Perspektif Etnik Golongan Kiri di Malaysia

Abstract

History clearly shows that the class perspective of the left has yet to successfully steer its proponents away from a specifically ethnic orientation in developing strategies to gain political support. This is because the changes that they envisage need to be implemented within the constraints of a particular historical experience. More specifically, the development of states in the Third World is the outcome of colonial domination over pre-existing indigenous communities, who were often marginalized and transformed to share an equal status with other "immigrant" communities that emerged only in the wake of the underdeveloment of the indigenous communities during the process of colonial development. This tendency has been augmented further with political independence. This is because the modern state for which all the communities aspired is based upon the idea of a people's sovereignty, which presumes a common status regardless of their socio-cultural and historical identity. This, it is argued, is the central contradiction that shapes the ethnic perspective of the left in Malaysia: the Malays claim to political power and affirmative action is based principally upon the fact that they are the indigenous people of the country, while the Chinese and Indian demands for minority rights rest upon the rather modern concept of political equality. For these minorities, history is relevant only if it does not impinge such rights. The imposition of the modern state spawned by colonialism over a given cultural-political order provides an important context that has seldom been considered seriously by the class perspective of the left. This is partially because class experience forms only one dimension of a people's historical evolution.