Ethnicity and local politics in Malaysia : six case studies

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CONTRIBUTION^ TO .SOUTHEAST 'XsiAN ETHNOGRAPHY •

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'^Nuijiber 3, December* 1984

ETHNICITY AND LOCAL POLITICS IN MALAYSIA: SIX CASE STUDIES Edited by "Tan Chee Beng

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Editor’s Introduction Articles Sea and Shore People: Ethnicity and Ethnic Interaction in Southeastern Sabah ClifToid Sather

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Elements of Ethnic Ranking in Urban Malay Society M. Jocelyn Armstrong

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Native but Not Bumiputera: Crisis and Complexity in the Political Status of the Kelantan Thais After independence Roger Kershaw

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Chitty Melaka: Hindus, ‘Indians' or Marginal Malaysians David Mearns

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Kin Networks and Baba Identity Tan Chee Beng

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Old Antagonisms, New Rivalries: Politics in a Rural Malay Community Shamsul A, 6.

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EDITOR’S. INTRODUCTION This third number of Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography focuses on Malaysia, particularly on ethnicity and, in the case of one paper, on local-level poKtics in this country, The presence in Malaysia of so many diverse ethnic groups, as well as the Importance of ethnicity both in the political life of the nation and in the interactions of its citizenry, undoubt­ edly ensures the relevance of the present collection of papers. This volume is shorter than I had originally envisioned, mainly because some of those who at first agreed to contribute were unable to meet the deadline. Nevertheless, I am confident of the value of the six papers collected here, each one written by an anthropologist with long-term field experience among the people about whom he or she writes. The first paper by Clifford Sather is especially interesting. By present­ ing Samal and, mote specifically, Bajau Laut ethnography in an historical context, Sather revgals for us the intricate nature of ethnicity and ethnic interaction in southeastern Sabah. More importantly, he shows just how political and economic forces can bring about changes in ethnic identity and in the nature of interaction between ethnic groups. In the second paper, Jocelyn Armstrong examines the ranking of sub­ ethnic categories among the Malays of the nation’s capital city. Kuala Lumpur. Armstrong’s discussion of six bases for subethnic ranking among these Malays reveals the complexity of such subethnic identities. Historical analysis provides a powerful approach to the understanding" of ethnicity. This is shown not only in Sather’s paper, but also by Roger Kershaw’s contribution. In the third paper of this collection Kershaw uses legal history to examine the changing political status of the Thai minority in Malaysia’s Kelantan state during the pre- and post-independence periods. In systematic fashion, Kershaw shows us just how “nation building’’ and Malay politicization have changed Thai status in Kelantan from “native” to “non-bumiputem''. To some people the status of minorities brings to mind the idea of “marginality”. David Mearns cautions us about using this model. In his paper on the Chitty Melaka he remarks that these people are marginal “only insofar as a contemporary political system renders their Hindu identity socially relevant and problematic.” Meams is at pains to point out that social identities in a multi-ethnic society are not static; rather, they “are continually created and recreated by their mobilization in and by interaction with other dynamic systems and identities.” 'The Chitty and the Baba are unique communities in Melaka, both being products of particular historical forces. My own contribution to this collec­ tion of-papers deals with the way Baba use kinship to maintain their ethnic identity. I discuss the basic nature of Baba kinship by analysing four examples of kin networks. I show that being Baba today is a matter of socialization

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and that kin relationships among these people express and enhance their Baba identity. The final paper in this collection, by Shamsul, describes the dynamics of local'level politics in a Malay village. Particularly interesting is his analysis of how modem party politics continue to express, amplify and transmute traditional rivalries. Shamsul also shows us how local-level United Malays National Organization (UMNO) politics are encapsulated and dominated by the UMNO bureaucracy at the national, state and divisional levels. 1 wish to acknowledge here my thanks to the contributors for their interest in this Journal and for their patience in seeing their work into print. 1 would also like to register my particular thanks to Anthony Walker, my colleague on the editorial board, for his great assistance on the Singapore side of the causeway. This publication has been made possible by a second generous grant from the Singapore Turf Club, which also financed our first number. Once again, we are deeply grateful to that organization for making possible an academic endeavour such as this. Tan Chee Beng Department of Chinese Studies Faculty of Aits and Social Sciences University of Malaya

SEA AND SHORE PEOPLE: ETHNICITY AND ETHNIC INTERACTION IN SOUTHEASTERN SABAH CLIFFORD SATHER*

CONTENTS

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Introduction Ethnicity and the Sulu State Ethnic Interaction in 19th Century Sempoma Perceptions of Bajau Laut Identity Ethnicity and Change Concluding Note

1. INTRODUCTION

My principal purpose in this paper is to explore changing patterns of ethnic interaction among communities of interrelated sea and shore people as seen primarily from the perspective of a once nomadic boat people, the Bajau LautL The locus of this study is Semporna, a maritime coastal district of southeastern Sabah. 1 begin this paper by showing how patterns of ethnic interaction were traditionally defined by the structure of the Sulu sultanate, an ethnicallystratified trading state centred in the southern Philippines, which controlled the eastern Sabah coast from the mid 18th until the end of the 19th century. 1 then focus on the details of ethnic interaction in Semporna, showing how definitions of identity and the structure of inter-ethnic relations have been transformed by forces of political and economic change since the break­ down of the Sulu state. 2. ETHNICITY AND THE SULU STATE

As a centralized polity, the Sulu sultanate arose following the arrival of Islam in the 15th century. Its chief scat of power was located at Jolo, in the relatively-populous central islands of the Sulu archipelago. Here, at the focal point of an expansive network of redistributive trade, were located the Sultan’s court and the state’s principal ports and market centres (Warren 1981:xix-xx). Even al the height of its power, in the 18th and early I9th centuries, Sulu was only a loosely integrated state. Although centralized as a polity,

•Ph.D, (Harvard), senior lecturer. Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore. 1. The present paper is part of a longer study of the Bajau Laut, the preparation of which was made possible by a grant (BNS-8014321) from the U.S. National ScienceFoundation. The fieldwoik on which this paper is based was carried out in 1964-65 and. more briefly, in 1974 and 1979.

4 Gifford Sather

its corporate institutions were weakly developed and political power operated primarily through networks of person-to-person alliance (Kiefer 1972a: IOS—6). To a large degree, these features of political life persist through­ out the area over which the Sulu state once held authority. Power was based, as it still Is, on factional politics and was channelled through inter­ locking leader-centred alliances. Person-to-person bonds of friendship and patronage linked smaller alliances to larger ones in a ramifying network that extended from village headmen and local factional leaders to the Sultan and his close kmdred at the apex of the political pyramid. The Sultan's power was strongest at the geographic centre of the state, shading to sym­ bolic hegemony in the remoter peripheries, In fact,-the Sultan had no special powers unavailable to local leaders (Kiefer 1972a; 110). Rather, at each level in the alliance network, central and peripheral authorities had similar political rights and obligations, their powers including rights to perform legal functions, mediate private feuds and wage external warfare; rights to levy tribute and legal fees; rights to appoint and regulate religious officials and rights to control territory, subject people and markets (Kiefer 1972a: 110-11). Supporting the position of the Sultan and the hierarchical structure of leader-centred alliances was a system of ranking and a well-articulated poli­ tical ideology. In theory, the Sultan was supreme sovereign and the source of ail political rights. The latter he bestowed on subordinate leaders through the conferral of titles. In theory again, titles designated a hierarchy of ranked “offices”. In practice, however, they were often conferred in acknowledge­ ment of the power a leader had already achieved by his own efforts. Further­ more, the existence of titles in no way created a formal administrative struc­ ture. This was because the power of each leader actually derived, not from a titled “olTice”, but from the size and strength of the personal following he was able to command. But the ranking of titles did give a rough indication of the relative power of individual leaders and their position in the alliance hierarchy. Titles also legitimized the authority of subordinate leaders and secured their personal loyalty to the Sultan. The Sultan, his kindred and other hereditary title-bearers formed what Kiefer (1972b;30) has called an “aristocratic estate’’. Beneath the aristo­ crats were tlie “commoners”, people without ascribed status who lacked the wealth and prestige necessary to attract political followers. Both estates had formal legal definition in Sulu. Commoners depended on aristocrats for their security and, in return, owed their leaders political allegiance, labour service and other forms of economic tribute. Beneath the commoners were communities of subject people, without recognized legal or political status, and at the bottom of the hierarchy were slaves (ata, in Sama), At every level of the state, from the Sultan downward, religidn played a role in maintaining the hierarchical structure of power and ranking. The Sultan was the acknowledged head of an Islamic state. His position, there­ fore, was invested with religious authority - as the symbolic representative of the community of faithful on eanh (Kiefer 1972a: 107; Majul 1969:28-30). OiTicial genealogies traced his descent to the Prophet and, in his person, the Sultan was expected to exempEfy ideal qualities of virtue and religious de­ votion (Majul 1971:9—10). In addition, corresponding to his position at the

