Clive Kessler
The Malaysian Insider
Sept 13, 2011
SEPT thirteen It is not my objective to disagree the chronological facts of this issue, to take sides.
On the facts, Farish Noor as good as Art Harun have been clearly right as good as Prof Zainal Kling, however inventive the hair-splitting technicalities which he invokes, is wrong.
But which is not the end, or even the heart, of the matter.
We must ask, what is the purpose, as good as what have been the unsentimental effects, of Prof Zainal right away making his clearly illusory argument?
Prof Zainals evidence is simply wrong, marvellously individualist as good as absurdly counterfactual historically. But it is splendidly clever, cunning as good as really strategic, politically.
By denying which Malaya, definition the Malay states, was ever colonised by the British, Prof Zainal opens nonetheless an additional front for struggle over the right away increasingly contested subject of Malaysian inhabitant sovereignty.
There is no disbelief that, as the single of the worlds nations, Malaysia exists. So it has sovereignty. But the education of the complicated inhabitant government is the contested, as good as right away ever increasingly inflamed, question.
Where does Malaysias inhabitant government lie, upon what substructure is the government of the complicated nation-state grounded?
In the people themselves, who have been the nation, as good as upon whom, under the didactic discourse of renouned sovereignty, all complicated approved nations have been founded?
Or in the Federal Constitution, which is the self-declared basement of the nations usual character, authorised sequence as good as domestic life?
Or in the Sultans as good as Malay Rulers? And if so, by virtue of their recognized standing in the Federal as good as state constitutions?Or upon the little alternative grounds?
With Prof Zainals brand brand brand new c! omment, we have been drawn back to this aspect, understanding, or (as the little would have it) attempted revisionist redefinition of the inhabitant government question.
From 1986 as good as via the 1990s until 2008, the thought of Ketuanan Melayu, the thought or assertion which Malay domestic zenith had somehow been written into the inherent foundations of the republic as partial of an originating social contract, took figure as good as grew in strength.
The formula of the 2008 elections came as the surprise, even shock, to many. To those determined to defend the thought of Malay ascendancy, they were the threat as good as the challenge.
Was the primacy, as they saw it, of the Malay stake in the republic now, as good as henceforth, during risk?
From which time, as good as with the expansion of brand brand brand brand new Malay domestic pressure groups such as Perkasa, the brand brand brand brand new integrity to claim Malay supremacy as good as inhabitant domestic zenith was voiced.
As partial of which response, the little brand brand brand brand new understandings of the ideas of Ketuanan Melayu as good as inhabitant government began to be grown as good as promoted.
Ketuanan Melayu, the little right away ventured to suggest, was not the wanton ethnosupremacist thought (that, to some, the NEP seemed to indicate as good as underwrite) of the sure superiority, or larger inhabitant entitlement, of Malays over non-Malays between the states citizens.
It had to do with the chronological foundations as good as public personality of the inhabitant domestic order, of the nation.
It had to do with the origins of the independent association of Malaya as good as later Malaysia as the direct hereditary descendant, by the clear line of success! ion, fro m the various Malay states of the pre-British phase of the peninsulas as good as regions history.
This line of evidence was further grown by, or during least upon interest of, the Malay Rulers as good as stately houses themselves by YM the Raja Muda of Perak Raja Nazrin, in the pre-Merdeka Day address during the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka in 2009.
On which occasion Raja Nazrin recalled the Wasiat Raja-Raja Melayu of Aug 5, 1957. Through tha! t honest stipulation the 9 Malay Rulers signified their recognition to the inherent arrangements of the brand brand brand brand new republic which was about to be born.
Their Wasiat, as they accepted it, was not only the authorised will or covenant the last domestic covenant of the aged domestic order, the ancien rgime upon the Malay peninsula.
It had, for them, an comparison chronological definition as good as additionally looked forward to newer times.
For them the tenure was not only the technical authorised or inherent instrument; it additionally had powerful connotations suggesting the dedicated ancient artifact or legacy.
By their Wasiat their Rulers endorsed their agree to Merdeka as good as gave it their blessing. The brand brand brand brand new republic innate of the Merdeka impulse was in which approach stamped with their great prestige.
Yet their action, in their stately eyes, pragmatic something some-more than simply the stamp of majestic approval.
