Observers and students of Malaysian politics have realised long ago that communitarianism and sectarianism mark the contours of Malaysian politics and political practice. Above all other factors, including that of class, locality, ideology it is race that shapes and informs political mentality and governmentality in the country.

Malaysia has been praised by some as a model of inter-racial compromise and harmony at work. But more critical observers would point out that the fragile political consensus in Malaysia has been kept together and sustained for so long thanks to a host of repressive laws and regulations, as well as deeply entrenched political norms and rules, that are designed to keep intact and aloof one central concept race which stands above all as the master signifier that keeps the narrative continuity and discursive unity of Malaysian politics intact.

From the official discourse of the state and its ruling elite to the coffee-shop gossip and prattle that masks itself as popular politics, race predominates all other considerations in Malaysia. So deeply entrenched is this master signifier that almost no discussion or practice of politics in the country has been able to sideline or bypass its presence.

Race remains the key element that informs and directs the political campaigns in the country, be it the claim for Malay supremacy and dominance, the calls for ethnic-based schools, the demand for special protection for certain ethnic groupings or the calls for the promotion of a national language, culture or national identity which invariably is racial in form and content as well.

Solid piece

While many Malaysian scholars and activists are aware of the problem and the extent of the malaise, few have been able to find ways to redress the problem. This is largely due to the lack of the right academic and intellectual tools, most notably a sustained critique of the discourse of race which does not turn to the concept of race itself as its main critical apparatus. For this reason we should warmly welcome the publication of Collin Abraham's book, The Naked Social Order: The Roots of Racial Polarisation in Malaysia .

The Naked Social Order

is a solid piece of academic work that attempts a much needed and long-overdue political-economy critique of the politics of race and the problem of racial polarisation in the country. (This is not to say that such work has never been attempted before. One immediately thinks of Syed Hussein Alatas' The Myth of the Lazy Native , Shamsul Amri Baharuddin's From British to Bumiputera Rule , Hua Wu Yin's Class and Communalism in Malaysia and Chandra Muzaffar's Islamic Resurgence in Malaysia which attempts to link religious sectarianism with the enduring legacy of racial polarisation and race-based communitarian politics in the country.) Collin is in good company here: His work adds more light to a field that desperately needs further research and work such as his is always welcomed to the fraternity of conscientious academics and activists.

Collin's book takes a step back and looks at the British colonial period in particular. His aim is to deconstruct the workings of the colonial economic apparatus, reveal its brutally dehumanising and exploitative character, and to show just how and why 'race' as a category came to be so centrally imbedded in the collective Malaysian consciousness.

Colonial exploitation

Collins begins his work with the now-familiar introduction to the social, cultural and historical setting of pre-colonial and colonial Malaya, but quickly then launches into a sustained analysis and critique of the ideology of colonial capitalism itself. Treading of ground that has been covered by Syed Hussein Alatas, he notes that the colonial enterprise was in need for a justification for its existence and its interventionist policies.

This was found through the invention of the convenient fiction of 'native misrule' and 'flaws in the natives' character'. The construction of the stereotype of the Malay and other Asian races (linked to the violent hierarchy that places the European races at the top, inevitably) served as the platform upon which the entire colonial enterprise was based.

Through the transformation of labour relations and production patterns in traditional Malay society the framework for a colonial import-substitution economy was laid down and built. This then opened the way for new labour enclaves to be set up, creating the way for the entry of migrant workers mainly from China and India who came later.

Collin's study of the differentiated and highly-stratified labour system and its exploitative practices against the migrant worker communities in studied in detail in Chapter 4, and he makes it a point to examine the differences that existed between the Chinese and Indian communities, which in turn partly explains the different social and political trajectories of the communities in the post-independent period.

It is vital to note, however, that in his work Collin does not fall into the trap of replicating and repeating the same essentialist ethnocentric logic that became the foundation of colonial capitalism and its politics of divide and rule: An important element in the work is its emphasis on problematising the category of racial identity and difference as well.

Too much work on Malaysian politics, economics and society thus far has been based on the uncritical acceptance of racial categories as fixed, neat and simple. Too often we come across works particularly in the field of politics and economics where the categories of 'Malay', 'Chinese' and 'Indian' are mentioned without the slightest attempt to highlight the internal differences that exist within these groups and/or to highlight the internal tensions that exist within them.