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Sea and Shore People apex of the'political pyramid, the Sultan was also the highest religious au­ thority in the state. Paralleling the political hierarchy ivas a religious one, united at the lop in the person of the Sultan and consisting, from state to local level, of todi and imam - juridical advisors, catechists and mosque officials - who together helped establish the Sultan’s presence and the strength of Islam throughout his realm (Warren 1981:xxvi). •' •Political and religious hierarchy was thus a defining characteristic of the Sulu sultanate. In addition, and most importantly fonthe purposes of this paper, the state was ethnically segmented; alliance, rank and religion were united in a system of ethnic stratification. At the top of the ethnic hierarchy were the Tausug, the “people of Jolo,” 2 who even now remain the dominant group In Sulu. The Tausug, a partiallyintrusive, Bisayan-speaking people (Pallesen 1977), predominated (as they still do) in the relatively large and populous central islands of the Jolo and Tapul clusters. According to Pallesen (1977:338ff), the origins of the Tausug can be traced to a 13th century bilingual trading community of Sama men and Bisayan women, founded at Jolo as a result of Sama trading involvement in the central Philippines. At that time Jolo was already a major commercial centre, with links to China and the rest of the eastern Malay world. Pro­ fiting from the strategic location of the island; this trading community gained power and numerical strength, absorbin'g in the process the settled, and at that time’ Sama-speaking, populations of Jolo and other large islands close by. With the coming of Islam and the emergence of the Sulu state, the Tausug assumed formal dominance over the other peoples of the Sulu archipelago, all of them' Sama-speaking, and in the process evolved a dis­ tinctive ethnic identity of tfieir own, As Frake (1980:328) puts it, “The people of Jolo nailed down their supremacy by becoming a different kind of people from their neighbors.” Ft^e (1980:315) describes this process as “ethnicitization”. In this case, emerging’differences of rank and political status were invested with ethnic meaning and were relited to ascribed dif­ ferences of language, culture and origin? With the development of a separate identity came the creation, too; df af mythic “history”, in which the Tausug appear as the “original inhabitants” of Sulu, and the Sama as “newcomers”, or “guests” (Saleeby 1908:156-57; Frake 1980:328-29). Controlling the network of redistributive trade and monopolising the aristocratic estate at the apex of the political order, the Tausug thoroughly dominated the traditional sultanate from its formation in the ISth century

2. Tau means “people" (e'a, in Sama), while Suug (- Sug) is the Tausug name Ibi Jolo island. The word Sung also means “ocean cuiient” in Tausug - the waters around Jolo Island being wdHmown theii drculat tidal rips (Frake 1980:330). The Sama call Jolo island “Suuk” and refer to the Tausug as the “A'a Suuk"; similarly, the Sultan is referred to by the Sama as “Sultan Suuk”, or "Raja Suuk”. In Sabah the Sama ethnonym “Suuk” is the source of the name "Suluk”, by which the Tausug are general­ ly known in the state. 3. The Brunei sultanate suggests a closely similar rebtion between the rise of a stratified polity, with its system of hereditary titles, and'the corresponding emergence of ethnic boundaries: In short, “ethnicitization" of rank and power (cf, Brown 1973 and Max­ well 1980).

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Clifford Saiher onwards. Although other ranks within the title system were open to nonTausug by appointment, the hereditary aristocracy (datu) consisted entirely of Tausug. The Tausug also formed the principal trading class and comprised the main population of agrarian commoners living in the central heartland of Sulu, where the authority of the state was strongest. In addition, the Tausug viewed themselves as culturally superior to subordinate groups. They laid claim to greater Islamic purity and, as a group, controlled most religious offlces as well as those secular ones with religious functions, including that of the Sultan. Beneath the Tausug were the “Bajau”, to use the name most widely appli­ ed to these people by outsiders in coastal Borneo and eastern Indonesia. In Sulu the “Bajau” are known to the Tausug, and to other outsiders, as “Samal”. The great majority of these people refer to themselves as "Sama”. The term Sama b abo used as a linguistic label to refer to the subgroup of closely-related languages and dialects spoken by these people (Pallesen 1977; McFarland 1980:106). Linguistically the Sama subgroup forms a classic dialect ’chain, its speakers living in an extended distribution throughout the Sulu archipelago of the Philippines, northeastern Borneo and southward, over widely-scattered areas of eastern Indonesia (Map 1). Sain a speakers, although they share a sense of common identity, lack political unity, dividing themselves into a multitude of smaller groups, in­ sufficiently integrated to exist as independent entities. These smaller groups act as the principal focus of social loyalties and are distinguished toponymically by place or region of origin. The only exception are nomadic boat­ dwelling Sama. These people are dbtinguished, as we shall see presently, by virtue of their way of life, as specialized sea folk. While dialect differences exist between all of these groups, their definition is essentially social rather than Ungubtic. Regionally-spoken dialects grade into one another so that the members of different groups inhabiting contiguous island areas, whether they live in boats or ashore, have little difficulty understanding one another, In the 18th and 19th centuries the Sama were, as they still are, strongly identified with the strand, or immediate sea fringe. In Sulu they predominate numerically in the smaller coralline islands, particularly at the northern and southern ends of the archipelago antj in -the low islands west of the main •Tapul cluster. EJsewhere, on the larger “high” islands, they generally live in scattered strand communities, greatly outnumbered by those of the more land-based Tausug. Many of these Bajay communities have well-developed traditions of boat-building and navigation and, most characteristically, subsist by.maritime fishing, shoreline farming, or as artisans, mariners, and inter­ island traders. Within the Sulu state the Sama formed a subordinate population who were, in most areas, subject to the control of resident Tausug leaders. In the neighbourhood of Jolo these Tausug ovdriords included the Sultan him­ self, and his close kindred (cf. Kiefer 1972a:22—23). Relations of subordina­ tion were associated with mythic traditions, principally in the form of genea­ logies {salsila), which purportedly placed local Sama-speaking groups in each of the main island clusters in the status of “guests”, under the permanent clientage of hereditary lines of Tausug protectors (cf. Saleeby 1908). Only

Sea and Shore People

MAP I: LOCATION OF SAMA-SPEAKING PEOPLES (REPORTED BETWEEN 1830 AND THE PRESENT)

in the case of the most land-based of the Sama-speaking groups, notably the Yakan of Basilan island (Frake 1980:325—27), and in the most peri­ pheral areas of the state, such as Semporna, were the Sama able to -develop a degree of political autonomy. But even here, Sulu’s suzerainty was acknow­ ledged. Everywhere the Sama, both boat and shore groups, played a crucial role in the tributary economy. As maritime people they supplied their immediate leaders with their services as skilled navigators and seamen, or' as artisans,

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•Clifford'Sather tra'ding'agents and infer-island carriers, As fishermen'they supplied marine products: dried fish, shark fin, pearl shell, and in particular, tripang or b^cheSe-mer which, during the 18th and 19th centuries, was a major source of Sulu’s export wealth (cf. Warren 1981:6(^-61). It was'largely control over the Sama that provided the economic b'asis of the sultanate’s power (Dalrymple 1770:11—14; Forrest 1779:328-29; Hunt 1967:59; Warren 1981:65-74). The major cleavage between Tausug and Sama in the Sulu state helped shape the basic terms by which ethnic differentiation and ranking came locally to be perceived (cf. Frake 1980:328-2p). Thus the Tausug came to be asso­ ciated with the political and religious centre of the Sulu state, the Sama with its periphery, and so with political and religious marginality, The Tausug were essentially land-based; the Sama basically maritime. The Tausug thought of themselves as assertive and warlike; the Sama were seen as re­ tiring and tractable. In each case, the Tausug end of the scale became the prestigious end. As Frake writes (1980:329), “At the other extreme”, among the Sama, “the further one goes to sea, the more one wanders from the central places, the® meeker one’ presents oneself, the lower becomes one’s position in the scheme of things”. Thus, at the bottom of the etiinic hierarchy was the subgroup of Sama­ speaking people who lived aboard boats as itinerant fishermen. Calling themselves the “Sama Dilaut” or -“Sama Mandelaut”, these people were commonly known to outsiders as the "Bajau Laut”, of “Sea” Bajau. Be­ cause they lived scattered throughout the whold of the Sulu realm and be­ yond, and because of their nomadic existence, they were' at once the most peripheral, the mo'st sea-oriented, and the most docile of all Sama. Sharing‘a similaf position at'the bottom of the ethnic hierarchy were a number of other peripheral groups: shifting agriculturalists, birds’ nest collectors and jungle foragers, diverse non-MusIim "pagan” people, living along the foreshores of Mindanao and eastern Borneo. 3. ETHNIC INTERACTION IN 19TH CENTURY SEMPORNA

As part of the Sulu slate, the coastal area of southeastern Sabah, which today forms the Sempornf’district (Map 2), shared the system o'f'ethnic stratification we have just described. Until the beginning of colonial rule the- area formed an-important-conduit of trade and contact, bridging coastal Borneo-arid the adjoining island world of Sulu. 4^ iit ihe closely adjoining coralline islands, Sempoma’s population was almost entirely Sama-speaking and was divided, at feast by the end of the 19th century, into a mosaic of smaller groups identified with specific islands or areas of coastline. Here the 'members of these groups formed relatively compact village settlements, building their houses mostly‘along the edge of the sea or raising ..them on piles over the water. The largest and the longest-eslabli'shed‘of these groups were the Sama Kubang, or A’a Kubang, who take their name from the region in which their original settlements'are said to have been located,'namely Omadal island and the closely facing southern shore of Bum-Biim island (Map 2). Because of dhe early predominance of this group, the whole Semporna area was

