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since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
The article below reminds me of the discourse among citizens of Poland during the inter bellum period when Polish political thinkers where trying to define the relationship between the multinational or multiethnic Polish state and the Polish Nation or Polonism. In addition, the development problems of Polish peasants even today in many regards parallel those of village Malays not least because large sections of both populations function in an essentially subsistence economy.
Pro-Palestinian activists cannot help but see similarity in the demand for Melayu Ketuanism (properly Ketuanan Melayu -- Malay dominance) with the Zionist insistence on maintaining the Jewish character of the Israeli State, but Malays are unlike Israeli Zionists an indigenous population of Malaysia.
In addition, village Malays like Polish peasants have been relatively disadvantaged in the modern period while Jews insist on privilege after a millennium of relative advantage and after a century of overreaching. (See Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews by Albert S. Lindemann.)
In addition, village Malays like Polish peasants have been relatively disadvantaged in the modern period while Jews insist on privilege after a millennium of relative advantage and after a century of overreaching. (See Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews by Albert S. Lindemann.)
The author asks why Islamic countries seem to lag behind states dominated by European Caucasian populations.
One must be careful with such questions because there is a wide range of modernization levels among European populations while successful development has generally correlated strongly with a connection to the historic Anglo-French-Rhenish modernizing centers.
The key modernizing center of the Islamic world lay in the Ottoman Empire's European regions, which were gradually lost during the 19th century even before the Ottoman state was vivisected at the end of WW2.
Malaysian national symbols show at least a subconscious awareness of the importance of the Ottoman Empire to the Islamic world because the crescent of the Malaysia flag is not as much a symbol of Islam as of the Ottoman Byzantine heritage that characterized the world's most highly evolved Sharia state.
Yet Malays also lag relative not only to non-Muslim Malaysians but also relative to India-origin Muslim Malaysians.
Such differential development probably relates to significant differences in the sophistication of social networking.
Chinese and Indian Malaysians often participate in longstanding social networks that are often transnational and that generally reach into many academic, economic, and political sectors. Village Malays are only just beginning to build such networks of trust.
Melayu Ketuanism and Islamism
From Nationalism to Islamism.
Before any one goes into an incoherent rage about the statement 'religion being the opium of the masses', please read the last part of this essay. I was expecting these off base responses. The phrase opium of the masses is often associated with Karl Marx. His ideas are no longer in vogue today. One by one, the countries which adopted his thinking have fallen to capitalism. It seems those people, in those counties where the 'opium' is widely adopted have prospered. Meanwhile those countries which adopted his 'godless' doctrines have fumbled.
In my own not too distant past, I came across this very phrase that resulted in very extreme agitation and violent responses from certain quarters. That is not the meaning I applied in my previous essay. Accordingly, I am not going to be drawn into an argument on a topic or subject I did not sponsor. I have to politely decline the invitation to get into the subject in that context.
My object of interest was the combustible issue raised in the Dewan Rakyat a few days ago.
A few days ago, the MP from Ipoh Barat made a statement that caused ruckus and din in the Dewan Rakyat. The MP from Sri Gading demanded the minister in charge of we don't know what, to answer.
Many others and I find this strange- something was said about Ketuanan Melayu being a stumbling block to meaningful national unity, yet we expect and even demand a Chinese Minister to answer on our behalf?
Why don't those clever Malay MPs other than those from Sri Gading and Pasir Mas answer or challenge the assumption stated by the Ipoh Barat MP?
The MP from Pasir Mas was quick off his seat with his usual trademark stock in trade- berating anyone touching on the issue of Malayness. Ibrahim's Ali overt and at times combative defense of Malayness or all things Malay does not prove he is more Malay than other Malays. If at all, he has proven not to be beneath out-shouting other people or jumping on the bench.
It means nothing to skeptical and thinking people who do not care a hoot about how one declares his 'patriotism'. The manner in which he expressed his, is not the only one. This isn't a shouting contest where the one who shouts loudest is the winner.
Both the MP from Sri Gading and Pasir Mas were united in a very fundamental but non productive and therefore, less clever obsession- that of spending time on fighting for and fighting off over what we Malays already had- which is the protection of Malay interests by the constitution.
Why are we fighting over something we already have in our hands? Shouldn't our energy, efforts and resources be directed to acquiring for instance what we haven't got such as technological progress and finding ways how to increase productivity?
