Abstract
This chapter seeks to analyze the portrayal of race dynamics and contesting nationalisms in Lloyd Fernando’s Green is the Colour (1993) and Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s Joss and Gold (2001). Although these two novels by Malaysian writers are separated by time, narrative style, and scope, they are brought together by their thematic interests and, in particular, their solutions and visions for the problematic race relations and rival nationalisms in the newly emergent Malaysia, before and after the fateful riots of 13 May 1969. What I wish to argue is that, in their respective novels, both Fernando and Lim have rejected all myopic, monolithic, and unipolar visions of the nation for one that is inclusive, cohesive, equitable, reciprocal, and harmonious. In other words, they are both opposed to all forms of exclusionary nationalism and racially hierarchic structures that create a binary of self/other, centre/margin and advocate the formation of a united, “rainbow” Malaysia or a “Bangsa Malaysia” (Malaysian nation/race). They believe that this new formation will eventually result in the dismantling of all preferential treatment or ethnic dichotomy and enable the people and cultures in the country to coexist and even come together through a slow evolutionary process. Thus, Malaysia will emerge as one people and one nation, overcoming its current hierarchic and fragmentary state.
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Notes
- 1.
It is widely accepted that European colonialism was based on the ideals of profit and power. In his essay, “Nationalism in the West”, Rabindranath Tagore, for example, argues that the Europeans came to Asia like a “pack of predatory creatures that must have its victims”. They were never interested in converting their “hunting grounds… into cultivated fields”, but fought “among themselves for the extension of their victims and their reserve forests” (Tagore 1976, p. 12). Likewise, Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire have argued that the primary objectives of colonialism were to exploit, degrade, and dehumanize the colonial subjects. In a famous statement, Fanon said, “Colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native’s brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of all oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it” (Ashcroft et al. 1995, p. 154). Césaire explains the same idea using a stark equation, “colonisation = thingification” (Loomba 2000, p. 22).
On the British indifference towards cultivating relationship between the Malays and Chinese in British Malaya, Andaya and Andaya explain, “Because the British assumption of responsibility for the Chinese tended to lessen meaningful contact between Chinese and Malays, both groups became increasingly bound by stereotyped perceptions…. Furthermore, even though growing numbers of Chinese migrants elected to stay in the Malay state, the British regarded them as transient, and there seemed no need to foster greater cooperation with the Malays. Several colonial officials argued that Malay-Chinese separation was unavoidable” (Andaya and Andaya 2001, p. 180).
- 2.
The Malay word bangsa originally meant “race”, but since Mahathir’s use of it to mean “nation” in his 1991 speech “Malaysia: The Way Forward”, in which he predicted that by 2020 Malaysia would be able to establish “a united Malaysian nation” or “Bangsa Malaysia” (Cheah 2002, p. 221), it has been commonplace to use the term to mean a holistic Malaysian nation. However, Mahathir’s promise has proven false as Malaysia still remains a third-world country with wide-spread race issues plaguing the nation.
- 3.
According to Andaya and Andaya, and to Cheah, Malay nationalism was born in 1946, the year in which the British revealed their plan for the formation of Malayan Union. The intention was to create a unitary nation, with equal rights and citizenship for all Malayans in spite of race or creed. The Malays vehemently protested this idea and the British were forced to revoke the plan and replace it with the Federation of Malaya Plan in 1948. It was during this period that the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) was formed to safeguard the rights and privileges of the Malays and to ensure that Malaya was returned to the Malays and not to the Malayans. In 1951, when the British were working out plans for the independence of Malaya, then-UNMO president Tunku Abdul Rahman dismissed any possibility that the country could be given to the Malayans instead of the Malays, saying, “With regard to the proposal that independence should be handed over to the ‘Malayans’, who are these ‘Malayans?’ This country was received from the Malays and to the Malays it ought to be returned. What is called ‘Malayans', it is not yet certain who they are; therefore, let the Malays alone settle who they are” (Cheah 2002, p. 1).
- 4.
This ideology is being pursued by Parti Islam SeMalaysia, or the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS). For details, see Esposito and Voll (1996, pp. 133–136).
- 5.
On 8 May 1965, several leading opposition parties signed a declaration calling for a “Malaysian Malaysia” as follows: “A Malaysian Malaysia means that the state is not identified with the supremacy, well-being and interests of any one particular community or race. A Malaysian Malaysia is the antithesis of a Malay Malaysia, a Chinese Malaysia, a Dayak Malaysia, an Indian Malaysia or Kadazan Malaysia and so on. The special and legitimate interests of different communities must be secured and promoted within the framework of the collective rights, interests and responsibilities of all races” (Cheah 2002, p. 101).
- 6.
There is no other essay that engages in a comparative reading of the two novels. Nur Nina Zuhra’s discussion of Green is the Colour in her 1996 study, “The Healing Art: A Comparative Study of Intercultural Relations in Recent Malaysian and Mukherjee’s American Literature”, shows how the novel, much like Noordin Hassan’s Children of This Land (1989), Robert Olen Butler’s “Fairy Tale” (1990), and Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine (1989), seeks to heal the differences between races by providing a model of multiculturalism “that can comfort and revive us on both a personal and social level” and put us back together again as human beings (Nur Nina Zuhra 1996, p. 269). In his article, “The Legacy of Colonialism: Issues of Identity in Lloyd Fernando’s Green is the Colour”, Wilson (1996), on the other hand, examines the author’s concern with identity formation in a multicultural society and especially through the use of English in a society where English is not an indigenous or a dominant language. More recently, Philip Holden has published an article in which he discusses Shirley Lim’s Joss and Gold as a Singaporean work, comparing it with several other recent Singaporean novels. Holden suggests that these books, often published outside Singapore, should be read as transnational novels that not only deal with Singapore’s experience but also “participate in a complex transnational politics of representation” (Holden 2006). While Holden’s premise is interesting and somewhat useful, his attempt to lump Lim’s novel with other works by Singaporean writers is misguided as Lim is not a Singaporean writer by any stretch of the imagination. She has lived in Singapore from time to time, but was born in Malaysia where she spent the first twenty-five years of her life and has lived in the USA since her departure from Malaysia in 1969. She should be considered either as a Malaysian or a Malaysian transnational writer with global experience, for she has also lived in Hong Kong for two years. Another example of Holden’s misreading of the novel is his equation of Paroo’s daughter’s name Surani with the Malaysian word Serani, which means Eurasian. Both Paroo and his wife Rani (meaning “queen”) are of Indian origin and therefore it would be more appropriate to see their daughter’s name in the context of their culture and ethnicity, because the word “Surani”, obviously an echo of the mother’s name, stands for a “good” or “beautiful” queen, indicating how precious the girl is to her parents.
- 7.
It is interesting to note that Lee Kuan Yew’s English name was also Harry. Perhaps the author has created Dahlan as a shadow of the former Singapore prime minister as he shares the same outlook for Malaysia in the novel that Harry Lee did in real life.
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Quayum, M.A. (2021). “My Country”/“Our Country”: Race Dynamics and Contesting Nationalisms in Lloyd Fernando’s Green is the Colour and Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s Joss and Gold. In: Quayum, M.A. (eds) Reading Malaysian Literature in English. Asia in Transition, vol 16. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5021-5_2
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