Sea and Shore People

MAP 2: SEMPORNA DISTRICT

10 Clifford Sather

formerly known as Kubang among the different Sama-speaking peoples living In the southern island clusters of Sulu. In the 18t,h and early 19th centuries the members of some of these Sama-speaking groups, before large-scale migra­ tion to Semporna. visited the region on periodic trading voyages, During these visits, they formed temporary boat communities, somewhat similar to those of the Bajau Laut. Today Sama Kubang settlements are concen­ trated chiefly around the northern, eastern and southern coasts of BumBum island, on Omadal and Larapan islands, along the southern coast of the Semporna Peninsula and inland around present-day Kubang Baru (Map The other main Sama groups in Semporna district are al] named for islands or island regions in southern Sulu. They represent offshoot com­ munities of larger Sama groups whose main provenance is in the southern Tapui, Tawi Tawi and Sibutu island clusters. Unlike the Kubang people; none of these latter groups, so far as is presently known, migrated to found per­ manent settlements in the district much before the second half of the 19th century. Until then the relatively sparse population of Semporna appears to have consisted wholly of settled Sama Kubang villagers, itinerant inter­ island traders and small bands of Bajau Laut boat people.* Among the most prominent of the later groups to arrive were the Sama Buna-Bunaan, who live today chiefly on Silawa, Bait and Pebabag islands and along the north­ ern coast of the Semporna peninsula, The members of this group identify themselves with the Buna-Bunaan region of Bilatan island in the Tawi Tawi cluster. Other groups include Sama Ubian, Sama Sikubung, Sama Benaran, Sama Simunul, Sama Sibaut, Sama Sibutu and Sama Mentabuan, The Tausug were never present in Semporna, except in small numbers, and each of the main subgroups of Sama, with the exception of the Bajau Laut, had its own local and regional leaders. But the sovereignty of Sulu was acknowledged and, in return for this acknowledgement, the Sultan recognized the authority of the mor^ influential of these leaders by bes­ towing on them titles. These were confirmed by fonnal investiture. The most important titles held by Semporna leaders in the past, were panglima and olang kaya.^ and, of lesser rank, marahaija and settia. In theory each title represented a delegation by the Sultan of political rights to the recipient, most notably rights of adjudication {hukutti) and rights to collect tribute (juftar). In return, title-holders were expected to remit a portion of this tribute to the Sultan, protect local trading connections and periodically re­ affirm their fealty by visits to the Sultan’s court at Jolo. Titles also served 4. What follows is based chiefly on local oral uadition. 5. These two titles were adopted by the Chartered Company. Orang kayo, given its Maby pronunebtion, became the title designation given a native chief (ketua anak negeri), while panglima came In time to be an honorific title conferred by the Com­ pany on’a.long-serving or especially loyal village headman. The fust time the title of panglima was conferred in Semporna was in 1903, when Panglima Udang, originally a local Kubang leader of humble origins, was appointed as the Company’s principal native agent in the district. With the tater formalization of native administrative offices, Panglima Udang became the principal native chief and the dominant figure in the early political history of Semporna district.

11 Sea and Sfiore People to validate the territorial claims of individual subgroups within the district. Like other subordinate populations, the Bajau in Semporna performed essentially a procurement function in the wider trading economy. During the early decades of the 19th century the district acted as a channel of trade, linking the surrounding coastal zone with the main market ports of central Sulu, From Idahan ("Ida’an" in Sama) collectors living to the north of Sem­ porna came bird’s nests, beeswax and camphor; from Tidong settlements to the south came rice and sago. In the opposite direction moved slaves, destined chiefly for Bulungan and smaller Bugis markets further south. Locally, the principal district slavers were the Sama Benaran.^ Although the details of this former trade are difficult to reconstruct for other commodities, it appears that local Bajau leaders participated in the procurement system chiefly as intermediate agents and carriers. From the district itself came sea products^ notably tripang and dried fish, and from Sipadan island, turtles' eggs, gathered by the people of Danawan whose hereditary right it was to do so. In addition to the procurement trade, with its close links to political power and tribute, there was also a considerable trade in subsistence goods. This occurred between local communities throughout the district and, to a lesser degree, northward into Darvel Bay and eastward into the Sibutu Island group. It was based on local ecological interdependencies. Thus the Sama Kubang villages at Tongkalloh and Hampalan at the southermost tip of Bum-Bum island, because of their location near^major reef channels, developed into specialized fishing settlements. Along the opposite exposed northern shoreof Bum-Bum Island Sama Kubang, who lived in a series of pile-house villages located in stranded coral inlets and lacking other resources, traditionally relied for their livelihood on trade as skilled artisans, workers in turtleshell, ironsmiths, carvers of wooden gravemarkers and boat-wrights. In addition to slaving, the small Sama Benaran communities at Labusai and Tabak-Tabak on Bum-Bum island manufactured kajang matting from fronds of the tigul palm and collected rattan (buai) and resin-(&«n'k) from the Jungle, trading the resin locally as a boat-caulking material. The Sama Buna-Bunaan were, and remain, the most agricultural of- all'the Sama groups in Semporna. In the past, local Buna-Bunaan communities engaged in extensive trade in agri­ cultural products. In addition the community at Bait specialized in atapmaking, which its members traded both in Semporna and in the Lahad Datu district to the north. Nearby Tampe Kapor, on the peninsula shore facing Pebabag island, specialized in pottery-making and its members traded in earthenware hearths and cooking vessels. 4. PERCEPTIONS OF BAJAU LAUT IDENTITY

Within this framework of ecological interdependency the Bajau Laut occupied a position of extreme specialization, in terms of which their identity

6. A member of this community, Datuk Ibrahim, now of Kg. Tilingan, Tawau, was one of my main sources for (he history of the district. Another important informant was Panglima Jammal bin Panglima Bandal of Kg. Bait, Semporna.

12

Clifford Sather

as a group was very largely defined, both in their own eyes and in those of their neighbours. Until the-mid-1950s all the Bajau Lauf in Semporna lived permanently afloat in small sailing vessels equipped with portable living quarters and de­ pended almost exclusively on fishing and gathering for their livelihood. Using driftnets as their principal gear, and mostly fishing in mobile, wideran^ng fleets, the Bajau Laut worked the sunounding coral reefs and inter­ tidal shallows, particularly those of Tetagan, Boheyan and the Legitan complex (Map 2). Even today a small minority of Semporna’s Bajau Laut continue to live in'ihis way.’ Each Bajau Laut boat was equipped with portable living quarters and typically housed a married couple and their dependent children plus, occa­ sionally, one or two aged or otherwise unattached kinsmen. Wherever they lived the Bajau Laut formed semi-nomadic bands, or localized fishing and gathering groups. Each band consisted of a loose association of families whose members had periodic recourse to a common anchorage site or to a' series of common seasonal ones. Tfie anchorage thus’ formed a focal gathering place to which the families returned between voyages. Within each band, groups of related families tended to form smaller family-alliance groups (pagmundah) whose members, sharing food and acting as travelling companions and fishing partners, regularly anchored and sailed together. Frequently these smaller groups combined in joint netting operations with families, or family groups, from other bands. Historically the Bajau Laut population in Semporna was divided between a number of bands, each of relatively fluid composition, whose anchorage sites were scattered among the island and shoreline settlements of the much more numerous sedentary Sama. Locally the Bajau Laut considered themselves part of a larger regional grouping consisting, beside themselves, of related bands living in the adjoining Sibutu island cluster. The two areas are sepa­ rated only by a narrow channel which, in the past, families frequently crossed while fishing or on visits to other bands. As we have siad, the Bajau Laut refer to themselves as “Sama Dilauf’, or “Sama Mandelaut”. They are known to other Sama groups as “Sama Pala’au” (or “Pala’u”, or “Sama Luwaan”). Although the meaning of the enthnonym

7. While in the field in 1964—65,1 spent a total of three weeks living with boat-dwelling families. At the time, of the two Bajau Laut settlements in Semporna district, some­ what more than ten percent of the population of Bangau-Bangau and fifty percent of Labuan Haji were still boat-living. These figures are based on a'partial census and estimates of Informants; 1 was never able to collect complete demographic data on all boat-dwelling families, because of their mobility, During a brief re-visit to Bangth Bangu in 1974, I stayed for two nights with a boat-dwelling family whose members had lived in a house in 1965. Dy 1979 this family had given up boat-dwelling a second time. In 1979 the number of boat-dwelling families in the district was approximately the same as it had been In the 1964—65 period, although their proportion of the total Bajau Laut poputetion was very much smaller. Moreover, most now consist of rela­ tively recent newcomers from the Philippines. It Is worth noting that some of the latter had previously lived in houses before moving to Sabah.