Racial fallacies

Collin's work goes someway to dissuade us of these fallacies as he makes it a point to note the internal ethnic and linguistic differences that exist within these communities. He notes that the category of 'Chinese', for instance, was a convenient colonial construct used to label an entire community and to diminish its internal differences, pointing to the fact that the so-called 'Chinese' migration came in stages and that different communities were brought to Southeast Asia by different colonial powers at different times and for different reasons.

The same analysis is carried out in the case of the Indian community, and the author notes that for the 'Indians' pre-existing caste, class and regional differences were played up even more in order to divide and rule the migrant communities, further disempowering them and making them more dependent on the colonial powers and western capital.

One does wish that the author would have gone further in his analysis, highlighting the moments and instances where these framed identities and the static homogeneity forced on them simply broke down, or opened up possibilities for other alternative forms of social imagination and cross-boundary group affiliations. But Collins' work focuses on the colonial period mainly, and this might explain the limitations of his exercise and the parameters of his concerns.

Nonetheless, the fact that an attempt was made to interrogate the categories of race further is a welcomed departure from the norm that prevails in Malaysian academia and we should be thankful of that. Those who wish for a more nuanced post-structuralist approach to such studies that highlight the fluidity of identities and the inter-penetration of group collectivities would do well to start from sound economic-political fundamentals as Collins has clearly done.

The importance of these ideas and observations cannot be underestimated, for they remain vital and relevant for us till today. Malaysian politics remains predicated on the spurious notion of racial difference and blissfully uncritical of the complex past that we all share. Too often we hear

Malaysian politicians speaking of their respective racial constituencies as if these were fixed categories, and too often we hear the appeal of ethnic/racial solidarity and unity being made on the basis of an imagined collective injury to the community in toto. Collin's work reminds us of the shared lot and common fate and destiny of all Malaysians, and the fact that it was Malaysian society as a whole that was the victim of the colonial project (as well as its inheritors).

Forgotten past

Collin's reminder that while the Malays 'suffered political disenfranchisement, economic marginalisation and alienation from the modernisation process', the other communities were likewise the victims of the same colonial system needs to be borne in mind constantly. As he points out: 'literally hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Indian immigrants were impoverished, suffered ill health arising from unbearable working conditions, often resulting in death'.

This is a fact that none of us can ignore, and the Malay ethno-nationalists and chauvinists who harp on and on about how the non-Malays had 'come to conquer' their homeland should remember that thousands of those non-Malays were also victims of the same racist colonial enterprise. The 'debasement and abuse of the labour force' that was inflicted on the Chinese and Indian immigrant labourers have scarcely been recorded in the annals of official Malaysian historiography, though they deserve to be mentioned. The Chinese and Indians along with the Malays helped to make Malaysia what it is today, and thousands of them paid the price for this with their lives.

The Naked Social Order

highlights many aspects of Malaysia's forgotten past that we should not ever forget. More importantly it highlights the marginalised voices of the subaltern other that has been silenced by official propaganda and rhetoric. Read in the context of present times, it

raises many other questions as well - Collin correctly notes that the colonial enterprise could not have succeeded without the collaboration of numerous comprador local elites, ranging from the traditional Malay royalty and aristocracy to the equally perfidious headmen and leaders of the other ethnic communities. Yet where are they now, if not in power themselves in the post-colonial state of Malaysia?

A critique of colonial capitalism would not be complete without an equally critical look at the role played by local functionaries and clients who helped to accommodate the process of colonisation, and who profited from it. For this reason, the book can and should also serve as a starting point for a deeper critique to be taken up now and into the future.

An important book that should be read by Malaysians in general (and certainly not confined to academic circles), Collin Abraham's The Naked Social Order should be regarded as vital reading for those Malaysians from all walks of life who wish to understand more about their own shared collective past and how their seemingly differentiated and exclusive identities have been intertwined and inter-dependent within the context of a colonial epoch to which they are all the unwitting inheritors. Highly recommended.

Collin Abraham, The Naked Social Order: The Roots of Racial Polarisation in Malaysia . Pelanduk Press, Kuala Lumpur, 2004. ISBN no 967-978-861-x. 463 pages, paperback.