In his speech at the Asia Media Summit in April, Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi cited Malaysia as a successful example where social contract had ensured peace and stability for 50 years. He said: “Perhaps the most significant aspect of the contract was the agreement by the indigenous people to grant citizenship to the immigrant Chinese and Indians. Chinese and Indians now sit in the Federal Cabinet and state executive councils. In return, the immigrant communities agreed to special economic privileges for the indigenous people given their disadvantaged position.”
What is this “social contract” and what role does it play in Malaysia’s inter-racial relations? One cabinet minister recently touched on this when addressing a convention and his remarks roused the ire of certain quarters. While giving his keynote address at the Anak Malaysia Convention, Primary Industries Minister Dato’ Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik commented that politically-motivated reminders to the Chinese and Indian communities that the granting of citizenship to them was a favour would be an obstacle to building a Bangsa Malaysia. He said this “‘historical burden’ must be removed”.
The enraged quarters retorted that Dato’ Lim’s remarks challenged the social contract upon which the nation was founded. Datuk Dr Ma’amor Osman, president of Muslim Consumers Association of Malaysia, said the statement “was purposely made to anger the Malays and other bumiputras and belittled Malay supremacy” (Bernama, Aug 14 2005). UMNO Youth Chief Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein warned against questioning the issue of social contract (Bernama, Aug 15 2005).
There seems to have been a shift in interpreting and understanding the social contract. Some believe there has been a misinterpretation of its history, while others think that this social contract has been simplistically reinterpreted based on the premises of Islam as the state religion and the Malay supremacy (Ketuanan Melayu).
Historically, the social contract was originally the negotiation from various groups under the Reid Commission prior to 1957, before the drafting of the Merdeka Constitution (MC). Law experts have suggested that the contract must be read in light of both Reid Commission and Cobbold Commission reports.
How it came to being
In 1956, a Constitutional Commission headed by Lord Reid came to Malaya for the drafting of a constitution for an independent Malaya. In the process, UMNO – the leading partner of the then UMNO-MCA-MIC Alliance – was asked to agree to a ‘common nationality for the whole of the Federation’ that would allow “all persons (in Malaya) to qualify as citizen either by birth or by fulfilling requirements of residence and language and by taking oath of loyalty”.
The leaders of the three communal parties agreed to first resolve differences and to speak with one voice to the commission. This was the origin of the social contract between the UMNO and the MCA leaders. MCA acknowledged that the special rights of the Malays should be protected, and UMNO in return conceded that Chinese and other non-Malays should be granted easier citizenship rights based on the principle of jus soli (by birth). The Chinese were also allowed to continue to play a dominant role in economy.
The Reid Commission’s draft proposals were published in 1957 and were then reviewed and amended by a working committee in Malaya, representatives of the Alliance, the Malay rulers, and the British government at a meeting in London. Thus emerged the MC. The Yang Di-Pertuan Agong was given the responsibility for safeguarding the “special position of the Malays” and the “legitimate interests of other communities”.
Before the establishment of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963, another consultative process was initiated with North Borneo (now Sabah) and Sarawak in 1962. From this process came forth a social contract (contained in the Cobbold Commission Report) similar to the consensus acquired in 1956–57. The core of the contract, as stated in the memorandum submitted by the Alliance, was that Islam was to be the State religion, but the “observance of this principle shall not impose any disability on non-Muslim nationals professing and practising their own religions and shall not imply that the State is not a secular state”.
The MC provisions evidently provided the framework for the 1963 Federal Constitution. The latter continued to cover the provisions of special rights and privileges of the Malays, national language, and religion without depriving “any person of any right and privilege, permit or license accrued to or enjoyed or held by him” (Article 153). It also included “several other issues which were/are matters of contention between the Malays and Chinese”.
In short, the Constitution, formulated in 1957 and 1963 through consultation and consensus of the nation’s founding fathers, is based on the social contract on which the country is founded. The Constitution “epitomises a social contract among equal partners that promises equality of all citizens – regardless of race and religion – in a pluralist democracy,” said Dr Ng Kam Weng, Director of Kairos Research Centre, in an article in The Star on Nov 15, 2003.
In the light of the spirit that the social contract was made by our forefathers, no ethnic group should therefore be made to feel it is lesser than another. This was affirmed by the Prime Minister who vowed at the King’s birthday celebration last year that the Government would hold fast to the social contract by protecting all ethnic groups against any form of oppression or discrimination (The Star, Jun 6, 2004).
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