See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/259175645 The Straits of Malacca : knowledge and diversity BOOK · JANUARY 2008 CITATIONS 2 READS 9 4 AUTHORS, INCLUDING: Solvay Gerke University of Bonn 64 PUBLICATIONS 172 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Hans-Dieter Evers National University of Malaysia 368 PUBLICATIONS 825 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Available from: Anna-Katharina Hornidge Retrieved on: 29 September 2015
STCW Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping
STPB Singapore Tourist Promotion Board
STRAITREP Mandatory Ship Reporting System (Straits of Malacca and Singapore)
UNCLOS United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
TED Trade Environment Database
TNC Transnational Corporation
TPM Technology Park Malaysia
TSS Traffic Separation System
USU Universitas Sumatera Utara (University of North Sumatra)
VLCCs Very Large Cargo Carriers
xii
VOC Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie
VTS Vessel Traffic Service
WHPL Wilmar Holdings Pte Ltd
ZEF Centre for Development Research, University of Bonn / Germany
1
Introduction to a Dynamic Region
The Straits of Malacca
Solvay Gerke
The Straits of Malacca region is one of the most diverse regions in the world in terms of its cultural and natural resources and its subsequent potentials. The sea passage connects and divides a region characterised by immense cultural- and biodiversity and rapid, dynamic development.
Map 1.1: The Straits of Malacca region
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 2
The states bordering the Straits of Malacca, namely Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore form the core of the ASEAN region, one of the growth poles of the developing world. Since the 1980s, industrialisation, trade and shipping have stimulated rapid urbanisation. The growth potential of the region is enormous and partly realised in the SIJORI growth triangle of Singapore, Johore (Malaysia) and Riau (Indonesia), and in the industrial, export-oriented growth area of Penang and the Klang valley (West Malaysia).
The high degree of biodiversity in the area provides development opportunities for bioprospecting, biotech research as well as tourism. The high cultural diversity of the region is another asset providing development opportunities not only in regional trade and commerce to the neighbouring countries, but also in building knowledge societies based on different intellectual traditions and experience. It is here especially Singapore which has taken the lead in building a so-called knowledge-based economy.
Despite impressive economic growth rates during the early 1990s and comparatively good development indicators, the countries bordering the Straits of Malacca nevertheless are beset by problems like poverty, rapid urbanisation, inequity, physical insecurity, cross-country illegal migration and depletion of its natural resources. The very political stability of the Straits region is at stake through the fragile peace in Northern Sumatra (Aceh), unrest in Riau and Southern Thailand and widespread piracy in the Straits of Malacca.
The region is rich in natural resources from fisheries to mangrove swamps and rain forests, from tin to gas and oil fields, but at the same time troubled by problems of aquatic pollution through shipping and industries, deforestation by extensive logging and severe air pollution (haze) from large scale slash and burn activities in plantation agriculture. Big cities and tourist areas attract domestic and migrant labour which leads to a constant increase in cultural diversity and therewith the potential for ethnic tensions if not adequately governed.
Strategic importance of the straits
World trade and energy resources have to pass certain “choke points” between areas of production and their final destination. One of these strategic passages is the Straits of Malacca, connecting the China Sea with the Indian Ocean. From an economic and strategic perspective the Straits of Malacca is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world. Being the main ship passage between the Indian and the Pacific Ocean it links East and Southeast Asia with the Middle East and Europe. The Straits carries more than 50,000 vessels per
Introduction to a Dynamic Region 3
year and bears between one-fifth and one quarter of the world's sea trade.
But the Straits are not just a conduit for sea traffic from East to West or West to East, but also a crossroads of cultures and societies. With closer regional economic integration cross-Straits communication is increasing. Cross-boundary social networks are ethnically diverse but closely integrated. Thus the Straits bear great opportunities for the economic and social development of the littoral states of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Moreover, peace and stability in the region is a precondition for regional development, for uninterrupted energy supplies and international trade between, among others, the European Union and East Asia.
Last but not least, piracy in the Straits of Malacca poses a severe threat to regional and international security and development. At its narrowest point, the Straits is only 1.5 nautical miles (2.8 km) in and forms one of the world's significant traffic bottlenecks. Though the number of incidents has declined in recent years, the Straits still account for around one-third of all reported piracy attacks worldwide (The Economist 2001, 2004; ICC 2006). Piracy here involves small scale piracy partly motivated by poverty as well as large scale piracy borne by structures of organised crime.
With the terrorist attacks of 9/11 the concerns arising from the high prevalence of piracy have gained a new quality. Fears have grown that terrorists may make use of piracy infrastructure and ‘expertise’ to block the Straits in order to destabilise world trade through either hijacking a tanker and ramming it into a vessel or stationary target or by blowing up and sinking a large ship (Reuters 2006).
Biodiversity
The Straits are one of the world’s most vulnerable areas because of its high potential for political conflict and ecological disaster. Moreover, the areas bordering the Straits are ecologically fragile. They belong to one of the world’s hotspots of biodiversity, the so called “Sunda hotspot”. The Straits as such and its immediate adjoining areas, Southern Thailand, the Malaysian Peninsular, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, constitute Sundaland, which alone contains five percent of the world’s total endemic plant species and 2.6 percent of its endemic vertebrates (Roberts et al 2002). But the ecology is threatened by deforestation, pollution and wetland degradation as well as natural disasters. Logging and plantation companies operating on both sides of the Straits of Malacca are continuously reducing biodiversity. Deforestation has increased soil erosion and silting of coastal areas and thus the risk of collisions in the narrow channels of
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 4
the Straits. Oil pollution, already a major threat to the littoral wetland, endangers fish species and fishing opportunities. Industrial trawlers threaten the sustainability of fish stocks, and thereby fish and other marine species. Trans-boundary logging operations around the Straits, often conducted by Malaysian companies for the increasing demand from China, present an increasing challenge. Nonetheless there are only feeble attempts to secure biodiversity in the region, undermined by cross-Straits economic interests linking logging companies, plywood industries, oil palm business, venture capital and government bureaucracies.
Knowledge
Singapore, a small city state at a strategic position in the Straits of Malacca does not have any natural resources except its people. After an initial phase of export oriented industrialisation, the Singapore government shifted its policy increasingly to a state led development of knowledge-based, high value added, high-tech industries and a knowledge-based service sector. Singapore’s strategy is based on developing an ICT infrastructure, supporting R&D and building up a high-level manpower base to become part of a knowledge-based world economy and its global culture. The government decided that biotechnology will be one of the four pillars of a knowledge-based economy. In 2003 a “biomedical city” named “Biopolis” opened its doors to scientists all over the world. It houses the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), a research institute affiliated to the Agency for Science, Technology and Research A*Star, together with the Singapore Institute of Molecular Biology, the Biotechnology Centre, the Bioinformatics Institute, the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and other R&D organisations. Singapore’s policy attracts researchers from all over the world to work as part time migrants in a stimulating multicultural environment.
Other countries in the region are following the same path towards the development of knowledge-based economies by creating knowledge hubs along the Straits of Malacca. Knowledge thus becomes increasingly a major factor of production, complementing land, labour and capital throughout the Straits of Malacca region.
Cultural diversity
Because of its exposure to intellectual exchange and migrating communities along an East-West axis, cultural diversity in the Straits of Malacca region is traditionally very high. It involves both, inter-ethnic “harmony” in Singapore’s
Introduction to a Dynamic Region 5
knowledge-based economy as well as inter-ethnic rivalries for badly paid jobs in all countries bordering the Straits of Malacca. Poverty induced labour migration increases ethnic diversity and tensions, especially in urban areas.
Due to the considerable power of ethnic identities in this region, current governments frequently resort to ethnicised policies to avoid and/or overcome ethnic tensions and to reach political stability and unity. In former times, colonial rulers used – sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally – ethnic differentiation to separate and exploit the ethnic features of a certain group. This in itself created socio-economic vulnerabilities for the respective populations. On the other hand ethnic solidarities and trust have enabled trading networks to operate under difficult political conditions. In this context, trans-boundary trading networks, as established by overseas Chinese in the Straits of Malacca region, have been described and analysed in great detail (Menkhoff and Gerke 2002), but networks of other ethnic groups have yet to be explored. It nevertheless can be assumed that especially inter-ethnic trans-boundary networks can integrate regions, promote economic and social development and create, at least in the long run, stability and social resilience.
The topics discussed in this volume may seem diverse, but show hidden connections and interrelations that became apparent in the intense discussions of a research group formed at the Centre for Development Research (ZEF) to study the Straits of Malacca region. This volume does by no means intend to cover the Straits of Malacca area or all the issues relevant in the region. It rather wants to highlight selected crucial development arenas. By showing the interrelation of very specific problem areas, we hope to stimulate further research, pose new questions and – last but not least – help to build awareness of the connectivity of problems and its impact on regional development.
2
The Strategic Importance of the
Straits of Malacca for World Trade and
Regional Development
Hans-Dieter Evers and Solvay Gerke
1. Introduction: choke point of world trade
World trade, including especially a big part of the world’s energy resources, has to pass certain “choke points” between areas of production and their final destination. One of these “choke points” is the Straits of Malacca, the sea passage connecting the China Sea with the Indian Ocean. As the navigable route of the Straits is at certain parts less than one nautical mile wide, they form some of the world's significant bottlenecks for international traffic. The way through the Straits is the shortest sea route from the Horn of Africa and the Persian Golf to East Asia and the Pacific Ocean. But the Malacca Straits are not just a conduit for sea traffic from East to West or West to East. Cross-Straits communication is increasing, integrating the provinces and countries on either side of the Straits.
Whereas formerly shipping across the Straits was restricted, today a multitude of ferry services carry passengers even between minor ports of Malaysia and Indonesia. Cross-boundary social networks are ethnically diverse but nevertheless closely knit, forming close connections between diasporas on either side of the Straits or connect diasporas with their places of origin. Thus, the Straits’ cultural diversity bears great opportunities for the economic and social development of the littoral states of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Peace and stability in the region are, however, a precondition for regional development, uninterrupted energy supplies and international trade between the European Union and East Asia.
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 8
2.1 View onto the Straits of Malacca near Muar, Malaysia, photo H.-D. Evers, 2006.
The Straits of Malacca historically played a major role in the formation of the littoral empires, territories or states such as Srivijaya, Aceh, Melaka, Johore, the Straits Settlements and more recently Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. The Straits are not only rich in marine resources but are one of the oldest and busiest shipping lanes in the world. They serve as a primary conduit for the movement of cargo and human traffic between the Indo-European region and the rest of Asia and Australia. They are the shortest East-West sea route compared to Indonesia’s Straits of Macassar and Lombok. Every year billions of Euro worth of goods and services pass through the region.
The Straits of Malacca are one of the world’s most vulnerable areas because of their high potential for political conflict and ecological disaster. The areas bordering the Straits are of high biodiversity and ecologically fragile. They belong to one of the world’s hotspots of biodiversity, the so called “Sunda hotspot”. Its biodiversity is threatened by logging in the remaining rain forests of Sumatra and Peninsula Malaysia and ecological vulnerability is being increased for example by the reduction of coastal mangrove forests and the danger of oil pollution. Ecological, social, political and economic processes in the Straits are intimately interwoven and cannot be separated. Contested borders between Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, conflicts about the exploitation of littoral natural resources like sand and gravel, fresh water or marine products strain political relations between the bordering states. Separatist movements in southern Thailand, in Aceh and in Riau, pirate bands
The Strategic Importance of the Straits of Malacca 9
as well as Islamic fundamentalist groups threaten the security on and along the Straits of Malacca. Political and ecological hazards create a situation of vulnerability which has developed over time. A look at the historical legacy of the Straits region may assist a better understanding of current risks and opportunities.
2. Historical legacy
The Straits of Malacca have been the main connecting link between Europe, the Middle East and South Asia on one side and Southeast and East Asia on the other side. A constant stream of merchandise and knowledge has flown through the passage from East to West and West to East. Before the islands and peninsulas bordering the Straits were carved up by colonial powers from the 16th century onwards, the Straits linked Sumatra, the Riau Islands and the Thai-Malay Peninsula into one cultural area with many cross-cutting ethnic ties, trans-Straits kingdoms, networks of trade and religion. These links were somewhat reduced but by no means cut by colonial and post-colonial governance, rivalries and systems of domination.
The most important early empires were Srivijaya and the Sultanates of Aceh and Malacca. But there were other states or principalities throughout history that gained power through trade flowing through the Straits in one way or another. Pasai, later Aceh, Indragiri and Singapura, Johore and Kedah are examples of state formation using the Straits as their lifeline and passage to prosperity. The southern parts of Burma and Thailand were also at times connected to the Straits.
In the early phases of the newly independent littoral states of Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia cross-Straits connections declined but started to develop more forcefully with economic growth and development in the 1980s. At the same time, the Straits of Malacca maintained and increased its position as the world’s most important shipping lane – more important than the Panama Canal or the Straits of Gibraltar. Estimates differ, but as of now more than 50,000 vessels per year and more than one quarter of the tonnage of world shipping passes through the roughly 1000 km of the Straits of Malacca each year. Sea traffic is regulated but sovereignty is strictly guarded by the littoral states and contested by hegemonic powers like the United States and increasingly also China and India.
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 10
3. World trade through the Straits of Malacca
Port cities at the straits
Map 2.1: The Straits of Malacca, 17th century
There are five major international ports, namely Singapore, Port Klang (near Kuala Lumpur), Johore, Penang and Belawan (Medan). In addition there are many smaller ports and ferry terminals of local significance. While Singapore and to a lesser extent the other major ports are important hubs of world shipping, the minor ports support local trade and labour migration.
The tonnage (in m Freight Weight Tonnes – FWT) passing through the major ports in the Straits of Malacca in 2002 is illustrated in the map beneath.
The Strategic Importance of the Straits of Malacca 11
Map 2.2: Tonnage going through major ports in the Straits of Malacca
Furthermore, this amount of tonnage passing through the Straits of Malacca each year is increasing at a fast rate. This is illustrated in the table beneath from 1999 to August 2006. The data of the year 2002, which were used for the map above, are underlayed in grey.
Table 2.1: Tonnage going through major ports in the Straits of Malacca
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 12
Shipping along and across the Straits of Malacca
The approximately 50,000 vessels passing annually carry one-third of the world's sea trade through the Straits. Next to general cargo, oil is the most important transported commodity. As the Straits are only about 1.5 nautical miles (2.8 km) and 0.6 nautical miles (1.1 km) wide at their narrowest point, the Phillips Channel in the Singapore Strait and along the One Fathom Bank, they represent one of the world's most significant bottleneck for world traffic.
2.2 Container-ship entering the Singapore Straits, photo H.-D. Evers, 2007.
2.3 The port of Singapore, photo H.-D. Evers, 2007.
Half of all oil shipments carried by sea come through the Straits. In 2003 a total of 19,154 tankers passed the Straits eastbound (Persian Gulf Countries –
The Strategic Importance of the Straits of Malacca 13
East Asia) (Zubir 2006: 6), carrying more than ten million barrels per day. A trade that is expected to expand as oil consumption rises especially in China. At present, oil-flows through the Straits are three times bigger than through the Suez Canal and fifteen times bigger than oil-flows through the Panama Canal.
Diagram 2.1: Oil transited at major strategic locations in 2002 and 2006
- in m barrel per day
2002 □ 2006 ■
15,5
12,3
3,3 3,1
1,6
0,5
17,0
15,0
3,3
4,5
2,4
0,5
0,0
2,0
4,0
6,0
8,0
10,0
12,0
14,0
16,0
18,0
Strait of
Hormuz
Straits of
Malacca
Bab-el-
Mandab
Suez
Canal
Bosporus Panama
Canal
Source: Energy Information Administration, World Oil Transit Chokepoints, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/choke.html.
The Straits therefore are of supreme importance both to the energy needs of East Asia and to European-Asian trade. World trade passes through the Straits of Malacca in both directions. In addition, regional cross-Straits traffic is increasing. New passenger ferries ply between Malaysia and Indonesia, carrying local merchandise, and the density of local shipping as well as air traffic has gone up.
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 14
Map 2.3: Major ferry sailings across the Straits of Malacca, 2006
A tightly knit network of trade relations, both formal and informal, spans the waterway. Its directions and density are not exactly known, but needs to be researched further. And the rapid economic development of China and India is likely to enhance the importance of the Straits of Malacca.
The Strategic Importance of the Straits of Malacca 15
Local trade has been carried out through the centuries, but has increased considerably since the end of the economic crisis of the 1990s and the end of armed conflict in Aceh. Chinese, mainly Hokkien traders connect all port towns along the Straits (Gerke and Menkhoff 2002; Hornidge 2004), and Acehnese, Batak, Minangkabau and Malay traders have developed networks about which less is known so far. Improved traffic conditions (ferries and air lines) and the fast extensions of plantations, mainly oil palms, have stimulated local trade further.
4. Threats and vulnerabilities
The Straits bear opportunities but also great risks for regional and world trade. Pollution, piracy and international conflicts are probably the main exposures that could disrupt world trade and create unforeseeable losses for the world economy. Should an oil tanker be attacked by pirates, run aground, create an oil spill and block other vessels from passing through the narrow waters, the economic and ecological losses would rapidly create enormous costs and unforeseeable downstream effects, such as substantial losses to local fisheries, pollution of beaches, decrease of local trade and tourism. Economic losses would probably run into billions of Euro within a short period of time. This stresses the generally accepted critical role of the Straits of Malacca for stability in the entire region and beyond.
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 16
Piracy
Piracy has been a considerable problem in the Straits in recent years, rising from around 25 attacks in 1994 to a record 112 in 2000 (see Gerstenberger in this volume).1 Apart from the South China Sea, where unresolved territorial claims remain a source of potential instability to the area, and the Indian Ocean, the Straits of Malacca are the third most affected piracy hotspot in the world.2
Table 2.2: Piracy attacks worldwide
Straits of Malacca
South China Sea
Indian Ocean
East Africa
west Africa
South America
Mediterranean Other Regions
Total
1998 6 94 25 19 22 38 2 4 210
1999 37 136 51 16 36 29 4 0 309
2000 112 140 109 29 33 41 2 5 471
2001 58 120 86 22 58 23 2 1 370
2002 34 140 66 23 47 67 3 3 383
2003 36 154 96 22 67 72 1 4 452
2004 60 113 41 13 57 46 0 0 330
2005 20 97 51 49 23 26 0 0 266
Source: Annual Reports of the IMO (1998 - 2005).
Diagram 2.2: Piracy in the Straits of Malacca
8
37
112
58
38 39
60
20
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Source: Annual Reports of the IMO (1998 - 2005).
The Strategic Importance of the Straits of Malacca 17
In response to the rising number of attacks, the Malaysian, Indonesian and Singaporean navies stepped up their patrols of the area since mid 2004. Several indicators, like the low number of really hijacked or missing ships, the parts of the ships mostly raided by the attackers (master and crew accommodation, cargo rooms, store areas) and the small number of persons usually involved in the attacks (International Maritime Organisation 1998-2005) show, that piracy today is mainly carried out as a private commercial enterprise enhanced by poverty in the littoral states. However fears of terrorism rest on the possibility that a large ship could be pirated and sink at a shallow point in the Straits (they are just 25m deep at their shallowest part), and so effectively block the Straits. If successfully achieved, such an attack would have a devastating effect on world trade. Opinions amongst security specialists differ about the feasibility and likelihood of such an attack.
Until August 2006, 15 attacks in the Straits of Malacca had been reported to the International Maritime Organisation. Most of them targeted big vessels (Tsunami Relief Cargo Vessels, Chemical Tankers and Bulk Carriers) along the Sumatra coast and in the Singapore Straits. The others charged especially fishing vessels along the Malaysian coast (International Maritime Organisation 2006).
Ecological disasters
Another shipping risk in the Straits is the yearly haze that persists due to raging bush fires in Sumatra. The haze can literally choke shipping by reducing visibility to as low as 200m making navigation in such a narrow and busy trade route hazardous (see Gerstenberger in this volume).
Ecological risks posed by dense shipping and industrial development are discussed among others by Cleary and Goh (2000). Today, the increase of shipping activities along the shipping lane and the rapid development in the coastal areas threaten the ecologically fragile environment characterised by high biodiversity bordering the Straits. To ensure navigational safety in the narrow and shallow Straits, the Malaysian Government invested heavily to install 256 navigational aids in addition to putting up a vessel traffic management system. From 1978 until 1994, a total of 476 accidents, including oil spills occurred in the Straits with an average of 30 accidents per year. About 36 percent of the vessels passing the Straits are oil tankers. They increase the discharges in the sea including oil, ballast water, sewerage and other solid wastes. By the year 2000, it is estimated that 888,000 tonnes of waste were generated by the vessels plying the Straits comprising of 150,000 tonnes of oily bilge water, 18 tonnes of solid
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 18
wastes and 720,000 tonnes of sewerage (Ling 2006). While the international community enjoys the benefits of the waterway, the littoral states are left with the burden of financing navigational safety measures and bear the consequences of oil spills and other shipping based pollution.
From the shore, different types of pollutants from industries, agriculture, land-use activities and domestic wastes are discharged into the Straits. Along the coast, sand mining, development in mangrove swamps and land reclamation have degraded the habitat for marine life (Malacca Straits Research and Development Centre 2006). Furthermore, oil slicks pose a threat to the ecology of the Straits and surrounding areas (Lu et al 2006).
5. Developing the Straits of Malacca region
Southeast Asia is still beset by problems of poverty, rapid urbanisation, inequity, cross-country illegal migration and depletion of its natural resources. The very political stability of the Straits region is at stake through the fragile peace in northern Sumatra (Aceh), unrest in Riau and southern Thailand and widespread piracy in the Straits of Malacca. Migration across the Straits of Malacca promotes conflicts and inter-ethnic tensions.
The region is rich in natural resources from fisheries, to mangrove swamps and rain forests, from tin to gas and oil fields, but also beset by problems of pollution through shipping and industries, deforestation by extensive logging and severe air pollution from slash and burn in plantation agriculture.
On the other hand the Straits bear great opportunities for the economic and social development of the littoral states. Several “growth triangles” have been constructed to create integrated special economic zones, like the SIJORI triangle, linking Singapore with the Malaysian state of Johore and the Indonesian province of Riau.
Hence, the Straits of Malacca are not just a sea lane but furthermore a “mediterranean sea” in the sense of Braudel (1966). The ethnic as well as the ecological composition is similar on both sides of the Straits. It should be recognised that the Straits and the adjoining islands and peninsulas form an integrated area, cut into national territories by boundaries drawn during colonial times, disregarding natural and cultural similarities.
The Strategic Importance of the Straits of Malacca 19
Political scenarios: ASEAN and the world powers
The states bordering the Straits of Malacca, namely Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore form the core of the ASEAN region, one of the growth poles of the developing world. Diplomatic efforts to control the increasingly important passage between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific began after the littoral states gained independence. The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia maintained throughout the position “that the Straits of Malacca (and Singapore) were not an international waterway, although they fully recognised their use for international shipping” (Leifer and Nelson 1973: 190; Vertzberger 1982: 610). Attempts by the United States of America to assert military control over the Straits were met by stiff resistance from Indonesia and Malaysia. Singapore took a more ambivalent role, offering naval facilities to the US fleet and leaning increasingly on American military support.3
Economic scenarios: Maritime products and growth triangles
The Straits supply myriads of marine resources and support the economy of the littoral states. More than 380,000 tonnes of fish (more than 60 percent of the total fish caught per year) costing RM 1.2 billion per year is landed in Malaysia from the Straits of Malacca. In Indonesia, the Straits of Malacca contribute the second highest fish production after the Java Sea. High quality and safe fish harvest is extremely important to ensure sustainable socio-economic development and health of the people. Other economic activities such as mariculture, tourism, recreation and maritime industry are dependent on the viability and pristine conditions of the Straits sea water. The Straits are also an important site for archaeological resources (Malacca Straits Research and Development Centre 2006). Archaeological exploration has yielded artefacts and treasures from sunken ships going back for centuries.
The most spectacular development has taken place at the eastern end of the Straits. Here an economic zone with special rights was created on the Riau islands of Batam and Bintang, embedded in the economic growth triangle of SIJORI. A similar concept, though less successful was applied to the north-western part of the Straits. A growth triangle was planned to integrate the economies of southern Thailand, north Sumatra, Kedah and Perlis in Malaysia. Since the 1980s industrialisation, trade and shipping have stimulated rapid urbanisation in a region with a formerly predominantly rural population. The growth potential of the region is enormous and is partly realised in the SIJORI growth triangle, the industrial export-oriented growth area of Penang (west
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 20
Malaysia) and the growth triangle Sumatra, west Malaysia and southern Thailand.
The high biodiversity of the area provides development opportunities for bio-prospecting, bio-tech research as well as tourism. Especially eco-tourism seems to be a growth industry. The high cultural diversity of the region should also be seen as an asset opening development opportunities not only in trade and commerce to the neighbouring countries, but also in building knowledge societies based on different intellectual traditions and experience. Singapore has taken the lead in building a knowledge-based economy, creating a knowledge hub of both local as well as global significance (see Evers and Hornidge, Hornidge and Menkhoff, Loh, Chua, Evers and Chay in this volume; Hornidge 2007a; Menkhoff et al 2005: 165ff). Malaysia has followed by creating a “Multimedia Super Corridor” of high-tech industries and research (Evers 2003).
It can be expected that the Straits of Malacca region will develop further from a mere thoroughfare of world shipping to an integrated “Mediterranean” area of great economic potential.
6. Summary
To sum up the argument: The Straits of Malacca are of strategic importance for world trade and regional development. They are vulnerable to social, political and natural disasters, but also bear great opportunities for economic and social development.
