In his memoirs, the 19th century scholar Munshi Abdullah differentiated himself from other Malays, whom he saw as servile, backward and superstitious. Two centuries later, it appears that Malays in modern Singapore still find themselves caught between two worlds.

This topic of discussion came surging to the fore following the publication of a piece in which the author, Taufiq Rozaini, wrote about being a Malay man in Singapore from an affluent family with no functional proficiency in his own language, describing himself as the “least Malay Malay there is”.

The article triggered a strong reaction among Malay Singaporeans on social media. Yet the response wasn’t just about Taufiq Rozaini as an individual; it was about the narrative he was espousing and the stereotypes he was perpetuating. In fact, Taufiq’s article gives us a good starting point to understand how some privileged Malays in Singapore see themselves in relation to other Malays.

There is no longer legitimate reason to think economic inequality in Singapore does not correlate to ethnicity. The scholarship is extensive1. Malays remain disproportionately represented among the city-state’s lowest income groups, and have been on the receiving end of structural discrimination for decades. They continue to lag behind the other communities in education, employment and household income.

Malays remain disproportionately represented among the city-state’s lowest income groups, and have been on the receiving end of structural discrimination for decades.

But it’s astonishing that the writer claims to be so astronomically privileged, yet still remains unaware that Malays who have excelled do in fact exist. Unlike him, these Malays do not see their socio-economic status being fundamentally incompatible with their Malay identity.

No doubt Taufiq’s experiences are real, and stereotypical essentialism is a legitimate problem. Many Singaporeans are still surprised that a Malay can even enter a public university, or have a well-paying career. But there are many middle- to upper-middle class Malay Singaporeans from elite education institutions who work as professionals. I’ve had the pleasure to meet some who work abroad in places like Silicon Valley or Cambridge. None of their successes make them feel any less Malay. The idea that one is exceptionally “un-Malay” just because one is wealthy or conventionally successful is quite simply passé.

Excellent Malays and poor relations

In his piece, Taufiq goes through a laundry list of privilege markers: parents with high-paying jobs, a big house with a 3D-ready television, bathrooms with bespoke glass doors. He contrasts this with the lived realities of his less wealthy relations, wondering how they feel when they visit and enter his environment of splendor.

“I have more in common with my German neighbour who moved here than with my own aunties and uncles,” he writes. In this sentence, he points to affinities felt along economic class lines, rather than racial ones.

How do we make sense of the “Malay Excellent”—the model minority who has ostensibly succeeded under Singapore’s much-vaunted meritocratic system? To a degree, they’re able to wade above the discrimination faced by their ethnic kin lower down the social ladder. But chances are that they’ve faced greater challenges getting to their positions than their Chinese Singaporean counterparts. And even after having “arrived”, they’re still judged as atypical of their species: the exception, rather than the norm. They’re held up by the state as if they’re some prized specimen, an example of how Singapore’s supposed race-blind meritocracy is working as it should. Under the weight of this dominant narrative, all complaints of institutional discrimination are made to appear unreasonable, and are therefore made invisible.

How do we make sense of the “Malay Excellent”—the model minority who has ostensibly succeeded under Singapore’s much-vaunted meritocratic system?

This is played out in Taufiq’s experience. He considers himself no “quintessential” Malay, but I wonder if he’s ever questioned where the assumed characteristics of this “quintessential” Malay comes from. Is his feeling detached from his Malayness really just the result of his relatives seeing and treating him differently because of his wealth and non-Malay-accented English? Or could it be because of all the messaging in the mainstream media, in government speeches, in public campaigns, in remarks by taxi drivers, that push the idea of Malays sounding a certain way, liking certain things, having a certain manner? Is he really alienated because of class-conscious cousins, or because he can’t fit into the box that a racist society has drawn for Malays?

Melayu Baru

Alienation from one’s culture and language, self-loathing and contempt for one’s poorer relations are all common symptoms of the upwardly mobile minority who’s beaten the odds within a profoundly racist society. This is the syndrome of the affluent Malay middle-class. To understand it, we must briefly examine the discourse on development and socio-economic progress produced by Malays themselves.

