SHADES OF CITIZENSHIP: Betwixt the Civic and the Ethnic

In 1991, Mahathir Mohamad, then Prime Minister of Malaysia, declared his aim to transform Malaysia into a fully developed nation by the year 2020. To achieve this goal, he identified nine strategic challenges that must be overcome, a key challenge being the creation of a united Malaysian nation, or a 'bangsa Malaysia', that would cultivate an inclusive national citizenship. Subsequently, several non-Malay individuals interpreted the concept to mean a future community of equal citizens where Malays would no longer possess special rights. The Malay reaction was initially low-keyed, but gradually ballooned to strident criticisms of non-Malays who equated 'bangsa Malaysia' with equal rights for all citizens, regardless of ethnicity. As with the Malayan Union Plan and Federation Agreement, two intensely contested issues in the Merdeka constitutional negotiations were with regard to equal citizenship and Malay special position. The majority opinion in UMNO wanted to stick to the 1948 Federation Agreement terms: for the Chinese, limited application of the principle of jus soli and stringent naturalization criteria.