Free migration across SE Asia<\/p>\n
Farish A. Noor, Berlin<\/p>\n
Despite the improvement in government-to-government relations
\nbetween Malaysia and Indonesia, it would appear as if our
\nsocieties are further apart than ever before. Prejudice,
\nmisapprehension and the tendency to resort to caricatural
\nstereotypes have clouded our vision of a common shared humanity
\nand collective destiny, for the peoples of ASEAN as a whole.<\/p>\n
In Malaysia the punishment for illegal migrants include not
\nonly fines and detention, but also whipping -- a mode of
\npunishment that can only be described as medieval, brutal and
\ndehumanising.<\/p>\n
Malaysians also forget that if there are any \"unwanted
\nIndonesians\" in Malaysia, there is also a certain \"unwanted
\nMalaysian\" in Indonesia today: The fanatical bomber Azahari,
\nwhose role in the numerous bombing campaigns in Indonesia has
\ndone so much damage to the image and well-being of the Indonesian
\npeople. Have Malaysians considered apologising for this unwanted
\nvisitor lurking in Indonesia?<\/p>\n
The most appalling aspect of the present media-orchestrated
\nscare about illegal migrants in Malaysia is the unstated
\nprejudice that at times accompanies the campaign. Never mind the
\nfact that Malaysia actually needs these foreign workers; or the
\nfact that in many cases their illegal entry was facilitated by
\ncorrupt Malaysian companies and businessmen themselves.<\/p>\n
It is astounding, to say the least, that the citizens of
\npresent-day Malaysia and Indonesia seem to demonstrate no
\nknowledge of history whatsoever. The official narrative of
\npostcolonial Malaysia and Indonesia is a modern myth that
\npresents the state as a fait accompli, regardless of the fact
\nthat Malaysia and Indonesia -- like all the other states of the
\nASEAN region -- are artificial modern constructs whose borders
\nwere set not by the peoples of ASEAN themselves but rather by our
\nformer colonial masters.<\/p>\n
Today Malaysians and Indonesians view each other through the
\nnarrow perspective of the modern nation-state, whose boundaries
\n(be they political, cultural or historic) seem eternally fixed.
\nYet this begs the obvious question that is invariably asked by
\nthe scholar: What about the centuries of cross-cultural contact,
\nmigration and fluid inter-penetration?<\/p>\n
Lest we forget, the most important and renown Malay kingdom --
\nMalacca -- was founded by Paramesvara (later Sultan Megat
\nIskandar Shah), who was himself from Palembang, Sumatra. In the
\npostcolonial era the memory of Malacca has been used time and
\nagain by countless Malaysian politicians and ideologues as proof
\nof the greatness of the people of Malaysia -- except we often
\nforget that Malacca would never have existed had it not been for
\nthe labours of a prince from Sumatra!<\/p>\n
The same is true for many of the other great kingdoms and
\nempires of Southeast Asia, from Angkor to Ayudhaya, Majapahit to
\nMataram, Aceh to Patani: They were all created by the collective
\nefforts of Southeast Asians who migrated from one part of the
\nregion to another.<\/p>\n
This was the era before the arrival of the modern idea of the
\nnation-state, on e that was not configured by the dislocating and
\ndisruptive effects of colonial intervention.<\/p>\n
Sadly today this sense of a common, abstract, collective
\nidentity has passed. It is a supreme irony that Malaysians today
\nregard Indonesians as \"foreigners\", and vice-versa; when the
\nreality is that for hundreds of years the two nations (in reality
\na multiplicity of nations) have been in constant contact with
\neach other. It is also ironic that the Malays of Malaysia regard
\ntheir Indonesian counterparts as being as \"foreign\" as any
\ntourist from Europe or Japan, considering the obvious links of
\nlanguage, culture and religion they share together. (One could go
\nfurther and make the claim that many, if not most, Malays in
\nMalaysia today have some common blood-ties to Indonesia, as in
\nthe case of this writer as well.)<\/p>\n
The \"othering\" of our Indonesian brethren as \"outsiders\" and
\n\"foreigners\" would not have happened has it not been for the
\nvicissitudes of politics.<\/p>\n
Prior to the creation of a separate Malaysia and Indonesia,
\nscores of Malaysians were directly involved in the independence
\nstruggle of the Indonesian nation, which they regarded as an
\nextension of their own habitus. The early Malay nationalists of
\nBurhanuddin al-Helmy and Ibrahim Yaakob's generation took active
\npart in the formation of Sukarno's nationalist movement, and
\nduring the anti-colonial war against the Dutch a number of
\nMalaysians crossed the Straits of Malacca to lend a hand in the
\nfighting that took place in Sumatra and Java.<\/p>\n
It was, however, the Konfrontasi (confrontation) between
\nIndonesia and Malaysia in the early 1960s that led to the fatal
\nrupture that effectively sealed the fate of both countries.
\nHundreds of Malaysian Muslim students who were studying in the
\ntraditional madrasahs and pesantren of Indonesia were recalled by
\nthe Malaysian government and then redirected to more conservative
\ninstitutions in the Arab states. (An ironic twist indeed, for it
\nalso foreclosed for the Malaysians the possibility of developing
\nof a more tolerant, pluralist and dynamic Islamist
\nintellectualism as we find in Indonesia today.)<\/p>\n
As Malaysians and Indonesians were taught to think of each
\nother as different and alien, the sense of common identity and
\nthe sharing of a common past became impossible. Centuries of
\ncross-cultural borrowing and migration had been summarily brought
\nto an untimely end by the most unnatural of political
\ndevelopments.<\/p>\n
That is why we, the people of ASEAN, desperately need a
\ncollective subaltern history of ASEAN written from the
\nperspective of the people, rather than the governments, of the
\nregion.<\/p>\n
Should this condition continue unchallenged, we might as well
\nforget the dream of creating a ASEAN for and by the people of
\nASEAN themselves. The solipsistic logic of the modern nation-
\nstate does not sit comfortably with non-governable elements and
\nphenomena such as the transcultural transfer of ideas, values and
\npeoples: Yet it is precisely this fluid dynamics of interaction
\nand exchange that holds the key to the development of dynamic
\ncivilisations and cultures.<\/p>\n
Recognition of this historical legacy would require the effort
\nof overcoming the \"otherness\" of our neighbours. This is the
\ntruth that we, the nations of ASEAN, need to remind ourselves
\ntime and again: We are not \"strangers\" to each other!<\/p>\n
Farish A. Noor is a Malaysian political scientist and human
\nrights activist and can be reached at farishactivist@yahoo.co.uk<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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