In the 20th century, poverty amongst Malays of both Singapore and Malaysia were to be eliminated with the cultivation of “Melayu Baru” (New Malays). The New Malay had to be well-educated and cosmopolitan, habitually speak Malay peppered with English phrases, live in fine residences, and eschew the contentment of their forebears in favour of a strong work ethic. This ideal type was best embodied in the stratum of nouveau-riche Malays who benefitted from Malaysia’s New Economic Policy (Dasar Ekonomi Baru, launched in 1971).

But while an elite of newly affluent Malays was created, the vast majority still remained in poverty. The same year the NEP was launched, UMNO published Revolusi Mental, a treatise containing its vision for Malay progress. Its message was clear: the Malay poor had none to blame for their circumstances but themselves, and had to adopt habits that would predispose them for success2. They were told to be entrepreneurial and money-minded, and to take for their inspiration millionaires and tycoons.

Malay progress was defined almost exclusively by economic achievement, led by the creation of a capitalist elite who, by living in luxury and ease, would inspire their fellow Malays to strive just as much.

The black American thinker WEB Du Bois coined the notion of the “Talented Tenth” to argue for the creation of a class of educated black professionals, so that the disenfranchised black community of the United States could be propelled forward by their moral leadership, frugality and intellectual fibre. The Malay political leaders, however, saw the salvation of their people in a “richest tenth”: Malay progress was defined almost exclusively by economic achievement, led by the creation of a capitalist elite who, by living in luxury and ease, would inspire their fellow Malays to strive just as much.

While Singapore never adopted this campaign, the country’s Malay elites similarly imbibed such an ethos. Malay MPs and community leaders still reproduce narratives that located the community’s social ills in inherent “cultural deficiencies”. Segments of the Malay intelligentsia and elite take it upon themselves to diagnose problems within the community and adopt a condescending posture towards their less privileged counterparts3. These narratives then became entrenched: a study from 2009 found that even Singapore’s more “successful” Malays—who work as civil servants, managers, or other well-compensated white collar jobs—have internalised the racist stereotypes commonly associated with their ethnic community. Malays who’d made progress economically remain frustrated by their people’s misplaced priorities, which they perceived as an incurable aspect of Malay culture: an “obsession with wedding dedications, soccer, joget-joget [dancing]”, complacency and lack of effort4. A startlingly high proportion of those interviewed believed more Malays would do well if they were more like the Chinese.

The New Malay in Singapore: “Chinesed”

To be just Malay is perceived as a handicap, but adopting what was perceived as Chinese culture will lead to progress, especially in Singapore’s highly capitalistic and competitive social environment. To become Chinese was impossible and so an evolved Malay, one supposedly without the “deficient Malay‟ culture was created, resulting in a new Malay identity.

—Noorainn Aziz, Malay Stereotypes: Acceptance and Rejection in the Malay Community (2009)

Singapore’s capitalist culture holds profit-seeking and natural business instincts (imagined as typically “Chinese” traits) ideal components of the national character, in opposition to laziness and contentment, which are assumed to be Malay characteristics5.

The roots of the “Malay Problem” have been discussed in public fora in many different ways. Inaugural Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, for instance, believed the Chinese and Malays were products of very different historical processes: the former, he argued, was a resilient culture hardened by millennia of dynastic change and natural disasters, while the latter was produced “by warm sunshine and bananas and coconuts, and therefore not with the same need to strive so hard”. He also believed that because Malays had a different genetic configuration, they could not possibly compete on a level plane with Singapore’s other ethnic groups6.

The idea of this enduring “problem” in Singapore, being the result of assumed homogeneous and unchangeable Malay traits, was solidified by years of public repetition in state media, public campaigns, policies and ministerial speeches. It isn’t hard to envision how the phenomenon has made being Malay an undesirable thing. Malays themselves have come to believe in the inferiority of their cultural values in contrast to Chinese ones, which supposedly promote industry, diligence and ambition.

