From Colonial Pluralism to Postcolonial Multiculturalism: Race, State Formation and the Question of Cultural Diversity in Malaysia and Singapore

Abstract

In postcolonial societies, multiculturalism is a historical problem conditioned by colonial racial knowledge and state formation on the one hand, and by the ethnic conflicts of decolonization on the other. The reality and legacy of colonial racisms in colonized societies were not straightforward affairs. Anthropological knowledge was crucial for the construction of colonial state institutions, where racial ethnography determined the way each native ethnic group was ruled. In turn, nationalist consciousness developed along communitarian ethnic lines. The inheritance of the colonial racial state by nationalists created the conditions for postcolonial ethnic conflict. Drawing on the acclaimed Malaysia and Singapore cases of successful postcolonial management of ethnic conflict, I show the transition from colonial pluralism to postcolonial multiculturalism, in which nationalist leaders tapped into communitarian practices, scripted cultural identities and transformed themselves into a transcultural elite to maintain authoritarian rule through state multiracialism. However, globalization today is creating a new pluralism that threatens this multiracialism and presenting opportunities for democratization.