The Malay-Islamic Values as the Foundation of Nation-Building in Malaysia: A Study on the National Cultural Policy

The Malay-Islamic values are the foundations of the Malay community’s culture. It is the result of interaction between the foundation of budi-Islam values, the Malay social system, and Peninsula’s landscape. With the status of the Malays as the indigenous ethnic that forms the majority of Malaya’s community, it was natural that the Malay’s values were chosen to form the backbone of Malaysia’s nation-building. However, as a multi-ethnic society, the diverse cultural traditions did cause dissatisfaction with other communities, especially the Chinese. Hence, to gauge the reaction of the non-Malay communities on the recognition of Malay-Islamic values as the core value for nation-building, this study will focus on the implementation of the National Cultural Policy. To fulfill the objectives of the research, the textual analysis method was applied. The findings show that, even though the Malay-Islamic values were implemented in the National Cultural Policy, it resulted in negative reactions from the non-Malay communities.