1. Most of European trade with China and Japan is shipped through the Straits of Malacca.
2. Most of the energy requirements of Japan depend on oil shipments from the golf states through the Straits of Malacca.
3. The Straits have for centuries connected the Indian subcontinent with East and Southeast Asia as well as Europe with China as an alternative to the northern “Silk Road”.
4. The states bordering the Straits, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore form the core of the ASEAN region, one of the growth poles of the developing world.
5. The areas bordering the Straits are themselves rich in natural resources from fisheries, to mangrove swamps and rain forests, from tin mining to gas and oil fields, but also beset by problems of
The Strategic Importance of the Straits of Malacca 21
tidal destruction (Tsunami), pollution through shipping and industries.
6. The Straits are beset by problems of poverty, cross-Straits illegal migration and depletion of its natural resources. The very political stability of the Straits region is at stake through unrest in northern Sumatra (Aceh), Riau and South Thailand as well as widespread piracy.
7. The growth potential is enormous and is partly realised in the SIJORI growth triangle of Singapore, Johore (Malaysia) and Riau (Indonesia); in the industrial growth of the western part of Malaysia bordering the Straits; the industrial area around Penang (Malaysia) and the international tourism development on the islands of Langkawi (Malaysia) and Phuket (Thailand).
Notes
1 Further information can be found on the website of the International Maritime Bureau (http://www.imo.org), as well as in Richardson and Mukundan (2004), Warren (2003), Ho and Raymond (2005), Johnson and Valencia (2005), to name a few recent publications. 2 For an interesting assessment of the Straits of Malacca as target for maritime terrorism see Teo, 2007. 3 Based on press reports, e.g. BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/ fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/3598977.stm (04-04-2004).
3
Piracy in the Straits of Malacca
Heide Gerstenberger
3.1 Pirates captured by the Indonesian Navy, photo Christoph Hein 2007.
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 24
1. The reappearance of piracy in the last decades of the 20th
century
Before maritime piracy reappeared in the last decades of the 20th century it had been a matter of the past for more than a hundred years. In the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, piracy has been efficiently stopped in the first decades of the 19th century, in Southeast Asia colonial navies and colonial courts more or less wiped it out in the course of the 19th century.
When piracy first reappeared in the 1960s it was strictly a regional phenomenon. Holiday skippers cruising along South American shores had to face the risk of loosing their yacht to pirates who wanted to transport drugs. While this special risk has been reduced since it has become so much easier to transport drugs in containers, the appearance of piracy in the Sulu Sea in the 1950s marked the beginning of a criminal practice which has been growing since.
It was provoked by economic policy. When the Philippines became independent in 1946, the new government wanted to control the international trade of the country. This also concerned the long established barter trade between the inhabitants of the Sulu coastal region and north Borneo. Coconuts or their kernels from the Sulu region had been traded for cigarettes, parts of machinery and textiles. In 1946, north Borneo (today part of Indonesia), was still a British Colony. The colonial government advocated free trade and was not willing to go against the trade between the Philippines and its subjects. In 1959, the Philippine government banned the export of copra to Borneo. When the trade continued, the government reacted by declaring the traders to be smugglers and by ordering the confiscation of their cargo. In the years to come, the former traders more and more often attacked merchant vessels in order to get hold of necessary supplies (Eglöf 2006). By the mid 1960s, these attacks had already become a regular practice in the Sulu Sea. That it has persisted to this very day is one of the many devastating economic results of the Suharto regime. It destroyed the livelihoods of many poor people. Some of them took to piracy. Since many villagers in Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia are willing to give shelter to pirates, these robbers are difficult to chase. Inspite of the acquisition of new speed boats for the Indonesian navy, the situation became worse when the Indonesian currency broke down in the course of the financial crisis in Asia at the end of the 20th century. In 1997, the government became unable to pay its personnel. There is evidence that at that time members of the Indonesian navy took to piracy. That this practice is continued can be deduced from the fact that in this region, attacks from pirates are usually undertaken between Thursday night and Sunday night. Piracy in Indonesian waters seems
Piracy in the Straits of Malacca 25
to have become a weekend occupation for people who do not earn as much as they think necessary. Sometimes these pirates even use ships of the navy as parent ships from which to set off with speed boats (Burnett 2004, 186-187).1 It is assumed that the vast majority of attacks which have been launched against vessels in the Straits of Malacca and the Philipps Chanel have been undertaken by Indonesian pirates.
The general upswing of piracy in Asian waters started at the end of the 1980s. It was a sort of peace dividend. When the Soviet Base in Cam Ranh (Vietnam) and the US Base in Subic Bay (Philippines) were closed, the navies of the superpowers more or less disappeared from these waters, thereby opening them for the pursuit of unlawful appropriation. If the end of the Cold War opened the world to capitalistic forms of competition, it also opened the sea for pirates. And these now had the possibility to easily acquire small arms. While there has always been a certain amount of petty theft from ships in berth, the use of arms transformed intended theft into attack, while the use of arms – other than knives – has been reported more often since 1997. This trend has been driven by Southeast Asia (Ong-Webb in Lehr 2007: 52).
That attacks have often been successful is also connected with globalised competition, albeit with developments that predate the end of the Cold War. From the mid 1970s onwards the already fierce competition over sea transport has not only become more difficult when the OPEC states decided to raise the price of crude oil, it has also become globalised (Gerstenberger and Welke 2004). Since most costs of shipping are more or less the same for every competitor, i.e. the costs for loading and unloading, for oil or for pilots, ship owners have to concentrate on reducing costs which can be influenced by managerial strategies. While the practice of registering a ship in a country offering low costs of registration and demanding hardly any taxes did not have to be invented in the 1970s, it has become an everyday practice in the maritime world since. Flagging out not only reduces the costs of registration and the amount of taxes to be paid, it also offers the possibility to legally employ crew members from all over the world and paying them according to the level of income in their home countries. It is for this reason that today the majority of ships of the world fleet is registered under a so-called flag of convenience (FOC). None of the states offering their flag to foreigners on the world market of ship registers has a navy which would be able to protect its fleet against pirates.
This however is not the only change of seafaring which has produced better conditions for maritime criminality. As an effect of flagging out, most crews of the world fleet now consist of seafarers who come from many
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 26
different countries and aboard most ships, the composition of the crew changes two to three times a year. This does not make it easier to develop well established practices of safe navigation, a condition which can also have some bearing on the attempts to prevent the attack of pirates. But strategies of competition not only brought about new forms of personnel management, ship owners also tried to enhance their economic situation by concentrating on technological development which would enable them to reduce the number of seafarers aboard. This has been strikingly successful. Today it is possible to run even very large ships with hardly more than a dozen people, the captain and the youngest deckhand already included in the number. Not to speak of general cargo ships with only a handful of seafarers aboard. This reduction of personnel not only revolutionised the practices of work and life aboard. It also enhanced the danger of piracy. Given today’s very small crews and the intensity of labour aboard merchant ships, it is very difficult to spare the personnel which is necessary if additional watches are to be set up in dangerous waters. Economic, technological and political changes in seafaring therefore enhance each other in making things easier for pirates, while the political and military conditions which enabled seafaring states to wipe out piracy at the beginning of the 19th century no longer exist.
2. Forms of piracy
One can detect three different forms of piracy.2 The first one can be characterised as occasional robbery. It is practised while ships are moored in ports or are lying in the outer road of a harbour. Local inhabitants, most often in small boats, come aboard and steal whatever they can find: food, equipment, and valuables. Many ships now have doors that can only be opened from the inside, many captains order the crew to take in as much equipment as possible and seal the openings when entering a dangerous zone. This sort of piracy is practised by people in need. Often they are only armed with knifes, but sometimes also with guns. One recent example: on April 29th, 2007 a chemical tanker at anchor in the Singapore Straits was boarded and robbed between 4:35 and 5:40. The pirates were armed with iron bars. They stole engine parts and escaped. Six hours later the Indonesian Coast Guard arrived and conducted an investigation (Office of Naval Intelligence 2007). Some of these occasional robbers have managed to acquire one or two speed boats. Their activities, therefore, are not confined to the harbour region.
The second form differs from occasional robbery by the material scope of the crime. Some pirates try to get hold of the entire cargo, preferably cargo like wood or palm oil that is not easy to detect. One example from January 2006: in
Piracy in the Straits of Malacca 27
an Indonesian port, five men came aboard and demanded to be taken along to the next port. When the ship had left port, they attacked the crew with knifes and pistols and blindfolded them. They steered the ship to a destination unknown to the crew. One day later three more men came aboard. On January 10th, eight members of the crew were set free on an island of the Philippines. Three crew members were kept aboard. They have never been heard of again (ICC International Bureau 2006).3
And then there is also organised crime. While many attacks still seem to be caused by lack of employment and/or sufficient income, piracy has also matured into a branch of organised crime. Most of the hijacking of vessels has been organised by criminal syndicates. There are at least four of those syndicates with their seats in Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Jakarta respectively. Just like mafia bosses all over the world, the bosses of these syndicates seem to also conduct a legal business as ship owners and charterer, thus having access to the officials which they have to bribe. Agents are told to look out for specific cargos and to then put one of their men aboard. He would use a mobile phone to inform the nearby stationed boarding party about the exact position of the ship. These boarding parties usually have very modern speed boats. Pirates hired by criminal organisations are no amateurs but trained soldiers who have been equipped with heavy arms. Once a ship has been hijacked it is repainted and renamed. Forged papers are used to register the ship in one of the states which offer their flag on the world market. For most open registers this can be done via the net and in some states it only takes a few hours. When the first cargo has been sold, the agents look for new cargo and the hijacked ship continues on a more or less regular basis in the business of sea transport until it is worn out. Sometimes the procedure of repainting and renaming is repeated several times. The loot per vessel may range from eight to 200 million US-Dollars (Vaknin 2006, citing Capt. Mukundan).
Since 2003, the overall number of reported attacks has fallen. This also holds true for the Straits of Malacca. Indonesia, however, is still the hottest piracy spot, followed by Nigeria, Somalia and the ports of Chittagong in Bangladesh (IMB 2007). In two cases, vessels that had been hijacked near the coast of Somalia could be located and the pirates apprehended. But this was only possible because ships of member states of the NATO where patrolling in the region and could take action as soon as they were informed of the hijacking by the Anti-Piracy Centre in Kuala Lumpur. While attacks in Somalian waters may have been caused by poverty, it is also probable that there is a connection between maritime criminality and the ongoing civil war. In this case, the attacks would fall outside the legal definition of piracy and be ranged under the heading of terrorism. This mixture of economic and political aims is also
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present in other regions of the world. It is supposed that 64 of the attacks which have been taking place in Indonesian waters in the first half of 2006 were undertaken by Acehnese rebels who tried to finance their operations through ransom and booty. Furthermore, it is known that the Tamil Tigers have practised piracy on a rather large scale (National Council for Science and the Environment 2005). There have been and there still are rumours about the involvement of some branches of Al Quaida (Langewiesche 2006: 38-39).
3. The problem of statistics
In 1992, the International Chamber of Commerce set up an Anti-Piracy Centre in Kuala Lumpur. It is, of course, not accidental that it situated near the Straits of Malacca. The Centre asks all those who have experienced an act of unlawful boarding, be it successful or only attempted, to send in a report.4 Ships which can receive telex are regularly informed about incidents. Sometimes crews are asked to have a lookout for a hijacked ship whose name may have been changed. The Centre publishes quarterly as well as yearly reports and it is from these reports that published data on the development of piracy are usually taken. But experts from the Centre often point out that probably not more than 50percent of all incidents are reported. Some experts think that 30percent would be a more realistic percentage and Michael McDaniel from the Law Office Countryman & Daniel is convinced that only 10percent are reported.5
First of all, the statistics do not include attacks on very small vessels. But more important is the fact that many captains refrain from reporting an incident if no person was injured. A report would have to lead to an investigation. Even if this would be seriously attempted by honest officials, it would take one or two days if not longer. This meant that the ship would not be able to keep to its strict timetable, and that in turn would mean that the charterer would loose much more money than the worth of the objects that had been stolen. Under these conditions many ship-owners let it be understood that they would rather not have their captains report minor incidents. And they have an additional interest to do so because if the number of reported incidents in a certain region is rising, insurance fees for the ships going to these regions are also rising.
Besides, everybody knows that usually nothing comes out of an investigation. There is a real problem of prosecution. The United Nations have defined piracy as an unlawful act committed on the high seas, e.g. outside the waters of a nation state (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982; Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation 1988). But today most pirates work from shore and most acts of unlawful boarding are committed inside the waters
Piracy in the Straits of Malacca 29
of a nation state. In this case they fall under the national criminal law. Since these laws usually do not contain articles on piracy,6 attacks can only be dealt with under the heading of theft, robbery, assault or murder. Even if, in rare cases, a trial cannot be avoided, the government can state at the end of the year that no case of piracy had to be dealt with in a national court. In any case, trials are not frequent. Imagine an attack in the Malaysian port of Kelang on a vessel owned by a German company, navigating under the flag of Liberia, with a crew from eight to ten different nations who all lost some of their valuables, with a Danish charterer and cargoes from citizens of at least a dozen nations. And then the pirates: Most of those operating in the Straits of Malacca are supposed to come from Indonesia. If they would indeed have been apprehended they would be foreign citizens before a court in Kelang. A trial would not only take long, it would also be very complicated. When looking at statistics we have to keep all of these reservations in mind.
Published statistics by the Anti Piracy Centre do not follow the definition of UNCLOS but include any act of boarding or attempting to board a ship with the apparent intent to commit theft or any other crime and to use force. This covers actual or attempted attacks whether the ship is berthed, at anchor or underway. Petty theft is excluded, unless the thieves are armed.
Statistics which have been collected according to this broad definition seem indeed to document the successes of anti-piracy measures. From a total of 370 reported incidents in 2002 numbers dropped to 239 in 2006. And the numbers for the Straits of Malacca are even more impressive. From 75 in the year 2000 they dropped to 38 in 2004 and to 12 in 2005.7 While the Anti Piracy Centre gives information about every reported incident, it does not publish aggregate date on the ratio between attempted and successful attacks. It is, nevertheless, generally known that attacks tend to be more successful on berthed craft, followed by anchored vessel and then by steaming ships (Ong-Webb, 2007: 57-59). While this also holds true for the whole of Southeast Asia, there is a different ratio between attempted and successful attacks for the Straits of Malacca. While the number of reported incidents in the Malacca and Singapore Straits has been varying from one in 1998, 75 in 2000 and 37 in 2004 the ratio between attempted and successful attacks between 1998 and 2004 has been 90.6. In other words:
“while the whole number of general attacks in the Straits may be relatively low, when they do occur, pirates in these waters have about a 91 percent probability of succeeding an attack” (Ong-Webb 2007: 56).
This coincides with the use of arms. While the use of guns has been reported for 25 percent of the incidents in Indonesian waters, it has been reported for
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almost 59 percent of the incidents in the Malacca and Singapore Straits (Ong-Webb 2007: 62). While piracy in the whole of Southeast Asia as well as in the whole of Indonesia seems to consist of a rather big proportion of hit and run piracy engaged by pirates who are mostly armed with knives (61 percent of arms which were in use), pirates operating in the Singapore and Malacca Straits seem to have made robbery at sea something of a profession. Since there was no attack in the first two months after the Tsunami in December 2004 there were hopes that this natural disaster had crippled the infrastructure of the piracy gangs. But attacks already resumed in March 2005, including the hijacking of ships and kidnapping of crew members (Mak 2007: 199). In June 2005, this situation led to the decision of Lloyd’s Joint War Committee (JWC) to declare the entire zone of the Straits of Malacca as a zone at risk from “war, strikes, terrorism and related perils” (Zurich Financial Services 2006). This meant that ship-owners sending a ship to the “war zone” of the Straits of Malacca could no longer profit from the inclusion of piracy in the risks that are covered by the hull insurance but had to pay a special premium. In the case of very large cargo carriers the additional premium amounted to some $63.000 for each transit (Ali 2006). Singapore’s shipping industry immediately started a campaign to persuade Lloyd’s to remove the Straits of Malacca from the list of war risk areas. In August 2006, they were successful. The committee declared that the joint anti-piracy measures of the littoral states had effectively reduced the risk (Ali 2006). The number of incidents reported for 2006 was 11. It was the lowest for years.
The statistics for Indonesia are not quite as good. There was a peak of 121 incidents in 2003. Numbers dropped to 94 in 2004, 79 in 2005 and 50 in 2006. In each of these years, four of the reported incidents occurred near Belawan, facing the entry and exit point of the Straits of Malacca. The Joint War Committee of Lloyd’s London still lists the coast of north-eastern Sumatra among the hotspots of piracy (Ali 2006).
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4. Navigation in the Straits of Malacca
The Straits of Malacca stretch over 620 miles from Selat Bengal at the Northwest end to Singapore. For about 250 miles it is rather narrow. Its width varies from 200 nautical miles (in the north) to a mere 3.2 nautical miles from Pulau Senang and Pulau Tokong (Hassan 2005). The depth is irregular, varying from 70 to less than ten meters. Navigation in the Straits of Malacca is difficult enough without having to think of pirates.
In the 1973 edition of “Ocean Passages of the World”8 the note on the Straits of Malacca gives a depth of about 25 meters in the fairway but states that the bottom is of sand wave formation, due to which the depths and the configuration of the channel are liable to change. Navigational aids therefore are difficult to maintain. The authors of the handbook advised draught vessels to take particular note of the latest reports on depths in and near the fairway and to be aware that “long periods of considerable vigilance are necessary” (Great Britain 1973: 80). It is also stated that there is a considerable amount of traffic in the Straits and that room for manoeuvre may be restricted by fishing vessels and their nets. Of course this “considerable amount of traffic” is nothing compared to the traffic in the Straits of Malacca at the beginning of the 21st century.9 There is as yet nothing on piracy in the 1973 edition of the manual, and there is also nothing on the haze, which frequently reduces sight to a mere 200 meters. This is especially frequent in the dry South west Monsoon Period. Winds in the Straits of Malacca are said to be mostly light, but frequent periods of stronger winds can be accompanied by squalls which sometimes reach gale force (Ocean Passages for the World 1973: 67).
In a recent inquiry, 80percent of the captains of Very Large Cargo Carriers (VLCCs) who have had the experience admitted to be afraid while navigating in the Straits of Malacca (Gunalan 1999 cited in TED Case Study 2006). It was not stated if their fear included attacks from pirates. In any case, these are made easier because one of the preventive measures which, for example, is commonly applied in the Arabian Sea, cannot be made use of in the Straits of Malacca. Travelling on a ship through the Arabian Sea at night gives the impression of having been invited to a rendezvous of pleasure boats because most of the ships have their deck lights turned on. In the Straits of Malacca this is impossible. Just like there is no light on the bridge of a ship during night time, in the Straits of Malacca the whole ship has to remain dark in order not to disturb the ships coming from ahead in the very heavy two way traffic. Speed is reduced during the passage, but according to the size of a ship a certain speed has to be kept up for steering. This can be made more difficult when tidal streams increase the speed of flows. Captain Rajy Malik Kamaruzanem, an
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expert on the Straits, stated that in the Singapore Strait even flows of 6 knots can be expected in some localities (TED Case Study 2006). One is reminded of the difficulties of navigating the Straits by the many wrecks just outside but also inside the main throughway. These restrict the room for manoeuvre even for those ships that do not have a very deep draught.
In order to enhance the safety of navigation, a Traffic Separation System (TSS) has been instituted in the Straits of Malacca in 1977. It is implemented since 1981. TSS schemes have been developed by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). Countries are free to adopt their own systems, but only TSS with IMO adoption is charted. Sometimes these systems not only separate transit traffic but also local traffic from through going traffic. But this is not the case in the Straits of Malacca. Hence, ships encounter many small fishing vessels, passenger ferries, tugboats or dredgers. Especially in the early hours of the day when fishermen start out on their catches, the Radar screen sometimes gives a picture of innumerable small dots, all of them some sort of ship. Small wooden fishing vessels are not to be seen on the radar. Some of these may also be used by pirates.
While ships with low draft may leave the lanes, deep draft vessels are (officially) required to use the lanes both day and night and during all weather. In TSS’s the rules of the road apply in all cases. There is no special right of way for one ship over the other. For some TSSs, amongst them the TSS of the Straits of Malacca, special regulations apply. One of these, for example, says that once a fully laden VLCC enters the TSS from the west, she has to complete the passage. There is no turning back. Another one states, that 3.5m under keel clearance have always to be maintained (Shimura Tadashi, General Manager Nippon Maritime Centre, Intertanko Asian Panel, meeting with author in 2002).
The first TSS of the Straits of Malacca only comprised three stretches of its southern part.10 In 1982, the three littoral states and Japan published three charts for the Straits of Malacca and three charts for the Singapore Straits. They were the result of a joint survey that had been undertaken since 1976. The TSS has proved successful. Though a serious casualty between a chemical tanker and a bulk carrier occurred in one of the Traffic Separation Schemes in 1993, all the serious accidents that had occurred between 1982 until 1993 had happened outside the routing schemes.
From 1993 to 1998, a further survey was under way, designed to investigate dangerous unconfirmed shoals and wrecks (there are 34 wrecks inside the TSS schemes). After the completion of this survey the Traffic Separation System was amended. It joined the three segments and extended the TSS (Hassan
Piracy in the Straits of Malacca 33
2005). It now stretches over 263 sea miles and thus forms the longest TSS of the world. Before the implementation of the amended TSS in December 1998, there were eight collisions in the Straits of Malacca in the course of two months whereas from 1999 to 2002 there were (only) six (Tadashi 2002). At present a new hydrographic survey is under way in order to procure detailed data for the production of updated and more comprehensive navigational charts, both in paper and in digital electronic form.11
In the meantime a Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) has also been installed. The purpose of these services is to monitor traffic and to provide navigational advice for vessels in particularly confined and busy waterways. In the Straits of Malacca and Singapore this system – installed in 1998 – is called STRAITREP.12 Vessels of more than 50 gross tons are required to report to STRAITREP at certain calling points and are then informed about the actual traffic conditions in the Straits. The system is rather similar to air traffic control. Its aim is to decrease vessel congestion as well as critical encounter situations.
For the Straits of Malacca the implementation of a VTS in Malaysia13, in Singapore14, and in Indonesia15 has had a side effect. It helped to transform the estimations about the density of traffic into statistics. Since not all of the vessels passing through the Straits enter one of the ports of the littoral states, the statistics which were published before 1998 were more or less informed guesses. But even today only ships of a certain size are obliged to report to STRAITREP. Accurate statistics, therefore, would only ensue if the currently debated proposal of a toll would be positively decided upon. This ”user fee” would be similar to the fees that are demanded for the passage of the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal. It is proposed in order to finance new navigational safety measures.
Notwithstanding already established and projected navigational aids, accidents will remain a serious problem. In spite of the many international regulations of seafaring which have been introduced in the course of the 20th century and especially in the last three decades16, the human element in the causes of accidents is still very high. Many experts attribute about 90percent of all sea accidents to the human element. The percentage obscures economic causes. One of them is detected by simply looking at statistics. According to official data, rather old general cargo ships were involved in the majority of accidents in the Straits of Malacca (TED Case Study 2006). But aside from sending old ships over the ocean which perhaps had not been maintained sufficiently, there is also the problem of fatigue. This has become a major problem in all shipping regions since crews have been dramatically reduced in
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numbers. In difficult waterways like the Straits of Malacca it would always have to be the captain who has to be on the bridge for long hours. Nevertheless, two or better even three watch officers on the bridge during the passage would help to lessen the strain, thereby enhancing safety.
The Straits not only mean difficult navigation and long hours, rather captains of deep draught vessels very often also have to compromise between limiting the speed of the vessel according to regulation and being on time for the tidal window, i.e. the specific target time for deep draught ships to transit certain regions. In some parts of the Straits of Malacca this tide window is no more than 30 minutes on either side of high water.
Experts are especially worried about serious accidents with oil tankers and liquefied gas carriers because they could well result in the temporary blockade of the Straits and hence in the economic disruption of the Asian economies which depend on the import of oil. Tankers were involved in more than 20 percent of the accidents in the Straits of Malacca in the last years and liquefied gas carriers in about two percent (TED Case Study 2006). And it is here that the need of joint anti-piracy measures becomes most evident.
The economic importance of the Straits explains the diplomatic efforts of organising combined anti-piracy measures. More ships pass through the Straits of Malacca than through the Panama and Suez Canals combined, a third of the volume of world trade and most of the oil to be shipped to China is transhipped via this waterway. But there are sensitivities. They were evident, for example, when in December 2005, Thomas Fargo, then commander of the US forces in the Pacific, proposed that the US navy should work together with Southeast Asian countries to protect the Straits of Malacca.
Piracy in the Straits of Malacca 35
3.2 Malaysian navy guarding the Malacca Straits, photo Christoph Hein 2007.
3.3 Singaporean navy gunner securing the Straits, photo Christoph Hein 2007.
He suggested mutual intelligence and joint patrolling of the waterway. While Singapore embraced the initiative, it was bluntly rejected by Indonesia.17
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But this was not only caused by nationalist sensibility but also by good sense. Fargo had argued on the base of US anti-terror maritime policy. This also inspired the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS) which has been pushed through the International Maritime Organisation after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre. The ISPS is based on the assumption that terrorists will use ships as weapons and that therefore all seafarers of the world have to be treated as potential terrorists. As far as the Straits of Malacca are concerned, piracy can have the same results as terrorism. If pirates come aboard, be it to hijack the ship or to steal valuables, it can and it already did happen that the bridge personnel is prevented to navigate. In January 1999, this was the case on the French flagged tanker Chaumont, carrying liquefied gas. The attackers threatened the watch officer with a machete and bound his hands. The fully loaded tanker sailed at full speed through one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes without anyone at the steering wheel for seventy minutes (Hunt of Sea Wolves 2007). The Chaumont was in the very narrow Philipps Chanel. It is a miracle that it has not stranded. Not only would traffic have been blocked, an ecological disaster of huge dimensions would have ensued.
