The Pillars of “Mahathir's Islam”: Mahathir Mohamad on Being-Muslim in the Modern World

Unlike his bourgeois economic nationalism or diplomatic posturing on behalf of the developing world, Mahathir Mohamad's encounter with Islam remains a largely understudied aspect of his 22-year rule of Malaysia (1981–2003). There is a marked reluctance to take seriously his pronouncements on Islam and engage with his representations of what being-Muslim should entail in the modern world. This essay takes the view that Islam, in fact, represents a significant component of the former Malaysian prime minister's political repertoire, and that an analysis of what may be described as “Mahathir's Islam” can provide a compelling alternative account of his momentous premiership. It argues that while Mahathir's engagement with Islam was fraught with contradictions and has produced a number of negative consequences that affect Malaysian society as a whole, his discourse also contained the ingredients of what Bellah and Hammond (1980) have famously described as civil religion. Mahathir's public representations of Islam – in particular, his championing of the individually responsible believer and interpretation of the message to the Prophet Muhammad as a this-worldly and pro-active “theology of progress” – can thus provide religious validation to the cosmopolitanism of the street that has helped underwrite the social peace of multi-religious Malaysia.     

Scale politics,vernacular memory and the preservation of the Green Ridge battlefield in Kampar,Malaysia

In the now burgeoning scholarship on memory, there is a discernible shift from considering the politics of dominant public memory towards sites of counter-memories where vernacular forms of memory activism take place. This paper contributes to this by focusing its attention on plans to preserve Green Ridge in Kampar, Malaysia, a tract of forested hill that was the location of a fierce battle fought between the Japanese and Allied forces in the Asia-Pacific theatre of the Second World War. Specifically, it details the rescaling strategies of one particular individual to enhance the reach and relevance of the site for Malaysians writ large, primarily aimed at lobbying for Green Ridge to be officially marked as local and national heritage. This paper then interrogates issues that have hindered this process with the potential to ultimately thwart the preservation of the site for posterity. In doing so, the paper exemplifies memory activism as ‘work’, where local actors–through the mobilisation of scale politics–represent proactive agents in effecting change in public memory from below. Second, it highlights the fragmented nature of vernacular remembering and how this can impede memory work as much as champion memory formally obscured.     

中国传统文学在新马的传播--兼论土生华人的作用

中国传统文学在新马流播极早,它们主要是通过早期劳工口头传播、私塾授受传播、文人沙龙传播、华人社团传播、峇峇群落马来文翻译传播等渠道,使中国传统文学在当地被广泛接受,中国传统文化得以延续.中国文学由此对当地的华人与华文文学产生巨大的影响.     

试析马来西亚华人社会与祖籍国关系的演变——以马来西亚华人社团为例

从早期到20世纪50年代中期,马来亚华侨社团与中国之间是联系密切的侨民社团与祖国之间的关系。此后,由于马来亚华侨社会发生了本质性转变,当地华人社团与中国的关系转变为外国公民社团与祖籍国之间的关系。期间,由于种种因素,双方的关系经历了曲折发展。中马建交,特别是20世纪80年代后,马来西亚华人社团与中国的联系日益密切起来,双方的关系进入良性发展轨道。本文概述各个历史时期马来西亚华人社团与中国关系的发展演变,探讨两者关系发生变化的原因以及影响。作者认为,马来西亚华人社团与中国的良好关系对华人社会和中国而言都是积极的因素,双方日益密切的联系,加强了当地华人社会与中国,乃至马来西亚与中国之间的良好关系。     

马来西亚华人与马来人就业地位变化的比较与分析

本文将自殖民统治时期到2005年的马来西亚历史分为五个时期,对华人与马来人就业地位的发展变化进行了纵向比较,并对其变化的原因进行了简要分析。作者认为,独立近50年来,马来西亚马来人的就业地位在持续上升,而华人的就业地位则在不断下降,马来人已经逐渐超越华人成为许多领域的就业优势族群。马来西亚政府的政策干预是导致这种变化的一个重要原因。政府一贯执行的“马来人优先”的就业干预政策,使华人和马来人的就业变化失去了公平竞争的平台,政府在积极保护马来人就业增长的同时,对华人及其他非马来人却极力排斥,导致马来人与华人的就业地位发生了上述变化。     