13 Sea and Shore People Pala’au is unclear*, both it and Luwaan are unacceptable to the Bajau Laut. Lawaan means “that which was spat out” (cf. Kiefer 1972a;22) and refers to myths that the Bajau Laut were rejected by* God and so forced to follow their present way of life as a curse (see below). For themselves the Bajau Laut do not accept these attributions; they regard a maritime existence as characteristically Sama and so describe themselves, in contrast to more settled groups, as Sama to 'ongan, the “real” or “true Sama”. In the eyes of other Sama, what sets the Bajau Laut apart is their lack of a territorial provenance, a landed home-base with which they can identify them­ selves. Over and over in my conversations with other Bajau, this point was made to me. To the surrounding shore people, the Bajau Laut are said to’ live like “flotsam" (buat kampal). Never making a permanent home ashore, they ate said to be forever “drifting” (makatandan). Locally, and throughout Sulu, perceptions of the Bajau Laut are related to mythological traditions. These are varied, but their basic theme is similar, In a common variant, well-known in Sempoma, the wife of the Prophet, Siti Aisah, comes to purchase fish for her ailing husband from a Bajau Laut fisherman. He attempts to molest her, but she is saved by her cat. For this wrongdoing God causes the Bajau Laut to suffer. The fisherman comes to the Prophet to ask for forgiveness (taubat) and the Prophet advises him to prepare a feast (kanduri). The Bajau Laut does this but, unable to find suffi­ cient meat, he butchers a dog and prepares its Qesh which is, of course, “unclean”. The Prophet and his followers' arrive and the Bajau Laut serves them. As the Prophet recites over the food, the meat begins to bark, thus revealing the sin that has been committed. With this the Prophet and his followers take leave and the original homeland of the Bajau Laut sinks in­ to the sea. The few Bajau Laut who survive, save themselves by clinging to drifting debris. From this time onward the Bajau Laut are excluded by Cod from the society of the faithful dnd are compelled as punishment to Live out their lives afloat, drifting tike the debris to which their ancestors clung. Reflected in this myth are the ideological underpinnings of the identity which others have ascribed to the Bajau Laut, namely that they are nonMuslims and so stand outside the religiously-organized society to which the Tausug and other Sama-speaking peoples belong. The Bajau Laut are spiri­ tually cursed (ka sukna). Denied a place ashore, they are compelled to live in boats, dispersed and looked down upon, without status or power. The Bajau Laut, as full-time fishermen, depended In the past on those living around them for agricultural produce and other goods which they could not produce themselves. 'They also depended on others for security. This dependence was expressed in formal patronthe major .influence towards Malay entry into the business world. This is because the ..riots suddenly removed Malay access to all the Chinese businesses, in­ cluding ‘food outlets, which they had previojisly patronized. Subsequent official encouragement for Malays-to take up business has taken the form of privileged access to licenses and government Ioans, as well as official plans identifying greater Malay participation in the commercial sector of the economy as a major developmental goal. There has also been holders) found that all their ^.children w,ere being given red cards at the age of twelve. The “front line” clerks at the district offices would go through the motions of “reassur­ ing” the parents by telling theri) that the child could “apply for a blue card as soon as he is eighteen.” What the clerks never revealed was that there was provision for registration of children by a citizen parent immediately. And parents ivho themselves had a r?d, non-citizen card, and took steps to be registered as citizens If they possessed an entitling birth certificate, or naturalised as “aliens” if they did not, soon found that the accompanying Malay language tests were no formality. In view of what had been said by Alliance cadres about the importance of being abitizen^ in independent Malaya, The denial of citizenship status to perhaps as much as half of the indigenous Thai population, including a very high proportion of the young people, was profoundly depressing and alienating for this community. Nor were they wrong to imagine some Malay antipathy. There is little reason to doubt that the obstacles which the Thais birth certificate, which had been lost! This far from typical case had occurred be­ cause the father, an exceptionally articulate man, had actually overawed the clerk with his remonstrations, but it makes another illustration, in its way, of ‘local varia­ tion'!) I must stress that thye was nothing vindictive in the intention of the Registrar in, 1967 (incidentally.like his predecessor a non;Malay) to track down identity car^s improperly issued. Indeed he wanted to save the card holders in question from future complication and difficulty at a time when the employment laws were being tightened and certain employers were already asking for authoritative certi­ ficates of citizenship in regard to eligibility for employment. Since then 1 have met, in Kuala, Lumpur in 1974, an extremely senior source who asserted that the rules which Jiad excluded children bom after 15 September 1952 of parents holding 1948-type certificates (unless the father could produce his own birth certificate) had come into effect in 1952, not. i960. He was utterly astonished to hear my account of local practice which had persisted up to 1966. 46. My esteemed informant at Kota Bahru suggested in one conversation that it was in fact under Article 124 (1) (f) of the 1948 rules that children of certified citizens had at first been considered as citizens butjater disqualified: “any person whose father is, at the date of that person’s birth, a Federal citizen.” If this were so, at least children-born before the father, obtained his certificate would clearly have become disqualified by the assumption .that citizenship derives from the act of having it certified. Even if 1948-type certificates were being used simply to demon­ strate a parent’s local birth - so that a child could qualify under 4'(c) of the 1952 Enactment - the exclusion of children born before the father’s certification again points to the conclusion that the act of certification is the key.

64

77je Kelantan Thais faced were not only the result of a citizenship law designed to erect barriers against the flood of alien Chinese, phis a further banier (the insistence on documentary proof) erected to make the law more effective, but were rein­ forced by the negative attitude of pro-P.M.I.P. clerks-to whom responsibility was delegated from Kota Bahru and on whom the Thais depended for Initi^ information and encouragement.*’ Moreover, those adults who applied for registration or naturalisation at their own district office might find that they had to run the gauntlet of a particularly tricky test in the national language, administered by a nationalistic if not pro-P.M.I.P. District Officer.** 4. MALAY NATIONALISM.AND LAND

In 1959 the Pan-Malayan Islamic Party swept the board with 28-out of 30 seats in the Kelantan State Assembly - the first fully elective Assembly in the State’s history, just as the Federal Parliament elected a few weeks later was flie first fully elective parliament. This article is not the place in which to discuss the impact of the Kelantan victory on Federal politics, short or medium term, or to elaborate on the theme that the reasons for the P.M.I.P(

47. The official position is that the clerks at the District Offices are sent out from the headquarters at- the State capital and remain under its authority. But even if there was no case of secondment from the State into Xhe Federal civil service, not of delegation, strictly speaking, to a Kelantan Civil Service clerk, the clerks In question are Kelantanese, potentially more responsive to the “political culture" of the District Office than to the Federal regulations supposedly governing their actions. 48. Already in the 1960s many Thai males were fluent In Kelantan Malay but could barely comprehend the standard language, or 'book Malay’. Hardly any among those born before about 1946 had ever had a birth certificate (or having had it, still pos­ sessed it); thus they would be directed to apply for naturalisation, for which a higher standard of competence in Maby Is prescribed than for registration, to counter­ balance putative alien birth. Only after pressure from the M.C.A, and Mt Nagaratnam of Kota Bahru in the late ’sixties was Kebntanese dialect admitted, at least at the Kota Bahru Registry where an MCS (Mabyan Civil Service) officer Traditionally both crow- and parallel-cousin marriages occur, but are not frequent. On cross-cousin marriage in China, See Feng (1937:183-86) and Hsu (1945).

96

Kin Networks and Baba Identity the_ experience of living as a Baba. Kin relationships therefore express and enhance the experience of being Baba, Kinship for the Baba is crucial to the maintenance of their identity in Melaka. Today there is no active formal organization which promotes Baba solidarity or caters >to the interests of the Baba community. There is a Persatuan Peranakan Cina Melaka (Melaka Chinese Peranakan Association), the successor to the old Straits Chinese British Association. But it is not active in Baba affairs. Socially, the non-Baba Chinese look down on the_Baha as being not_guite Chinese. Also there is no special advantage, economic or politi­ cal, in remutung a Baba. SifiM the Melaka Baba identify themselves as Chinese, and most of them still follow traditional Chinese religion, there is no question of them choosing to become Malays. Why then do the Baba preserve an identity separate from other Chinese Malaysians? As I have mentioned, being Baba today is a matter of socialization. One grows up in a Baba family, speaks Malay at home and identifies as aBaba. This'alone, however, is not sufficient to cultivate a lasting Baba identity. Rather, it is the constant interaction with Baba kin which fosters that identity. This continuous interaction with fellow Baba makes it meaning­ ful for one to remain a Baba. It is the network of interaction between relatives which keeps even those Baba who can speak a Chinese language within the Baba community. Since Baba is a sub-Chinese identity and Baba identify themselves not only as Chinese, but also as Chinese of a particular speech group, it is tairly easy for the Baba to drop their special Baba identity and identity Simply as Chinese of a particular speech-group. Indeed, many descendents of Baba families have dope just that, particularly when they have been able to speak a Chinese lan­ guage, such as Hokkien or Cantonese. In my opinion, such Baba identification with a particular speech group is not simply to avoid stigmatization by non­ Baba Chinese, but because these people have lost regular contact with their Baba kin. As such, it is no longer meaningful for them to identify as Baba. This is especially so with those Baba who have settled in places like Kuala Lumpur or Ipoh, where few other Baba live.' My informants in Melaka think that the Baba population has declined, and they attribute this to Baba individuals marrying non-Baba Chinese. In fact, when a Babajnarries a non-Baba Chinese, or jice-versa, whether the offspring grow up to identify as Baba or not depends on the nature of their socialization and the extent of their interaction with Baba kin. If a Nyonya marries,a non-Baba.,Chinese and the spouses continue to live in Melaka, there is a chance that (he wife may be able to pass on Baba cultural traits to her offspring. But this is not sufficient to ensure that the offspring will become Baba. If’’they have more interaction with the non-Baba kin of their father they are more likely to identify as non-Baba Chinese. However, if the off­ spring live close to their maternal Baba kin; they may grow up as Bafca. In this way Baba kin networks serve to maintain Baba identity.

97

Tan Chee Beng REFERENCES 'Feng Hln-Yl 1937 The Chinese Kinship System. Harvard Journal ofAsiatic Snidies 2:141-275..

Fortes, Meyer 1969 Kinship and the Social Order. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Freedman, Maurice 1957 Chinese Family and Marriage tn Singapore. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

1958

Lineage Organization in Southeastern China. London: Athlone.

1962

Chinese Kinship and Marriage in Singapore. Southeast Asian History 3:65-73.

. 1965

The Chinese in Southeast Asia: A Longer View. London: The China Society.

Hsu, F.L.K. 1945 Observations on Cross-Coudn Marriage in China. American Athropologlst 47:83-103. Needham, Rodney > 1974 Remarks and Inventions: Skeptical Essays about Kinship New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc. Lim, Sonny *" 1981 Baba Malay: The Language of 'Sttaits*Bom’ Chinese. M.A. thesis, Monash University.

SheUabear, W.G. 1913 Baba Malay: An Introduction to the Language of the Stralts*boin Chinese Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 65:49-63. Tan Chee Beng 1979 Baba Chinese, Non-Baba Chinese and Malays: A Note on Ethnic Interaction in Malacca. Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 7(1 —2>:20—29. 1980

Baba Malay Dialect. Joumarof the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society SSdMSO-iee.

