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Singapore Chronicles
Malays
The vicissitudes of history, from Raffles’ purchase of the Singapore island from a Malay sultan to the short-lived merger with Malaya, have left a lasting mark on the Malays of Singapore. This book offers a glimpse of the community as it adapted to its minority status and responded to the myriad challenges of historical, social and political changes.
116 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 27, 2021
This is the fifth book in the Singapore Chronicles series I've read and as a primer to "provide a glimpse of the concerns that have had an impact on the [Malay] community since Independence....[and to] give readers a better understanding of the community", it serves its purpose. As a non-Malay who relies on the English mainstream media for most of my information about the Singapore Malay community, this book was a good start to helping me understand just how little I know.
Chapter 1 on Leadership provides some background on the origins of key community organisations - Majlis Pusat (an umbrella organisation est. in 1969 promoting Malay cultural life and backed by the government to displace the influence of the Majpis Pelajaran Melayu formed by the Singapore Malay Teachers Union); the Malay Affairs Bureau comprising Malay PAP MPs, Mendaki (est. in 1981) and the Association of Muslim Professionals (est. in 1990, to fill a perceived gap in community leadership, as they "found the role of Malay MPs as PAP members and as community leaders 'inherently contradictory'"); the Association of Muslim Scholars and Religious Teachers, Pergas (est. in 1957) - and the tensions they've faced when their promotion of the Malay community's interests seemed at odds with the government's national agenda (with the exception of the MAB).
Chapters 2 and 3 on socio-economic progress and education respectively give more texture to the historical and structural factors shaping the Malay community's poorer outcomes relative to the other races in Singapore. The lack of provision for Malay education during the colonial era was one key factor - the main objective of education for Malays was to "make the son of the fisherman or peasant a more intelligent fisherman or peasant than his father had been and a man whose education will enable him to understand how his lot in life fits in with the scheme of things around him". This naturally left Malays ill equipped to take on higher-skilled work; during the colonial period, most of them were in the primary industry sector or in lower clerical jobs, or in the police and army. It was not until Merger that Malay education extended beyond the primary level.
Chapter 5 on Religious Life and Tradition helped give a sense of the contentious issues for the Malay Muslim community over the decades and the sense of loss they experienced from rapid urban development - "relocation from villages and the demolition of mosques and surau...the exhumation of Muslim cemeteries for urban redevelopment....the modification of established religious norms [such as the abandonment of the practice of sighting the moon in determining the days for the fasting month and Hari Raya Puasa]...the policy that imposed limits on the volume of the azan...from mosques and [the requirement that] the loudspeakers be turned inwards...the banning of public celebrations of Prophet Muhammad's birthday".
Chapter 1 on Leadership provides some background on the origins of key community organisations - Majlis Pusat (an umbrella organisation est. in 1969 promoting Malay cultural life and backed by the government to displace the influence of the Majpis Pelajaran Melayu formed by the Singapore Malay Teachers Union); the Malay Affairs Bureau comprising Malay PAP MPs, Mendaki (est. in 1981) and the Association of Muslim Professionals (est. in 1990, to fill a perceived gap in community leadership, as they "found the role of Malay MPs as PAP members and as community leaders 'inherently contradictory'"); the Association of Muslim Scholars and Religious Teachers, Pergas (est. in 1957) - and the tensions they've faced when their promotion of the Malay community's interests seemed at odds with the government's national agenda (with the exception of the MAB).
Chapters 2 and 3 on socio-economic progress and education respectively give more texture to the historical and structural factors shaping the Malay community's poorer outcomes relative to the other races in Singapore. The lack of provision for Malay education during the colonial era was one key factor - the main objective of education for Malays was to "make the son of the fisherman or peasant a more intelligent fisherman or peasant than his father had been and a man whose education will enable him to understand how his lot in life fits in with the scheme of things around him". This naturally left Malays ill equipped to take on higher-skilled work; during the colonial period, most of them were in the primary industry sector or in lower clerical jobs, or in the police and army. It was not until Merger that Malay education extended beyond the primary level.
Chapter 5 on Religious Life and Tradition helped give a sense of the contentious issues for the Malay Muslim community over the decades and the sense of loss they experienced from rapid urban development - "relocation from villages and the demolition of mosques and surau...the exhumation of Muslim cemeteries for urban redevelopment....the modification of established religious norms [such as the abandonment of the practice of sighting the moon in determining the days for the fasting month and Hari Raya Puasa]...the policy that imposed limits on the volume of the azan...from mosques and [the requirement that] the loudspeakers be turned inwards...the banning of public celebrations of Prophet Muhammad's birthday".
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 22, 2019
A good-sized primer with a fair and balanced overview of the Malays in Singapore, with a strong focus on post-independence challenges. For a non-Malay reader like me, it has served the writers' objective to "stir interest in readers to discover more deeply, multi-faceted aspects of, and changes that have occurred within, this small and diverse community."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews