ALFP e-magazine issue 6: Migration and Multicultural Coexistence

Multicultural Existence Is a Work in Progress
Diana Wong (Malaysia)
Dean, Graduate School, New Era University College, Kajang, Malaysia / ALFP 1998 Fellow

In Southeast Asia, migration and multicultural existence has been a lived reality for centuries. Themaritime worlds of Nusantara and Nanyang met, traded and intermingled in this strategic location
between the great civilizations of India and China, and later, in the great port-cities of the colonialworld. Migrants and refugees from various corners of Asia, speaking different tongues andpracticing different religions, made this into a culturally pluralistic and socially open world with one
basic shared belief, that no one owed them a living; as migrants, they owed it to themselves. When
Wang Gungwu, later to become a distinguished historian, returned to Southeast Asia after having
spent the war years in Nanjing, China, he marveled at the “open” society he found there, as against
the closed society of China’s mainland.
There is, however, another portrait of the multicultural reality of immigrant societies in Southeast
Asia—Furnivall’s famous depiction of the dysfunctional “plural society” created by uncontrolled
immigration under the aegis of a colonial state. In this model of the plural society, different socialgroups led separate lives, meeting only at the market place, under the watchful eye of the colonialstate. This depiction of 19th-century colonial society, however, overlooks the “middle ground” ofmarkets, folk religious festivals, schools, mixed neighborhoods and other spaces where casualencounters did occur and everyday exchanges and adaptations did take place. While this middle
ground remained limited by spatial and social barriers outside of which multicultural existence waspursued largely along separate pathways of collective life and habits, its significance as a space ofporous borders and social experimentation and change should not be overlooked orunderestimated.
Migration in itself tends inherently to assume a collective form, and in search of a new livelihood
in a new environment, migrants of necessity seek help from each other and congregate together.
Furthermore, it has almost always been state policy to keep migrants apart from the general
populace, allotting them special quarters where they were to keep to themselves. This was the casefor the Asian empires (Tang China, the Malacca sultanate), as well as the western colonial powers,
whose unstated policy regarding their multicultural subject population was to “divide and rule.”
In discussing the Southeast Asian experience of migration and multicultural existence, therefore,
there is a danger both in romanticizing the cosmopolitanism of the past, as well as in underscoring
the inevitability of social closure and conflict. Malaysia’s recent history as a nation-state shows thatmulticultural existence is a constant work in progress. As migration led to settlement and colonial
status to independence and self-government, the terms of multicultural existence within a sovereign
nation-state had to be negotiated. This was no easy undertaking, given the politics and economicsof race and religion, and a final consensus remains elusive up to today.
As the global migrations of the past decades have been transforming previously “homogenous”
nation-states into political entities more in the mold of the multiethnic “plural” societies of colonial© 2020 International House of Japan and Japan Foundation

ALFP e-magazine issue 6: Migration and Multicultural Coexistence

and postcolonial vintage, with its attendant problems, the question of multicultural existence, ormore specifically, the terms on which multicultural existence is to be, or can be, based, has acquired
universal urgency. I would suggest the following lessons which need to be learnt from each other.
1. Societal Acceptance of Everyday Difference
The historical experience of the “middle ground” in borderland and colonial societies has givenrise to a familiarity with, and acceptance of, the social fact and visibility of difference. While thisdoes not preclude prejudice and stereotyping, it facilitates social interaction and exchange in the
public square, both of the market and the street. This is a form of sociality not to be belittled ordismissed. Out of such informal interactions arise recognition; the absence of such interactions
breeds invisibility, ignorance and contempt. In the absence of such a middle ground, the state’sattempt to regulate the presence of new arrivals through formal legislative instruments highlights
public visibility and the fear and rejection this can engender. The excessive legalization of migrant
and refugee governance in the OECD countries not merely raises the financial and economic costof managing migration; by allowing such costs to escalate, it also raises the social cost of migrant
reception.
2. State Adoption of Legal Norms and Good Governance
Malaysia practices a liberal policy of low-wage migrant labor recruitment to keep its economy going,
to the detriment of domestic wage levels and capital investment. In 2017, foreign labor accounted
officially for 12% of the country’s labor force. Given the ubiquity of undocumented workers, a
recent paper noted that up to six million foreign workers could be laboring in Malaysia, 2.27 million
legally, and another 2.5 to 3.37 million illegally. Neither category of workers enjoys sufficient legal
rights and protection. A major part of the problem lies in the fact that foreign worker recruitment,processing and placement is a business worth more than RM 2 billion annually, the proceeds ofwhich go to manpower agencies closely linked to high-ranking government officials. Corruption isrife and exploitation is widespread. There is a crying need for the adoption of transparent legislationand good governance in migration management. The cost paid by the migrants, and theexternalized cost to local society, is simply too high.
Human mobility—the ability, willingness and, indeed, often the necessity to move—is integral tothe human condition. Migration has always been an opportunity to individuals and societies toreinvent themselves; it has also been a threat to those individuals and societies unable or unwillingto cope with the arrival of new peoples and different ways of life. Today, the challenge of migrationand multicultural existence is a global one. It is a profound challenge, one that will not be resolved
by goodwill and a well-meaning “culture of reception” alone. Europe’s recent experience with mass
immigration has shown the need for measured debate and effective policies before irresponsible
demagogues take over and occupy the political stage. All involved—states, civil society andimmigrants—have to be willing to learn from past experience, and move to the middle ground.

The contents of this article reflect solely the opinions of the author.
© 2020 International House of Japan and Japan Foundation