as a social or political construct. I will first explore the view of race as a social construct.

Race as a Social Construct

Racial Constructivism

People who hold this view perceive race as real from a social level – race is socially constructed from shared experience, history and culture. They are open to accept that race is biologically insignificant, and the purported shared biological traits and phenotypes that are used to “define” biological race are merely “intersubjectively agreed” criteria that are used to categorize people into sub-groups. (Mills, 1998; Mallon, 2004)

Race still exists, but its reality is provided by the local experiences a group of people share, not by biological facts (Mallon, 2006; Piper, 1992). That being said, racial constructivists would consider a Chinese who has lived long enough in an Indian community an “Indian”, or at least “Indian-Chinese” due to the shared common experiences they have. 

The Problems of Racial Constructivism

Racial constructivism can lead to the desirable effect of racial unity but more often than not, it fuels racism.

To explain why, people who view race as a social construct would more likely focus on the shared culture and experience of a population rather than the often racialized features like skin colour. These people would be more open to embrace a “pan-race” view of ascribing all Malaysians who share similar cultures, history and experiences as making up a single race.

On the other hand, racial constructivism can be combined with racial essentialism to discriminate against other races, grounding acts of racism on shared biological and social features and experiences.

For instance, ethnic nationalism, an ideology emphasising on devotion to a nation with objectives to advance and protect what constitutes the culture, language and rights of a single race emerged during the British colonization era. The Malay nationalists (a group of Malays who are motivated by the nationalist ideal of creating a Bangsa Melayu (“Malay nation”)) preferred a definition of Malay that included Muslims from the Indonesian archipelago but excluded Muslims of mixed Arab and Indian descent. (Kahn, 2005)

These nationalists also fought for the idea of a nation that excludes Non-Malays including Chinese and Indians who are thought to be immigrants or latecomers than “Tuan Rumah” (host or original inhabitants) of the Malaysian land even though most have stayed there for their entire lives. (Kahn 2005; Ooi, 2018)

This shows how the cultural differences have been used to justify acts of social racism against others.

Race as a Political Construct

Variation of Racial Constructivism

In this section, I explore the third conception of race realism – a variant of racial constructivism – the view that race is a real, political construct. And how the view that race is politically real underlies racism in Malaysia.

In this view, race is no longer only biological or social, it is also political and is “chosen”. In the biological and social understanding of race discussed earlier, race is “unchosen” in the sense that one does not get to choose the biological and social features or experiences one is born into.

Rather, one is “assigned” one’s race based on the unconscious, institutionalized behaviours of individuals labelling people in society according to biological features and cultures. The political ontology of race, on the other hand, suggests that racial identity can also reflect differential and hierarchical relations of power as a result of “consciously granting political significance to a racial identity that is biologically or socially imposed”.

In other words, racial difference is defined by the cultural and purported biological differences between groups of people, and is further amplified by the differential power relations in politics. (Jeffers, 2019; James and Burgos, 2020) 

History of Malaysia and Political Racism

To further illuminate this view, let’s revisit the history of Malaysia.

From the colonial to postcolonial periods, Malaysian politics has been characterized by ethnic nationalism and supremacy of a single race. In 1952, before Malaysian Independence, Tunku Abdul Rahman said “Malaya is for the Malays and it should not be governed by a mixture of races.” Malays, he argued, would have to safeguard their rights over Malaya, “which is ours, for the benefit of our future generation.” (Joset, 1980)

Origin of Racism in Malaysia

This was when racism in Malaysia grew, as the differential power relation between different groups amplified. Mono-ethnic racial groups were formed, as a reaction to ethnic nationalism, to demand for equal political rights as the Malays. (Ye, 2003) Racial tensions intensified, eventually leading up to the infamous racial riot on May 13, 1969.

And as a “solution” to the ongoing racial tension in Malaysia, after the 1969 riot, the supremacy of a single race in Malaysia became “entrenched”, as depicted by Ghazali Shafie, the former Minister of Home Affairs of Malaysia, “the politics of this country has been, and must remain for the foreseeable future, native [i.e. Malay] based: that was the secret of our stability and our prosperity and that is a fact of political life which no one can simply wish away.” (Lee, 2002)

As we can see, because of ethnic nationalism, differential and hierarchical political power existed and persisted, the politics in Malaysia became racialized, and mono-ethnic political parties continue to impose racial division, and operate as champions of their race while paying lip service to national unity.

This is perhaps also the reason why the then-multiracial Pakatan Harapan coalition under former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed was brought down so quickly. It is said that “No Malaysian prime minister has been able to govern effectively and freely without commanding the confidence of the majority race in Malaysia”.

This illustrates how the residues of ethnic nationalism continue to affect us even until today.

My point is, on top of the purported biological and cultural facts that define race, Malaysian politics is highly intertwined with race — differential power relations underlie our racial identities and differences, to the extent that when they become separated, many Malaysians may not be able to accept it. 

What’s Next for Malaysians?

I believe racism presupposes the existence of race, and I have presented a few ways in which race has come into existence – through shared biological facts, cultural experiences and differential power relations in politics. Whether it is institutional racism or daily racism, they can be said to be rooted in the beliefs that race is biologically, socially or politically real.

Ending Racism by Removing The Idea of Race?

We have come to establish that biological race does not exist, but would it be sufficient to end racism by merely educating the public about the non-existence of biological race?

My answer is no.

This is because as discussed earlier, race is also constructed socially and politically.

For instance, in country like America, many white Americans reject biologically grounded racial differences but retain discrimination against Blacks (Entman and Rojecki, 2000; Kinder and Sanders, 1996) They called it the “new racism”, where biology has become irrelevant to racists, who would nonetheless attribute a common “dysfunctional culture” to groups they discriminate against. (Kahn, 2005)

Joint Effort of Education, Politicians and the People

To counteract cultural or social racism, educators could expose students to multicultural readings, and examine historical events and works of literature from diverse cultural perspectives to encourage open-mindedness and anti-racism. (Powell, 2000)

To eradicate racism completely, there is also a need to put an end to race-based politics in Malaysia and of course, racialized laws and legislations.

But this is practically challenging.

There are, at current, too many personal agendas and disagreements going on between the different mono-ethnic political groups, and too few are willing to see eye-to-eye with one another.

Even if we are able to get our politicians to agree on working towards a racially harmonious country, we could argue that race is too ingrained in society that even if mistaken biological beliefs about race and differential political power are removed, the truth that appearance and ancestry do not correlate to something real is hard to swallow for many. 

Practical Difficulty Does Not Mean Impossibility!

Nonetheless, practical difficulty does not mean impossibility. Given that our country leaders and the rakyat are willing to kickstart intellectual discussions on race and racism, and are determined to remove the biological, social or political veil they have used to view others for the past many decades, there is still hope to achieve racial unity in Malaysia. With reference to the racial riot incident in 1969, I have a point to make: 

While it is true that “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”, I say, “Those who learn from history but choose to let history dictate their lives are doomed to never progress.”