Category: History & heritage

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ASEAN History & heritage Politics & government

[2766] 50 years outside of Malaysia

The number 50 is psychologically special to almost everybody. Notwithstanding the debate about the age of Malaysia, whether it was 50 years old or 44 in 2007, we too had a huge celebration for our golden anniversary. Down south this year, Singapore is approaching its 50th anniversary as an independent state.

The Singaporean anniversary is less ambiguous than Malaysia’s. There are fewer ominous existential questions being thrown around unlike in Malaysia when from time to time, we hear secessionist sentiments coming out from Sabah.

There is a myth in Malaysia that Singapore seceded from our federation. In truth, it was Tunku Abdul Rahman who pushed the island-city out with a vote in Parliament in Kuala Lumpur sealing the decision.

Unilateral secession is impossible legally. Furthermore, Singapore itself did not want to leave and this was very clear through Lee Kuan Yew’s writings. Jeffrey Kitingan, unfortunately, recently repeated the secessionist myth as he pandered to Sabahan nationalists for his own political fortune by saying secession is a state right, showing again and again that history can be forgotten and worse, twisted to fit the preferred narrative.

That is not the only myth: some Malaysians still think there are 14 states in the federation somehow forgetting that Singapore is no more a member state. It is as if the vestiges of the Malaysian Singapore still linger and that these Malaysians have yet to come to terms with the 1965 separation.

The fourteenth stripe and the fourteenth point in the Federal Star of the Jalur Gemilang now have been redefined to represent the federal government and the three territories, instead of Singapore as was previously. Our coat of arms no longer has the Singaporean red and white crescent and star underneath the four colors of the old Federated Malay States. In its place is the red hibiscus, what seems to be the forgotten Malaysian national flower.

Regardless of the myths, Singapore and Malaysia did go separate ways and that has been the source of contention between the two. The issues range from water supply and train land in the heart of Singapore to ownership of rocky outcrops in the middle of the sea. Some have been resolved amicably but the general rivalry persists even as the Causeway ties have improved since the almost irrationally nationalistic days of Mahathir Mohamad and Lee Kuan Yew.

One can speculate what would have happened if Singapore had remained within the federation. This question has been raised as Singaporeans reflect on their 50 years of independence but I think the more interesting one is whether there would be a time when Singapore would rejoin Malaysia.

As much as I believe international borders with its passport and visa requirements are suffocating in this modern world, I think that is a very distant possibility. Malaysia is unprepared for Singapore just as we were not prepared for a Malaysian Malaysia in 1963. I do not believe the pro-Bumiputra policy will go away even if power does change from Barisan Nasional to Pakatan Rakyat in Putrajaya. The Bumiputras are the majority in Malaysia and there will always be pressure to appease them. It is the uncomfortable truth of electoral politics that makes idealists sigh.

Just look at the squabbling in Pakatan between PAS and DAP that has degenerated to race and religion. You can also read Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s speeches and wonder what exactly he is saying about hudud, for instance, out of fears angering either the liberals or the more conservative Muslim majority.

Meanwhile in Barisan, the slightest hint of liberalization is being fiercely opposed by the conservative sides in Umno. When discussing the Transpacific Partnership agreement, one of the top objections to the negotiation is how it would affect the Bumiputra, and really, the Malay, business community. Prime Minister Najib Razak is already facing a civil war within his party for the liberalization he did and other less admirable factors that include the mismanagement of the country.

Ultimately, there is a common theme across Barisan and Pakatan and that means it is more of a systemic Malaysian issue. Adding Singapore into the equation would not help and could even make it worse.

Singaporean diplomat Bilahari Kausikan recently said in a speech, it is ”impossible for us to ever be part of Malaysia again unless Malaysia abandons its basic organizing principle.” That principle will not go away any time soon.

But we have Asean and in many ways both Malaysia and Singapore are already integrating. Both citizens can travel across the border without much hassle, if you discount the congestion at the Causeway. Some Singaporeans are already living in Malaysia as the government is promoting Nusajaya and Johor Baru, to put it bluntly, as the suburbs of the world-city Singapore.

And the Asean Economic Community due for implementation this year would deepen integration between the two, which is already one of the most ”• I would think it is the most ”• integrated national economies in the region.

Realistically the AEC would take time but the trajectory is clear. That I think is a reasonable future for both Malaysia and Singapore: a closer confederation of South-east Asian states.

So, we do not need Singapore in Malaysia. We just need to have both countries to be active in Asean.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
First published in The Malay Mail on February 14 2015.

