How The Malaysian Chinese View Their Malay Counterparts: A Version Of Accepting Others

A change in the political landscape of Malaysia has been emerging in a gradual manner, for the past few months, since the new premiership in March, 2009. After more than 51 years of independence, it became apparent that the ruling Malaysian government, Barisan Nasional, is not taking things in this country for granted. A number of things can be attributed to this change. First, it was the taking over of five (since 2009) Malaysian states by the opposition party, Pakatan Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) after the March 8, 2009 election. The states of Selangor, Kedah, Pulau Pinang, Kelantan, and until recently, Perak, are now under the opposition’s rule. The March 8 election of 2009 was one of the major events to have occurred and changed the way politics had been viewed in the country. Evidence points to the Malaysian people’s frustrations in the way the country had been progressing (or deteriorating). The current Prime Minister, Datuk Najib Abdul Razak, has held office for more than 100 days and even he has developed a tagline: 1Malaysia for the benefit of gaining back the people’s trust. The tagline is seen by many as an endeavour to integrate the nation of multiethnic groups as one nation. Of the multiethnic communities, Malaysian Chinese people are second largest in number, after the Malays. They make up 25% of the 27 million people in this country (The Star 27 July, 2008). Throughout the last five decades, there have been various views passed by the Malaysian Chinese about the Malays. However, with the current change in politics, this exploratory study is conducted to gauge the Malaysian Chinese and their views about their Malay counterparts. Using the ethnographic approach (Hymes, 1963; Spradley, 1979) which focuses on 24 male and female participants who are interviewed via a set of structured interview questions, oral responses of 24 Malaysian Chinese subjects between the ages of 20 and 60 are then tape or manually recorded, depending on consent given. Data was then transcribed into Roman alphabet letters as words and discourse analysis was then used to analyse the linguistic data. Analysis suggests that the Malaysian Chinese participants perceive their Malay counterparts in various degrees on a continuum of very positive to negative.