Meetings of the littoral States of the Straits of Malacca have become more frequent in the past years. But until now, only coordination and not combination of their forces has been achieved. In the first quarter of 2007, the number of terrorist attacks in the Straits of Malacca has been the lowest of the last ten years. When the director of the Anti-Piracy Centre, Cap. Mukundan, stated in a press release on 10th May 2007 that not all attacks are reported and that seafarers should keep up vigilance in the Straits, the Minister of Defence in Indonesia, Sudarsono, voiced his dissent. In his opinion, this statement implied that the nation’s security forces were incapable of maintaining law and order in the Straits of Malacca.18 Singapore and Malaysia would be more willing than Indonesia to install joint patrols.
One should also consider that the naval situation in all of South, Southeast and East Asia is not stable. India is building up its navy. Japan has frequently offered its help19 and in 2006, China also offered help to Malaysia.20 After all, 85 percent of China’s oil supply is transported through the Straits.
The difficulties of diplomacy have opened the field for private military firms. It has become known, that in 2006 there were already 24 ship owners who had retained the services of a British company known as “Gurkha International Manpower Services”. It offers cruise line security and anti-piracy patrol services. And the Indian government has engaged the services of one of the global players in this market, a company from Florida, known as “Special Ops Associates.”21 Escort missions through the Malacca Strait seem to be
Piracy in the Straits of Malacca 37
offered at the price of $100.000.22 Given the fact that the ransom for a hijacked captain is often around $120.000 this seems economically sensible. It is a different question if it is politically wise to further enhance the activities of private military firms.
As far as anti-piracy measures aboard are concerned, the Anti-Piracy Centre has already for some time advised ship owners to have so-called ship locs installed in their vessels. Since July 1st 2006, this security system is obligatory for all vessels of more then 500 GT. Ship locs provide ship owners with a permanent tracking of their ship 24 times a day. The reports only function from ship to shore; they cannot be intercepted by other ships. It is hoped that ships which have been hijacked will thus be detected more easily in the future. If somebody of the crew manages to push an alert button in case of an attack, a notification to the ship owner and to competent authorities is transmitted.
Crews are advised to try to prevent boarding, but to refrain from resistance once pirates are aboard. Lately some experts advocate electric wires around ships.23 But, of course, these could not be used on tankers. The Anti-Piracy Centre urges captains to set up extra watches when in piracy hotspots. These watches are a precondition for one of the most efficient counter-measures. Fire hoses with water under very high pressure that were aimed at boarding parties have been successfully used to fight off pirates.
A final remark: It is difficult to estimate the economic loss caused by piracy. Jack A. Gottschalk and Brian P. Flanagan have estimated that in 1998 the average cost of piracy amounted to some 0,0032percent of the total worth of the goods that were shipped during this year (2000: 91). This estimation left out the cost of higher insurance rates and also the fact that the losses for single ship owners could have been considerable. It nevertheless gives a rough idea of the economic insignificance of piracy for the business of sea transport. This also holds true for the Straits of Malacca. Even in 2000 when 75 incidents were reported, the combined economic cost was only some US$750.000 while the value of the interregional maritime shipments through the Straits is estimated as well over US$500 billion per year (Eglöf 2006: 99). This notwithstanding, piracy in the Straits of Malacca is a major concern of the international shipping industry. If an act of piracy would result in a temporary blockade of the waterway, this would effectively disrupt world trade for a considerable span of time.
But there are also losses which cannot be measured in dollars. A deck hand who has had the experience that all of a sudden somebody with a knife was standing in his cabin may be traumatised for life. We know that some seafarers never went aboard a ship again after having lived through an attack of pirates.
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There is, of course, no statistical data. And there is no psychological counselling like it has become common for the personnel of air transport or of trains who has had to live through a traumatic experience. In today’s world of seafaring the welfare of the personnel is not a priority. If a ship is hijacked, the most important thing is the cargo. Sometimes middlemen can negotiate its restoration. According to one of them, most ship owners are willing to pay between US$100,000 and U$200,000. Of second importance after the cargo comes the ship, third comes the crew. If the ship is the property of a Philippine company, the family of a Philippine seafarer who was killed in an attack is usually offered US$50,000 by the company - under the condition that they do not insist on an investigation. If a ship would have to be laid up for some days during an investigation the costs would be much higher.24
Notes
11 Burnett cites an officer of the southern Command’s Marine Police of Indonesia. The involvement of navy personal is also documented by Mak (2007: 201). Stefan Eglöf, however, maintains that the evidence about the involvement of navy personnel is not substantiated (2006: 155). About involvement of members of the Sri Lanka Navy, see: Neophytou (2007). 2 The IMO uses a different classification: a) Low-level assault or armed robbery; b) Medium-level assault or armed robbery (carried out by people who are better organised and more heavily involved; c) Major criminal hijacks (see IMO 1993). 3 The reports of the ICC International Bureau on “piracy and armed robbery against ships“ can be downloaded from: www.icc-ccs.org. The centre publishes weekly, quarterly and yearly reports. 4 This strategy has often been criticised by the littoral states of the Straits of Malacca. Officials of these states – as well as some international experts - insist either that petty thefts, even if the thieves were armed should be excluded and/or that only assaults for which a ship has been used should be counted as piracy. The IMB is collecting data from the standpoint of seafarers for whom it does not really make a difference how the robbers managed to come aboard. For criticism of the official statistics see: Eklöf 2006: 95-97; Ong-Webb 2007: 39-40. This author also stresses that many assaults are not successful (2006: 56-57). 5 http//www.cargolaw.com/presentations_pirates.html (presentation in Nov. 2000, last update July 16, 2006).
Piracy in the Straits of Malacca 39
6 This is contrary to the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, 1988 which contained the demand that contracting parties enact national criminal laws against piracy. 7 If not otherwise mentioned statistical data are from various reports of the Anti Piracy Centre. For previous data and updates see http.//www.icc-ccs.org/prc/piracy. 8 Published by the British Admirality, reflecting information collected by the British Hydrographic Department. 9 Depending on the inclusion or exclusion of small ships the data given for the number of ships which pass this waterway per day varies between 200 and 600. 10 Near Fathom Bank, the Philipps Channel together with the eastern end of the Singapore Straits near Horsburgh Lighthouse. 11 Organised by IMO, financed by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Project ID No PO 68133. 12 STRAITREP: Mandatory Ship Reporting System (Straits of Malacca and Singapore). 13 nine coastal radars 14 It gives continuous surveillance and can detect and sound warnings for potential collisions and grounding situations. 15 Custom coastal radar for the prevention of smuggling 16 For example, Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) which today also include the certification of training institutions, the International Ship and Management Code (ISM) as well as the Safety of Life at Sea Convention (SOLAS) and the Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (Marpol). 17http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/06/0p/FP705060337.html The new US commander in the Pacific, Timothy Keating, is a better diplomat. He only advocates better information. 18 http://news.asiaonene.com.sg/st/st_20070511_118960html 19 The Japanese Maritime Safety Force has recently been authorized to operate out of Singapore (Mc Daniel 2000). 20 ICC, Piracy report 2nd quarter 2006. The help offered would come in the form of information exchange and experts for the training of maritime personnel. 21 The company offers its “completely legal“ services in the internet (www..MaritimeSecurity.com). 22 Cindy Vallar, Modern Piracy 2005, for updates see http://cindyvallar.com/ modern2005.html.
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 40
23 “Secure Ship“ is a non-lethal, electrifying fence surrounding the whole ship. An intruder will receive a shock, and an alarm will go off, activating flood lights and a siren. 24 According to a specialist from the Anti-Piracy Centre who sometimes functions as a middleman (Burnett 2003: 213)
4
The Straits of Malacca as a
Knowledge Corridor1
Hans-Dieter Evers and Anna-Katharina Hornidge
1. Introduction: the interrelation of trade and knowledge
World history has known areas of relative isolation and areas of high intensity of cultural interaction. The Mediterranean Sea, the Silk Road or the Straits of Malacca can be cited as such crucial contact zones. Within these areas, centres sprung up that served as interfaces between cultures and societies. These “hubs” as we would like to call them, emerged at various points throughout the contact zones, rose to prominence and submerged into oblivion due to a variety of natural calamities or political fortunes.
Until the end of the 19th century, when sailing vessels were replaced by steamships, maritime trade in the Indian Ocean completely depended on the monsoons with the impossibility to cross the entire Indian Ocean in a single monsoon (Meilink-Roelofsz 1962: 60). Consequently with increasing international trade conducted, the trade routes were divided into sections or stages and port cities and trading centres acted as intermediaries and therewith rose to their glory. Entrepot trade meant that goods were assembled at strategically located ports and then reloaded and transported to other minor ports. Supply and trading routes were closely guarded secrets. Therefore “commercial” as well as “maritime intelligence”, i.e. local knowledge on products, winds, currents, sea routes and access to harbours turned out to be valuable cultural capital. Trade was enabled and accelerated by commercial and maritime knowledge.
Trade functioned as carrier of religious believes and knowledge. Hence, trading hubs emerged and acted as knowledge hubs as well. Like rods radiating from the centre, networks of trade and knowledge extended from the centres as from the “hub” of a wheel. Indian philosophy has used the image of the wheel
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 42
(Sanskrit cakra) to back the claim of the cakravartin as the one who turns the wheel of dharma and therefore is the ruler of the universe. This symbol is still used as the logo of Buddhism laying claim to universal truth as a world religion. Islam as well as Christianity has spread along trade routes from “hubs of knowledge”, from centres of religious learning. “Hubs” are geographical locations with a high density of interactions and transfer of information and knowledge. They are by no means static but rise and decline, change their intensity of interaction, rearrange their “spikes” of networking and move from one location to another. Along networks of knowledge dissemination, they form hierarchies of interconnected premier, secondary and tertiary hubs each surrounded by a somewhat larger hinterland of declining knowledge density.
In this paper we will explore an area of past and present strategic importance for world history, the Straits of Malacca (Evers and Gerke 2006). We shall briefly establish the historical context of shifting knowledge hubs along the Straits, refer to the interrelations between trade, religion and knowledge and finally analyse the rise of Singapore as the current premier knowledge hub along the Straits of Malacca. Finally we shall attempt to develop a model or at least a hypothesis about the rise and movement of knowledge hubs in general.
2. Centres of trade as hubs of learning
The history of the Straits of Malacca is until today strongly determined by international trade. At different points in time different ports in the Straits formed the main centres of commercial activities and as such arose as crucial contact zones for the exchange of not only products but furthermore commercial and nautical knowledge as well as religious beliefs and other types of knowledge.2 The connection between religious faith and commercial knowledge lies in travelling as the traditional form of intercontinental communication in earlier times. Religious beliefs were spread by believing traders themselves, furthermore by Buddhist and Hindu monks, Christian priests and Muslim scholars who all travelled to the Straits of Malacca region via the trade routes and with trading ships from and to Europe, the Middle East, South and East Asia.
Trade centres therefore (often) became centres of learning. The trading capital of Srivijaya that dominated trade through the Straits of Malacca, was also known as a centre of Buddhist learning. I-tsing, a Chinese monk, who had spent one decade in the seventh century in Nalanda and the holy Buddhist places in north India, stopped for several years on his way back to China in the port-city of Srivijaya, today known as Palembang. Here, he translated Buddhist
The Straits of Malacca as a Knowledge Corridor 43
texts from Sanskrit to Chinese. Back in China he recommended such a stop over in Palembang on the way from China to India to his fellow Buddhist monks. In the port-city of Srivijaya, these travelling Chinese monks could prepare themselves together with several hundred Buddhist scholars for their studies in India (Kulke 1998a: 6) enjoying the relative comfort which the prosperous port-city offered.
Reid outlines how Arab scholars travelled to Aceh, “made it their temporary home, preaching, writing (primarily in Arabic), and disputing with one another there” (Reid 1993: 144). Due to this, Aceh was later referred to as the “Veranda of Mecca”. The trading of goods and the spread of religious ideas went hand in hand and fostered each other. The trade enabled the spread of religion and the spread of Islamic faith created networks and alliances supportive of international trade. Until today, groups of Acehnese Islamic scholars cross the Straits of Malacca to visit mosques and Islamic schools in Malaysia to preach and trade.
Concerning the exchange of commercial knowledge, Tarling outlines the English learning process regarding the trade of European and Southeast Asian products (Tarling 1992: 358). After returning from their second voyage to the Straits of Malacca (1604-06), the English merchants realised, that English goods could not be sold profitably in the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago. Instead, they learned from Portuguese traders that Indian piece-goods turned out to be essential for Southeast Asian trade. Consequently, the English established trade with Surat in India and several ports in the Red Sea before continuing to the Straits of Malacca region on their third voyage in 1607. Later on, manuals were also published to inform trading houses or planters about climate, soil conditions, local plants and products; “with the view of smoothing the path and lessening the risk to the adventurous planter” (Low 1836, reprinted 1972: 1).
Besides religious and commercial knowledge, these centres of maritime trade were of course also hubs of nautical knowledge (Tarling 1992: 372). Due to sparse records of shipbuilding techniques before 1800 however, little historical evidence can be offered in order to determine the extent to which (South, Southeast and East) Asian and European knowledge on different shipbuilding technologies was exchanged. Nevertheless, Arab as well as Indian nautical texts show, that the Indian and Arab knowledge of certain territories as well as of specific ships and methods of manoeuvring highly differed. Arab texts (i.e. the Mohit) confirm that Arab knowledge of the territories East of Cape Comorin was rather faulty, while the knowledge regarding the Arab seas was given greatest importance and a high level of nautical knowledge was achieved (Meilink-Roelofsz 1962: 60ff).
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 44
With regard to different methods of shipbuilding, Tarling points out that “the Southeast Asians were aware of the advantages of European ships and there was a steady transfer of construction detail from European to Southeast Asian shipwrights” (Tarling 1992: 378). Similarly, all other merchant groups, i.e. Indians, Portuguese, British, Chinese and Dutch, relied on nautical, territorial and of course commercial knowledge which nevertheless at least partly highly differed from the knowledge of other merchant groups. Consequently, the ports-of-call in the Straits of Malacca acted for these traders as places for the exchange of goods, products, for awaiting the monsoon that would take them back to their places of origin as well as for the exchange of knowledge. And this knowledge ranged from commercial to nautical, territorial knowledge, knowledge on ship technologies, on food preservation for the long sea trips, for the curing of unknown diseases, and the exchange of religious belief systems. Basically every type of knowledge that was of concern to the passengers of the trading ships, whether they were merchants, sailors, missionaries, scholars, monks or simply adventurers. Reason for coming to those knowledge hubs was trade and for some the spread of a certain faith. But once the travellers arrived in these ports, knowledge that made the long-term aim (trade or conversions) possible became of ultimate importance.
Consequently, knowledge flowed or was transferred from the foreigners to the local communities, from one group of foreign traders to another (i.e. from Indians to Chinese, Arabs to Indians, Europeans to Arabs, etc.) as well as from local communities to foreign traders. The transfer took place in institutionalised modes of knowledge transfer (i.e. schools of religious learning, art) as well as in un-institutionalised ways (i.e. spontaneous exchange of knowledge through interaction with a trader from a different ethnic group). Yet a lack of serious research on the modes and extends of knowledge transfer through trade prevails.
Yet, as examples of institutional modes of knowledge transfer, it should be mentioned that these knowledge hubs often housed centres of learning, as indicated with regard to religious learning above. Besides religious studies, in some port-cities indigenous schools of fine arts and literature were created, especially in the capital cities of the Southeast Asian kingdoms. Kulke refers to indigenous schools of fine arts in Majapahit/Java, as well as the mainland Southeast Asian empires such as Angkor, in today’s Cambodia and Sukothai/Ayuthaya, in today’s Thailand. These schools developed locally influenced high arts, such as the reliefs in east Javanese temples in the style of Wayang-puppets (Kulke 1999: 111). And lines of communication also radiated back to India from the knowledge hubs of Southeast Asia. Javanese or possibly
The Straits of Malacca as a Knowledge Corridor 45
Sumatran architectural knowledge and temple management influenced Sri Lankan temple architecture during the 14th century (Evers 1972: 32).
3. The rise and fall of knowledge hubs
Just as the degree of importance to maritime trade of the various port-cities in the Straits of Malacca and beyond changed from time to time, their roles as knowledge hubs increased and decreased over time align with the port-city’s position in international trade. Hence, maritime trade determined the glory or fall of each port-city, as trading centre as well as religious and therewith knowledge hub. In reverse, the loss of local knowledge could also lead to the decline of a port-city.
From 670 until 1025 (some authors even state 12863), the maritime empire Srivijaya with its centre in Palembang, East Sumatra controlled the main trade routes in the Southeast Asian Archipelago (Kulke 1998b). Yet, from the late thirteenth century onwards, Muslim traders established a trading centre in Pase (Pasai), Aceh, northern Sumatra at the western entrance point to the Straits of Malacca (Reid 1988: 7). As described by Odorigo (circa 1323) and Ibn Battuta (1345-1346) (quoted by Schrieke 1966: 16), “the increase in the power of the state was accompanied by an intensification of its Mohammedan convictions”, which points to the above mentioned parallel development of commercial hubs as centres of religion and knowledge. Palembang was increasingly loosing its former monopoly status, further accelerated by Jambi, also eastern Sumatra, gaining more and more importance as a pepper port. Consequently, Hindu Javanese traders left Palembang in order to create a new commercial centre in the Straits of Malacca. After being only partially successful in Singapore which was still too close to the emerging empire of Majapahit, they moved northwards after 1377 to the then village of Malacca. Amongst these traders from Palembang was the prince Parameshvara who is said to have founded the port-city of Malacca in 1400 with support from China (Kulke 1998a: 7).
Schrieke describes
“although Pase and above all the nearby pepper port Pidië remained places of importance for a long time afterwards, the focal point of international trade soon (around 1450) shifted from Pase to Malacca” (Schrieke 1966: 17).
Palembang had lost its former superior position and Malacca rose to become the intercontinental trading centre in the region through which the trade from the East and the West passed. Close to Palembang, Jambi further established itself as commercial hub in the East of Sumatra. These hubs before
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 46
and during colonial times along the Straits of Malacca are illustrated in the map beneath.
Map 4.1: Historical trade and knowledge hubs along the Straits of Malacca
The arrival of the Portuguese in the Straits of Malacca in 1509 and their conquering of Malacca in 1511 resulted in religion-based and -structured competitions between Christian and Muslim traders. Although the Asian merchants were able to build on the advantage of being more established and experienced in the region than the Portuguese and all later groups of European traders, these European merchants possessed the advantage of being heavily supported, some of the initial endeavours in the region even fully financed, by their governments (Tarling 1992: 353ff). The religion-based struggle between Christian and Muslim merchants resulted in Muslim traders avoiding the usual trade route along the eastern coast of Sumatra and a preference towards a route along the western coast of the island. Together with the choice of this diverted trade route, the Muslim traders from Malacca and other commercial centres in the Straits decided to establish Aceh at the most northern tip of Sumatra as their trading post. Furthermore, some of the Muslim traders settled in Banten, western Java where they succeeded in establishing the power of Islam before the Portuguese arrived there. Hence, the flowering of Aceh and Banten as trade
The Straits of Malacca as a Knowledge Corridor 47
centres originates from the competition between Christian and Muslim traders. The Portuguese attempt to destroy Muslim trade in the region by conquering Malacca had proven to be impossible. Instead, the Muslim centres of trade, Aceh and Banten increasingly gained importance (Reid 1993: 64ff), while Malacca – abandoned by the Muslim traders and so lacking the wide range of formerly available commercial and nautical knowledge – gradually fell into oblivion.
By the middle of the sixteenth century, Aceh had become the main commercial centre connecting Muslims from western Asia and India with the Indonesian Archipelago. Furthermore, Johore on the peninsula of Malacca rose to an important centre for maritime trade, backed by its tin and pepper resources as well as its close ties with Borneo and the Spice Islands. By the end of the sixteenth century, the king’s monopoly was abolished and Malacca once more evolved as the main stapling point for the products from the Indies and the main “port-of-call” for ships between India and China. With increasing engagement of the Dutch and British in the region, this position was nevertheless regularly stressed by the struggle for access to products and trade ports mainly between the Portuguese, the Dutch Vereenigde Ostindische Compagnie (organised in 1602) and the English East India Company (organised in 1600). In the early seventeenth century, the Dutch Company for example established a year-long blockade of Malacca in order to cut off supplies and therefore weaken its position. This in turn strengthened the position of Aceh again, which besides its trading activities was in control of the tin regions. It could therefore offer, additionally to the usual products such as petroleum and baros camphor, menyan, gold and pepper and tin in rich quantities (Schrieke 1966: 59).
In 1641 the Dutch Company captured Malacca and therewith broke the competitive power of the Portuguese and directly improved its own power position in its rivalry with the British who had arrived in the Archipelago. The Dutch company from then onwards used its strengthened position in Malacca4
to slowly subordinate the main nodal points of maritime trade in the Straits region, starting with Palembang and Jambi (both eastern Sumatra), followed by Aceh (northern Sumatra), Kedah (1642), Ujung Salang (1643), Bangeri (1645) and Perak (1650), which are located on the Malay Peninsula, upper entrance of the Straits of Malacca (Schrieke 1966: 62-63). Malacca as their capital for maritime trade in the Straits of Malacca rose to a dominant position in the Straits regarding trade of goods and the exchange of knowledge.
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 48
4.1 Old town centre of Malacca, photo H.-D. Evers, 2006.
It therewith is not exaggerated to call Malacca the dominant trade and knowledge hub in the Straits in the fifteenth century right up to the rise of British influence.5 Yet, the situation changed dramatically in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century. In 1786, Georgetown, the capital city of Pinang-Island off the north-western coast of Malaysia, was founded by Captain Francis Light, a trader of the British East India Company as a port-of-call for the company in the Straits of Malacca. Georgetown soon overtook Malacca in its importance for maritime trade as well as knowledge hub in the Straits. Malacca which had been governed by the Dutch since 1641 became British from 1795 to 18186 and again in 1824 with the signing of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty by Great Britain and the Netherlands.
In this treaty – also known as the Treaty of London – Great Britain and the Netherlands carved out their territories in Southeast Asia and divided it into a British zone in the North and a Dutch zone in the South. The settlements Pinang, Malacca and Singapore were governed independently from these two zones as one unit: the Straits Settlements (see map 4.1). In the first years, Georgetown formed the capital of these settlements. Yet in 1832, the capital moved to Singapore and in 1867 the Settlements became a British Crown Colony. The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 and the founding of the Straits Settlements therewith established Pinang, Malacca and Singapore as the three major port-cities in the Straits of Malacca. Here, trade could be conducted (relatively) free of conflict motivated by religious differences, power struggles and the urge for territorial control. With the move of the Settlement’s capital to Singapore in 1832, the opportunity arose for Singapore to actively develop itself
The Straits of Malacca as a Knowledge Corridor 49
into the main commercial centre as well as knowledge hub in the Straits of Malacca region.
4. The Straits of Malacca as knowledge corridor
The Straits Settlements, Georgetown, Malacca and later Singapore, rose as the main trading centres in the Straits of Malacca region and therewith as the ports-of-call for all trading ships passing through the Straits on their way from Europe or India to China. The trade brought wealth that further accelerated the growth of producing industries as well as the service sector. This diversification of the economy as well as the growing administrative bodies of the colonial powers in the region required skilled and formally educated labourers. Consequently, the first schools and universities were founded. In 1816, the first Malaysian school, the Pinang Free School, was founded in the then flowering trading centre of Georgetown. In 1823, Sir Stamford Raffles is quoted to have proposed the establishment of a College that would provide educational and research facilities in Singapore. This proposition was answered in 1905 with the founding of The Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, which is renamed into King Edward VII Medical School in 1913 (renamed in 1921 into King Edward VII College of Medicine). It was the first institution of higher learning in Singapore. Additionally, the Raffles College was set up in 1928 and with the merger with King Edward VII College of Medicine in 1949, these two colleges led to the founding of the University of Malaya. On the website of today’s National University of Singapore the newly founded University of Malaya is described as “a beacon of knowledge that beamed across both sides of the causeway”. As the first university with full-degree granting powers in the Straits of Malacca region, the University of Malaya expanded rapidly and opened up another branch in Kuala Lumpur in 1959. While the Singapore branch was renamed into University of Singapore in 1962 (and in 1980 after merging with the Nanyang University into National University of Singapore), the Malaysian branch carries the name University Malaya until today.
In Medan, not a Straits Settlement but one of today’s knowledge hubs along the Straits, located along the north-eastern coast of Sumatra, the first universities, Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) and Universitas Islam Sumatera Utara, were founded in 1952, closely followed by Universitas HKBP Nommensen in 1954, Universitas Cut Nyak Dhien and Universitas Muslim Nusantara Al-Wasliyah in 1956, Universitas Muhammadiyah Sumatera Utara in 1957, Universitas Alwashliyah in 1958, and Universitas Darma Agung in 1959.7 Several more universities were founded in Medan in the 1960s and then again
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 50
in the 1980s catering for the increased demand for education by a growing population and a developing economy.