Categories
History & heritage Liberty

[2704] Berlin on why fascists, nationalists and Marxists kill

This is most obvious in the case of Fascism. The Fascists and National Socialists did not expect inferior classes, or races, or individuals to understand or sympathise with their own goals; their inferior was innate, ineradicable, since it was due to blood, or race, or some other irremovable characteristic; any attempt on the part of such creatures to pretend to equality with their masters, or even to comprehension of their ideals, was regarded as arrogant or presumptuous. Caliban was considered incapable of lifting his face to the sky and catching even a glimpse if, let alone sharing, the ideals of Prospero. The business of slaves is to obey; hat gives their masters their right to trample on them is precisely the alleged fact — which Aristotle asserted — that some men are slaves by nature, and have not enough human quality to give orders themselves, or understand why they are being forced to do what they do.

If Fascism is the extreme expression of their attitude, all nationalism is infected by it to some degree. Nationalism is not consciousness of the reality of national character, nor pride in it. It is a belief in the unique mission of a nation, as being intrinsically superior to the goals or attributes of whatever is outside of it; so that if there is a confliction between my nation and other men, I am obliged to fight for my nation no matter at what cost to other men; and if the others resist, that is no more than one would expect from beings brought up in an inferior culture, educated by, or born of, inferior persons, who cannot ex hypothesi understand the ideals that animate my nation and me. My gods are in conflict whit those of others, my values with those of strangers, and there exists no higher authority — certainly no absolute and universal tribunal — by which the claims of these rival divinities can be adjudicated. That is why war, between nations or individuals, must be the only solution.

We think, for the most part, in words. But all words belong to specific languages, the products of specific cultures. As there is no universal human language, so there exists no universal human law or authority, else these laws, his authority, would be sovereign over the earth; but this , for nationalists, is neither possible nor desirable; a universal law is not true law: cosmopolitan culture is a sham and a delusion; international law is only called law by a precarious analogy — a hollow courtesy intended to conceal the violent break with the universalism of the past.

This assumption is less obvious with the cases of Marxism, which in theory, at least, is internationalist. But Marxism is a nineteenth-century ideology, and has not escaped the all-pervasive separatism of its time. Marxism is founded on reason; that is to say, it claims that its propositions are intelligible, and their truth can be ”˜demonstrated’ to any rational being in possession of the relevant facts. It offers salvation to all men; anyone can, in principle, see the light, and denies it at his own peril.

In practice, however, this is not so. Theory of economic base and ideological superstructure of which Marxist sociology is founded teaches that the ideas in men’s heads are conditioned by the position occupied by them, or by their economic class, in the productive system. This fact may be disguised from individual persons by all kinds of self-delusions and rationalisations, but ”˜scientific’ analysis will always reveal that the vast majority of any given class believe only that which favours the interests of that class — interest which the social scientists can determine by objective historical analysis — whatever reasons they may choose, however sincerely, to give for their beliefs; and conversely they disbelieve, reject, misunderstand, distort, try and escape form, ideas belief in which would weaken the position of their class.

All men are to be found, as it were, on one of two moving stairs; I belong to a class which, owning to its relationship to the forces of production, is either moving upwards towards triumph, or downwards towards ruin. In either case my beliefs and outlook — the legal, moral, social, intellectual, religious, aesthetic ideas — in which I feel at home, will reflect the interests of the class to which I belong. If I belong to a class moving towards victory, I shall hold a realistic set of beliefs, for I am not afraid of what I see; I am moving with the tide, knowledge of the truth can only give me confidence; if I belong to ta doomed class, my inability to gaze upon the fatal facts — for few men are able to recognise that they are destined to perish — will falsify my calculations, and render me deaf and blind to the truths too painful for me to face. It follows that it must be useless for members of the rising class to try to convince members of the falling order that the only way in which they can save themselves is by understanding the necessities of history and therefore transferring themselves, if they can, to the steep stair that is moving upwards, from that which runs so easily to destruction. It is useless, because ex hypothesi members of a doomed class are conditioned to see everything through a falsifying lens: the plainest symptoms of approaching death will seem to them evidence of health and progress; they suffer from optimistic hallucinations, and must systematically misunderstand the warnings that persons who belong to a different economic class, in their charity, may try to give them; such delusions are themselves the inevitable by-product of clinging to an order which history has condemned. It is idle for the progressives to try to save their reactionary brothers from defeat: the doomed men cannot hear them, and their destruction is certain. All men will not be saved: the proletariat, justly intent upon its own salvation, had best ignore the fate of their oppressors; even if they wish to return good for evil, they cannot save their enemies from ”˜liquidation’. They are ”˜expendable’ — their destruction can be neither averted nor regretted by a rational being, for it is the price that mankind must pay for the progress of reason itself: the road to the gates of Paradise is necessarily strewn with corpses. [Isaiah Berlin. European Unity and its Vicissitudes. 1959]

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History & heritage Photography Travels

[2590] False door at Angkor Wat

Here is a typical pattern used on a typical richly ornate false door. Given how various temples were built sometimes a century apart, I found the commonness as mildly surprising. It suggests innovation was really slow.