1983

1984

Acculturation and the Chinese in Melaka: The Expression of Baba Identity Today. In The Chinese in Southeast Asia, Volume 2; Identity, Culture and Politics, L.A. Peter Gosling and Linda Y.C. Lim, eds. Singapore: Maiuzen Asia. 56-78. Acculturation, Assimlbtion and integration: The Case of the Chinese. In Ethnicity, Class and Development: Malaysia, S. Husin All, ed. Kuala Lunjput;

Persatuan "Sains Sosial Malaysia, 139-211.

OLD ANTAGONISMS. NEW RIVALRIES: POLITICS IN A RURAL MALAY COMMUNITY SHAMSUL A, B.*

CONTENTS

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Introduction TheViUage Old Antagonisms: Officials versus Peasants New Rivalries: Inter- and Intra-party Politics Conclusion

1. INTRODUCTION

This paper deals with the political life of a rural Malay community in Selangor, peninsular Malaysia. The data, were gathered during a long-term anthropological field study during 1980 to 1981. ’ Unfortunately, apart from the works of Syed Husin Ali (1975), Rogers (1977) and Kessler (1978), there are few studies of local politics'm Malay villages. It is hoped, therefore, that this paper will add ,depth to the ethno­ graphic record. The paper deals with both past and present-day political situations in the study community. The past situation, as we shall see, not only affects but also helps to explain the increasln^y complex configurations within the present situation. On the other hand, local political life is constantly being shaped and reshaped by the forces of the larger 'society. Hence this paper, despite its focus on the parochial politics of a single Malay village, is also about Malaysian political life in general, as it is articulated in this rural community. 2. THE VILLAGE

The area in which Kampung (Kg.) Chempaka and three neighbouring villages (Kg. Teratai, Kg. Kasturi and Kg. Banj)^ are now located was once •Ph.D. (Monash), associate professor. Dept, of Anthropology and Sociology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. 1. My fieldwork lasted for 14 months. It has been supplemented by four months of archival research. I wish to thank Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (The National University of Malaysia) for providing mo with a research ^nt. To Wendy, my wife, I owe the most. She remained an endless source of inspiration throughout the long separa­ tions necessitated by my fieldwork. To the villagers and others in the research area I remain indebted forever. I am very grateful for the Invaluable comments on eatiier drafts of this paper given to me by the late Professor M.G. Swift, Dr. John C. Butcher, Wendy Smith and Salleh Lamry, 2. In order to disguise tlie precise locale of the research area, district, sub-district and village names have all been changed.

99 ShamsulA. B.

a large tract of wasteland, partly swamp and partly secondary jungle of poor soil quality, situated in a remote comer of Mukim (subdistrict) Mawar of Malawati district in the state of Selangor, This area was left uncultivated by the European coffee plantation owners, to whom the colonial admini­ stration offered a large acreage of the better land within the mukim and elsewhere in the district during the "coffee boom” of 1891—96. This explains why this cluster of villages is now surrounded by large, privately-owned, plantations and henc^ is separated from other villages in Mukim Mawar. There are two small towns in Mukim Mawar. namely. Mawar and Sungai (Sg.) Ikan. Mawar serves as the administrative centre for the mukim, while Sg., Ikan’s function is more commercial. Both towns are situated about 8 km. from .Kg. Chempaka, which itself is only- some 65 km. from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital city. The Chempaka community, as of March 1981, comprised 436 households, 11 of which were Chinese and the r6st Malay. The total village population was 1,581, of whom 1,535 were Malays and 46 Chinese. The adult popu­ lation of Kg.'Chempaka was 875: 481 males and 394 females. This accounted for about hairof the total population. Amongst the adults, 672 persons (460 males and 212 females) or 76.8 percent were economically active, and 203 persons (21 males and 187 females), or 23.2 percent, were dependents. Most people in Kg. Chempaka are involved directly or indirectly in various forms of agricultural activity, especially rubber and oil-palm cultivation. Jhisis obvious from the pattern of land-use in the village (see Table 1). Table I: LAND USE AT KG. CHEMPAKA By Crops, Lots, Acreage and Pecentpges (as of March 1981) LOTS(a)

acreageOj)

Rubber Oil-Palm Coconut Coffee Government Reserve Homestead

527 195 14 12

1,580 584 41 37

64.7 23.9 1.7 1.5

15 52

45 155

1.8 6.4

Total

815

2,442

100.0

CROPS

PERCENTAGE(c)

Notes: (a) According to the Selangor Land Rules, 1966 (SL. P.U. 26/1966), a "lot” refers to a piece of land demarcated by cadastral survey, allotted a number, and registered either as an entry in the mulcim register or as a grant in the Re­ gistration of Titles office. A rubber holding, therefore, may consist of one or more “lots", held under a single legal ownership. The size of each lot varies from district to district. However, land lots under the Malay Reservation in Malawati range front 23 to 3,5 acres per lot. (b) In Kg. Oiempaka, each lol size is between 23 and 3.0 acres, The acres are stated In rounded figures. (c) Since the lot size varies but the acreage does not, ths percentages are cal­ culated from the latter.

100 Politics in a Rumi Malay Community

The available data on occupation allow us to divide the village into four main social divisions: (1) the village bourgeoisie (see Table 2, groups I and II) comprising 22 persons, or 3.3 percent, of the economically active villagers; (2) the village petty bourgeoisie (see Table 2, groups III to VII), 66 persons, or 9.8 percent; (3) the village proletariat, most of whom work outside the village economy (see Table 2, groups VIIl and IX), 283 persons, or 42.1 percent; (4) the peasantry, which, with its own internal sub-divisions, is the largest group within the village adult population, although it is only slightly larger than the proletariat (see Table 2, group X, 301 individuals, or 44.8 percent).

Table 2: KG. CHEMPAKA ECONOMICALLY.ACTIVE ADULT POPULATION^®), By Class, Occupation and Sex (as of March, 1981) CLASS AND OCCUPATION(b)

MALE

FEMALE

TOTAL

A.

VILLAGE BOURGEOISIE

I,

CONTRACTORS 4 ENTREPRENEURS

3

—

3

II.

SALARIED Teacher Clerical KEMAS StaffiO Local Council Sup&visot Security Guard (Estates & Banks) Junior Technician

4 1 1 1 5 1

2 2 2

6 3 3 1 5 1

Total B.

VILLAGE PETTY BOURGEOISIE

tn.

SMALL BUSINESSMEN Rubber Dealer Oil-Palm Dealer FoodstuIT Retailer Motor Mechanic Barber Tailor

Total IV.

COTTAGE INDUSTRY Carpenter/House Builder Concrete-block Maker Malay Pastry Maker Tempe (fermented soya bean cake) Maker

Total

13

—

6

19

5(4)

5 3 13 1 2 1

5

25

5

6 _ 30

6

4 5 6

3 13(«)

1 2

4 5

1.

—

I

1

9

1

16

101 Shamsul A. B.

Cont. Table 2. CIASS AND OCCUPATIONC’) y.

DRIVER Truck Driver Unlicenced Taxi Driver

VII.

PENSIONERS

FOLK HEALERS ' Traditional Spirit-healer (Dukun/ Traditional Midwife (Bid'an Kampung) Cimumcisei (MuObnf Total

C VILLAGE PROLETARIAT VIII. HUSTLERS®

IX.

FEMALE

4 9 Total

VI.

MALE

LABOURERS Estate Construction Contract Non-Corutniction Contract Quarry Factory Local Council Transport Agricultural (Bumh Kampung)

Total

TOTAL

4 9

13

-

13

2

-

2

2

3

2

2 2 1 _ ___ 5

8

-

8

41 53 48 IS 12 6 4 23

45

1 5

86 53 60 15 22 6 5 28

202

73

275

2

1

12 10

D.

THE PEASANTRY

X.

SELF-EMPLOYED CULTIVATORS (owners and tenants)

182

119

301

Total Number of Economically Active Total Number of Inactive and Dependent's)

460 21

212 182

672 203

TOTAL ADULT POPULATION

481

394

875

Notes: (a) “Economical^''Active Adult” refers to persons over 18 years old whose liveli­ hood depends on the investment of their labour or capital, or both. (b) The occupational classification is based on data obtained for occupation providing the main source of income. Cases of those having subsidiary occupations to supplement their main Incomes will be discussed in the text (c) Ktmtuoi Kemafitan Matyamkai (Community Development) classes, for adults. (d) Includes one Chinese. (e) Includes six Chinese. (0 Includes smugglers, pedlars of illegal goods, etc. (g) Includes school leavers, invalids, housewives, etc,

102 Politics in a Rural Malay Community The bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie groups, together with the pro­ letariat, subsist mainly on non-agricultural economic activities. However, except for the proletariat, these social classes also depend quite heavily on Income from their ownership of agricultural plots, ^ome of those from the petty bourgeoisie do work part-time on their own agricultural land. Never­ theless, it is a common practice for both bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie to rent their land to sharecroppers, who are mostly peasants. The proletariat are largely landless youths and young married couples. The peasants depend primarily on agricultural land for their livelihood. They are either owner-operators or operator-sharecroppers. Owner-operators are people who work on their own land, from which they derive their income. The operator-sharecroppers are like the former, except that they also earn income by working on other people’s land, on a sharecropping basis. It is quite common, however, for most peasants to engage in various non-agricultural activities to supplement their earnings, such as producing handidrafts and selling home-grown fruits and vegetables, In tenns of principal occupations, the economically active adults in Kg. Chempaka can be categorised as agriculturalists . and non-agriculturalists. However, this division does not imply that there are two clearly defined sectors in the village economy. An examination of the pattern of land owner­ ship (see Table 3) and the investment of capital and labour on the land amongst the different classes in the village reveals the following situation.