The history of schools of higher learning in the Straits of Malacca region correlates with the rise and fall of centres of trade along the maritime passage way (see map 4.1). The first school of Malaysia opened up in the then centre of maritime trade Georgetown. The first university in the region was founded in the then British Crown Colony Singapore. While Malacca had been the most important trading port from the fifteenth right up to the early nineteenth century (long before the first universities existed in the Straits region), it was overtaken by Georgetown/Pinang and Singapore in the later nineteenth and twentieth century. Today, Malacca mainly houses branch offices of Malaysian schools of higher learning, no main campi, while the knowledge structures of Singapore and Pinang (in 1962, the Universiti Sains Malaysia is founded in Pinang) rest on a far more diverse environment of universities, polytechnics, private and public research institutes. These educational institutions did not only cater for the land population but increasingly attracted students from across the Straits of Malacca, turning them into internationally connected knowledge hubs, very much like the trading centres and port-cities along the Straits.
If one assesses the sheer quantity of schools of higher learning in towns and districts along the Straits of Malacca, the picture illustrated in diagram 4.1 can be found.
The Straits of Malacca as a Knowledge Corridor 51
Diagram 4.1: Allocation of institutions of higher learning and research in
the Straits of Malacca region
* Kulim/Kulim High Tech Park includes Kulim, Sintok, Mahang ** Pulau Pinang includes Georgetown, Bukit Minyak, Tanjong Bunga, Balik Pulau, Air Hitam, Bukit Coombe, Gelugor, Bayan Baru, Jelutong *** Seberang Perai (Pinang Mainland) includes Butterworth, Perai, Permatang Pauh, Seberang Jaya, Bukit Mertajam **** Multi-Media Super Corridor includes Kuala Lumpur, Serdang, Bangi, Btg Berjuntai, Cyberjaya, Petaling Jaya, Subang Jaya, Kajang, Bandar, Puchong, Klang
Diagram 4. clearly states that (a) a decentralised distribution of educational institutions exists along the western coast of Malaysia and the north-eastern coast of Sumatra/Indonesia, as well as (b) nevertheless four main centres of higher learning and research along the Straits of Malacca can be identified, namely the Multi-Media Super Corridor (MSC), Pulau Pinang, Medan and Singapore. This is illustrated in the map below.
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 52
Map 4.2: Today’s knowledge hubs along the Straits of Malacca
In terms of quantity of institutions, the Multi-Media Super Corridor (MSC) in the east of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia forms the main knowledge hub. The MSC is part of the government long-term plan “Wawasan 2020” from 1991, in which the government of Malaysia formulated the explicit aim to develop Malaysia into an industrialised nation by the year 2020. In order to do so, the government identified the 15km wide and 50km long region between the Petronas Twin Towers and Kuala Lumpur International Airport (including the cities Cyberjaya and Putrajaya) as a special economic area for industries in the field of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Yet, since the ICT-industry and related companies (i.e. knowledge-intensive and creative industries) require highly-educated staff as well as research outcomes, the government of Malaysia and private education providers actively and with enormous financial input developed the education and research environment in the MSC in the past fifteen years.
The traditionally grown centre of higher education and research along the Straits of Malacca and within Malaysia is the island of Pinang, located in front of the harbour of Butterworth on Pinang Mainland. On the other side of the maritime passage way, along the cost of northern Sumatra, Medan with its
The Straits of Malacca as a Knowledge Corridor 53
close-by port Belawan forms the Indonesian knowledge hub along the Straits. In terms of pure numbers of higher learning and research institutions these three knowledge hubs exceed Singapore by far. Yet, when looking at the knowledge produced and taught in these knowledge hubs, Singapore clearly acts as the main knowledge hub in the region, forming a centre in which qualitatively high local knowledge is produced and globalised by passing peer-reviews of internationally renowned scientific journals, participating in conferences worldwide, getting patents passed and therefore successfully using this knowledge for economic growth (Gerke and Evers 2006). While the remaining knowledge hubs in the region, Pinang, the MSC and Medan are mainly centres of knowledge transmission (via universities and educational facilities), Singapore houses a high number of internationally-linked research institutes and therefore focuses – besides on knowledge transmission – increasingly on knowledge production.8
5. Singapore as central knowledge hub
After becoming independent in 1965, Singapore economically developed itself from a less developed into an industrialised country within three centuries. Traditionally and until the late 1960s, Singapore’s economy was – as all trading centres in the Straits of Malacca – based on the port as the centre for international and regional trade. Around this port, numerous small manufacturing sites were established, producing wigs, kitchenware and other low skill manufacturing items. Yet, with increasingly low-skilled manufacturing sites moving out of Singapore to neighbouring countries in the late 1970s, the Singaporean government had to identify new economic sectors to tap into. After two expert groups formed by the government returned to Singapore from visits to the USA and Japan in 1980, the decision was made to develop Singapore into a regional centre for computer and disk drive production (Ang 1992). Yet, the neighbouring countries developed as well and Singapore realised in the late 1980s that it had to increase local content production (i.e. local knowledge) and the local development of advanced technologies in order to move up the value chain (Anwar and Zheng 2004). Consequently, the total public and private R&D spending as a percentage of the GDP was heavily increased and a multitude of research institutes was formed (A*STAR 2005: 26), as further outlined in Hornidge in this volume.
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 54
4.2 Public advertisement on a bus of the National University of Singapore for developing Singapore into a knowledge hub, photo A.-K. Hornidge, 2005.
The government’s aim to develop Singapore into a globally-linked knowledge society resulted in enormous action focusing on (a) building a technological and legal infrastructure for the usage of information and communication technologies (ICTs), (b) fostering ICT-applications in all areas of public and private life, (c) increasing the level of local knowledge transmission, as well as (c) raising the level of creativity (via investments into the arts, social and human sciences) in society for increased innovations and creative ideas to happen (Hornidge in this volume). These government activities strengthened Singapore’s disposition for a globally interlinked knowledge hub further and lead to a vast increase of knowledge creating and based activities within Singapore. In comparison to Pinang, the MSC and Medan as the other three main knowledge hubs along the Straits of Malacca, one can clearly speak of a take-off in Singapore’s landscape of high-technology research and especially with regard to the founding of research institutes as
places of knowledge production. This is illustrated in the diagram below.
The Straits of Malacca as a Knowledge Corridor 55
Diagram 4.2: A historical timeline on the foundation of research
institutes in the main knowledge hubs along the Straits of Malacca - Research institutes in total numbers
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 56
Diagram 4.2 shows several aspects that are of interest to us. Firstly, the oldest research institute of the today still existing once in the four knowledge hubs along the Straits of Malacca was founded only in 1925 and is located in the area of today’s Multimedia Super-Corridor (MSC) in Malaysia, namely the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia.9 Its foundation was followed by the Forestry Research Institute’s in 1929 and the Institut Bahasa Melayu in 1956 that also is located in the MSC area. In 1961 the Institut Sains dan Teknologi TD Pardede was founded in Medan, followed by the Malaysian Institute of Managemen in the MSC in 1966 and the first independent, multi-disciplinary research institute in Singapore, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in 1968. The first and only research institute in Pinang was founded in 1998 and named the Institut Teknikal Jepun Malaysia. Hence, today’s research institutes in the four main knowledge hubs along the Straits of Malacca – as illustrated in map 4.2 – look back on a rather short history and were only founded during and after the emancipating struggle for independence of the three nation-states Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Secondly, the diagram clearly illustrates Singapore’s take-off with regard to creating research institutes and therewith establishing Singapore as a knowledge hub where knowledge is not just transmitted (through education) and applied (e.g. in production processes) but furthermore and most importantly produced, from the early 1990s onwards.
This is also confirmed when assessing the knowledge output (quantitatively and qualitatively) of the higher learning and research institutes along the Straits of Malacca. For a rough overview we searched the global and interdisciplinary database “Web of Science” for journal articles (in English, Malay and Indonesian) published by authors attached to Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian higher learning and research institutes, as illustrated beneath.
The Straits of Malacca as a Knowledge Corridor 57
Diagram 4.3: Scientific output of higher learning and research institutes
along the Straits of Malacca
Source: The data were collected from the database “Web of Science” on all universities and research institutes existing along the western coast of Malaysia and the north-eastern coast of Sumatra as well as Singapore (along the Straits of Malacca) on 24th of January 2007. Those universities or research institutes not mentioned in this diagram were not referenced in the data base (e.g. not one institute along the Indonesian side of the Straits of Malacca was mentioned in the database).
While this search might not match Knorr-Cetina’s sensitive methodology, it nevertheless illustrates the dominance of scientific output of Singaporean higher learning and research institutes in journals connected to the database “Web of Science” over the scientific output produced by Malaysian and Indonesian higher learning and research institutes along the Straits of Malacca. The journals connected to the database “Web of Science” are peer-reviewed journals covering a wide range of disciplines from natural sciences, engineering, bio and life sciences and medicine to social sciences and arts. Hence, the fact that knowledge produced by authors working for Singaporean higher learning
The Straits of Malacca – Knowledge and Diversity 58
and research institutions entered journals connected to the database by far more than knowledge produced at Indonesian (none) and Malaysian institutions is a clear quality indicator. Nevertheless, it also has to be pointed out that knowledge produced in English and in a language code and culture of thinking that is at least similar to the ones used in western epistemic cultures is more likely to enter international journals and databases. In other words, there might be qualitatively high level knowledge produced by Malaysian and Indonesian institutions of higher learning and research that is documented in languages and codes which are less likely to be accepted by peer-reviewed journals and therefore do not show up in the diagram above (Gerke and Evers 2005). But in an increasingly globalising world, knowledge has to be communicated in globally understood codes of communication in order to be heard. Hence, this barrier of communicating newly produced knowledge in a way that it enters international journals has to be taken in order to compete in a globalised world.
The above indicators, while taking into account possible flaws of the collected data, point towards the Straits of Malacca as maritime passage way for – in history and today – vast, international trade. With trade and the development of particular trading centres in the Straits, knowledge hubs developed and transformed the maritime passage way into a knowledge corridor, specked with few but brightly shining centres of knowledge production and dissemination. Singapore, as the knowledge hub in the Straits which is especially well globally interlinked, producing and transmitting global and local state-of-the-art knowledge seems to nevertheless shine the brightest of all.
6. Conclusion
To sum up this historical tour-de-force: knowledge and trading hubs moved up and down the Straits of Malacca and adjoining areas from Palembang and other minor centres nearby to Pasai and Aceh in the north and from Malacca and Johore to Pinang and Singapore, as illustrated in map 4.1 and map 4.2 The question then arises, what accounts for these movements along a waterway that has connected Europe, the Middle East and South Asia in the west with Southeast and East Asia in the east for 20 centuries? With regard to today’s knowledge societies, Hornidge (2007a) argues that the construction of knowledge societies in each country is heavily determined by the respective structural realities, i.e. (a) difference in size of population and land; (b) type of political system; (c) central versus federal structure; (d) historical experiences; (e) maturity level of economy; (f) degree of economic exposure to world economy; (g) tradition of research and development (R&D); (h) tradition of the
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educational system; (i) level of civil organisation; as well as (j) model of functional differentiation with structures of decision-making between state and remaining subsystems of society.
The data supporting Hornidge’s thesis as well as the historical developments outlined above lead us to the argument that the historic rise and fall of knowledge hubs in the Straits of Malacca was, similarly to today’s construction of knowledge societies, determined by the structural realities as well as the ability to effectively utilise, meaning to translate these structural realities prevalent in each trading centre into a strengthened power position. Power in the centuries of maritime trade in the Straits of Malacca was strengthened and expressed by rising as centre for maritime regional and international trade. Yet, these centres of maritime trade, as argued above, were at the same time always also centres of knowledge production and exchange, hence knowledge hubs. The rise of each knowledge hub in the Straits was catalysed by five factors, enriching each other: (a) an efficient, strong and stable government, securing trade, the main income-generating source; (b) a coalition of two powerful strategic groups (Evers and Schiel 1988), the ruling aristocracy or bureaucracy and the long-distance traders (often strengthened by religious conversions and marriage); (c) established and enforced institutions to regulate markets and trade; (d) cultural diversity (diasporas) providing a trade-enriching knowledge depth (Hornidge 2007a) as well as access to international, ethnically diverse trading networks; and (e) the utilisation of knowledge (commercial knowledge) as well as economic prosperity due to trade as basis of legitimisation for the ruling government.
The rise of each of the above mentioned knowledge hubs in the Straits was determined by the ability to establish an efficient, strong and stable government which secured trade as the main income-generating source. This ability did not merely determine the rise and fall of the ancient empires in the Straits of Malacca region, i.e. Srivijaya and Majapahit, but furthermore the rise and fall of trading centres such as Malacca, Aceh, Johor, Georgetown/Pinang and later Singapore which – through trade – also emerged as regional knowledge hubs. Strong coalitions between the ruling aristocracy or bureaucracy and the long-distance traders, two powerful (local or colonial) strategic groups, secured access to local products and markets as well as the arrival of trading ships in a certain, not any, port in the Straits. These coalitions were often further strengthened by religious conversions and marriage between traders and the local aristocracy, as outlined above. Once a trading centre had established itself as main hub in the region and therewith laid the ground works for also developing itself into an important knowledge hub, established and enforced institutions regulated trade. These institutions were responsible for assuring
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that trade interactions were conducted in a smooth manner and consequently that the trading centre was able to compete with the services offered in other centres along the Straits. A high level of cultural diversity provides the trading centre with a, for trade very positive, knowledge depth. Via diaspora-settlements in the trading centres, contacts to a wide range of ethnic trading networks can be established. Furthermore, commercial, geographical and nautical knowledge, specific to certain cultures and ethnic groups gets mutually exchanged and creates a high level of knowledge width and depth as basis for successful trade and prosperity. This knowledge depth and the constructing of a knowledge hub as well as the economic prosperity based on trade acted in each trading centre as legitimisation for the ruling government. Economic and cultural prosperity served as a means to justify the existing power structures. In the case of Singapore, the connection between trade and knowledge has now moved to a new stage of development, namely to trade of knowledge as well as the explicit construction of Singapore as a knowledge society by its government. Actions taken do not merely focus on knowledge exchange but furthermore these actions are accelerated, legitimised and marketed by the matching semantics and terminology, subsumed in Singapore under the terms ‘knowledge-based economy’ as well as ‘creative society’. Production of new scientific knowledge and the sale of knowledge-based products and patents, especially in biomedical technology, have moved Singapore onto the rank of a global knowledge hub.
The factors that fostered the establishing of each knowledge hub along the Straits in history – as identified above – also provide a fertile ground for the construction of Singapore as a regional and global knowledge hub today. Singapore’s political leadership can clearly be described as an efficiently working, strong and stable government which increasingly focuses on trade of knowledge as the main income-generating source. This is supported by strong linkages between the Singaporean government and administration with national and multi-national corporations. Furthermore, markets of goods, services and knowledge are highly regulated through enforced legal institutions. Singapore’s cultural diversity provides access to a wide range of culturally specific knowledge pools as well as of course to multiple ethnically defined and historically grown transboundary business networks (Hornidge 2004). This cultural diversity and its contribution to a high level of knowledge depth as well as global interconnectedness is today consciously intensified by the Singaporean government by recruiting ‘foreign talents’, i.e. high-level scientists and business experts, who are hoped to contribute to Singapore’s long-term sustainable growth. Additionally, the global interconnectedness of Singapore – given due to its geographical location – is today further intensified by a high-level ICT-
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pervasiveness in all areas of public and private life. And finally, the utilisation of knowledge for economic and social development acts for the ruling government as a basis of legitimation for maintaining political power.
Consequently we argue within the concept of path dependencies that traditional trading centres along the Straits of Malacca have always been at the same time centres of knowledge exchange. Yet, in a globalised world in which knowledge increasingly acts as main income-generating source, traditional trading centres can build on this potential and establish themselves as hubs of not only trade and knowledge exchange, but furthermore as centres of producing, transmitting and trading knowledge, as knowledge hubs. Along the Straits of Malacca, the former main trading centres also established themselves as main knowledge hubs. Singapore as the most globally interlinked and economically successful trading centre in the Straits today also establishes itself as the main knowledge hub in the region.
Notes
1 This book section is a reworked version of Evers, H.-D. and A.-K. Hornidge (2007) “Knowledge Hubs along the Straits of Malacca.” Asia-Europe-Journal 5: 417-433.
2 Regarding the interrelation of trade and the spread of religious ideas, see Kulke 1998a, Reid 1993; Schrieke 1966.
3 i.e. Tarling 1992: 196.
4The Dutch administrative centre in the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago nevertheless formed Batavia (today’s Jakarta). Malacca was merely used as main port-of-call for maritime trade in the Straits of Malacca.
5 For an interesting assessment of “Malacca’s Dilemma” see Story 2006.
6 In 1795 (until 1818), the Dutch gave Malacca to the British in order to prevent it falling to the French, who had captured the Netherlands during the French Revolution.
7 These data were collected from the websites of the universities.
8 The relation between polytechnics on the one side and universities and research institutes on the other side with polytechnics forming a much bigger group in the MSC, Pinang and Medan obviously caters for a higher demand for
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job-oriented qualifications in highly populated regions. In contrast to this, in Singapore relatively less polytechnics and relatively more universities and research institutes exist. This is furthermore supported by the ratio of number of citizens per higher learning and research institute, which clearly counts far less citizens per higher learning institute in Singapore than in the MSC, Pinang and Medan.
9 Today even a joint venture of the International Rubber Research and Development Board is located here, a network that brings together natural rubber research institutes from all over the world.
5
From Trading Goods to Trading Knowledge
Singapore’s development into a knowledge hub1
Anna-Katharina Hornidge
1. Introduction
In the beginning of the 1990s, Singapore’s government identified the local production of global knowledge as field of action that shall assure sustainable future economic and social development. This focus appears plausible when looking at the factors of production that – besides knowledge – Singapore can offer. As a small country with less than four million inhabitants, little land and labour is available. Consequently, the Singaporean government decided to focus on knowledge and money as the factors of production that are increasingly regarded as responsible for the creation of wealth by members of the international scientific community. Besides others, the management guru Peter F. Drucker expressed this belief in the economic strength of knowledge by stating:
“the central wealth-creating activities will be neither the allocation of capital to productive uses, not ‘labour’…Value is now created by ‘productivity’ and ‘innovation’, both applications of knowledge to work” (Drucker 1994a: 8).
This chapter attempts to outline this push towards knowledge production and the positioning of Singapore as a knowledge hub in the Straits of Malacca initiated by the Singaporean government. The chapter is divided into, first, grasping the dominant definitions of knowledge in Singapore and second, redrawing the government activities towards increased knowledge production, which is hoped to ensure long-term economic stability and growth.
2. Defining knowledge: a Singaporean perspective
The Singaporean politics of knowledge production focus on (a) certain fields of R&D, which are identified by the government as future economic growth areas;
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and (b) applied research.2 The focus on certain fields of research and education goes back to the rapid, export-oriented economic development of Singapore after independence in 1965. In the 1980s, investment-lead producing industries increasingly moved out of Singapore to neighbouring countries. Consequently, Singapore’s government identified in the late 1980s local content production and the local development of advanced technologies as means to ensure future economic stability and growth (Anwar and Zheng 2004; Evers and Gerke 2003; Evers et al 2004, 2005). The total public and private R&D spending as a percentage of the GDP was increased from 0.85 percent in 1990 to 2.15 percent in 2003 (A*STAR 2005: 26). The public R&D spending as percentage of the GDP was responsible for 0.39 percent in 1990 and 0.84 percent in 2003. The majority of the funding was spent on research in the fields of natural sciences, engineering and technology. Information on the R&D expenditures regarding the humanities, arts, social sciences and fine arts is not published by the Singaporean government.
Besides the focus on science and technology, research areas regarded as directly contributing to economy, a strong focus on applied rather than basic research exists. While the total R&D expenditure for basic research in 2004 amounted to SGD765.05m, applied research was supported with 1,209.98m and experimental development with 2,086.86m. Hence, the two types of research that are regarded as directly leading to economic growth – applied research and experimental development – were supported the most (A*STAR 2005: 26).
The high costs of basic research with little direct financial pay-offs are continuously topic of debate in Singaporean knowledge politics and the quest for applicable research, rather than basic research, has yet to be resolved. Nevertheless, it appears that a change in focus is taking place, as expressed by the founding of a Ministerial Committee on R&D, chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Security and Defence, Dr. Tony Tan in October 2004. The aim of this committee was to review the national R&D strategies and to identify new growth areas for the country. On 11 August 2005, Dr. Tony Tan recommended that the public R&D funding should be increased to at least three percent of GDP in the next five years (People’s Daily Online 2005). The clear focus should lie “on selected areas of economic importance where Singapore can be internationally competitive” and a balance should be achieved between investigator-led and mission-oriented research in these areas. Based on this statement, it can be concluded that the change towards increasing basic research, as a sustainable foundation for economic development is nevertheless focused on R&D fields that are of direct economic relevance and ensure Singapore’s competitiveness.
From Trading Goods to Trading Knowledge 65
5.1 Public advertisement in Singapore’s underground for studying engineering, photo A.-K. Hornidge, 2005.
Although the high costs of basic research are difficult to legitimise on a short-term basis, given no basic financial output contributes to the economy, Singapore’s government is aware of basic research creating a knowledge depth that, in effect, contributes to applied research. This awareness secures its insecure position. Hence, the motivation to support basic research, just as the support for applied research, is driven by the aim for economic prosperity. Therefore, basic research is merely supported in the fields of knowledge production that are of economic importance, such as science, technology and biomedicine. Consequently, a change towards increasing basic research is not a change of the overall definition of knowledge. But knowledge in Singapore, no matter whether from applied or basic research, is very much weighted according to the financial profit and economic growth generated by it. This can also be observed in the government’s recent turn towards creative industries in 2002. Here, the government formulated the aim to develop the arts, design and media – not just as “arts for arts sake” – but as economic sectors which contribute to GDP. The definition of knowledge in Singapore opens up for a wider range of knowledge creation and dissemination. Nevertheless, this opening up is very much market oriented and market driven. Basic research as well as experimental, non-commercial arts is respected as long as it potentially enriches applied research or the commercial arts (Hornidge 2007a).
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3. The construction of Singapore’s knowledge society
Expert knowledge: life, bio and natural sciences
The first recession after independence hit Singapore in 1985/86 and resulted in the founding of the Economic Review Committee in order to formulate recommendations for strategically positioning Singapore’s economy in the world economy. In its report, the committee clearly states the necessity for Singapore’s economy to diversify and increase the depth of the existing economic sectors. The document furthermore looks at other developed economies and assesses that most industrialised countries invest more than two percent of their GDPs into R&D. In Singapore, R&D investment in 1990 only amounted up to 0.85 percent of GDP (A*STAR 2004: 26). In the visionary document “The Next Lap” (Singapore Professional Centre 1991), the government formulates the aim to reach the Swiss standard of living by 2000 and therefore further enhances the aim to develop its economy in a sustainable and long-term fashion. It results in a stronger focus of government activities on R&D in diverse fields of knowledge production, the raising of the educational level in society, increasing innovativeness and creativity as well as the commercial exploitation of the arts.
In 1991, the government of Singapore founds the National Science and Technology Board (NSTB) as statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, which is renamed into Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in 2001. Today’s chairman of A*STAR and co-chairman of EDB describes the beginning of A*STAR as follows:
“Our economy went through many different stages. We started in 1965 at high unemployment and worked ourselves up to full employment. We started with manufacturing industry, low-skill, labour-intensive, then steel and cotton industry, then chemical industry, then microchip and semi-conductor industry, then knowledge based industry. Knowledge is the key and the most important in knowledge is education, especially higher education” (Ph. Yeo, 11.02.05, interview with the author).
According to A*STAR’s website, the board’s goal is “knowledge creation and exploitation of scientific discoveries for a better world” (A*STAR 2006). This shall be achieved by focusing on biomedical as well as engineering and science research in its research institutes (Menkhoff and Evers 2005; Toh et al 2002). A*STAR’s endeavour is clearly based on the belief that knowledge becomes increasingly important to economic and social well-being and narrows this knowledge down to scientific knowledge, which is at the same time economical and marketable.
From Trading Goods to Trading Knowledge 67
A*STAR regards itself as representing “today’s research scientists and future generation of aspiring scientists who dare to race with the world’s best towards the very limits of modern science”. A*STAR comprises five main pillars: (1) the Biomedical Research Council (BMRC); (2) the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC); (3) Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd (ETPL); (4) the A*STAR Graduate Academy (A*GA); and (5) the Corporate Planning and Administration Division (CPAD).3 When the present chairman of A*STAR joined the board in 2001, he changed the boards name from National Science and Technology Board to Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). He explains:
“In Singapore, at the age of twelve, kids take the national primary school leaving examination and the highest mark is A*STAR. So when I took charge of NSTB, I changed the name to the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). It is very good marketing because everyone in Singapore understands the name. If you get A*STAR, you are the best” (Ph. Yeo 11.02.05, interview with the author).
This description of the change in name illustrates A*STAR’s as well as Singapore’s urge towards reaching the top, for being the best, and achieving this within a short time frame. This drive also influences which knowledge production is mainly supported. A*STAR wants to contribute to Singapore’s economy not only in the far future but as of today. Hence, the R&D conducted is mainly applied research, oriented along the requirements of the industry. When the board was formed, it was originally planned to support applied as well as basic research, in order to contribute to long-term growth. Nevertheless, the majority of research conducted by A*STAR institutes aims at contributing directly to Singapore’s economy. The following two diagrams are used by A*STAR to illustrate the potential of R&D conducted in its institutes for strengthening the key industry clusters of Singapore.
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Diagram 5.1: SERC R&D-efforts strengthening Singapore’s key industry
Source: A*STAR 2006.
Compared to the research areas supported by SERC, the research focus of BMRC aims at industry clusters that are still developing their potential. This is especially the case with the biotechnology cluster. Hence, the research requirements of these sectors are broader and the research conducted involves far more basic research.