The daulat which the Rulers embodied, they implied, was not merely dedicated stately prestige. Their stately agree as good as good fortune suggested or has subsequently been review to indicate which the daulat of the Rulers was in actuality sovereignty, in the technical jurisprudential sense.
This view, possibly hold during the time or retrospectively asserted, holds, or again further implies, which from pre-colonial times as good as via the years of British control, the government of the Malay Rulers, or Malay sovereignty, had continued: uninterrupted as! good as unbroken, unimpaired as good as undiminished.
Those who wish to maintain this in front of can, it seems, do so in possibly of dual ways. They might disagree which there was never any mitigation of in effect Malay stately sovereignty, accepted as in conclusion authenticating energy as good as reality-creating authority, under British rule. That is the difficult in front of to sustain.
Or they might disagree that, while the Malay Rulers as good as their quasi-sacred domestic in front of had in actuality been eclipsed under the British, which mitigation was entirely without force or meaning, since British order was itself fundamentally illegitimate. Hence the effe! cts as good as implications for Malay stately government can be ignored, or set aside as if they had never been.
In possibly case, via the years of British administration department as good as control, Malay stately sovereignty, the little suggest, had continued: possibly in full force though hidden or else dormant and, so to speak, underground, only to watchful as good as surface again during the impulse of inhabitant independence.
However weird as good as counterfactual they might appear to some, Prof Zainals brand brand brand new comments upon Malayan history do not come from nowhere. They have been not simply an individual eccentricity or folly.
Prof Zainal, with his brand brand brand new intervention, is simply the ultimate Malay domestic commentator, romantic as good as unsentimental ideologist who has sought to attest this thought of the smoothness of Malay sovereignty.
His in front of seems to be an suave combination of the dual possibilities remarkable above. He seems to hold which British colonial order was deceptive as good as thus not entitled to be of any ultimate consequence; as good as which pre-colonial Malay government thus persisted was never interrupted, severed or damaged via the deceptive British interlude.
Prof Zainals position, as good as which of those who have been of the sam! e though ts in these matters, is which not merely Malay dedicated stately daulat though government in the complicated technical jurisprudential clarity had survived in the hands of the Malay Rulers, unimpaired as good as undiminished, via the British years from 1874 to 1957.
More than that, carrying remained with them, in their normal custodianship, this government could be, as good as in chronological actuality was, passed upon by the Malay Rulers (as they asserted in their Wasiat of Aug 5, 1957) to the brand brand brand brand new independent nation.
In which way, the brand brand brand brand new republic was born, though innate as the vehicle as good as instrument of the continuing government which was distant older. It embodied the dignified management as good as government of distant larger domestic as good as informative authenticity than anything which the departing British might have managed by the Colonial Offi! ce to fa bricate.
This view, which seems to be which of Prof Zainals, or to underlie it, has surpassing implications for the continuing nature, right away as good as good into the future, of the Malaysian nation, for the domestic impression as good as the underlying foundations of the sovereignty.
The thought which the British never ruled, or governed, in Malaya might appear absurd.
But it is the really inventive as good as resourceful way, in the domestic context suddenly created by the inhabitant elections of March 2008, to disagree whatever those formula might have been, as good as whatever outcome destiny elections might nonetheless divulge which the nations sovereignty, both in the chronological origins as good as the contemporary character, is the admirably Malay sovereignty.
The evidence is the single which seeks to assert, as good as place over any narrow-minded dispute or domestic challenge, the thought which Malaysia is still Tanah Melayu, the republic embodying Malay sovereignty, as good as the republic stamped in whose innermost inlet is the elemen! t of Mal ay primacy.
This, similar to it or not, is the brand brand brand brand new post-NEP as good as post-2008 thought of Ketuanan Melayu.
That, during all events, seems to be, possibly explicitly or by implication, the in front of of Prof Zainal as good as those who have been of the same mind.
As for the controversy which his views have prompted, the central subject is not possibly they have been historically correct (which is contestable) though possibly they can be made to overcome politically.
That as well is perhaps contestable. That is the make the difference for all the people of Malaysia to determine. There is no alternative way, no basement alternative than usual as good as ever renewed consent, to found as good as means the nation.
* Clive Kessler is Emeritus Professor of Sociology & Anthropology during The University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia.
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