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Managing ethnicity and nation building in the post-colonial period: Malaysia’s experience

Mamat, Rashidah (2013) Managing ethnicity and nation building in the post-colonial period: Malaysia’s experience. In: Fourth Seminar on National Resilience (SNAR IV), 4 - 7 September 2013, Universitas Muslim Nusantara al-Washliyah, Medan, Indonesia.

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Abstract

Building an ideal ‘nation’ in multicultural Malaysia remains a considerable challenge. Given that Malaysia is an ethnically pluralist society, the force of ethnicity is the key to any discussion of nation building in this country. Ethnicity mainly the Malays and non-Malays groups are marked with complex social patterns in which each ethnic group upholds their different cultures,languages, religions, regions and worldviews.Therefore, this paper argues that nation building in Malaysia is strongly linked with the framework of managing ethnicity to promote ‘one Malaysia nation’ or ‘Bangsa Malaysia’.In evaluating the Malaysian government’s efforts at nation building, this paper examines several Malaysia national policies that regarded as social engineering reforms after the May 1969 riots.These reforms were embedded in the formulation of the New Economic Policy (NEP) and Rukun Negara (national ideology), the reformulation of the National Language and Education Policy, National Cultural Policy, Vision 2020 and the 1Malaysia concept.Despite having confronted the non-Malay communities as they saw efforts by the government to consolidate Malay nationalism into national policies as an attempt to turn nation-building into an ethnic project, these policies have been able to play a crucial role in rectifying the socio-economic imbalances and they have succeeded in achieving mutual tolerance (if not mutual acceptance) amongst various ethnic groups.

Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Additional Information: ISBN: 9789670193083 Anjuran: Institut Pemikiran Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Universiti Utara Malaysia
Uncontrolled Keywords: nation building, ethnicity, national policies, nationalism and national identity
Subjects: D History General and Old World > DS Asia
H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
Divisions: College of Arts and Sciences
Depositing User: Mdm. Rashidah Mamat
Date Deposited: 12 Mar 2014 06:23
Last Modified: 12 Mar 2014 06:23
URI: https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/10423

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