The sudden increase of R&D investments from 1990 onwards did not lead to immediate economic growth which resulted in criticism. These investments and R&D initiatives in the beginning mainly focused on ICTs. Due to low pay-
From Trading Goods to Trading Knowledge 69
off rates, the Singapore government aimed to identify future, profitable research fields in the late 1990s. Some of the new areas are biomedicine, life sciences, pharmaceuticals and healthcare services. Along the cluster theory of Michael E. Porter (1990, 1998), Singapore wants to develop several economic pillars, fuelled with high-technology R&D investments. This change in focus is described by the former Member of Parliament, Wang Kai Yuen as follows:
“Up to five years ago, investment has been put mainly in IT but then, it suddenly came to a flip over and most of it has been put into life sciences, because the IT-R&D did not yield the expected results” (Wang K. Y. 12.04.2005, interview with the author).
Concerning the current investments into life sciences, he is not certain whether they will actually contribute to economic growth as hoped for. He explains:
“I think that life sciences will yield better results than the money spent on IT. But having said that, it may not contribute too much to economy either. There is a debate in parliament, which says, that to produce one life science researcher in Singapore, our A*STAR-scholarship includes SGD$1m. We are funding 40, so that is SGD$40m and they won’t be ready until eight to ten years later.”
As expressed in this statement, the choice made by Singapore to diversify its economy and invest into knowledge production in order to build up various economic clusters that will assure a sustainable long-term development, requires time. It stands in direct opposition to the fast-track development path, taken by Singapore in the 1960s and 70s. Therefore, if successful, it might contribute to a more reliable and long-lasting development and wealth.
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The push for development in bio and life sciences was further enhanced by the construction of Biopolis in 2001 and financed by the Singaporean government with Sin$ 500m. Biopolis is a biomedical research hub, similar to an industrial park that offers home to approximately 2000 research scientists working in the fields of bio and life sciences for private and public research entities.4 Besides office buildings and laboratories, Biopolis also houses canteens, coffee shops and wine bars that enable researchers with diverse backgrounds and working in different fields to meet exchange and possibly develop new ideas. This infrastructure shall provide a fertile ground for a creative and innovative work atmosphere, produce synergies and nurture the development of an epistemic culture (Evers et al 2000; Evers and Gerke 2003). It shall become the life science brain pool of Singapore and develop Singapore as knowledge hub in the region. Philip Yeo, at the time of research, chairman of A*STAR describes the decision to build Biopolis by referring to the hoped for critical mass:
“I became chairman of A*STAR in February 2001 and said that we should put everybody together. Everybody together, it will become a critical mass. So I (illegally) built Biopolis” (Ph. Yeo 11.02.05, interview with the author).
From Trading Goods to Trading Knowledge 71
Besides creating a critical mass through the long process of training own research scientists by sending them overseas on A*STAR-scholarships, the research institutes of A*STAR heavily attract so-called foreign talents. Together with the local scientists, as well as employees of international research entities, hopes are pinned on these foreign talents to develop a Singapore-centred epistemic culture. The executive director of the Genome Institute of Singapore describes this endeavour:
“The most important thing that we can do in Singapore is to attract and to retain global talent. It is not just jobs, money or the resources, but the environment. Why do people like myself or many others in Biopolis come to Singapore? It is because the environment is conducive for what we want to do. Certainly, Singapore is safe, clean, things work, people speak English, and it is a delightful living environment. But that is not the only reason. None of these aspects are the single most important reason, but together they form an environment that is ideal” (E. T. Liu 04.02.05 interview with the author).
Growing your own and attracting foreign research scientists, bringing them to Singapore and keeping them there is a time and cost intensive project. Building up from scratch high-ranking research and development centres, building research hubs and fostering a ‘critical mass’ within a relatively short time appears hardly possible. Nevertheless, Singapore’s government embarked on it in the name of a better future. Whether these projects will pay-off and lead to the pursued sustainable, long-term growth, remains to be seen. But the dauntlessness driven by a vision to do so is rather remarkable.
Equal knowledge for everyone: an island-embracing library network
Additional to the highly specialised R&D-development pursued by A*STAR, the government identified in the early 1990s the need to raise the general level of education and creativity of Singapore’s population. Consequently, improving the nation’s library system becomes government priority. In June 1992, the Minister for Information and the Arts, then BG George Yeo, appoints the Library 2000 Review Committee in order to undertake a comprehensive review of the Singaporean library services. The committee is chaired by Dr. Tan Chin Nam, then chairman of the National Computer Board (NCB) and managing director of the Economic Development Board (EDB). The conclusion drawn by this review is to position the libraries as an integral part of the national system supporting Singapore as a learning nation and knowledge hub in the Straits of Malacca region (Library 2000 Review Committee 1994a). Hence, the inherent aim is to provide every member of society with the access to knowledge as well as ICTs and therewith the possibility to use, transmit and
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further knowledge. The committee argues in the letter of submission from the committee to the Minister for Information and the Arts:
“We must expand Singapore’s capacity to learn faster and apply the knowledge better than other nations. This differential lead in our learning capacity will be crucial to our long-term national competitiveness in the global economy where both nations as well as firms compete with each other on the basis of information and knowledge” (Library 2000 Review Committee to Minister for Information and the Arts 1994b).
Furthermore, the committee builds on the national information infrastructure (NII) that shall be developed according to the IT2000-report, published by NCB. The NII shall link all libraries and therefore enable them as digital access points for information and knowledge. On 15 February 1994, the Library 2000 Review Committee submits its report to the Minister for Information and the Arts, entitled “Library 2000: Investing in a Learning Nation (L2000)”. In the report, the committee defines the tasks of the libraries in Singapore’s future as:
“to continuously expand the nation’s capacity to learn through a national network of libraries and information resource centres providing services and learning opportunities to support the advancement of Singapore” (Library 2000 Review Committee 1994a: 5).
On 16 March 1995, the Parliament of Singapore passes the bill to establish the National Library Board (NLB) from 1st September 1995 onwards. The board immediately starts with the implementation of “Library 2000 – Investing in a Learning Nation” under its first chief executive, Christopher Chia. Chia, similar to Dr. Tan Chin Nam and Philip Yeo formerly worked for NCB. He epitomises the civil servant that is increasingly called ‘technopreneur’ in Singapore. Under his leadership, “Library 2000” is rapidly implemented. Dr. Tan Chin Nam, chairman of the Library 2000 Review Committee describes the implementation approach taken by NLB:
“We wanted rapid prototyping and the ability to transplant experience gained from renovating or building one library to the renovation or building of another. We said that we will try things; if they work, we will quickly enhance and spread them around. If they don’t, we will retire them and look for alternatives” (Tan Ch. N. quoted in Hallowell et al 2001: 3).
In 2005, NLB summarises its achievements in terms of the expansion of the library system in the last ten years as shown in table 5.1.
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Table 5.1: Expansion of library system between 1994 and 2004
In 1994 In 2004
No. of Libraries 15 73
Collection Size 3.4 million 8 million
Library Visits 5.5 million 31 million
Active Membership 500,000 1.1 million
Loans 10 million 27 million
Enquiries 186,000 2.3 million
Online Retrievals 0 4.7 million
Currency of Books 12 years 4 years
Source: NLB 2005, 2.
In order to push this development of the Singaporean library system further, integrate libraries as centres of knowledge sharing and creativity into the lives of the citizens, NLB publishes in May 2005 “Library 2010” (L2010). Here, NLB states its mission as expanding “the learning capacity of the nation so as to enhance national competitiveness and to promote a gracious society” (National Library Board 2005: 1). “L2010” analyses the progress made by “Library 2000” in the past 10 years, and identifies the development into a learning society as the current need of Singapore’s society based on an assessment of changes in its economy.5 Overall, the report assesses that Singapore requires a new knowledge framework which entails (a) making information accessible; (b) building knowledge and expertise; and (c) sharing and exchanging knowledge. Therefore, the library system of Singapore aims to
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(a) enhance individual learning; (b) foster collaboration; and (c) deepen social learning in the next five years. These three aims are based on the assumptions that there are three main means, by which people gain and use knowledge in society: (a) information – knowledge embedded in information or knowledge artifacts, such as books, websites and databases; (b) knowledge & expertise – knowledge embedded in people, in their competencies, skills and experience; and (c) shared knowledge – knowledge held in common, such as the ability of a team to solve problems quickly and effectively (National Library Board 2005, 16). These main thrusts of “L2010” as well as their intended contributions to a new knowledge framework are illustrated in diagram 5.3 below.
Diagram 5.3: L2010 – Building knowledge capital
Source: NLB 2005, 21.
The report concludes, that
“the confluence of these activities, namely making information readily accessible, building content, sharing and exchanging knowledge, will help create knowledge capital from which dividends will readily flow back to the society and nation” (National Library Board 2005: 21).
Public libraries shall be developed into the third most important place in the lives of Singaporeans, besides home and work. They shall no longer just be centres of knowledge transfer and spending leisure time but instead, they shall emerge as centres of discussion, interaction, cooperation, centres of social capital production. Social capital is identified by the Singaporean government as the key to innovation. It is called “the hidden potential of society” in the report (National Library Board 2005, 23). That social capital is closely connected to critical thinking, and innovation to change, is taken into account and accepted.
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As long as change is necessary in order to survive economically as well as in the case of the People’s Action Party (PAP) politically, it seems to be accepted.
While the report mentions five goals as well as implementing steps, the overall aim is clearly the creation of a new knowledge framework for Singapore, based on libraries as incubators for social capital. Whether this can actually be achieved, remains to be seen, since it requires the input of the people rather than merely the infrastructure. Nevertheless, it has to be pointed out that the developing of the required infrastructure is advanced in a very straight forward way. While initiatives like Biopolis, A*STAR or the “Creative Industries Development Strategy” focus on the development of certain clusters and economic sectors, “L2000” and “L2010” aim at raising the general level of education, creativity as well as social capital of Singapore’s society. Therefore, they establish Singapore’s library system as social integrator. This inclusive character of “L2000” and “L2010” stands for the belief that a knowledge producing and processing hub rests on all members of society, basically on all human brain capacity available. The chief executive of NLB describes the functions of the library system in Singapore’s society:
L2000 and L2010 raise the general educational level of society by “building the capacity to learn and adapt. NLB and its library network bridge social divides and support the bottom of society to cope in the KBE (knowledge-based economy). It supports all social classes, but it also prevents the gap when the top takes off, leaving the rest behind” (N. Varaprasad 11.02.05 interview with the author).
While projects such as Biopolis and “Library 2000” both illustrate the focus of the Singaporean government on the production of knowledge, they concentrate on very different social and economic growth areas. The deputy director of Information Services of NLB sees Biopolis in comparison to the aims of “L2000” and “L2010” rather critically. He states, while drawing diagram 5.4:
“The private-public investment into Biopolis is a lot of money, but it can result in a knowledge divide in Singapore and [NLB] needs to balance that out. So there is the high-end research in Biopolis which may not have any relevance to the lay man in the street. […] So it becomes all the more important that we proactively connect both ends of society so that they would at least have the opportunity to interact and exchange knowledge. Some of them, maybe some product designer from an SME, might produce knowledge over here [outside the circle]. And we hope that the rest of the society connects to them and then slowly migrates to Biopolis or at least closer” (J. Paul 28.02.05 interview with the author).
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Diagram 5.4: Knowledge divide, exchange and divide closure
The Singaporean library system is oriented towards the integration of the whole society into knowledge society by raising the level of education and enabling people to become pioneers of knowledge society him/herself, rather than towards the development of one economic cluster.6 Despite this impression of two directly opposing approaches (everyday knowledge versus high-end knowledge), both contribute to the local production of knowledge as well as to Singapore as a knowledge hub in the Straits of Malacca region. Nevertheless, it is the people who have to be creative. An inspiring infrastructure can merely assist people to outlive their creativity. Yet, the creation of this infrastructure in Singapore takes place at an enormous speed.
Creativity: the gold of the new age?
Up to the mid 1980s, Singapore’s government did not make any distinct attempts to develop an overall long-term cultural policy (Kwok and Low 2001: 150). The few existing cultural and art activities focused on the attraction of tourism and the generation of income. Arts for its own sake hardly existed. Kong and Yeoh explain this as follows (Kong and Yeoh 2003: 174):
“[F]rom independence until the late 1970s (some would argue into the mid-1980s), landscapes of the arts were conspicuous by their absence because the arts were accorded low priority, given the view that scarce national resources should be diverted to develop Singapore’s fledgling economy, reflecting the ideology of pragmatism and survival.”
According to Lee, the term ‘cultural policy’ finds its first official mention in Singapore’s political sphere on 26 December 1978, when then Minister of
Singapore Society
K-D
ivid
e
Biopolis ‘Normal People’ ‘Pioneers’
From Trading Goods to Trading Knowledge 77
Culture, Ong Teng Cheong uses the term in a press release, referring to the protection of cultural heritage, in order to provide younger generations with cultural depth, traditional norms and values (Lee 2004, 285-286; Ong 1978: 1). Aspects of arts and cultural expressions creating contemporary culture only began to play a role in government policy of Singapore, after they were identified as future growth areas by the Economic Review Committee in 1986. In February 1988, the government of Singapore appoints the Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts (ACCA), chaired by Ong Teng Cheong, in order to formulate recommendations on how to boost arts and culture as future growth sector in Singapore. In the “Ong Teng Cheong Report”, as it is frequently named, published in April 1989, ACCA assesses the state of the arts and culture in Singapore as well as formulates measures for creating a culturally vibrant Singapore (ACCA 1989). The report includes multiple recommendations aiming at the shaping of the cultural landscape of Singapore. As such it recognises the necessity to establish a new agency which spearheads the development of the arts in Singapore, the creation of a museum complex in the central civic district and the construction of a performing arts centre at Marina Bay (Advisory Council for Culture and the Arts 1989, 5-6). Furthermore, it recommends the establishment of a Literature Board, a National Heritage Trust and improvements to arts education in schools. Following these recommendations, the Ministry of Information and the Arts (MITA), today MICA, is founded in 1990. Furthermore in the same year, the construction of “The Esplanade” is announced by the government as a multimillion-dollar arts venue. As further coordinating and planning bodies, the National Arts Council (NAC) as well as the National Heritage Board (NHB) is established in 1991 and 1993, respectively. While it is the task of NAC to raise the interest of the general public in arts and cultural activities, NHB oversees the development of a museum scene, the preservation of cultural heritage as well as archival record keeping. The report can be regarded as the first blueprint of a Singaporean cultural policy (Lee 2004: 286). Yet, the following efforts aiming at the creation of a culturally vibrant Singapore were mainly designed as “money spinning blockbuster performances” (Lee, 2004: 288). Until today, most performances are conducted by foreign, not local theatre groups; most plays are written by foreign authors and only rarely narrate Singaporean stories.
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5.2 View from Boatkey to Esplanade, Durian-shaped opera-building and Central Business District in the background, photo A.-K. Hornidge, 2005.
5.3 View from Performing Arts & Music Library (“Library@Esplanade”) to open-air performance space with Central Business District (right) and port (left) in the background, photo A.-K. Hornidge, 2005.
From Trading Goods to Trading Knowledge 79
In 1995, the Ministry of Information and the Arts (MITA) publishes together with the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board (STPB) a document entitled “Singapore: Global City of the Arts”. This policy document has to be regarded as an economic policy initiative that – as expressed by then Minister for Information and the Arts George Yeo – “hopes to do for the arts what it has done for banking, finance, manufacturing and commerce, and help create new ideas, opportunities and wealth” (G. Yeo quoted. in Kwok and Low 2001: 152). It therefore re-affirms the already existing focus on arts and culture as potential economic sector (Lee 2004: 288).
In March 2000, MITA publishes the cultural policy document “Renaissance City Report: Culture and the Arts in Renaissance Singapore” (Ministry of Information and the Arts 2000). The report aims at the development of Singapore into a cultural capital that can compare itself with other cultural capitals worldwide, like London, New York or Paris. The “Renaissance City Report” assesses that Singapore has successfully developed the institutional infrastructure for a vibrant culture and arts scene, including the above mentioned MITA, NAC and NHB. Yet, the report sees the future task in emphasising ‘software’ aspects, meaning the support of the local cultural, theatre and arts scene. Nevertheless, this interest in developing the culture and arts scene of Singapore does not go back to an interest in arts from an artistic standpoint but is more “attuned to the economic activity and political longevity of Singapore in an increasingly competitive global era” (Lee 2004: 290). Kong talks of the “hegemony of the economic” in Singapore’s cultural policy (Kong 2000).
The beginning of the 21st century is nevertheless influenced by economic recession, which again is faced by the Singaporean government with establishing an Economic Review Committee (ERC). The ERC analyses the current situation and future potential growth areas of Singapore’s economy. Within the ERC subcommittee “Service Industry” the Workgroup on Creative Industries outlines the “Creative Industries Development Strategy” (Workgroup on Creative Industries 2002). According to the strategy, ‘creative industries’ can be defined as
“those industries which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation
and exploitation of intellectual property.”7
The strategy aims for the development of creative industries as a “creative cluster”, which goes back to Florida’s book “The Rise of the Creative Class” (Florida 2002). Florida reasons that creative people have become the decisive
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source of competitive advantage in contemporary economy and society. Hence, businesses locate in places where clusters of creative people exist. Florida states:
“A class is a cluster of people who have common interests and tend to think, feel and behave similarly, but these similarities are fundamentally determined by economic function – by the kind of work they do for a living. All other distinctions follow from that” (Florida 2002: 8).
The “Creative Industries Development Strategy” identifies three approaches to defining the scope of the creative cluster in Singapore: (a) the cultural industries; (b) the creative industries; and (c) the copyright industries. Together they form the creative cluster and mutually build on each other as shown in the diagram below.
Diagram 5.5: Composition of the creative cluster
Source: Toh et al 2003: 52.
The creative industries are regarded as main driver of the cluster. Here, Singapore’s government distinguishes between basic (upstream) and applied (downstream) arts. Upstream arts refer to traditional arts such as performing, literary and visual arts. In opposition to this, downstream arts refer to advertising, design, publishing and media-related activities. Upstream arts bear a commercial value in themselves, while downstream arts merely gain economic value when applied in other economic sectors (Toh et al 2003: 52). Based on this analysis, the strategy aims to foster the development of the creative industries that will then further the whole creative cluster. In order to foster up and downstream arts, the Workgroup on Creative Industries of the Economic Review Committee formulates three blueprints focusing on arts and culture, design and the media industries (Workgroup on Creative Industries, 2002), namely the “Renaissance City 2.0” (2002: 9-20; Ministry of Information and the Arts 2000), “Design Singapore Initiative” (2002: 21-32) and “Media 21” (2002: 33-49; Media Development Authority 2003).
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“Design Singapore” but especially “Media 21” are economic policy agendas, although their physical manifestation lies in the framework of fostering a creative cluster. A rather interesting aspect of the “Media 21” policy framework is also, that the media in Singapore is often regarded as the mouthpiece of the Singaporean government and has therefore mixed little with other economic and cultural sectors. The same Singapore as the one in which the press is regulated until today by a newspaper and printing presses act now aims to position itself as a global media capital. The seeming contradiction is solved by aiming at attracting foreign media companies to produce their documentaries and programmes on the region; not by encouraging local media players to conduct critical journalism on Singapore and its government.
Overall the “Creative Industries Development Strategy” has to be regarded as part of the attempt to develop several economic clusters on which Singapore’s economy can build in the future. Yet, after focusing on engineering, maths and sciences for the first two and a half centuries after independence, Singapore’s sudden aim to foster creative thinking, writing and drawing was criticised and smiled at. Cherian George, professor at the Nanyang Technological University, School of Communication & Information, Division of Journalism and Publishing states:
“Some economists say that Singapore should just give up in the creative industries sector. The education system has given the students too much science and math education and not enough literature and the arts. This is changing now but not very fast. (…) Singapore’s strength is to get the system right, in logistics, organisation, trade, infrastructure, reliability of services etc. It should just focus on that and let creative industries be the sector of other countries” (Ch. George 08.02.05, interview with the author).
Later in the interview, Cherian George explains the expressed pessimism by pointing to the government:
“These economists also argue that Singapore’s government is not likely to loosen up politically and as long as it doesn’t, you are not going to have the kind of creative culture that you have elsewhere.”
Whether Cherian George or the government’s optimism is right, will be seen in the future. Nevertheless, the Singaporean government takes a very pragmatic approach in outlining a cultural policy in order to foster a creative cluster that will contribute to future economic growth. The same pragmatism and straightforwardness can also be observed in the process leading up to Singapore as a knowledge hub. The final intention is clear: to assure economic prosperity and together with this political stability, meaning PAP maintaining
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political legitimacy based on economic growth and therefore remaining in power.
4. Concluding remarks
While in the late 1970s and all of the 80s, Singapore’s government embarked on building an island-wide information and telecommunication infrastructure and developing ICT applications, in the 1990s, the focus moved to positioning Singapore as the knowledge hub in the Straits of Malacca region. In order to succeed in this aim, Singapore’s government embarked on the fostering of high-end knowledge production through scientific research and development, i.e. in Biopolis, as well as on the development of an island-wide library network with the libraries emerging as centres of knowledge production, creativity and social capital. In recent years, the focus on creativity was further pursued by the development of creative industries, investing heavily in the arts and cultural scenes of Singapore as well as changing school and university curricula with the aim of fostering creativity.
This process of constructing Singapore as a knowledge society underwent several shifts in focus. While the self-definition of the early independent Singapore was very technology focused, it increasingly opened up to R&D, the inclusion of every citizen in knowledge production, usage and dissemination and the fostering of the creativity level of Singaporeans. Nevertheless, the whole process is guided by the clear focus on economic, sustainable, long-term development, through knowledge production, dissemination and exploration. In doing so, knowledge sectors such as the bio and life sciences, engineering and natural sciences as examples for future oriented, applied sciences are developed with enormous state funding. Yet, with a short delay, knowledge sectors that are regarded as incubators of creativity and innovations were additionally addressed in state programmes. Consequently sectors such as the arts, fine arts, museums and the library system are developed, not for their inherent values but due to their potential long-term contribution to economic growth and prosperity.
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Notes
1 This book section incorporates reworked parts of A.-K. Hornidge (2007) Knowledge Society. Vision and Social Construction of Reality in Germany and Singapore. Lit Verlag, Münster.
2 The Commission of the European Union defines ‘applied research’ in opposition to ‘basic research’ as follows: “Basic research can be defined in a combining manner: by reference to its ultimate purpose (research carried out with the sole aim of increasing knowledge); its distance from application (research on the basic aspects of phenomena); or the time frame in which it is situated (research in a long-term perspective)” (2004: 4). Applied research stands in opposition to basic research and is characterised by its intention to directly contribute to a certain application. It generally is research on a short-term basis. The results of it are often regarded to contribute directly to the economy.
3 The Biomedical Research Council and the Science and Engineering Research Council promote, support and oversee the public sector R&D of Singapore. While BMRC oversees five research institutes, SERC supports seven of the 12 research institutes of A*STAR. All of these institutes focus on R&D in Science, Engineering and Biomedical Science. Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd manages the intellectual property created by the research institutes and facilitates the transfer of technology from the research institutes to the industry. The A*STAR Graduate Academy is responsible for human capital development by promoting science scholarships and other manpower development programmes or initiatives.
4 Biopolis is part of Fusionpolis, which is split into Vista X-Change (centre for private-public-partnership and industry development, financial and business services), Central X-Change (centre for ICTs, media and education industries) and Life X-Change (Biopolis). Together these three form Fusionpolis, which is stated in a newspaper article from 2003 to be
“Singapore’s icon of the knowledge economy where talents gravitate naturally and where diverse ideas thrive. With a focus on knowledge intensive activities in critical growth sectors, one-north would provide an intellectually stimulating and creative physical environment for entrepreneurs, scientists and researchers to congregate, interact and exchange ideas” (JTC Corporation 20.02.2003).
5 According to the report, libraries can contribute to a knowledge society by supporting the following areas: (a) basic and applied R&D; (b) knowledge
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6 The chief executive of the National Library Board explains this as follows:
“NLB, L2000 and L2010 contribute to the KBE of Singapore, the creative industries, the R&D and all other cluster areas that shall and will be developed. NLB only contributes to them mostly indirectly, not directly. These cluster developments are more supported and catered for by the universities and research institutions. However, NLB has several components – public, reference, national and digital libraries – so we also able to support the overall development of the KBE both directly and indirectly. We aim to give the population the same level playing field as the specialists” (N. Varaprasad 11.02.05, interview with the author).
7 This definition is borrowed from the UK Creative Industries Taskforce (UK Creative Industries Taskforce 1998).
6
Strategic Groups in a Knowledge Society
Knowledge elites as drivers of
Biotechnology development in Singapore
Hans-Dieter Evers and Thomas Menkhoff
1. Introduction
Singapore rose to prominence due to its strategic location at the eastern entrance to the Straits of Malacca. From 1815 onwards, Singapore served as colonial outpost and centre of entrepot trade. British administrators and a closely knit international merchant community formed the two dominant “strategic groups”1 that guided the fate of Singapore right up to the Second World War, and after a short interregnum of the Japanese occupation up to the 1950s. The development strategy of the colonial elites was focused on securing trade and finance of the tin mining and plantations. With Singapore’s involuntary independence in 1965, a new constellation of strategic groups emerged. While entrepot trade and the great trading houses lost part of their influence, the manufacturing sector of the economy and with it Chinese industrial entrepreneurs moved to the forefront. The new middle class based political elite, the new Chinese-Indian-Malay bureaucracy and the dominantly Chinese industrialist, each strategic group in their own right, entered into a coalition. Eventually a tightly integrated “hybrid” strategic group emerged, utilising the resources of industrial production to consolidate economic and political power. Rising competition from Singapore’s neighbours and the East Asian NICs induced the Singaporean “hybrid strategic group” to look for new resources to maintain their power position. This new resource turned out to be “knowledge” in the form of high-tech R&D especially in bio-technology and related fields. Singapore’s powerful strategic group embarked on a new development strategy, utilising knowledge as a factor of production. Singapore was to become, as analysed in an earlier chapter, a “knowledge hub” at the Straits of Malacca.