Table 3: LAND OWNERSHIP AT KG. CHEMPAKA, By Class, Occupation and Sex •MALE

CLASS & OCCUPATION *

FEMALE

Land­ ed

No.

Land­ ed

No.,

A.

VILLAGE BOURGEOISIE

I.

Contractors & Entrepreneurs

3

3

11.

Salaried

13

13

6

Total

16

16

6

25

18b

9

Land­ ed

No.

3

3

16

3

19 22

5

I

30

19

9

7

5

16

14

13

10

—

—

13

10

2

2

5

5

66

50

3

1

B.

TOTAL

-

29

VILLAGE,.PETTY BOURGEOISIE

III.

Small Businessmen

IV.

Cottage Industry

V.

Drivers

Vt.

Pensioners

2

2

VII.

Folk-Healers

3

3

2

2

-■

—

Total

52

42

14

8

___

103 ShamsulA. B.

Cont. Table 3. MALE

FEMALE

TOTAL

No. I*"*ed

No. *Land­ ed

CLASS & OCCUPATION

No.

c

VILLAGE PROLETARIAT

VIII. Hustlers IX.

Land­ ed

8

2

8

2

,Labourers

202

41

73

4

275

45

Total

210

43

73

4

283

47

182

151

,.119

12

301

163

460

252

212

27

672

279

D.

THE PEASANTRY

X.

Self-employed

TOTAL

Notes:

(a) Economically active adults only, (b) Seven of them did not own land and they were all Chinese, who are not allowed to own any bnd in areas declared as Maby Reservations, and Kg. Chempaka is one of such areas.

(1) .Amongst the bobrgeoisie, 19 of the 22 individuals (86.3%) own land. Of these, the contractors and the entrepreneurs own an average of 35 acres each; and none of‘them work on their lands, which they rent out on a share­ cropping basis. The'salaried, on the other hand, own an average of only 11 acres each. Most of them work part-time on their plots, while a few rent out their land to sharecroppers. (2) The petty bourgeoisie comprises 66 individuals, of whom 50 (75.8%), own an average of 6.7 acres of agricultural land each. There are three ways in which the landed use their agricultural plots. Firstly, those who devote all their time to their non-agricultural occupations have to rent out their land, thus they derive their agricultural income solely through ownership. This category'comprises the truck drivers, a few of the foodstuff retailers and the rubber and oil-palm dealers. Secondly,‘there are those whose principal occupation is non-agricultural, but'who are still able to work their own plots. However, they claim that income from their lands is often irregular and much less than what they receive from non-agricultural sources. This category in­ cludes' the ^opkeepers, folk-healers, cuncfete-block makers and pensioners. Thirdly, there ate those who work their own land, but only on a part-time or irregular basis. This means that they sometimes let others cultivate their plots. For example, tailors and carpenters have to complete jobs given to them by clients within a specified time. Thus, during the busy, periods, they have no choice but to let- others work on their agricultural plots, or else leave them unattended..

104

Politics in a Rural Malay Community

(3) Only a very small number of the proletariat (47 out of 283, or 16.6 percent) own land, comprising homestead plots {tanah kampung) tanging from 1.5 to 3 acres. Often the houses of two or more kinsmen are sited on the same plot. Very few of these people work on their lands. Those who do so are the agricultural labourers {bunih kampung, who mostly grow vegetables and fruit trees, the produce of which they either consume domestically or sell at the pasar lambak, or open-air market, held weekly at a nearby town, (4) The peasantry, comprising,'301 economically-active adults, is by no means a homogeneous group. It can be divided into several categories, (i) The landlords: 4 individuals whose lands are worked by others and who derive their income solely from rents and/or “shares” (from sharecropping), and who own an ayerage of 5,5 acres each; (11) the smallholders: 73 owner­ operators, having an average of 4.2 acres each; (iii) the smallholder-tenantsharecroppers: 86 individuals who obtain an income from their agricultural output, while also labouring on their own land as well as working on that of other people on a renting and sharecropping basis (they own an average of 3,5 acres each); (iv) the landless: 138 persons, who can be sub-divided into, firstly, a small group of full-fledged tenant-sharecroppeis (II out of 138 persons), i,e., those who earn a living by working on their own and other’s land (the latter on a renting and sharecropping basis) and, secondly, the de­ pendents (127 wives and children) of the peasant households. (It is important to note that, even though these dependents are landless, as economically active adults their contribution towards their respective households is in­ dispensable. This is because the household is the principal unit of production and comsumption.) it is against the above-mentioned background that 1 analyze the political dynamics of Kg. Chempaka and its immediate environs. It will shortly become obvious that the various dramatis personae, whose activities will be examined and discussed in this paper, are mainly from the bourgeoisie and petty bour­ geoisie and from the smallholders among the'peasantry class. The overall emphasis will be on the articulation of competing interests amongst these social classes.

3. OLD ANTAGONISMS: OFFICIALS VS. PEASANTS What today is officially known as Kg. Chempaka actually comprises two distinct settlements: Kg. Chempaka and Kg. Asal. To the inhabitants of Kg. Chempaka as a whole,the division is still very real, althou^ unrecognised by the authorities. Of the two settlements, Kg. Asal was the first to be es­ tablished when, around 1916, the Mukim Mawar coastal Malays decided to clear the uncultivated land (tanah kosong) beyond the estates. This was because of economic pressure during the First World War. Kg. Chempaka was fully settled about a decade later, the inhabitants coming from Mukim Asap to the north of Mukim Mawar and from other villages within Mukim Mawar itself. In 1921 the colonial administration redesignated the whole area as the 3. For a detailed history of Kg. Chempaka and neighbouring'communities, see Shamsul 1983:29—122.

105

i !

SkamsulA. B.

j i j ; j I i

“Ksmpung Chempaka Malay Reservadon” and divided the land into plots of 2.5 to 3.5 acres. Each of these plots was designated as kampung (homestead), dusun (orchard) or sawah (padi) land. At this time the villagers were all growing food crops. In 1922 the colonial government introduced the “Stevenson Restriction Scheme”. This was aimed at controlling rubber production, especially among Malay smallholders, as well as protecting the interests of large plantations (cf, Lira 1977: 103—179, Drabble 1979: 69—99). As a result of the im­ plementation of this scheme, rubber prices began to rise (cf, Barlow 1978: 58—73). The settlers of Kg. Asal, sensitive to these rising prices, decided to grow rubber even though they knew this to violate the reservation’s conditions. It was Ahmad, the unofficial village head, who initiated rubber planting on his own land; soon many other villagers followed his example.* The villagers of Kg. Chempaka did not follow the trend set by Kg. Asal villagers, mainly because Haji (Hj.) Abdul had close relations with the colonial authorities and so strictly enforced the reservation’s regulations, He did not hesitate to report those peasants who violated the rules. Hj. Abdul himself ran a small Irrigation-canal construction business in which he employed his villagers as workers. He often received government contracts both inside and outside of Kg, Chempaka. Not being short of money him­ self, he saw no urgency to plant rubber; rather he continued to grow food crops to meet the immediate needs of his family. Hj. Abdul was close to the pengfiulu (chief) of Mukim Mawar, Datuk Abdullah, who was his distant relative. It is reported that both men were “appalled” and strongly opposed to the “irresponsible” act of Ahmad of Kg. Asal in encouraging his anak buah (village folk) to grow rubber instead of food crops. (1 should mention that, during this period, neither Ahmad nor Hj. Abdul had been proclaimed as village heads. At that time It was the custom for an aspiring village head to pay homage to the penghuiu, who would recommend suitable candidates to the Sultan of Selangor. From time to time aspiring candidates had to send “gifts” of rice and other agricultural produce to the penghuiu.) The penghuiu of Mukim Mawar planted rubber instead of rice, having received special permission to do so from the district authorities. Thus he de­ pended quite heavily for food supplies on the various village heads under him. Ahmad’s encouragement of his village folk to grow rubber was seen, therefore, as an act of insubordination, directed, not so much at the British, as at the penghuiu himself. It was thus'not surprising, therefore, that when in 1925 the village heads were officially proclaimed and given their surat tauliah (letters of appoint­ ment) by the penghuiu, Ahmad was not appointed as the village head of Kg. Asal. To rub salt into the wound, the penghuiu declared Kg. Asal to be part of Kg. Chempaka, which was led by Hj. Abdul, now an official village head. From then on Kg. Asal ceased to exist in the eyes of the local officials, the colonial government and the Sultan. 4. “Ahmad” and all other personal names mentioned in this paper are pseudonyms, given to protect the anonymity of the persons concerned.