Some rights reserved. Creative Commons 3.0. By Attribution. By Hafiz Noor Shams

But it is pretty nonetheless.

This is at Angkor Wat.

I am unsure of its functions but my readings tell me that an actual door typically face east and the other false doors face the other three cardinal directions.

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History & heritage

[2589] How old is Malaysia again? A layman generalization attempt

Since it will be August 31 soon, I think I want to further develop my thinking about the 55 versus 49 years old debate, i.e. how old is Malaysia?

I have shared opinion on the matter a number of times over the last, probably six years. I was September 16, before there was September 16 (kidding, don’t shoot me). Now, I want to generalize my framework on the matter.

The debate does matter in terms of historical accuracy and its logical implications are huge (honestly though, in the immediate every day, the debate is pedantic but fun nonetheless). For instance, if you understand Malaysia to be born in 1963 and that Malaysia does not exist prior to September 16 1963, then Malaysia was never colonized. What were colonized were the lands that modern Malaysia now encompasses. I think this is a strict observance of definition but many are not really interested in such strict observance.

In fact, many would ridicule that strict observance. When historian Khoo Kay Kim said that Malaysia was never colonized by the British because technically, the lands that came to form Malaysia under the British were protectorates, many thought he was crazy. But technically, he was right though those lands for all intents and purposes were colonized.

So, to many, Malaysia was colonized in the past. Not too many differentiate the history of modern Malaysian state (the 1963 federation) from the history of its member states. Really, if you read history from the perspective of the land instead of the state as an institution, there is no difference between the history of Malaysia and the history of its member states. I do think the history of the land is the lens which most Malaysians see the history of Malaysia.

The proper way to understand history is to consider each state on its own terms but at the same time, take the history of the land as continuous, whatever states that existed in the relevant period (also, history is “borderless“, i.e. one cannot apply modern boundary into the distant past in the reading of history). This allows for consistent and technically precise understanding of history but also allows for the appreciation of history in its widest, complete context. Call it the state-land dichotomy; same-same but different, or so the Indochinese would say.

While it is a dichotomy, the understanding of both is crucial. One obviously cannot understand modern Malaysian history without understanding pre-1957 history of the land.

For instance, how does one understand modern conservative Malay psyche that is a major factor in contemporary politics without knowing the history of Malay sultanates?

Also, history of foreign lands are important as well. But that would digress from my point and so, Iwill stop here as far as foreign lands are concerned.

So, according to the state interpretation, Malaysia is 49 years old. According to the land interpretation, Malaysia the land is, well, I do not know how old Malaysia is. It cannot be 55 years old because the land existed in 1956. In fact, this land has existed since time immemorial.

The third interpretation, which probably an amalgamation of the dichotomy into one, is that all those states or institutions that existed are intertemporally related states that should be taken collectively as the same state from modern point of view (as seen from the current state, which is taken as the successor of previous related state).

This has been the argument that supports the idea that Malaysia is 55 years old. But there is inconsistency here. If these institutions are really the same, why accept 1957 as the beginning? What about 1948 when the Federation of Malaya was formed? What about 1946 during the Malayan Union? There are other dates but it all leads to the same question: when did the first institution was formed? Do we need to go to all the way to Srivijaya’s time? All the way to the beginning of Kedah? I see third interpretation as eventually approximating the land interpretation.It will not have the time immemorial conclusion but it will go far enough into history that it really does not matter to contemporary life.

I know monarchists do take this interpretation in some way, by basing the “Malaysia” institution as the office of the Agong. Since the office of the Agong was established in 1957, then Malaysia is 55 years old. That intepretation does logically lead to the number 55, but I do not subscribe to that. I do not see how the office of the Agong is the state. The state does not take its power from the Agong. The office of the Agong is merely an institution within the state.

Perhaps, the question is not how old the state is but rather, it is a question of independence: how long has the current state been independent? This sidesteps the reference to 1948 or earlier dates. Unfortunately, it suffers from controversial Malayan bias: Sabah and Sarawak (and Singapore) attained independence in 1963.

But whatever it is, something happened on August 31 1957. The Federation of Malaya, formed on January 31 1948, became independent.

Categories
History & heritage Photography Travels

[2585] Bayon, Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom was the capital of the Khmer Empire, which Bayon is located at the very center of it. Without any exaggeration, this was the heart of the Khmer Empire. At its peak, it was estimated that around a million persons lived here.

Some rights reserved. Creative Commons 3.0. By Attribution. By Hafiz Noor Shams

It was really an experience. Close to 1,000 years later, there I was, standing at the heart of the Khmer empire, aware of its wider importance to Southeast Asian history, all the way to Srivijaya and the Sailendras. It was at that time that I felt glad that I loved history.