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Singapore followed a global trend. Both developed and emerging economies are currently trying to harvest the vast potential of global biotechnology R&D. Many European and Asian countries are eager to catch-up with the United States whose biotechnology sector started earlier, is better capitalised, produces more revenues and has more product innovations in the pipeline. Policy-makers of several emerging economies have initiated ambitious development programmes to tackle the great diversity and capability gaps which exist between countries and regions with regard to the development, application and governance of biotech products.
6.1 Map of Biopolis, photo H.-D. Evers, 2007.
The Government of Singapore, for example, is investing more than US$1.8 billion until 2010 to establish the small dynamic city-state at the entrance to the Straits of Malacca as the place for research into cancer, immunology, tissue
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engineering, and stem cells (see Hornidge in this volume). The so-called “one-north project” aims to be home to 15 world-class biomedical companies by 2010. At the centre of this initiative lies “Biopolis”, the “city of life” which covers 18.5 hectares and includes seven buildings at a cost of some US$290 million. Officially, Biopolis was opened at the end of October 2003. An extensive international scientific recruitment drive has been initiated to attract high-calibre researchers from around the world, emphasising the government's commitment to science. The strategic group of knowledge and biotechnology experts have become transnational (see Menkhoff and Evers as well as Pye in this volume).
At the same time there are increasing calls to conserve and sustain the use of genetic resources and traditional knowledge (e.g. about the healing attributes of tropical plants) in developing countries, to ensure the equitable sharing of benefits arising from them, including compensation via intellectual property protection (see Pye in this volume). As the Cartagena Protocol suggests, developing countries need appropriate administrative, legislative and regulatory measures to ensure effective use of biotechnologies in line with their national development imperatives. Support for local communities is vital to conserve indigenous knowledge and genetic resources (Neubert and Elisio 2002), especially in the still heavily forested areas along the Straits of Malacca.
The importance of knowledge in future-oriented industries such as the biomedical sciences rests on the assumption that knowledge has replaced industrial organisation and production as the major source of productivity (Drucker 1994a; Menkhoff et al 2005; Hornidge 2007a). In fact the largest share of value added in modern computer technology, car manufacturing and many other fields of ICT does not rest on the value of the material used or the input of labour and capital, but on the knowledge embedded in the final product. In the current phase of the economic revolution, knowledge has taken its place as the most important factor of production passing capital, land and labour. Universities, research institutes, R&D divisions of corporations and last not least “think tanks” (Stone 2000) have become important factories of knowledge, which is then transferred or sold to other productive units. Knowledge and not just ICT is increasingly recognised as the main promoter of the new economy (Evers et al 2003).
New knowledge is produced at an unprecedented pace (Knorr-Cetina 1999; Menkhoff et al 2005). According to so far unconfirmed estimates, knowledge in terms of publications, reports and patents is doubling every ten years. The growth of scientific knowledge, supported by advances in information and computer sciences, has been primarily responsible for the explosive rate of
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increase in global knowledge production. The global knowledge base of life sciences and biotechnology is rapidly increasing, opening up new opportunities in health care, agriculture and food production, environmental protection (Sepulveda-Torres et al 2002) as well as new scientific discoveries, associated with serious challenges in form of ethical concerns, insufficient risk governance, ineffective patent (IP) protection, and global-local scientific capability gaps between developed and developing countries.
Industrial society has evolved into a “risk society” where the gain of techno-economic “progress” is increasingly overshadowed by the production of risks. There are indicators that the current discourse on biotechnology, life sciences etc. in Asia is following trends of respective research in the global arena. At the same time, we can observe attempts to localise global biotechnology knowledge by bio-prospecting in Southeast Asia and by focusing on local health hazards, like dengue fever.
The potential and innovative wealth-creating capacity of the new sciences is widely acknowledged. New scientific disciplines such as genomics and bioinformatics as well as novel applications, such as gene testing and regeneration of human organs or tissues have emerged. The expanding knowledge base has led to the occurrence of new enterprises, offering specialised jobs for highly skilled knowledge workers in emerging knowledge-based economies.
2. Turning Singapore into a life science hub
Singapore launched its state-led start into a knowledge society (based on high value added, high-tech industries and a knowledge-based service sector) in the early 1990s after an initial phase of export-oriented industrialisation (Rodan 1989, Hornidge 2007a and Hornidge in this volume). A recent report on the state of the economy describes the road map to Singapore’s future as follows:
“As the Singapore economy develops, it can no longer rely on the accumulation of capital and labour to sustain economic growth. Singapore needs to further develop its KBE (knowledge-based economy), deriving its growth from the production, dissemination and application of knowledge” (Toh et al 2002).
Earlier the foundation of the National Science and Technology Board (NSTB) had marked the beginning of a massive government-led drive to improve the technology base of the Singaporean economy. A Strategic Economic Plan of 1991 identified strategic clusters of manufacturing and services, earmarked for government support. The Singapore Science Park was set up to facilitate
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research and development and to host the R&D activities of high-tech corporations and agencies. Various scholarship schemes were launched to train young scientists abroad. The NII started in 1992 with the objective to employ a broad-band national network and has meanwhile been implemented (Low and Kuo 1999).
During the Asian financial crisis it became clear that standard technology, like the production of mass storage devices, could no longer be sustained in the face of competition from China. Singapore has to concentrate on new, innovative technologies to maintain a competitive edge. This would only be possible, if the knowledge base of the economy would be further strengthened. The idea that knowledge had become the major factor of production was picked up quickly by Singaporean economists and the planners of the powerful Economic Development Board (EDB). The drive for a broader defined knowledge-based economy per se was outlined in government documents in 1999 (Singapore 1999). A ten-year plan (Industry 21) showed the path to
“develop Singapore into a vibrant and robust global hub of knowledge industries in manufacturing and traded services, giving new emphasis to knowledge-based activities as the frontier of competitiveness” (Chia and Lim 2003).
The situation became more urgent, when in 2001-2 the knowledge-intensive semiconductor producers experienced a downturn.
The Singapore government reorganised and renamed the statutory boards that had been responsible for the development of a high-tech industrial base. As mentioned earlier in this book, the NSTB was re-organised and became A*STAR. The massive recruitment drive during the 1990s and into the new century brought in foreign nationals that by 2001 made up about a quarter of the knowledge workers engaged in R&D (A*STAR 2002). The percentage of foreigners in the research institutes is even higher. This may be interpreted as an indicator of Singapore’s high degree of globalisation, but has also raised concern over Singapore’s increased dependence on foreign talents.
There was also massive investment in institutions of higher learning. The two older universities, the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanjang Technical University (NTU) were complemented by the new government financed, but privately run Singapore Management University (SMU) with an undergraduate training programme modelled after the famous Wharton School in the USA.
The output of the knowledge-based economy of Singapore so far has been impressive. The number of patents awarded has constantly risen from 161 in
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1999 to 877 in 2005. About half of the 913 applied patents in 2001 were filed in cooperation with other countries. 41 percent of the patents filed with others were the result of cooperation with the USA.
Diagram 6.1: Patents applied and awarded 2001-2005
Source: A*STAR 2006.
3. Knowledge elites as strategic group – The Singapore case
Like Singapore’s early export-led industrial growth in the 1970s and 80s, Singapore’s current progression into a knowledge-based economy is driven by various groups of individuals, professionals and experts (Vennewald 1993; Menkhoff 1998). We conceptualise these politicians, planners, technocrats etc. as knowledge elites. They comprise several powerful subgroups of knowledge workers, e.g. consultants who are tasked by other powerful strategic groups with the development of masterplans and blueprints as elaborated elsewhere
Strategic Groups in a Knowledge Society 91
(Tsui-Auch 2004; Menkhoff and Evers 2005; Evers 2005). Policy papers and recommendations prepared by reputable experts in an authoritative language help to legitimise investments and other strategic decisions, e.g. in the field of biomedical sciences. An example is arguably the document “Development of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology in Asia & the Pacific Rim, Report of the Priority Needs Commission for Singapore 2000”. Industry interests and inputs are crucial in such planning exercises as the commercialisation of R&D results in form of new product innovations is a key performance indicator.
As outlined in another paper (Evers 2005b), in a knowledge society new occupational groups emerge, that are essential for the production, dissemination and application of knowledge. We expect that they eventually realise their common interest in gaining a share of the new wealth, prestige and power, created by the utilisation of knowledge as a productive force. In other words a new strategic group will merge and either join hands with other strategic groups like the state bureaucracy and big business or will compete with them in structuring society in such a way as to maximise their chances for appropriating wealth and power in the knowledge society:
“Strategic groups consist of people, who are linked with each other due to their common interest in preserving and extending their common modes of appropriation. These possibilities of appropriation do not only include material goods, but furthermore power, prestige, knowledge or religious aims. The common interest enables strategic action to, on a long-term basis, pursue a ‘programme’ for the preservation and improvement of the possibilities of appropriation” (Evers and Schiel 1988: 10).
The most obvious strategic group is, of course the one of researchers and their supporting staff (Table 6.). They partly overlap with lecturers and other university staff who are also doing research, and also publish their results. Furthermore, creative artists are important knowledge producers. They set artistic standards; they may interpret history and everyday life in their novels and create values that influence the flow of social change.
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Table 6.1: Strategic groups of knowledge workers
Institutions Production Dissemination & Utilisation
Higher Learning and Research Researchers & Research Staff
Teachers & Lecturers
Business and Industry R&D Scientists & Technicians
Experts, Consultants & Managers
Media Journalists & Artists
Publishers & Editors
The strategic groups of a knowledge society are bound together by networks of communication. They form “communities of practice” with vague boundaries. Their networks extend beyond the national borders of Singapore, the EU or the USA, even if they are firmly embedded in the local political and social processes of their own society. In a way, they are pirates on the sea of knowledge, acquiring (or at times pirating) knowledge wherever they can. Because of their critical minds they are looked upon with, both admiration and suspicion, as the case may be, by politicians or other strategic groups.
We argue that the ‘strategic group concept’ is useful in understanding the evolution and rapid development of Singapore’s biotechnology industries. An interesting categorisation and analysis of strategic groups in the Singapore context can be found in Vennewald:
“It is this circle of technocrats from politics (cabinett, government bank, central committee), administration as well as statytory boards and government linked companies (GLC) that advances to the leading strategic group in the 1980s. Comparable to once the professionals around Lee Kuan Yew, today the political, economic and social development of the country is governed by this substantially bigger group and its understanding of development” (Vennewald 1993: 36-181).
The efficiency of Singapore’s technocrats and bureaucracy is well-known and has been recognised by foreign observers as a key competitive advantage of the city-state as future knowledge hub. Let us try and systematise key official agencies and individuals involved in the development of Singapore’s biomedical sciences sector.
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4. Strategic groups of government representatives, state
bureaucrats, technocrats and scientists
Economic Development Board (EDB)
Singapore’s powerful EDB is the lead agency that plans and executes strategies to turn Singapore into a global hub for business and investment. In 1999 it launched its economic blueprint Industry 21 to develop Singapore into a vibrant and robust global hub of knowledge-driven industries based on the “twin engines of growth”, namely its manufacturing and services sectors. Under this plan, Singapore's manufacturing and services sectors will be further developed with a strong emphasis on technology, innovation and capabilities. Additionally, an increasing number of multi-national corporations anchor their key knowledge-intensive activities in Singapore. And local companies are encouraged to embrace knowledge-intensive activities, by “promising” local companies evolving into world-class players.
One of the pillars of the “Industry 21” initiative is the biomedical sciences under the auspices of EDB’s Biomedical Sciences Group (EDB BMSG). This group works closely with A*STAR’s Biomedical Research Council (BMRC), Bio*One Capital and other agencies to develop human, intellectual and industrial capital in Singapore so as to support the Biomedical Sciences industry (http://biomed-singapore.com).
Agency for Science, Technology & Research (A*STAR)
A*STAR's mission is to foster world-class scientific research and talent for a vibrant knowledge-based Singapore. It is Singapore’s lead agency for scientific research and development under the aegis of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. A*STAR is organised into two research councils: (i) the Biomedical Research Council (BMRC) and (ii) the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC). It also comprises a scholarship administration unit, A*STAR Graduate Academy (A*GA), a Corporate Planning and Administration Division (CPAD) and a commercialization arm, Exploit Technologies Pte. Ltd. (ETPL) (see Hornidge and Pye in this volume).
The two research councils fund and oversee 12 public research institutes in areas such as bioinformatics, genomics, molecular biology, bioengineering, bio processing technology, chemical sciences, materials, high performance computing, information technology and communications, manufacturing technology, microelectronics and data storage. A*STAR also initiates and
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promotes societal awareness of biomedical research through outreach programmes (http://www.a-star.edu.sg).
The organisation is one of the key players behind the development of Singapore’s “Biopolis” developed by Singapore’s Jurong Town Corporation (JTC).
Strategic organisation of Singapore’s biomedical research thrust
A*STAR’s Biomedical Research Council (BMRC) and its International Advisory Committee was set up by EDB to steer Singapore’s biotechnology development. The BMRC is overseen by a Ministerial Committee that is chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan and includes the Ministers of Trade and Industry, Health and Education. Mr. Philip Yeo, who served as Chairman of A*STAR and Co-Chair of EDB until 2007, headed an Executive Committee that included senior representatives from the Universities, Ministries of Trade and Industry, Health, Education and Finance and the Attorney-General’s Chamber. The Executive Committee draws on the combined experience of renowned (foreign) scientists in the Biomedical Sciences International Advisory Council.
We collected data on the membership of the above mentioned bodies, on the life histories, educational background and additional positions (see the appendix in Menkhoff and Evers 2005). The analysis of the data leads us to the following tentative conclusions.
5. Conclusion: strategic groups and Singapore’s KBE/BM
strategy
The brief description of agencies and actors involved in Singapore’s state-led biotechnology and life sciences development indicates that there are different strategic “players” involved:
• powerful government representatives in form of key politicians such as Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan and Ministers of Trade and Industry, Health and Education who play ‘trusted’ roles;
• top civil servants and state bureaucrats with vast experiences in Singapore’s public sector (e.g. as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence) and powerful government-linked companies (GLCs) such as EDB’s chairman Teo Min Kian or former
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A*STAR’s chairman Philip Yeo. Many of them hold several board memberships in strategically important organisations and are professionally trained engineers;
• top foreign (and a few local) biotechnology and life science experts as members of councils and advisory boards as well as Directors of institutes and labs with professional degrees and vast experiences in critical areas such as molecular biology, biophysics, medicine, chemistry, physiology, epidemiology, genetics, physics etc. obtained at top US (MIT, Columbia, Princeton, Harvard etc.) and European (UK, France, Germany, Switzerland) universities able to link Singaporean players with their own global networks;
• representatives of the biotechnology and life sciences industries such as big MNCs (e.g. MNC GlaxoSmithKline) and a few ‘local’ firms;
• all these top players are supported by a large number of scientists, engineers, technicians, office staff, doctoral students, janitors, drivers and many others. Their wives, husbands, children, other family members and friends also benefit and can be considered members of the strategic group of knowledge workers.
Our ongoing analysis confirms to a large extent the structural-functional specifics of strategic groups in the Singapore context as argued by Vennewald (1993). Political decision, control and supervision patterns exist via high-level R&D committees and networks as well as the increasing importance of technocrats and scientists for the further development of the city-state.
The continuous legitimacy of Singapore’s local strategic groups is based on several factors such as their track record, power and command over resources and ideological dominance. The “official” discourse about the urgent need to build up and to attract new growth drivers such as biomedical sciences in view of the rapidly changing environment and the emergence of new competitors such as China and India “makes sense”. It seems that there is no other alternative development path, i.e. respective policy measures are perceived as “rational” and legitimate. Singapore’s survival and national interests serve as ideological justifications of technocratic policy measures and provide meaning for those in charge (Mannheim 1936, 1960).
The strategic group concept is useful in understanding the evolution of Singapore’s biotechnology sector as this new thrust is successfully driven by several powerful groups as highlighted above.
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Relatively new is the emergence of foreign biomedical scientists with their competencies and professional experiences in critical areas such as molecular biology, biophysics, medicine, chemistry, physiology, epidemiology, genetics, physics and connections to EU and US centres of higher learning. While little is known about their interactions with Singapore’s technocrats, it can be assumed that these experts are very powerful in charting Singapore’s biotechnology and life sciences development roadmap as they are the one’s who possess crucial domain-specific knowledge assets and resources “to make things happen”, understand global market trends and are members of important networks and communities of practice. More research is needed to examine their relationships with Singapore’s power elites and strategic groups as well as corporate players such as multinational biotech firms. Will Singapore’s strategic groups succeed in developing a healthy scientific environment in a culture of self-control and risk aversion? Will we see the emergence of a strong indigenous BMS knowledge elite and strategic group?
What are the motives and aspirations of those foreign experts who collaborate with Singaporean institutions in the area of biotechnology and life sciences? Available data suggest that many of those recruited foreign talents (molecular biologists etc.) do support the government’s mission and vision of this future-oriented sector which is so critical for Singapore’s sustained development due to various reasons such as biographic constellations (many of the top scientists are at the peak of their careers and see the job in Singapore as a welcome change and challenge), the kind of support they get in form of state-of-the-art lab equipments provided by A*STAR, social capital, restrictive and bureaucratic research regimes back home. As Prof. Axel Ullrich (Director, Molecular Biology, Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry; since 2004 Director of Singapore’s Onco Genome Laboratory) said in a recent interview:
“With A*STAR and EDB we have organisations which are very focused on bureaucratising processes … Here you have the bravery to do something radical. In Germany, it was a big problem to conduct research related to stem cells – all efforts were half-hearted. And one was continuously looking for the least risky and cheapest common ground” (Aktuell Publishing 2005: 44).
Do these foreign (and increasingly transnational) BM scientists and their organisational entities form a strategic group? It’s probably too early to answer this question with regard to Singapore, as the industry is quite young and the various groups are still evolving. Furthermore we are not sure how far support personnel, consultants and suppliers join in the support of a common strategy and can therefore be regarded as part of the new knowledge strategic group. More research is necessary to understand the social dynamics of this global BM network and its local branches. While strategic imperatives (e.g. the move away
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from agricultural biotech research to more life sciences oriented R&D works) keep on shifting, it seems that the broad strategic goals outlined by Singapore’s Government, namely to put Singapore’s biotech cluster on the global map, are more or less shared by those involved. The different groups at work in Singapore’s global knowledge-intensive industry cluster have managed to set up an effective (temporary) strategic network alliance to achieve their various goals.
Future research questions include: What are the antecedents and sequential patterns of the strategic group formation process in Singapore’s BM sector (i.e. network drivers such as trust, shared interests, communication adequacy and so forth)? Where there any critical fault lines in the past and what was done by whom/which group to overcome them? Did any particular group try to wield more influence and to ‘overpower’ another? Who has the final say in charting the development strategy of this sector? How about the role of competing factions within each strategic sub-group? What is the role of industry and techno entrepreneurship in this rapidly changing landscape of biotechnology and life sciences R&D? How does Singapore’s Government manage to develop this sector in terms of (good) governance and negotiate with big industry players (e.g. GlaxoSmithKline) for mutual benefit? To what extend does the BMS development blueprint approach resemble previous successful approaches (e.g. export-led industrialisation) implemented by policy-makers? Is there any particular counter-strategic group which would challenge the mainstream development blueprints? If yes, what was done to co-opt this group (if any)? If not, why not? What about the civil society public discourse about the risks and ethics of BMS in Singapore? Why is there no counter-strategic group on the (Singapore) horizon? And, last not least, will the emergence of a knowledge-based strategic group diminish the strategic importance of the Straits of Malacca for the development and sustainability of Singapore’s economy and society?
In bringing up these issues we have at least proven the point that new knowledge creates ignorance, i.e. poses more unresolved questions than giving answers (Menkhoff and Evers 2005: 145). Strategic group analysis may not have evolved into a polished theory, but at least into a viable tool for analysing complex social situations and throwing up interesting research problems.
Notes
1 For an exposition of strategic group theory see Evers (1982) as well as Evers and Schiel (1988).
7
Knowledge-Transfer
across the Straits of Malacca
Riau vegetables for Singapore consumers
Thomas Menkhoff, Patrick H. M. Loh, Chua Sin Bin,
Hans-Dieter Evers and Chay Yue Wah
1. Introduction
This chapter analyses a recent collaborative knowledge transfer project between the Republic of Singapore and the Republic of Indonesia across the Straits of Malacca.1 The initiative was aimed at supplying the city state at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula with green vegetables from Riau, Indonesia, and to provide technical assistance to Riau farmers on protected cultivation and post-harvest technologies. We reconstruct the bilateral evolution of the vegetable project in the context of the long-standing relationships between both countries vis-à-vis Singapore’s reliance on food imports; identify the strategic partner organisations on both sides and their motivations to engage in this cross-country collaboration; present the project outcomes; specify the type of knowledge transferred, technical assistance rendered and lessons learnt, and outline some of the challenges ahead for knowledge-intensive collaboration projects involving Singapore as emerging knowledge-hub in the region and its resource-rich neighbour Indonesia.
2. Brief historical reflections about Singapore - Riau networks
The Straits of Malacca with the Riau islands at its south-eastern entrance constitute one of the world’s most important sea passages, connecting the Indian Ocean with the China Sea and the Pacific (Andaya 1993; Somers Heidhues 2000; Evers and Gerke 2006). Some of these islands became centres of trade, religion and political power, like Lingga, Bintan and Singapore, but
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strangely enough the larger part of the island world of Riau from Bengkalis in the west to Natuna in the East remained until very recently relatively unaffected by the stream of world trade passing by (Trocki 1979, 1990; Song 1923; Wong 1960). Commercial activities were concentrated on limited areas, like the harbour town of Tanjung Pinang on Pulau Bintan or the city and harbour of Singapore on Singapore Island. The islands for a long time remained mere batu lonjatan, “stepping stones” for intercontinental trade.
Owing to its geographical position and historical contingencies, ties between Singapore and the Riau-Lingga Archipelago have been close (Trocki 1979). Colonial history from 1819 has changed the situation dramatically, when Sir Stamford Raffles acquired the island for the British East India Company. From then onward Riau disappeared from the Singaporean radar screen and the bulk of the migrant population looked east towards China, west towards India and north to the other Straits Settlement and to colonial Malaya. This “compass of perceptions” remained in place from 1815 to about 1980 but an undercurrent of commercial networks and migration was still maintained and connected Riau with Singapore. From a Riau perspective, however, Singapore always remained one of the “islands below the wind”, part of Nusantara, the Malay World. As late as the 1970s, Orang Laut, seafaring nomads, still landed on Singapore’s minor islands to trade fish and other sea products (The Encyclopedia of World History 2001). A duty free barter trade centre near the official wharfs of the Singapore Port Authority welcomed sailing vessels from Sumatra that discharged timber and loaded industrial goods. At that time, Singapore’s prime minister Mr. Lee Kuan Yew was still occasionally referred to as “Raja Singapura” by Riau Malays (source: field notes by Hans-Dieter Evers), who put him in line with the Sultans of Johore, Trengganu or Kelantan, while most Singaporeans turned their back on Riau. Students of the National University of Singapore could actually see the Riau islands from their Kent Ridge Campus, but showed little interest to explore them.
Until the konfrontasi stopped trade between Indonesia and Singapore and Malaysia from 1964 to 1966, North Sumatra and Riau supplied about 90 percent of all imported vegetables in Singapore and Malaysia. In 1967, trade resumed but only about ten percent of all imported vegetables in Malaysia and Singapore came from Sumatra (Clauss 1982: 77). As the market was dominated by a group of eight exporters, the difference between farm-gate prices in Sumatra and consumer prices amounted to about 800 percent (Clauss 1982: 78; Ginting and Daroesman 1982). In 1980, a cooperative obtained an export licence and exported vegetables directly to the National Trade Union Council (NTUC) cooperative in Singapore, but volumes remained relatively small in
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comparison to imports from Malaysia’s Cameroon highlands, Taiwan and other suppliers.
The situation changed again dramatically in 1990 with the development of SIJORI, the Singapore-Johore-Riau growth triangle, the heavy investments of Singapore companies in the Batam free trade zone (Kwan et al 2004), the opening of many hotels and resorts on Pulau Bintang and the frequent ferry services between the Riau islands and Singapore’s world trade centre and the Tanah Merah ferry terminal. Island Riau, Sumatran Riau and North Sumatra became important suppliers of vegetables and other agricultural products again for the ever increasing Singaporean population, which rose from less than two millions at independence in 1965 to 4.5 million in 2006. The rapid growth of the Singaporean middle class with increasing purchasing power added to the demand for imported food products (Chua 2005).
3. Vegetable farming in Singapore and demand for leafy
vegetable imports
Vegetable farming has a long history in Singapore (Song 1923; You and Lim 1971). The climate is hot, humid, and rainy, with two distinct monsoon seasons – north-eastern monsoon from December to March, South-western monsoon from June to September, and inter-monsoon (frequent afternoon and early evening thunderstorms). Singapore’s distribution and sales channels are simple and direct, mainly geared towards local consumption. Local farmers are receptive to costly state-of-the-art technologies, such as expensive active chillers and storage refrigerators, to maintain the quality of their vegetables, and yet sustain price competitiveness. Farms are well maintained and organised. The so-called Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) farms are accredited by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) to produce safer and more hygienic vegetables which are in great demand on the local market.