In Singapore, the state assumes everyone has a “racial” identity; these are held to be biologically determined, and supposedly determine one’s lifestyle and behaviour in fixed and immutable ways.

This catches Malays like Taufiq in the middle: while they don’t fit the racist construct of the “typical Malay”, they can never actually become Chinese, either. But perhaps the problem isn’t so much internalised racism, as it is race itself, and how it operates.

In Singapore, the state assumes everyone has a “racial” identity; these are held to be biologically determined, and supposedly determine one’s lifestyle and behaviour in fixed and immutable ways. In-betweeners like Taufiq could be the strongest cases against this. If being forced to “become more Malay” oppresses them so badly, perhaps Malays can do them (and ourselves) a favour by terminating their membership. After all, the tenuous affinity they feel to Malay culture proves just how amorphous and constructed the idea of Malay identity is, anyway.

Unfortunately, things aren’t so easy. While ethno-racial identities are constructs, they’re given substance through their use in enforcing difference within unequal power structures. Taufiq’s relationship to his ethnicity is viewed through the same binary lens of values the state imputes Malays vis-a-vis the Chinese. How “un-Malay” he feels corresponds directly to how “Chinesed” he is: for instance, he says he has more in common with his Chinese friends than his Malay relatives because, like the former, he attends elite schools and shares their tastes in pop culture. This maps conveniently on to the hierarchical relationship between underprivileged Malays and privileged Chinese, entrenched in the structure of Singapore society and manifested in very palpable ways. Not wanting to be Malay because one feels more Chinese only reinforces this dynamic.

Language and privilege

Ironically, in contemporary Singapore, the elementary questions Siapa nama kamu? Di-mana awak tinggal? and the words of the national anthem Majulah Singapura are not understood by most Singaporeans owing to their lack of familiarity with the national language. Indeed, many Singaporeans today are not even aware that Malay is the national language, believing that there are only four national languages.

—Lily Zubaidah Rahim, Singapore in the Malay World: Building and Breaching Regional Bridges (2009)

Taufiq’s account of an exchange with a Chinese grocer at the marketplace is ridden with irony. Not only did the Chinese lady know the vegetable’s Malay name while he did not; the marketplace also remains one of the few spaces in Singapore where the Malay language continues to play its role as a vernacular bridging the city’s different ethnic communities. Many who patronise the city’s wet markets are the elderly, among whom English proficiency is not so widespread; most grew up in a time when Malay served as Singapore’s de facto lingua franca. I have on multiple occasions encountered Tamil patrons conversing with Chinese shopkeepers in that language.

For Taufiq, however, “[his] lingua franca has always been English, and pretty much exclusively so.” Viewed against the broader historical backdrop of Singaporean language politics, Taufiq’s non-existent grasp of Malay reflects an ongoing process of the National Language’s relegation to the far margins.

For the Malay middle-class, assimilation into more affluent circles entails adopting the prestige language (English) as the primary means of communication; it’s a badge of pride for many that they can speak English without a trace of a Malay accent. Taufiq, for instance, points out that he responds to his relatives in “grammatically-correct, no-Malay-accented English”. A Malay accent immediately betrays the speaker’s membership in an inferior class. Meanwhile, the Malay language itself is not only seen as backward7, but is also looked down upon for possessing little economic utility compared to Mandarin, which has gained importance resulting from China’s position as an economic power.

After five decades of neglect, Malay matters only as a ceremonial national language, having lost functional significance in the city’s public sphere.

Indeed, the state provides incentives for Singaporeans to embrace Mandarin, through the Speak Mandarin Campaign (launched in 1979) and patronage of Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools: elite institutions that produce graduates equipped to engage China’s economy and society. After five decades of neglect, Malay matters only as a ceremonial national language, having lost functional significance in the city’s public sphere.

Given these pressures, it’s unsurprising that younger Malays from affluent families have become increasingly alienated from their own language. These are not mere social pressures, however, that dictate some languages to be more “fashionable” than others.