马来西亚华人与伊斯兰党关系——吉兰丹州个案分析

伊斯兰党是马来西亚主要反对党之一,1990年以来,该党在华人只占4.43%的吉兰丹州长期执政,进行伊斯兰教国实践,其伊斯兰化政策引起朝野争议。论文介绍了伊斯兰党在吉兰丹的伊斯兰化政策,分析了基于伊斯兰党的种族理念,吉兰丹政府的华人政策和吉兰丹华人对伊斯兰党及其州政府的态度,说明坚决支持和坚决反对伊斯兰党的华人是少数,中间派是多数。伊斯兰党在吉兰丹州的执政证明,他们公正、廉洁,能够善待华人,使外州华人不再像过去那样抗拒伊斯兰党。吉兰丹模式对马来西亚其他地方马来人和华人具有示范意义。     

影响马来西亚马华两族关系的文化与政治因素

从不同的宗教信仰对马华两族的融合与通婚的阻碍、自成体系的语言与媒体对彼此沟通的影响、族群政治动员在强化族群意识方面所起的作用等文化特征和族群政治的角度,探讨了影响马华两族关系的原因。结论是:马华两族宗教信仰和语言教育的区分、马来西亚特殊的族群政治态势,是影响马华两族关系发展的几个重要因素。     

The ‘Migrated Archives’ and a Forgotten Corner of Empire: The British Borneo Territories

The ‘migrated archives’, previously concealed files related to former colonies of the British Empire, were released over the period 2012–13. The first flurry of academic and journalistic interest, focused on possible revelations of the misuse of colonial power, soon subsided. Nevertheless, the archives have been valuable in enlarging knowledge of colonial policy-making. They have also aided exploration of the interstices between the official records of colonial administration and the often unrecorded life of peoples and communities. In this sense the ‘migrated archives’ are a rich resource in prompting a new look at established historical narratives of the British Borneo territories of Brunei, North Borneo and Sarawak. These territories have received scant attention in the historiography of British colonialism. This has been to the detriment of wider scholarship in studying issues such as the expansion of the wartime colonial state; the ‘second colonial occupation’ and the evolution of post-war British colonial governance; the development of anti-colonialism; the formation of Malaysia; counter-terrorism conflicts; and the nature of the colonial legacy. The colonial period may seem a fleeting phase in the age-old cultural and economic formation of the Borneo states, yet it continues to have contemporary relevance in a strategically sensitive part of the world. This article seeks to show that the Borneo territories merit greater attention from historians of British colonialism and that the ‘migrated archives’, used in conjunction with other sources, can make a significant contribution towards the history of colonialism in a previously neglected area.     

Resilience and Non-Linear Change in Island Tourism

Abstract

Perhentian Kecil, located off the east coast of peninsular Malaysia, is predominantly a small-scale tourism destination, specifically for backpackers and independent travellers. Against the context of an aggressive drive by the state government to remove small-scale tourism development in favour of formal and high-end resorts, this paper examines the local responses to the exogenous factors that had threatened the equilibrium, and hence sustainability, of the tourism systems on the island. The paper draws upon a longitudinal study with multiple visits over an extended period since the mid-1990s. Using insights from Resilience Theory, the paper argues that this island destination is an example of non-linear change rather than conventional resort evolution. The paper also discusses how the authors – as researchers – had to realign their research framework and approach to take into consideration the growing complexities of tourism development in small island destinations.     

‘No more road to walk’: cultures of heritage and leprosariums in Singapore and Malaysia

This paper examines how the state, social activists and former sufferers of leprosy participate in an international heritage discourse and how they construct the history of leprosy in contemporary Singapore and Malaysia. This paper finds both dissonances but also convergences between these different interests. The emergence of such entangled narratives is taking place at a time when the leprosariums are threatened by redevelopment and while social activists are calling for their conservation as heritage sites. The paper finds that both the state and social activists, in different ways, have selectively appropriated the history of leprosy to fit an international heritage discourse. Meanwhile aspects of that history, which are deemed incompatible, are discarded to fall in between the cracks of the discourse. By contrast, the oral history accounts of the leprosariums’ residents, as a possible source for intangible and radical heritage, are ambivalent about the sites’ heritage values. They reveal that while many residents reject the heritage discourse that seeks to save their homes from demolition, others have created a unique culture of heritage that appropriates the international discourse, but also expresses their own needs and perspectives. Cultures of heritage are, however, themselves fluid and liable to change like the memories on which they are based.