As Singapore is small, lack of land is the main factor hindering local farmers from increasing vegetable production (Beatley and Wheeler 2004). Cost of production is a genuine concern for local farmers seeking to remain price competitive. Singapore’s demand for leafy vegetables is equal to approximately one-third of its total vegetable consumption, hence the need for Singapore to look for a consistent supply of vegetables. The small country imports 90 percent of its food requirements and is constantly exploring new sources of food for local consumers.
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4. The local supply network of Singapore’s leafy vegetable
industry
Singapore’s leafy vegetable industry currently consists of local farms, wholesale markets, institutional buyers, wet markets, hotels, restaurants and cruise ships as well as foreign farms. A total of 72 local vegetable farms are operating in Agro technology Parks, occupying 133 hectares of land. More than 80 percent of the local produce is derived from soil cultivation under protective netting, ensuring a constant production of high quality leafy vegetables, accounting for about $15 million of produce mainly for the domestic market (Loh et al 2004: 11).
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7.1/7.2 Local wholesale trade, Bengkalis, photos H.-D. Evers, 2007.
Wholesalers connect producers and consumers. The efficiency of their businesses depicts how much the vegetables eventually cost. High marketing and holding costs lead to lower prices for producers and higher prices charged to the consumer, and vice versa. Other potential issues include hygiene, environmental conservation and transport delays. In view of these constraints, large institutional buyers such as NTUC FairPrice source their supply directly from the farms straight into the supermarkets. This removes the intermediate costs and hence, FairPrice is able to manage the price and supply of vegetables.
However, wholesalers still provide the vital connection in selling to urban consumers. The system enables small scale purchasers like hotels, retail markets and restaurants to receive vegetables in a much easier mode, as well as a more financially inclined decision in terms of credit terms and cold chain for the vegetables as compared to dealing with the farm directly.
With the emergence of both, national and international supermarket chains which tend to be more aggressive in their marketing strategies, the number of stores has risen from 60 in 1987 to about 150 in 2003 and 182 in 2007 (source: company websites). Economic growth and generally higher incomes have enabled many working individuals to shop in establishments with greater selection and comfort. The number of working women has also continued to increase, preferring to shop in supermarkets for convenience, atmosphere and value for their money. These institutional buyers provide an
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advantage over retail markets, offering longer operating hours, a cool, dry and hygienic environment, a larger variety of foods and products, as well as strategic location in their vicinity. Key players in this segment include French hypermarket Carrefour which is present in 31 countries and maintains two outlets in Singapore; Giant, a Malaysian based chain of supermarkets, locally owned by the Dairy Farm Group in Singapore; Cold Storage, one of Singapore’s most established supermarkets, and a leading standard in fresh food handling in Singapore through its distribution centre; NTUC FairPrice, the National Trades Union Congress’s first supermarket co-operative set up in the 1970s has the most outlets; Shop N Save, a discount supermarket; and Sheng Shiong, the ‘heartland’ supermarket, and a new player in the segment.
Wet markets represent an authentic component of Singapore’s heartlands, where the majority of the residents purchase their fresh foods on a daily basis. However, with the emergence of the institutional buyers, these markets are seeing a lower share of the consumption pie, especially since the supermarkets provide a one-stop centre with a cool and hygienic environment that appeal to the ever- increasing working-class population. Nevertheless, the markets still appeal to a certain segment of the population and age groups as wetmarket customers maintain long-standing relationships with vendors, value the freshness and relatively low prices compared to supermarkets, can negotiate a little and live in close proximity.
Food service buyers such as hotels, restaurants and cruise liners require vegetables in the course of their operations, usually placing their orders with wholesalers, who provide the necessary arrangements for delivery to their place of business. Different from institutional buyers, these food service buyers do not need to order vegetables in bulk and risk financial resources in view of vegetables being highly perishable. Hence, with this operation model, it would prove more advantageous to source its vegetables from the wholesalers with credit benefits and cold storage spaces. This enhances the wholesalers’ position in the leafy vegetables market.
As local production is not able to satisfy local demand on its own, Singapore is dependent on imports from foreign farms in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and China which export vegetables to Singapore on a daily basis. Malaysia is the main exporter of leafy vegetables to Singapore with a volume of around 85,345 tons per year, constituting 70 percent of the total imports here annually (Loh et al 2004: 22). Institutional buyers tend to import directly from foreign farms. One example is NTUC FairPrice which imports vegetables from Pekan Baru, Riau Province, Indonesia.
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5. Singapore’s main import countries for vegetables
Singapore imports vegetables from three major countries in the Southeast Asian region: Malaysia, China and Indonesia (Herklots 1972; McConnell and Dillon 1997). About 16 percent of the total population in Malaysia is employed in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector. 17.61 percent of the total land is allocated to the cultivation of permanent crops. Malaysia provides the cheapest vegetables to Singapore and hence, dominates the imports of greens in comparison to other countries, e.g. Indonesia. Due to the close proximity between Malaysia and Singapore, demand by wholesalers and institutes in Singapore can be met quickly in a time-efficient and safe manner via railway or road. There is a certain preference with regard to vegetables from Cameron Highlands with its colder climate. As a consequence, Malaysia provides an annual volume of 122,050 tons of leafy vegetables which constitutes 70 percent of the total supply in Singapore.
However, Malaysia’s supply cannot be solely relied on because of several weaknesses. The occurrence of natural hazards such as flooding, landslides and forest fires, seasonal heavy rains in the East and the West coast region often cause floods and physical damage to crops and impede transportation of produce to Singapore. Furthermore, the wet conditions during the wet seasons make pest control difficult and ineffective (Chong et al 1991). As a result, vegetable quantities produced during the rainy season are limited and the short supply leads to high market prices. As China and Indonesia are becoming more competitive, Malaysian exporters are under pressure. Relationship issues can also sporadically complicate things as demonstrated by Kuo (1990) some time ago in his case study on the Mandarin trade. The political economy of regional trade relations in general and vegetable trade in particular has therefore to be taken into account. Singapore has tried to reduce dependence on vital imports, like water, building materials (gravel and sand) and foodstuffs from one source only, in this case from Malaysia.
China with its abundant land resources, cheap labour pool of 1.3 billion people and hard-working farmers represent another foreign import partner of Singapore (Mello 2003). The seasonal climate makes it suitable to grow both warm and cool temperature vegetables. Chinese farmers are increasingly receptive to top quality factors of production to improve their produce. This would enhance the possibility of using technology to increase their crop yield and eventually their exports to Singapore (Shah and Strong 2000). Potential weaknesses include China’s huge population size which may restrict the amount they can export. Farming techniques are old and hence the soil is depleted due to little crop rotation. Poor sanitation techniques and
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infrastructure limitations can have negative effects on Chinese crops. Modes of delivery from China to Singapore are limited to air or sea links with respective implications in terms of time, price and freshness.
6. The Riau vegetable project
The idea to increase the import of vegetables from Indonesia is an outcome of a 2001 Singapore-Indonesia Governmental Initiative when both governments decided to establish a vegetable project in Pekan Baru, Riau Province, Indonesia, aimed at exporting household vegetables such as Xiao Bai Cai, Bai Cai, Chinese Cabbage and Cai Xin to Singapore (The Business Times 2004a, 2004b; The Straits Times 2004). Pekan Baru across the Straits of Malacca was chosen as project site due to its central location within Riau’s traditional harvesting grounds of leafy greens.
Land is abundant in Riau and very suitable for agricultural purposes. The climate is hot and humid, similar to Singapore, which accelerates the cultivation process. Labour is abundant, too, and can be employed easily with wages averaging S$165 per month for an employee in the agriculture sector.
On 22 Oct 2001, the Governor of Riau Province, Saleh Djasit, and Chief Executive Officer of the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA), Dr. Ngiam Tong Tau, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the vegetable project. A core element was the transfer of agriculture technology and cultivation techniques from Singapore authorities to the Indonesian counterparts aimed at creating a quality export standard from their own grounds. The Riau Province Agricultural Services, Dinas Pertanian Tanaman Pangan (DPTP) and Singapore’s AVA were tasked to provide technical assistance to farmers in Riau with an emphasis on good agronomic practices, protected cultivation and post-harvest technologies so as to produce export quality leafy vegetables. The MoU also entailed the establishment of two demonstration farm areas totalling one hectare to enable the local farming community to emulate and expand their production of high quality leafy vegetables.
AVA’s extension officers advised local farmers on seed selection, nutrient usage, and later pest control techniques (Wills et al 1998; Carlile 1995; Hajek 2004). To process the harvested vegetables, a special facility in the form of an Agri-Processing Centre was built with a full 20-ton cold-storage facility for vegetables. A custom-built boat was also commissioned and fitted with chiller facilities so as to ship vegetables in continuous cold chain from Indonesia to Singapore across the Straits of Malacca within 24 hours, ferrying
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ten tons per trip. The Agri-Processing Centre in Pekan Baru boasts facilities such as the cold room for vegetable packing and trucks with refrigeration, which contribute to the post-harvest treatment for leafy vegetables. Through the transfer of relevant farming know-how, AVA hoped to improve the livelihood of the farmers in Riau whilst ensuring Singapore with a steady flow of vegetables. Another key aspect of the collaborative venture was the development of an efficient logistics maritime network of the Straits of Malacca to further enhance the effectiveness of the Pekan Baru project.
BG George Yeo, Singapore's then Minister for Trade and Industry, described the project as follows:
“By itself, the Riau vegetable project is not a big project but it opens up new areas of cooperation between Singapore and Riau mainland. To further such cooperation, Singapore opened a consular office and a trade office in Pekan Baru last year. Under the vegetable project, the Riau Province Agricultural Services … works closely with Singapore’s Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA) to provide technical assistance to Riau farmers on protected cultivation and post-harvest technologies. Through the transfer of AVA’s expertise and technology, Riau farmers will be able to increase agricultural productivity using new farming techniques. Eventually, they will be able to supply high-quality vegetables for export to other countries besides Singapore. Singapore will also gain from having an additional source of food supply. This is in line with AVA’s aim to provide greater choices for consumers and to diversify food imports” (EDB 2002).
The ambitious target was to build up the quantity of commercially viable and high-quality leafy vegetables from Riau to about 160 tons a day in a gradual manner.
The project progressed rapidly. Within seven months, production had been increased to 25 tons weekly and packing capacity was increased to 3.2 tons per eight-hour shift. By the third quarter of 2004, the new Agri-Processing Centre was completed where the vegetables were processed and packed into consumer packs in controlled environment packing rooms. The Centre uses the cold-chain transportation system to ensure that the vegetables arrive fresh in Singapore’s supermarkets and retail markets. One of the main buyers in Singapore is FairPrice, a local supermarket chain owned by Singapore’s National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), which has indicated its willingness to purchase 150 tons of vegetables per week from Pekan Baru. NTUC thus continues its earlier trade connection to Sumatran suppliers that goes back to the 1970s.
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With stringent measures developed by AVA, abundant land and labour force as well as the organised logistics infrastructure to transport the vegetables from Indonesia across the Straits of Malacca to Singapore, Indonesia seems to be a very promising and desirable vegetable trade partner. But just like Singapore’s other trading partners, Indonesia is also facing various challenges such as the occurrence of natural hazards like severe droughts, occasional flooding, earthquakes, forest fires, haze etc. as well as political and infrastructural issues. Local transportation from the participating farms to the Agri-Processing Centre Pekan Baru poses a potential problem as delays in transport can damage the perishable vegetables. As much as Singaporean consumers know of Pekan Baru vegetables, they sometimes perceive the greens from Indonesia as inferior due to the suspected poor handling of vegetables from pre-harvest to marketplace.
Changing consumer trends represent another problem as highlighted by Singapore’s Fruits and Vegetables Association (SFVA), which is made up of both, fruits and vegetables importers and/or wholesalers. SFVA keeps tabs on industry trends, monitors the business environment, identifies potential challenges and communicates with AVA on various policies. Their concern in the supply chain is the social trend of young working people who are tending more towards supermarkets for the purchase of vegetables as the latter are more attractive in terms of operating hours and comfortable shopping environments.
To reach full production capacity, the Agri-Processing Centre and farmers in Pekan Baru should work more closely together to eradicate issues of maintaining quality produce, achieving quality control for packaging as well as resolve credit scheduling problems to increase production levels effectively. Certification under Singapore’s quality vegetable production system, the GAP vegetable farm scheme, for farms in Pekan Baru was brought up as one way to provide added appeal to consumers. The Agri-Processing Centre which already has proper management systems (i.e. Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and Standard Sanitized Operating Procedures (SSOP) in place could be certified to ensure quality and food safety in vegetables processing and export.
7. Assessment of knowledge transfer outcomes
As the project introduced various new vegetables in Pekan Baru (which are common in Singapore but not in Riau), Indonesian government officials and farmers had to be trained with regard to proper cultivation techniques, integrated pest management and disease control. AVA provided farmers with
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seeds and exposed them to an innovative cultivation technique, a system called “protected cultivation in nets” common in Singapore (Swarbrick and Mercado 1987). The function of nets is to break the rain and to avoid splashing effects which could expose the vegetables to bacteria, fungi from soil and diseases. The use of nets also makes it impossible for large insects such as the diamond shaped moth (a common pest) to fly in and to destroy the vegetables (e.g. by laying eggs), thereby reducing the dependency on fungicides and pesticides.
Both, government officials and farmers were invited to visit Singapore where they were exposed to local farming techniques, modern supermarkets etc. aimed at understanding the Singaporean market and their prospective customers (Helmstaedter 2003; von Krogh 2003). A significant element of the knowledge transfer between both countries was the establishment of the Agri-Processing centre in Pekan Baru. Its packaging house plays a crucial role in preserving the cold chain and thereby the quality and freshness of the vegetables. The low temperature slows down the metabolism rate of the vegetables which remain fresh and attractive. Pekan Baru farmers were trained in relevant SSOPs, to sort the vegetables, to pack them according to foreign specifications and to ship them properly.
Interviews with AVA experts about the critical success factors of this bilateral knowledge transfer project suggest that “quality awareness of participating farmers in Riau and speedy logistics” were crucial for the successful project execution (which had a project budget of S$ 3.2 million). A small boatyard in Bintan was tasked to build a 27 ton boat with simple cooler facilities (according to design ideas of AVA’s Adviser Dr. Patrick Low) which greatly enhanced the sustainability of the project (see photos below).
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7.3/7.4 Construction of wooden boat to ship fresh products from Riau to Singapore, photos P. H. M. Loh, 2006.
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Indonesia’s government provided land (total cultivation size is ten ha) and low interest loans to farmers in Pekan Baru to enable them to participate in the project.
AVA data suggest that the project has resulted in significant income increases for Riau farmers and is a good example for effective public-private-partnerships (Dixon and Gulliver 2001). Emphasis was put on supporting small farmers rather than Riau’s large commercial growers. The response in Singapore has been “positive” according to AVA which propagated the project amongst all big institutional buyers. In the end, FairPrice took on the challenge as it was the most interested party. Branded as “Value Fresh”, the green vegetables from Pekan Baru are available at Fair Price outlets throughout Singapore. Currently about 70 tons of vegetables are imported from Pekan Baru monthly.
While both governments played a proactive role during the initial stage of the project, they subsequently reduced their visible involvement. The Riau government authorised a local company (“Stargrower”) to operate the project on a commercial basis. As far as Singapore is concerned, support is now provided when needed through AVA’s commercial consulting arm Agri-Food Technology Pte. Ltd. (ATP). Another positive development is the fact that the project has been replicated in Bintan, Wacopek area.
8. Conclusion
Any knowledge transfer act entails effective sharing of ideas, knowledge, or experiences between ‘those who are knowledgeable’ and those who can use that knowledge (knowledge recipients) by means of mentoring, training, documentation and so forth (Helmstaedter 2003; Chay et al 2007). Knowledge collaborators work together to achieve outcomes for “shared stakeholders”. Both, senders and recipients gain from this (e.g. in terms of time savings, revenues or other outcomes), achieving certain advantages which they would not have enjoyed if they had worked on their own. The beauty of collaboration lies in the fact that collaborators often create something completely new such as finding innovative ways of tackling supply bottlenecks and/or supplementing each others core competencies (Menkhoff et al 2005). In this sense we can categorise the Riau vegetable project as a good example of a transnational knowledge transfer project. Besides mutual interests, pro-active knowledge leadership by both governments and participating private sector organizations as well as a culture of learning, doing and sharing, the project deliverables can be attributed to the knowledge brokerage of participating AVA experts whose
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technical/regional know-how and social capital were indispensable. As such, the project showcases a knowledge-intensive development initiative which managed to avoid the so-called ‘knowledge trap’ (The World Bank 1999; Asian Development Bank 2005; Evers et al 2006). The latter can have serious implications for the sustainability of knowledge-intensive collaboration projects involving emerging knowledge-based economies and latecomers in knowledge governance.
The project also provides an example of how knowledge transfer across national borders leads to greater market integration. Both, the private sector cooperation as well as government sponsored projects are increasingly integrating the Straits of Malacca region. Knowledge hubs like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Penang serve as nodal points from which regional integration through knowledge transfer is effected. Trade (in the above case trade in vegetables) and trans-boundary knowledge transfer (in this case agricultural knowledge) go hand in hand and provide a firm basis for further integration of the Straits of Malacca region.
Notes
1 This book section is based on an unpublished technical cost-benefit analysis report entitled “Strategic Marketing of Vegetables from Riau” commissioned by Singapore’s Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) in 2004 which was conducted by students from the Singapore Management University (SMU) under the direction of the authors. New value is added by re-interpreting the project scope, contexts and outcomes from a cross-country knowledge-transfer perspective.
8
Transnational Strategic Alliances and
Biodiversity Loss across the Straits of Malacca
Oliver Pye
1. Introduction
The reoccurrence of haze across the Straits of Malacca highlights the transnational nature of environmental destruction, with millions of people affected in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and southern Thailand, supposedly far away from the burnings on Sumatra and Borneo. The forest burnings highlight the two major environmental disasters of modern times, climate change due to the releasing of carbon and biodiversity loss on an unprecedented scale.
The importance of the region for global biodiversity is evident from the fact that Southeast Asia accounts for four of the world’s 25 biodiversity hotspots as defined by Norman Myers (i.e. containing at least 0.5 percent of global plant species as endemics, and with 70 percent or more of primary vegetation lost) (Myers 1988; Myers et al 2000). The Straits as such and its immediate adjoining areas (southern Thailand – Malaysian Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Borneo) constitute Sundaland, which alone contains 15,000 endemic plant species (five percent of the world’s total), and 1,800 endemic vertebrates (2.6 percent). The area also accounts for over 12,000km² of coral reefs, with more than 1,400 commonly occurring species (Roberts et al 2002).
Today, however, this unique ecosystem is fundamentally threatened. Navjot Sodhi and Barry Brook (Brook et al 2003) warn that Southeast Asia as a whole could follow the path of Singapore, where up to 80 percent of mammals, butterflies and fish have become extinct. If forest destruction continues at the current rate, 23 percent-79 percent of local populations and 24 percent - 63 percent of endemic species will become extinct by the end of this century (Sodhi and Brook 2006).
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Due to habitat fragmentation, many forest species in the region that still exist are “living dead” (Sodhi et al 2004). Brooks et al (2002), using the correlation between species extinction and habitat loss, predict that over 7,000 of Sundaland’s 15,000 endemic plant species and over 300 of its 701 endemic vertebrates could become extinct by 2012. Roberts et al (2002) rank the Sunda Islands as third in terms of threat to centres of endemism among 18 defined marine hotspots.
In the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which has been ratified by Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, government policy and government programmes figure as the key forms of action to halt biodiversity loss. However, governments are only one of the many actors involved in the biodiversity tragedy, and the ministries for environment only one group of officials operating on the state arena. Similarly, much analysis stays glued to a national perspective, in which “the basic idea of geographic spaces as territorial ‘containers’ for the sovereign regulation of social spaces” (Pries 2001: 5) holds sway. The consequence of this “national container-societies approach” is that the problem of biodiversity loss is seen as one of a lack of government implementation (due to corruption etc.) or as a result of general, global or structural problems (such as poverty, or underdevelopment).1 The implication is that, despite governments and stakeholders trying to protect biodiversity, it somehow does not work.
This contribution to this book attempts to explain biodiversity loss as a conscious and planned activity undertaken by specific groups. It focuses on transnational processes and actors that are important across the Straits of Malacca by giving a rough sketch of important strategic groups in Malaysia and Singapore that are relevant for the whole region.2 In particular, it looks at two emerging or expanding alliances, i.e. the oil palm agro-industrial complex, and the life science industries, and the implications their strategies have for the future of biodiversity in the region.
2. Colonial interventions
During the Pleistocene era and as recently as 18,000 years ago, during the last ice age, the Straits of Malacca were not continuously submerged, but rather formed a contingent land mass connecting mainland Southeast Asia with Sumatra, Java and Borneo: Sundaland. Rising sea levels only separated Sumatra from Peninsula Malaysia about 7000 to 9500 years ago. The Straits itself can be thought of as a large valley into which large rivers from the NW-SE Barisan mountain range in Sumatra and parallel NW-SE range along peninsula Malaysia
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connected, forming a delta into the sea at the northwestern mouth. Other huge rivers connected the Sumatran highlands with those of Borneo and Java (Cleary and Goh 2000: 15-19; Sodhi and Brook 2006: 34-38).
From this perspective, the Straits form an integrated ecosystem. The two mountain ranges are the watershed for huge rivers that rush down to the lowlands and meander slowly into the sea. Both sides are characterised by coastal plains, from between 48-193km deep on the East coast of Sumatra and up to 64km on the western Peninsula. For thousands of years, tidal mangrove forests held back sediments from the rivers, pushing the coast out into the sea. Repeated flooding of sedimentation led to the formation of peat with peat deposits in Sumatra reaching ten to 15 metres in depth representing 2300 years of peat accumulation (Cleary and Goh 2000: 22-24).
Vegetation was similar on both sides of the Straits, ranging from mangrove forests on the coast, peat swamp forests and freshwater swamp forests in inundated lowlands, mixed dipterocarp forests in the dryer lowlands and hills, and tropical rainforests in the mountain ranges (Aiken and Leigh 1992: 23-28; Aiken 2006: 181). All forest formations have high biodiversity, for example, the Sumatran mangrove forests boast 25 different species and the Malaysian ones provide up to 46 percent of contemporary fish species caught (Cleary and Goh 2000: 35). The lowland rainforests and peat forests, however, are of exceptionally high biodiversity, with the newly created Tesso Nilo National Park, for example, reputedly being one of the richest in the world in terms of species diversity. Flagship endangered species such as the Malayan and Sumatran Tigers (Panthera tigris jacksoni, Panthera tigris sumatrae), the Sumatran Rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis), the Sumatran Elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus) and the Orang-utans of Sumatra (Pongo pygmaeus abelii) and Borneo (Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus) highlight the biodiversity value of the region as well as its interconnected nature.
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8.1 Tesso Nilo National Park is one of the last remnants of lowland rainforest left on Sumatra. The picture shows the WWF-funded “Elephant Flying Squad” that practices conflict management whenever the last wild elephants rove out of the forest into plantations or villages. In the front, acacia from a neighbouring pulp plantation; at the back logged-over but still biodiverse forest of the park. Photo Till Plitschka, 2007.
Any attempt to generalise the destruction of forests as “anthropological influence” neglects that, for thousands of years, the mega-diversity of the region was used sustainably, and perhaps even enhanced by human activity. Kathirithamby-Wells (1997: 217) argues that shifting cultivation as practised by the Senoi, Proto-Malays and Malays on the peninsula,
“by opening up the forest canopy on a rotational cycle and increasing the regeneration of secondary vegetation […], helped expand the food resources of herbivores.”
Early on, the Straits did not divide, but rather connected Orang Asli groups in the highlands with coastal traders and both with India and China. Cleary and Goh (2000: 84) argue that
“[…] well before the rise of Srivijaya in the eighth century, an extensive trading network already linked the Orang Asli, the interior groups of Sumatra and Malaya, with the sea people or Orang Laut.“
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Apart from gold and tin, a vast range of forest and sea products were important intermediate products for the later trading empires Srivijaya (8th-15th) Malacca (15th), Aceh and Johor-Riau (16th – 18th).
Until well into the 19th century, non-timber forest products (NTFPs) were more important than timber in terms of value. Apart from everyday subsistence use and bulk trade of products such as bamboo, timber, nipa, fruit, rattan, low-weight-high-value products such as honey, beeswax, camphor, benzoin, dragon’s blood and spices. Extraction was managed by “long-lasting common-pool resource institutions” called nagari in west Sumatra, marga in South Sumatra (Colombijn 2006: 272), and saka on the peninsula (Kathirithamby-Wells 2005: 130-131). Even after the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) and the East India Company (EIC) entered the scene in the 17th century, trade with NTFPs remained at a more or less sustainable level:
“The small and unpredictable returns from extraction, and price fluctuations on the world market, favoured a mixed economy in which forest produce supplemented the traditional subsistence economy of the indigenous Malays and Orang Asli. Traditionally, both had adopted flexible regimes of extraction, attuned to market conditions“(Kathirithamby-Wells 2005: 101).
