malays in sg - clammer

Notes from a chapter I've just read from Singapore: Ideology, Society, Culture. Written in 1985, the author makes observations on Malays in Singapore. Unedited (and typo-ridden) because i need to move on to more more more books now but I thought this was worth sharing.

- "Malay" ethnic category, like the other 3 in Sg, is a blanket term. It's the term for at least 40 culturally (and to some extent ethnically) distinct groups

- "Official" assumption that all Malays are Muslims (many "statistical" or "cultural" Muslims) - a key "ideological" basis for Malay identity (Syariah law)

- "membership of the Malay community is dependent upon a knowledge of Malay" language (120)

- but significance of the ML extends beyond the Malay community (national language, official lang, widely used in intergroup communication)

- Malays occupational representations: (Tham) low participation in the modern economy due to 3 factors: 1. cultural continuity, 2. "absence of a significant structural group whose status depended on entrepreneurial success", 3. absence of an entrepeneurial ideology (122)

- "majority of Malays are in the lower divisions" of government service, in others largely unskilled as modernization and urbanisation wiped out most of their traditional jobs (122-123)

- "torturous and difficult" history of Malay education in Sg (122) --> under-representation in advanced edu (123) + attitudes to the family

- "unstated premise that Malays are somehow more "traditional" than the other ethnic groups" (123)

- cotinual stressing that Malays are lagging, need to "catch up" in terms of economic progress and "problem" being defined as "lack of congruence between th traditional value system and modernization" (124)

- perceived problem categories; economic disadvantage, relative lack of edu opportunities, lack any major political influence and ethnic minority status in a predom Chinese society (124)

- evidence shows high degree of political assimilation - despite cultural and economic discontent, vast majority of Malays see themselves as essentially Singaporean (126)

- "the lack of special privileges for the Malay community is itself symptomatic of government thinking: that despite past problems and occasions when racial harmony had broken down, all communities in Singapore must operate within the same political framework" (126) --> meritocracy as common framework?