106 Politics in a Rural Malay Community The pen^ulu, having dealt with Ahmad, now decided to tackle the Kg. Asal villagers. He took steps against those who were growing rubber without official permission. Although some had already applied for permission to change the condition of their land titles, the penghulu used his considerable influence to recommend that their applications be dismissed and that Tines be imposed. Ahmad and his men did not remain quiet. They appealed to the district office against the decision not to allow them to change their land titles from kampung, dusun or sawah to getah (rubber). However the colonial administration decided to enforce the "Stevenson Restriction Scheme”. But this was not very significant to the Kg. Asal people. Some of them were forced to cut down their new rubber trees, still in the pre-production stage, and to grow food crops again; others just ignored the orders. How­ ever, a small number of families, including Ahmad’s, left the callage and migrated to other parts of Malawati district. After the “1925 affair”, as it became known, there was a souring of re­ lations between the peasants of Kg. Asal and the establishment, represented by Hj. Abdul (village head of Kg. Chempaka), Dato Abdullah (chief of Mukim Mawar) and the colonial government. Although there were groups, such as relatives and the poorer peasants, who were sympathetic to the plight of Kg. Asal, they could only watch as bystanders in the whole conflict. Never­ theless the seeds of anti-establishment feelings had been sown in the minds of the Kg. Asal peasants. They were conscious of their subjugated and deprived position and they knew just who were responsible for their loss of opportunity. And even though they could translate their antagonism only into verbal protest, it-is significant for lat§r analysis to note that; around 1925, an underlying and nascent peasant-class opposition to the office­ holding elites had been germinated, As later happenings will show, this was to develop into open conflict, especially after the Second World War. It was a decade later that the villagers of Kg. Asal found an occasion to demonstrate their dendam, or pent-up feelings. In 1934 Hj. Abdul was accused of embezzling money from the wages of those workers he had em­ ployed from Kg. Asal (and many more from Kg. Chempaka) to dig canals for him. He had underpaid his workers and three of them — two from Kg. Asal and one from Kg. Chempaka — reported the matter to the district office, having failed to resolve the issue with Hj. Abdul himself. According to the present village heads of Kg. Chempaka and Kg. Kasturi, the case was investi­ gated by the Malawati district administration. Hj. Abdul'was tried, found guilty and relieved of the village headship. Later, in shame, he and his whole family migrated elsewhere. Som? said that he returned to Java, his place of origin. He was replaced by Hj. Salam, a wealthy landowner who was involved in the same canal-contracting business as was Hj. Abdul. To this day, the few surviving Kg. Asal villagers who had worked with Hj. Abdul feel proud whenever they recount the “1934 scandal”, claiming responsibility for his downfall. Although they might not be the ones directly responsible for Hj. Abdul’s demise, their continuing pride in his downfall is sufficient to demonstrate the silent antagonistic feelings that most of them still harbour against him as a representative of the establishment.

107

Shamsul A. B. Some consider Hj. Abdul's downfall to have been the result of a “curse", springing from his treachery towards Ahmad. Between 1937-1939 a series of natural disasters took place in Kg. Asal, Kg. Chempaka and the two neighbouring villages. Kg. Teratai and Kg. Kasturi. This caused serious economic hardship to many of the peasants,- some of whom were totally washed out and were forced to leave the area. Others stayed put, despite suffering substantial property damage. One particular event during this time contributed much to the bitterness of the Kg. Asal villagers and resulted in increased social tension betweerJ them and the village heads of Kg. Chempaka and Kg. Kasturi. The cbre group of the present Kg. Asal people, who still harbour these bitter memories, call the event the pencerobohan'Kampung Asal, “The outrage of Kg. Asal”. It began in 1937—1938. Kg. Asal was nit by a series of floods, which de­ vastated food crops and rubber trees. Nearly half of the village population migrated elsewhere, either to nearby villages or to other parts of Selangor. Those who stayed managed to survive the difficult recovery period mainly because their food crops had only been partly damaged, or because they managed to find other seasonal jobs. Large tracts of residential and cultivated areas were abandoned. The villagers in Kg. Chempaka, Kg. Teratai and Kg. Kasturi were not as badly affected, because they had a better irrigation system. Then, in early 1939, there was a long period of drought. This time the Kg. Asal folks did not suffer as much as their neighbours. Kg. Chempaka was the worst affected because, during the drought, outbreaks of fire burnt their crops (tapioca, coconut, etc.) to the ground. As a result, the village heads of Kg. Chempaka and Kg. Kasturi made an application to the district office to change the cultivation conditions of the affected lands from sawah, kam­ pung, or dusun statuses to kelapa (coconut) andgeZa/i (rubber). In mid-1939 rubber and coconut prices were on the rise. But there was another application by the Kg. Chempaka and Kg. Kasturi village heads which both surprised and angered the remaining Kg. Asal villagers. This was a request to open up the “abandoned” area of Kg. Asal for rubber and coconut plantation, as well as to aUenate and redistribute the plots to the people of Kg. Chempaka, Kg. Teratai and Kg. Kasturi. This was possible because the villagers who had left^Kg. Asal and migrated else­ where had lost their right of ownership, having failed to pay the necessary land taxes for three years in succession. The Kg. Asal villagers viewed this move as an act of aggression on the part of the headmen of Kg, Chempaka and Kg. Kasturi, but they had nobody to represent their interests. Their protests to their appointed village head were futile. This was hardly surprising, since he was none other than Hj. Salam of Kg. Chempaka, one of those responsible for initiating the takeover scheme. Appeals to the penghulu were likewise unsuccessful. It was at this time that Hj. Salam and his family members, as well as the village head of Kg. Kasturi, Datuk All, and his relatives, were able to acquire large plots of land for themselves. Other villagers from Kg. Chempaka, Kg. Teratai and Kg. Kasturi got their shares too. A few of the Kg. Asal families which had migrated elsewhere returned to reclaim their land. But the “new­ comers” had come, to stay and to dominate Kg. Asal, This is why the indi-

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Politics in a Rural Malay Community

genous Kg. Asal folk use the term pencerobohan, “outrage”, to refer to the incident. This series of events, from 1925 to the eve of the Second World War, created severe tensions and personal hostilities between the peasant families of Kg. Asal and their ofBcial elites and, to a certain extent, between them and ordinary villagers of Kg. Chempaka and Kg. Kasturi. Expressions of oppoation during those times were verbal in nature, or took the form of weak protests to the authorities, or simply berseteru, “becoming enemies and not being on speaking terms”. Although the people of Kg. Asal could not satisfactorily express their discontentment towards the establishment, they harboured feelings of intense dendam, “grudges”, which were articu­ lated after the War in the form of electoral politics,

4. NEW RIVALRIES: INTER- AND INTRA-PARTY POLITICS Electoral politics .came to Kg. Chempaka after the Second World War and were soon to be used to express, amplify and transmute antagonisms which, as we have seen, had been endemic in the village community from the very time of its establishment. Behind all the “politicking” of the present political parties lie the “deep secrets” of the village. And these range from petty personality clashes to a situation'of class tensions, and from internallygenerated conflicts to externally-induced disagreements between the villagers, At the present time there are two political parties in Kg. Chempaka, namely the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and the Parti Islam Se-Malaysia or Pan Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS). Historically, UMNO began as a coalition of Malay organizations formed specifically to oppose the colonial proposal for a "Malayan Union” (cf. Allen 1967, Stockwell 1979). It was officially established after an important meeting of representatives from all over Malaya and a gathering of thousands of supporters in Kuala Lumpur in 1946. The anti-Malayan Union protest was led mainly by urbanbaSed, English-educated and bureaucratic Malay elites, who recruited all the existing mukim and village elites to represent the grassroots level in the rally (Funston 1980: 39-48). After UMNO had been formed, the recruitment of party membership was done through the very same people. The village heads of Kg. Chempaka, Kg. Teratai and Kg. Kasturi, and their sons, were recruited to represent Mukim Mawar at the Kuala Lumpur rally by a Malay officer of the colonial district administration. Later these men were called upon by UMNO state officials to establish an UMNO branch in Mukim Mawar. This they set up in 1946. At Kg. Chempaka UMNO was seen as a party introduced from above through the village heads, themselves wealthy land-owners with successful side-businesses. These people became the first batch of UMNO members of the Mawar branch, either by being sponsored by their village heads, who paid their fees, or on their own initiative. However, to the “ruling families” 'in Kg. Chempaka, UMNO meant some­ thing more. They were told that the formation of the'Malayan Union would result in the Sultan losing all his powers. Consequently, so they were told, all the mukim and village heads appointed by the Sultan would also lose power.

109 Shamsul A. B.

They were also given to believe that the Malays would ultimately become aliens in their own country, UMNO, which opposed the Malayan Union pro­ posal, had therefore to be given full support, since their own survival depended on the party’s success. It was not until the nild-I960s that efforts were made to set up separate UMNO branches in Kg. Chempaka, Kg. Teratai and Kg. Kasturi. Until then, UMNO members of these villages belonged to the Mawar branch, together with people from other villages in the mukim. This situation later caused many internal problems and tussles, as electoral politics came to be seen as providing numerous opportunities for obtaining short- and long-term material gain. This was especially tme after the implementation of New Economic Policy .(NEP) in 1971. This policy aims to eradicate poverty and to restructure Malaysian society so as “to reduce and eventually eliminate the identifi­ cation of race with economic function” (cf. Second Malaysia Plan [Malaysia 1971:v]). Other objectives are to increase Malay employment, especially at the supervisory and executive levels, to expand educational opportunities for Malays, and to create a Malay entrepreneurial class, which should own 30 percent of the nation’s wealth by 1990. PAS, which was to become a very strong opposition force in Mukim Mawar, and especially in Kg. Chempaka, was brought to the village by a little-known peasant-cum-religious leader, who was also a teacher of Quran reading. This was after the 1955 General Election. The teacher first managed to recruit PAS members from among hia immediate neighbours at i^. Asal, whose children he taught and who frequented his surau (small prayer house). These people, constituting the core PAS membership, establi^ed a party branch in 1958. Subsequent supporters joined in because it was put to them that UMNO had cooperated with kafirs (non-believers) and therefore would be unable to fully implement Islamic law and create an Islamic state. It was argued that Islam, the religion of the Malays, was doomed to destruction if efforts to oppose UMNO were not organised. Besides, it was said that UMNO leaders were abetting the Chinese and Indians in the economic exploitation of fellow Muslims. Leaders and supporters of UMNO’s local branch were seen as overly materialistic and concerned mainly with safeguarding their own interests.5 These accusations against UMNO were accepted by the PAS supporters, although not necessarily whole-heartedly. The latter, it should be noted, knew how to keep their disagreement to themselves, thus avoiding internal conflict. There are many explanatidns, ran^g from serious religious convictions to more mundane personal reasons, why the present PAS leaders and their supporters joined this party. But what bound them together as a group to be reckoned with, one which could express discontent against “the establish­ ment” through the mechanism of party politics, was something that everyS. View* limllai to these have been reported as being exptened by PAS leadett in Jelawat, Kelantan (cf, Kessler 1978:229-32};-in fact they represent a partial expression of the views of the central leadership of PAS aftbat time (cf. Funston 1976:67-69).

