COMMENT | Today, Malaysia is celebrating 58 years of independence as a federation. Yet overall, there is not much to celebrate given the raging pandemic and increasing voices questioning the very essence of the federation.

Nation-building and national identity, the essential programme in all the countries in Southeast Asia, appears to be stalled in Malaysia as more of its citizens are asking the most basic question: “What is a Malaysian identity and what is Malaysia?”

This may be an odd question to ask after six decades of nation-building, but it is a central query of contemporary Malaysia and it is rooted in the two most contentious issues related to nation-building and identity in contemporary Malaysia.

Malay-state or Malay-Islamic state

The first of these is the core connotation of Malaysia. For many in the Malay community, it’s a no-brainer – Malaysia is a Malay state. After all, before the federation of Malaysia, there was “Tanah Melayu”, or the “Land of the Malays”. Even the colonial overlords accepted that Malaya belonged to the indigenous Malays and largely recognised the sovereignty of the nine Malay sultans.

Non-Malays, basically the Indians and the Chinese, were only brought into Malaya in large numbers by the British in the 19th century for economic exploitation of the land. After World War II, it became impossible to send them back to India and China, so the British engineered an agreement with the Malay rulers to let them stay and obtain citizenship.

This is where the historical dispute starts...