Languages in Singapore are ideologically connoted. In the 1950s and 60s, the active promotion of Malay as a lingua franca was the result of political will (which enjoyed even the widespread support of left-wing Chinese student activists and nationalist leaders). Its recession in favour of other languages today is similarly due to a profound shift in Singapore’s ideological orientation and national identity: from an anti-colonial Malayan one, to a globalist, neoliberal and Sinified one.

How Malay is Malay enough?

Should Malays consider their middle-class cousin arrogant just because he keeps responding to them in English? Are they to blame for making him feel left out? It goes without saying that Singapore’s Malay community is still governed internally by its own set of norms, and a great many things can leave one at risk of feeling left out, and even ostracised. One may be guilty of not being religious enough, family-oriented enough, or fluent enough in Malay.

But one must recognise that these “prejudices” form the other half of the walnut; just as the Malay middle-class anxiously seeks to distinguish itself in opposition to what it perceives as reductive stereotypes, traditional Malay ideas on “Malayness” are similarly constituted on the basis of anxieties.

In response to an alienating, Anglophone, secular world, most Malay Singaporeans double down on maintaining key links to Malay social life: communal religion, the extended family unit and fluency in Malay (an important social adhesive).

In response to an alienating, Anglophone, secular world, most Malay Singaporeans double down on maintaining key links to Malay social life.

Of course, the Malay community can and must embrace members of their community who cannot live up to all of these parameters. I refer to non-religious or queer Malays, for instance, and even those who—dare I say it?—don’t speak the language well. The most productive first step is to recognise that being Malay is not a monolithic experience, and that it finds expression in many valid ways.

Ultimately, however, affluent Malays carry the task of not reproducing the racism and classist condescension so ingrained in society by Singapore’s hyper-capitalist ethos. The traditional narrative of Malay “community leaders” and socio-economic elites acting as exemplars and saviours for the rest needs to be rethought. They, too, are as much a product of the state’s racialist discourse, as the enduring figure of the wretched Malay struggling to compete in Singapore’s economy.

A new path must be charted that accords dignity to all beyond simplistic notions of “successful” Malays and “typical Malays”, or “New Malays” versus “quintessential Malays”.

Footnotes

[1] See S Suratman, 2010; Li 1989; Rahim 1998; Barr 2005.

[2] See Alatas 1977: 152.

[3] MIM Taib 2019: 281.

[4] Noorainn 2009: 60-63.

[5] Li 2018: 142.

[6] See Han, Fernandez and Tan 2015: “Singapore’s Malay Dilemma”.

[7] MIM Taib 2019: 282.

References

Alatas, SH. 1977. The Myth of the Lazy Native: a study of the image of the Malays, Filipinos, and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th century and its function in the ideology of colonial capitalism. Routledge.

Barr, M. and Low, J., 2005. “Assimilation as Multiracialism: the case of Singapore’s Malays”. Asian Ethnicity 6(3). 161-182.

Han FK, Fernandez W. and Tan S., 2015. Lee Kuan Yew: the man and his ideas. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish.

Li, T., 1989. Introduction to Malays in Singapore: culture, economy and ideology. Oxford University Press.

Li, T., 2018. “Constituting Capitalist Culture: the Singapore Malay problem and entrepreneurship revisited”. Eds. Hefner, Market Cultures: Society and Morality in the New Asian Capitalisms. New York: Routledge. 142-167.

Lily ZR, 1998. The Singapore Dilemma: the political and educational marginality of the Singapore Malay community. Oxford University Press.

MIM Taib, 2019. “The Pathology of Race and Racism in Post-colonial Malay Society: a reflection on Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks”. Eds. Byrd and Miri, Frantz Fanon and Emancipatory Social Theory — a View from the Wretched. Brill.

Noorainn A. 2009. Malay Stereotypes: acceptance and rejection in the Malay community. Master’s dissertation. National University of Singapore.

Suriani S, 2010. Problematic Singapore Malays: sustaining a portrayal. Singapore: Leftwrite Centre in collaboration with the Reading Group Singapore.