110 Politics in a Rural Malay Community one knew but seldom admitted or even expressed. As we have seen it was something that went far back in village history. To recapitulate, when UMNO and PAS made inroads at Kg. Chempaka there emerged a clear pattern of polarization both in terras of membership and in the geographical location of members. UMNO’s fortress is in Kg. Chem­ paka and Kg. Kasturi. Here it is led by the respective village heads and their relatives, as well as by government officials. However, solidarity has been a problem over the years and, at times, there has been bitter internal factional fitting as well as personal rivalry, Kg. Asal, on the other hand, is dominated by PAS. The party is led by a group of peasants comprising owner-operator rubber smallholders, who are also mosque attendants or religious and Quranreading teachers. On the issue of party membership, records show that the number of villagers who became UMNO members is almost equal to that of registered PAS members. But in terms of participation in village activities, PAS mem­ bers and leaders have been more active, For example, when the first Kg. Chempaka Village Development and Security Committee (VDSC) was set up in 1970, only three of the ten committee members elected by the villagers were UMNO members. (The village head, an UMNO member, is automatically a member, and chairperson by rule.) All the PAS members were officials of the-party branch and came from Kg. Asal. It is a well-known fact that, at every meeting to elect members of the VDSC, the number of people from Kg. Asal, who are mostly PAS members, always exceeds that of Kg. Chem­ paka proper. * So strong is the PAS branch in Kg. Asal that all PAS candidates who have contested for the Malawati parliamentary electoral constituencyv and the Mawar state legislative assembly electoral constituency have come from Kg. Asal. Hence the UMNO branch of Kg. Chempaka has had to face a relatively strong opposition with a high-calibre leadership. One particular case aptly demonstrates the situation. The mosque for the whole of the official Kg. Chempaka is located in Kg. Asal. When it was supposed tcT be replaced by a new one, PAS leaders and members refused to accept any government assistance. They did not want duit haram, "forbidden money”, to finance the rebuilding of their mosque.’ Although, during the meeting which was held at the mosque to decide this, almost equal numbers of villagers from Kg. Chempaka and Kg. Asal attended, the PAS people managed to push their demands through with a majority vote against the proposal. Most of the Kg. Chempaka villagers abstained from voting, which was by show of hands, because the PAS members kept shout­ ing that those who voted in support of receiving government assistance were kafirs (non-believers). But, some said, the non-PAS people were worried that 6. Most of the data on the Kg. Chempaka Village Development and Security Committee were obtained from files kept by the village headman and from the more complete set of files available at the “Community Development Section” of the district office.

7. This refusal by PAS members to accept government assistance on 'Religious'* grounds is by no means an isolated case. It has alsooccurred in Trengganu and Kelantan, where PAS is dominant (cf. Kessler 1973:134).

HI

Shamsul A. B.,

a nasty brawl might break out if,the motion was carried; hence they abstained. As a result, Kg. Chempaka did not receive government financial assistance. The PAS Jeaders and members managed to, rebuild the mosque on their own, financing it by organizing a collection of money within Kg. Chempaka. They charged M$20 per household. The PAS leaders themselves went around to collect the money., Though they did not get the S40,000 they needed, they did collect enough to rebuild the mosque, as well as-the religious school adjacent to it. * The .roots of UMNO’s -relatively weak position in 3Cg. 'Chempaka can be traced back to the early 1950s. At that time the party leadership was do­ minated by Mukim Mawar-based members including villagers of Kg. Chempaka •but, significantly, not the.village head: Kg. Mawar became the centre of all UMNO activities, with very little or no, participation by members from Kg. Chempaka. Kg. Chempaka UMNO members had no opportunity to build up their own branch. When in 1962 these people were at last able to set up a party branch in their own village, the leaders (apart from the village head) were, all relatively young and Inexperienced. Although they received quite good internal, support, they also needed the backing of UMNO Mawar and UMNO Malawati. This they did not get, because they were seen as young and inexperienced and thought to be incapable of handling the PAS challenge. Furthermore the -UMNO divisional leadership, considering Kg. Chempaka a PAS area, believed that no support from them could “convert” the village into an UMNO area. Thus other villages, such as Kg. Kasturi, which had no PAS branch but possessed a large UMNO membership, were preferred. Seen from any angle, the UMNO leaders of Kg. Chempaka were the losers. To the UMNO people at the top they were not important. Efforts were made by the UMNO leadership at division level.to try to break PAS support there. Two Malaysian Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Razak, were invited to campaign in Kg. Chempaka for the 1964 and 1974 General Elections respectively. But ultimately this did not really help the Kg. Chempaka UMNO branch. The latter continued to receive cold treatment from the division for years to come. This created, a strained relationship, firstly between the Kg, Chempaka UMNO leaders and the Mawar branch, and secondly between UMNO Kg. Chempaka and the UMNO division leaders. Since the 19705 politics within the UMNO branches of the Mawar state constituency, have been beset with factionalism, cleavages and open con­ flicts, mainly generated by materialistic motives set in motion and heightened by the implementation of the New Economic Policy. However, there have

8. 1 received two main explanations as to-why the PAS leadership was forced to uke these steps. First, 1 was told, the mosque was in'bad repair (the lower parts of its wooden waUs were rotting and its roof was leaking). Second, my informants said, because the-PAS leadership'had refused government assistance, it wai compelled to act fast in raising funBs for rebuilding the mosque before’the'locai UMNO leader­ ship could come up with an alternative solution, or before its own mernbenhip lost faith bl the leadership’s capacity to fulfill promisevAllegations were made that the PAS leader­ ship received, some technical,as well.as>token financial assistancejrom the PAS govern­ ment of Kelantan state. But the local-PAS leaders, strongly deny such'outside help.

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113 Politics in a Rural Malay Community

ShamsulA. B.

been times when differences have been temporarily forgotten by the rival factions for the sake of common loyalties or other ideological factors. The UMNO national, state and divisional bureaucratic structures are so dominating and powerful, especially with-their economic trump card, namely rural development assistance, that the people of Mukim^ Mawar have- found themselves increasingly at the mercy of,their immediate village leaders, whose voices are very powerful in deciding who should and who ^ould not receive government assistance. In recent developments many village heads also chair the UMNO branch in their respective villages. ITiis means that in Kg. Chempaka, for example, •the’ village head can deny government assis­ tance. not only to PAS supporters, but abo to his “enemies’-’ within the village UMNO branch. With such power the village head needs virtually no mandate from the villagers to carry out his duties.

Funston, John 1976 The Origins of Partai Islam Se Malaysia. Journal of Southeast Aslan Studies 7(l):58-73. 1980 Malay Politics in Malaysia: A Study of UMNO d PAS Kuala Lumpur; Heinemann.

5. CONCLUSION This paper, although it has been essentially a case study, does suggest what are likely to be the salient features of Malay village politics more general­ ly. Firstly, the paper has shown that present-day political divisions at the local level may not necessarily be recent in origin, nor due merely to fissures that began to open up with the beginning of modern party- and nationalist­ politics after the Second World War. The Kg. Chempaka case shows how modem local-level politics express, amplify and transmute antagonisms which have been endemic within, and have defined, the local community from the very time of its establishment. Secondly, the paper has indicated how the political developmeni of the local community, as seen in its'internal antagonisms, is brou^t about not merely by local events, but is also very much influenced by the political decisions and the economic forces'of the wider society; in other words, by forces at the national and even the international Idvel. Thirdly,-this paper has suggested that an analysis of rural Malay politics in present-day Malaysia should not be made simply in terms of the dynamics of inter-party rivalry between the two major Malay-based parties: UMNO and PAS. Rather, the Chempaka evidence suggests that it is vital to under­ stand the nature and history of political rivalry, particular^ intra-party, at the purely local level as well. REFERENCES Allen. J. de V. 1967 The Malayan Union. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Barlow, Colin 1978 The Natural Kuitber /ndurtry: tn Development, Technology and Economy In Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press.

Drabble, John 1979 Peasant SmaUholderi in the Malaysian Economy: An Histoiical Study with Special Reference to the Rubber Industry. In Issues in 'Malaysian Develop­ ment. James Jackson and Martin Rudner, cds. Singapore: Heinemann.

Kessler, Clive 1978 Islam and Politics in a Malay State: Kelantan: I83S-1969. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press. Llm Teck Ghee 1977 Peasants and their Agricultural Economy In Colonial Malaya, 1874—1941. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Malaysia, Government of 1971 Second Malaysia Plan 1971-I97S. Kuala Lumpur: Govt. Printer.

Rogers, Marvin 1977 Sungal Raya: A Sociopolitical Study of a Rural Maley Community. Berkeley: University of California, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, Re­ search Monograph No. IS. ShamsuL A B. 1983 Prom British to Bumiputera Rule: Village Politics and Rural Development in a Malay Community. Ph.D, thesis. Monash University.

Stockwell, A. J. 1979 British Policy and Malay Politics during the Malayan Union Experiment, 1942-1948. Kuala Lumpur; Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.

Syed Husin All 1975 Malay Peasant Society and Leadership. Kuala Lumpur; Oxford University Press.