Malaysia's Strategy for Survival

M f ALAYSIA HAS MANY distinctions of which it is justly proud: its high rate of economic growth for instance, ample foreign reserves, the careful management of economic resources, or its controlled boldness in foreign relations. But one distinction it could well do without. Of all countries which became independent as the tide of i9th century colonialism receded in the middle of the 20th century, Malaysia is the most deeply riven by social cleavages. Other countries also have internal divisions-of race, caste, pigmentation, religion, language or economic status; India is a spider's web of these. But in no country are so many divisions so primordial as in Malaysia; in none is each division so deeply reinforced by all the others at once. Malaysia's problem, unlike India's, Indonesia's, Sri Lanka's, or even that of the whole Indo-China peninsula, is not simply to harmonise the subdivisions of any one of history's great cultural families. It is to harmonise three whole families themselves, the Malay, the Sinic, and the Indian-an immense task for a country of only eleven million people. Each family is vastly more distinctive from the other two, as a racial, religious or linguistic group, than the sub-divisions of the most variegated family are from each other. Therefore the cleavages in Malaysia affect all aspects of the Malaysian endeavour to forge a nation out of this immense variety. Economic development is affected no less than the evolution of the polity or the search for a stable cultural balance. Malaysia is therefore an ideal laboratory for a student of contemporary nation-building techniques; but for the nation-builder it can be a nightmare. Lately the complications have been in fascinating evidence, and the purpose of this article is to discuss some of them, first the electoral and then the developmental. As all discussion is influenced by a predisposition, I will confess mine at the outset: impressed as I am with the immensity of the problem, I am more impressed by the skill, firmness, flexibility and success with which it is being tackled; but one cannot fail to notice that some mistakes are also being made, which are unnecessary, avoidable and unfortunately serious. Both success and error can be clearly seen in the evolution and imple-