This began to change after the region became more and more subjected to direct colonial rule. After the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 that officially divided the geographic area of the Straits into separate political territories, Singapore increasingly dominated trade in the region. A wide range of NTFPs such as “local spices and precious metals, dried fish, opium, peppers, tobacco, jungle rubber and resins” were sourced in the region, sorted and processed in Singapore, and then exported to China and Europe (Cleary and Goh 2000: 115-116). Financial capital became increasingly important:
“by the end of the nineteenth century, the nexus of interests between international shipper, Singapore agency house, the merchant banks and the indigenous producer was becoming increasingly close” (Cleary and Goh 2000: 115-116).
Of decisive importance was the shift in the mode of production that affected both the type and quantity of traded products that were increasingly needed for industrial purposes rather than for consumption, and the way in which they were sourced. This is epitomised by the demand for gutta percha, a “latex extracted from various species of the genera Palaquium and Payena of the family Sapotaceae” (Potter 1997: 283) that was suitable as an insulator for telegraph cables (and used for the first telegraph cable under the British Channel). A collecting frenzy took place in which an estimated 270,000 trees were cut down within three years on the peninsula and in Palembang and Riau
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(Potter 1997: 285). Trading houses in Singapore controlled the gutta-percha business. Exports from the colony rose to 4.6 million kg by 1891 and were worth nearly five million US$dollars in 1898, more than the value of tin.
“As the price for gutta-percha rose dramatically, the trail of depletion through Perak and Johor led towards the still unexplored forests of the peninsula’s east coast” (Kathirithamby-Wells 2005: 69-70).
Other NTFPs such as the resin jelutong, or rattan, were also dominated by Chinese trading networks that sorted, graded and processed the products in Singapore before exporting them. Increased demand and boom and bust cycles destabilised the former institutions of forest use. According to Colombijn (2006: 274), for example, the sustainable use of bees’ nests in sialang trees collapsed in the 1860s when “swarms of bees’ nests collectors” destabilised existing practices in Sumatra.
Changes in collection, production and trade were supported by colonial legislation:
“Forest laws dismantled indigenous networks of trade in NTFP, a process
assisted by a shift in the economic emphasis to timber and the industrial replacement of gutta-percha with rubber. As well as denying customary access to forests, colonial rule introduced extraction licences that disadvantaged the indigenes and favoured Chinese enterprise” (Kathirithamby-Wells 2005: 87).
By the turn of the century, NTFPs were eclipsed by industrial production, in which the extraction by Orang Asli or Malays was replaced by Chinese wage labour. This was the case for gambier and tobacco plantations, charcoal production from mangrove forests for the tin industry, and for a developing timber industry located in the regions around Singapore. In Sumatra, Chinese lumber teams known as panglong were allocated a
“ten-kilometre-wide strip from Bagan Siapiapi to Indragiri […], the big islands off the coast, like Bangkalis, and the Riau-Lingga archipelago”;
“the area lay in an arc around Singapore and indeed all wood was shipped to that port” (Colombijn 1997: 325).
The process was rounded off by the expansion of rubber plantations that quickly replaced gutta-percha, and became the dominant form of land conversion in the region by the 1920s. Again, the rubber industry operated across the Straits, with key areas on the west coast of the Peninsula and Deli, the north Sumatran plantation belt around Medan, and again, capital in Singapore played a key role:
“[…] large European investors played an important role in buying up and amalgamating plantations. Many of these investors, especially the so-called
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agency houses who provided technical and financial services to the plantation owners, had major interests in Singapore and the rise of the rubber industry was to bring huge benefits to the city“ (Cleary and Goh 2000: 116).
By 1920, rubber and tin made up 76 percent and 97 percent of Singaporean exports to Britain and USA respectively (Cleary and Goh 2000: 117).
3. Modern transformations
Trade in forest products from Southeast Asia has played a key role in creating markets for timber products, and is the main factor in the emergence of powerful state-owned conglomerates in the timber industries. In the 1970s and 1980s, Japan’s market was the main drain on forest resources from the region, and trade networks supplying this market were connected to modern patron-client patronage systems in the forest concession system (Dauvergne 1997).
In Indonesia, the system of forest concessions under Suharto’s New Order was spectacularly successful in expanding timber and then plywood exports, but also in destroying vast areas of tropical forest (Barr 1998). A military-timber-industrial complex developed in which state intervention, crony capitalism and huge profits to be gained from logging led to the rise of timber-based conglomerates such as Sinar Mas, Raja Garuda Mas, and Barito Pacific.
Malaysia, often seen as a model for successful forestry management, followed a similar pattern. Although the federal Forestry Department was quite dedicated to a sustained-yield management system, with the Malayan Uniform System (MUS) for lowland tropical forests and the Selective Management System (SMS) for hill forests, actual forest utilisation was carried out under a concession system by each state government. The latter were committed to expanding agricultural land (particularly for rubber and palm oil plantations), and also to increasing revenue by rapid logging. In Peninsula Malaysia, this led to exceptionally high rates of deforestation, estimated at 236,000 ha (or 2.6 percent) per year between 1966 and 1972, and 141,000 ha per year between 1972 and 1981 (Vincent and Rozali 2005: 116-119).
Logging was also encouraged by the state-sponsored development of a wood-processing industry. Integrated timber complexes (ITCs) were set up as public enterprises, and connected to long-term concessions. Log exports were restricted to keep domestic prices low (Vincent and Rozali 2005: 133-141). The Forestry Department was vocal in its criticism of the rapid conversion of forest areas to agriculture, and particularly so when agricultural development was not followed through. Vincent and Rozali (2005: 119) quote estimates that only 58
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percent of agricultural land was actually developed, implying that degazetting forest areas was often a ruse to allow for clear-cutting.
However, both the MUS and SMS management systems themselves were aimed at converting complex forests to even-aged (MUS) or two-storey (SMS) forests. The subordination of forest use to capital accumulation can be seen by the fact that the rotation age (55-60 years) was calculated according to a theoretical discounted rate of return, i.e. to ensure maximum land rent. Vincent and Rozali (2005: 130-133) argue that the assumed rate of return of four percent was actually too low, and that ten percent would have been more realistic. In discussing the phenomenon that exploitation rates were consistently higher than the sustained yield rate proposed by the Forestry Department (leading to timber depletion) they conclude that “From the narrow perspective of financial returns on timber, the rapid harvests made sense” (2005: 132).
Today, a shift can be seen in which plywood, pulp and paper, and furniture exports dominate the market, rather than timber. Regional economic integration, particularly with China, is embedded within global trade liberalisation, and it is this combination that is creating a new division of labour in the region, formed by trans-boundary networks (Lang and Chan 2006). Capital from Singapore is important in this regard, with the Commerzbank SEA (Singapore) now owning 21 percent of Barito Pacific shares (Barito Pacific Timber Group 2005: 8). The Singapore-based Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd (APRIL) is another major transnational player.
4. The oil palm agro-industrial complex: A coalition of
strategic groups
Over the last two decades, the oil palm industry has been responsible for an unprecedented conversion of forest and other lands to plantations. The rise of this corporate group was connected to a close alliance with the state in both Malaysia and Indonesia, and recent developments have seen a clear regionalisation, with agribusiness conglomerates operating across the Straits.
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8.2 The journey from the oil city Dumai on the east Sumatran coast to Pekanbaru in Riau province reveals a landscape totally transformed by oil palm plantations, photo Till Plitschka, 2007.
Rather than an unplanned development, or as a simple response to increased international demand for palm oil, the rise of the oil palm industry was a result of “strategic action”, “hybridisation” and sophisticated “coalitions” between corporate and collective (i.e. within the state bureaucracy) strategic groups (Evers and Schiel, 1988: 81-83). As will be shown, key players in the industry started off as a mainly European-owned corporate strategic group in the purest sense that effectively worked towards forms of political rule to serve their appropriation interests (labour supply, land ownership). After independence, the nationalist and strategically forward-looking section of the bureaucracy (nationalist collective strategic group) hybridised their appropriation strategy by taking over key companies in the plantation business, thereby establishing state capitalist control. Today, a close coalition (or even symbiosis) between state agencies and corporate executives, including personnel exchange (for example between the Malaysian Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities (MPIC) the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), and leading Palm Oil companies) is actively expanding the industry in a clearly transnational way.
Oil palm plantations were first established by European investors before the Second World War, and, after independence, were part and parcel of state development strategies, although, until the 1970s, the crop was insignificant compared to rubber. First in Peninsula Malaysia, then in Sumatra, oil palm was promoted as a development scheme for settlers and migrants. In Peninsula, the
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Federal Land Development (FELDA) played an important role in establishing oil palm plantations as part of a state-controlled “cooperative” system, and with over 600,000 ha, is still the biggest oil palm plantation company in Malaysia (Simeh and Ahmad 2001). On Sumatra, the Indonesian state, with the aid of the World Bank, converted large areas of peat forests as a development strategy within the transmigrasi programme in the 1980s. In the so-called Nucleus Estate and Smallholders (NES) programme, smallholders were allocated land around state-owned “nucleus” plantations to produce oil palm for the central mills (Siscawati 2001: 26).
Although state plantation companies like FELDA in Malaysia, and Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN) in Indonesia are still important in terms of area (PTPN is a dominant player on Sumatra with 560,000 ha), the new expansion is connected to the emergence and growing importance of transnationally operating companies. Large Indonesian conglomerates such as Bakrie, Raja Garuda Mas and Sinar Mas are joined by Malaysian Transnational Corporations (TNCs) such as Golden Hope, Kuala Lumpur Kepong, and Kumpulan Guthrie in plantation expansion on Sumatra and Borneo, whilst Singaporean and US companies such as the Wilmar Group and Cargill are key players in refining and exporting the oil (Cargill accounts for 11 percent of Crude Palm Oil (CPO) exported from Indonesia). These companies are integrated into global product and investment chains, with European banks important for loans and multinational food and oleochemical companies such as Unilever, Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, and Henkel (Casson 2000; Glastra et al 2002; van Gelder 2004).
Singapore’s role as capital investor, processing location and trade hub is substantial. The Wilmar Group, whose major shareholders are the US Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) and the Singapore/Chinese Wilmar Holdings Pte Ltd (WHPL), are the biggest crude oil refiner and exporter in the region, with 3.3 million tons a year (WRM 2006: 44). Their own substantial plantations only supply a fraction of the palm oil they use in their vertically integrated agribusiness operations:
“Wilmar International Limited […], founded in 1991 as a palm oil trading company, is today one of Asia’s largest integrated agribusiness groups. We have assets totalling some US$1.8 billion and are among the largest listed companies by market capitalisation, on the Singapore Exchange. Wilmar is one of Asia’s largest palm oil refiners and crushers of copra and palm kernel. We are also a sizeable oil palm plantation owner with extensive palm fruit processing facilities in Indonesia. With our recent venture into biodiesel, we are set to become one of the world's largest producers of palm biodiesel. Our integrated agribusiness model captures the entire value chain of the palm oil
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business, from oil palm cultivation and milling, to the refining, processing, branding, merchandising and distribution of a wide range of palm and lauric oils, and related products” (Wilmar International 2007).
The group has 15 estates and 17 mills on Sumatra alone. Another major corporation based in Singapore is the Jardine Matheson Group, whose company Jardine Cycle & Carriage acquired 51 percent of Astra International in 2005. Astra International is “one of the largest CPO producers in Indonesia”, via its subsidiary Astra Agro Lestari Tbk. In 2006, the company had 216,000 ha of oil palm plantations on Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi and produced over 900,000 tons of CPO (Astra International 2006: 67).
The symbiosis of corporate and collective (bureaucratic) strategic groups and the new regional expansion of the oil palm agro-industrial complex is epitomised by the ongoing “mega plantation merger” of three of Malaysia’s biggest palm oil conglomerates to form SYNERGY Drive. Together, the merged companies Golden Hope Plantations Berhad (and subsidiary Mentakab Rubber Company (Malaya) Berhad), the Sime-Darby Group (including subsidiaries Sime Engineering Services Berhad, Sime UEP Properties Berhad) and Kumpulan Guthrie Berhad (including subsidiaries Guthrie Ropel Berhad and Highlands & Lowlands Berhad) will have a combined market capitalisation of around 39 billion MRY (11 billion US dollars) (Moses 2007), and control up to 600,000ha of oil plantations.
Table 8.1: Combined oil palm plantations in the SYNERGY drive merger – in ha
Peninsula Malaysia
Sumatra Sabah and Sarawak
Kalimantan
Golden Hope 84,000 74,000 14,000
Sime-Darby 60,000 10,000 10,000
Guthrie 96,000 90,000 4,000 127,000
SYNERGY Drive
240,000 90,000 88,000 151,000
Source: Golden Hope Plantations Berhad 2006, Kumpulan Guthrie Berhad 2006, Sime Darby Berhad 2006.
The three companies show a similar pattern, with origins in British-owned trading-house-plantation-business linked to Singapore, a nationalisation or “bumiputerisation” in the 1970s/1980s, and a re-emergence as global corporate players in recent years, a process that will be accelerated by the merger plans.
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Golden Hope started out as British merchants named Harrisons and Crossfield, who started trading tea and coffee in 1844 and then moved into the plantation business. In 1982, the state investment company Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) became the majority shareholder and the company was renamed Golden Hope Plantations Berhad in 1990.3 Apart from 170,000ha of oil palm plantations, the group operates 24 oil palm mills, and is involved in the downstream processing of oils and fats, with its own food brands Golden Jomalina and Austral Edible Oils. In 2006, the group processed 770,000 tonnes of Crude Palm Oil (CPO).
The group has expanded massively in downstream industries in the last few years. Global oil and food ventures include the Golden Hope-Nha Be company in Vietnam, Unimills in the Netherlands, Hudson & Knight in South Africa, a joint venture with the Saudi Arabian company Savola Edible Oils Company (now AFIA) and the acquisition of Cognis Oleochemicals (M) Sdn Bhd and Cognis Deutschland GmbH & Co., “making it one of the world’s largest oleochemical companies” (Golden Hope 2006: 85).
The Sime-Darby Group was founded in 1910 as a British-owned rubber estate in Malacca. In the so-called “Dawn Raid”, the company was taken over by Malaysian companies (the state trading company PERNAS and its then subsidiary Tradewinds (M) Sdn Berhad4). Terming itself “Malaysia’s leading multinational and one of Southeast Asia’s largest conglomerates”, the group has “28,000 employees in over 300 companies in more than 20 countries.” With a market capitalisation of 3.68 billion US dollar, Sime Darby, in addition to ca. 80,000 ha of plantations, “is also a major player in the motor vehicle, heavy equipment, property, and energy & utilities industries”. (Sime Darby Berhad 2007)
Kumpulan Guthrie traces its origins back to 1821 as a British agency house in Singapore, expanding into rubber and then oil palm in Malaysia at the end of the 19th century and in the 1920s respectively. After acting as an agent for British plantation companies, and then merging to form Guthrie Corporation Ltd., the company was reorganised into six incorporated Malaysia-listed companies in 1977, and taken over by PNB in 1982. It then expanded by taking over Uniroyal Malaysian Plantations in 1984, and Highlands & Lowlands (a formerly British rubber plantations company founded in 1906) in 1985 (Kumpulan Guthrie Berhad 2006: 88). Guthrie is now “one of the largest oil palm plantation players in the world with a total plantation land bank of about 320,000 hectares and planted area of approximately 275,000 hectares” (Kumpulan Guthrie Berhad 2006: 47). Guthrie is also heavily involved in property development, for example with the highway-linked “Guthrie Corridor” project.
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The merger of these three companies will therefore create a conglomerate of companies with huge plantation resources across the Straits of Malacca and on Borneo, with a downstream processing industry of mills, oil, food and oleochemical industries, as well as a whole range of other industries such as property development and heavy machinery.
SYNERGY Drive is a key example for the symbiosis between the corporate sector, state bureaucracy and government in the appropriation of natural resources and the large-scale and planned conversion of forests to plantations. State capital played a key role in the creation of this new mega-plantation-company. PNB, a major player behind the deal, controlled 54 percent of Guthrie shares, 34 percent of Golden Hope, and five percent of the biggest group, Sime Darby, whilst Amanah Raya Nominees (a trust fund of the Finance Ministry) controlled 38 percent of Golden Hope, 34 percent of Sime Darby, and 14 percent of Guthrie; the Employees Provident Fund was another major shareholder in all three groups (Golden Hope Plantations Berhad 2006: 200; Kumpulan Guthrie Berhad 2006: 239; Sime Darby 2006: 123).
The government and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi played an active role in the merger, pushing through with the deal after differences between the PNB and company board members threatened to postpone it in January (The Sun 2007). Another indicator of the close collaboration between state and corporate executives is the appointment of Golden Hope Plantations Bhd Group chief executive Datuk Sabri Ahmad (who used to work for the Ministry of Agriculture) as chairman of the government Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) from January 1, 2007.
The basic strategy of this group is geared towards becoming a global player, with regional expansion of oil palm plantations, an integrated downstream business from mills to retail, and the capture of new markets, particularly “biofuel”. To this end, a proactive strategy regarding environmental concerns and discourses is being pursued, particularly the initiation of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) (see below).
Regional expansion has been astounding over the last 10 years. Anne Casson (2000) titled her study of the business in Indonesia as a “hesitant boom,” due to the uncertainties after the economic crisis. Even then, she lists 45 Malaysian companies who controlled 1.3 million ha on Sumatra and Kalimantan via Indonesian partners, and the economic situation soon improved. During the economic crisis of 1997/1998, the IMF Letter of Intent governing the bailout package specified the removal of “restrictions on foreign investment in palm oil plantations” (Ginting 2005). Since then, transnational
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Malaysian and Singaporean companies and western multinationals have taken up the new opportunities offered by the liberalisation of trade and investment.
The companies forming the SYNERGY Drive conglomerate have been expanding massively into Sumatra and plan more plantations for the future. In the year 2000, Kumpulan Guthrie acquired 240,000ha in Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Sulawesi that were formerly controlled by the Agri-business Salim Group (Sargeant 2001: 13). Golden Hope plans to buy additional 50,000ha in Kalimantan over the next few years (The Business Times 2007). Singaporean investors are also part of the expansion plans. In 2005, Astra increased its oil palm plantings by nearly 15,000ha (Astra International 2006: 68).5
Table 8.2: Expansion of oil palm plantations across the Straits of Malacca – in ha
Source: Sargeant 2001; van Gelder and Jan Willem 2004: 19-29; Colchester et al. 2006: 24-26; Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) 2007
Expansion is politically supported by the Indonesian government and provincial governors on Sumatra and Borneo. Between 1992 and 2002, the Indonesian Investment Coordination board approved new plantation estates covering some seven million hectares (Wakker 2005: 12). Data collected by the NGO Sawit Watch suggest that provincial governors are planning up to 20 million ha additional plantations in Indonesia alone, with the biggest expansion expected for Sumatra and Kalimantan (Colchester et al 2006: 26; see table). In 2005, the Indonesian Minister of Agriculture announced plans for the world’s biggest oil palm plantation yet, on a five to 10 km strip at the border between Kalimantan and Malaysia, to be managed by PTPN (Wakker 2006).6
1986 1997 2005 Planned additional expansion 2020
Malaysia 1 599 000 2 893 000 4 051 000 unknown
Peninsula Malaysia
1 411 000 1 959 000 2 299 000
Sabah and Sarawak
188 000 934 000 1 753 000
Indonesia 144 000 2 515 800 6 059 000 19 840 000
Sumatra 1 977 900 4 300 000 7 840 000
Kalimantan 409 200 1 626 000 7 500 000
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The coalition between agribusiness and government in Malaysia is also seizing the opportunity offered by bio- or agrofuels. The Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities (MPIC) and the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) have recently organised an international conference on biofuels (“Biofuel: Energy for the future Environment”), stating that “the global interest in biofuels has increased tremendously especially in EU and north America” (MPOB 2007).
Golden Hope is also looking to agrofuels as a future growth market, aiming to produce 400,000 tonnes by 2008 which they predict will generate 40 Million US dollar of net profit per year. The expansion is given an environmental rationale:
“BIO-N, Golden Hope's biodiesel brand was launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on April 20, 2006. The green fuel, which is currently produced from refined palm oil, offers dependability and burns like fossil diesel but is less polluting. BIO-N is blended with fossil diesel and gives clean power from renewable resources at competitive cost. Biodiesel is becoming an increasingly valuable contributor to the world's drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” (Golden Hope 2006: 56).
The Singapore-based Wilmar Group is also expanding investment in agrofuel and already has biodiesel plants in Medan, Dumai, Jambi, Palembang on Sumatra, Pontianak and Kumai and Kunak on Borneo, and George Town on Peninsula Malaysia (Wilmar International 2007).
5. Postmodern contradictions: the life science industry and
bioprospecting
Modern industrialisation led to a decrease of biodiversity through the conversion of forests to plantations for the production of uniform commodities. By contrast, the post-modern importance of services, information technology and knowledge-based production is dependent on cultural and biological diversity as a key resource. The tourism boom in Southeast Asia, for example, is partly dependent on pristine beaches, tropical national parks, ethnic traditions etc. More importantly, the advances in bio- and nanotechnology have led to the emergence of a biotech industry that is primarily interested in information rather than raw materials. Bioprospecting by pharmaceutical companies, also, is dependent on culturally defined local knowledge on the properties of medicinal plants.
Across the Straits, a new strategic alliance between corporate groups in the life science industry7 and governments are actively pursuing the development of
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biotechnology centres. In Malaysia, the National Biotechnology Directorate (BIOTEK) has been set up to encourage research and development in biotechnology, including medical biotechnology and bio-pharmacy (Daud 2005). In Singapore, the life science park BIOPOLIS and comprehensive development of biomedical sciences have helped in attracting global pharmaceutical corporations such as Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Pfizer to the country (Charturvedi 2005; Hornidge, Evers and Hornidge as well as Menkhoff and Evers in this volume).
In 1988, Singapore started its National Biotechnology Programme to “encourage pharmaceutical, diagnostic, agricultural and food companies to diversify into biotechnology-related activities” (Charturvedi 2005: 238). In 1999, the Economic Development Board (EDB) set up the “Industry 21 Programme”, in which biomedical sciences are seen as a “fourth pillar”. With its National Technology Plan for 2000-2005, Singapore is making a conscious effort to become a leading regional hub for biomedical science. As part of the NTP, the National Science and Technology Board established the National Biotechnology Committee (NBC) and the Biomedical Research Council.
Investments in higher education, research and development, and technological infrastructure intend to provide the right environment for public private partnerships, Singaporean spin-off companies of state research institutions, and for attracting foreign direct investment. The most prominent example of this approach is the establishment of Biopolis, which characterises itself as follows:
“Biopolis - a centre for biomedical sciences in Asia and the world. Located within one-north and in close proximity to the National University of Singapore, National University Hospital and the Singapore Science Parks, Biopolis is envisioned to be a world-class biomedical sciences research and development (R&D) hub in Asia. This campus is dedicated to providing space for biomedical R&D activities and it is an environment that fosters a collaborative culture among the private and public research community” (One North 2007).
Major pharmaceutical companies investing in this biomedical hub include Pfizer, Schering-plough, Aventis, Hoffman-La Roche and Smithkline Beechhan (Charturvedi 2005, 256). In addition, the Singaporean state is pro-active in setting up life science investment companies such as Pharmbio Growth Fund (PGF), a life science investment fund and Bio*One Capital. The latter
“offers a strong combination of financial, business, scientific and investment know-how to enhance the value of companies from intellectual property
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generating research, to clinical and product development, manufacturing and
commercial activities” (Bio*One Capital 2007).
Malaysia founded a similar national biotechnology initiative, the National Biotechnology Directorate (BIOTEK). According to Daud (2005: 145), BIOTEK’s mission
“is to spearhead the development of biotechnology in Malaysia through research and related activities directed at commercialising biotechnology, and to establish Malaysia as a leading centre for biotechnology industry.”
As with Thailand, major transgenic crop developments include rice and papaya, but also rubber and palm oil. And similar to Singapore, public research institutes are encouraged to form partnerships with private companies to develop commercially viable products after basic research has been done (Daud 2005) (also see Hornidge as well as Menkhoff and Evers in this volume).
Malaysia also has its own “Biopolis” called “BioValley Malaysia”, which was launched in 2003. The biotechnology hub, placed strategically in Dengkil near the city of Cyberjaya comprises of three new government research institutes (National Institute for Agro-Biotechnology, National Institute for Pharmaceutical and Neutraceutical Biotechnology and the National Institute for Genomics and Molecular Biology).
Bioprospecting is one element of the biotechnology drive. The Centre for Biodiversity (part of the Technology Park Malaysia) defines its mission as follows:
“At Technology Park Malaysia (TPM), we are committed to undertake an intensive bioprospecting of our rich rainforest ecosystem. Our bioprospecting activities focuses around the examination of biological resources (e.g. plants, animals, micro-organisms) for features that may be of value for commercial development. The features targeted may include chemical compounds, genes and their products, or in some cases, the physical properties of the material in question. The ultimate aim is to search for biological materials for as-yet
undiscovered applications” (Technology Park Malaysia (TPM) 2007).
Biopolis is also involved in bioprospecting and drug discovery, for example with the company MerLion Pharmaceuticals that was formed in 2003 by privatising the Centre for Natural Product Research (CNPR) of the IMCB. This company has taken over extensive taxonomic libraries, screening capacity and staff from the former state institute (MerLion Pharmaceuticals 2007). In a joint venture with the pharmaceutical giant Chiron, the EDB set up the drug discovery firm S*BIO:
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“S*BIO, an integrated small molecule/genomics-based drug discovery venture, will be the first biotechnology-based drug discovery operation in Singapore and it represents a key step in Singapore's goal of becoming a global life sciences R&D hub” (EDB 2000).
According to Philip Yeo, then Chairman of the EDB:
“S*BIO's vision is to become a globally competitive and successful biopharmaceutical venture to discover, develop and market products stemming from its own leading edge research. S*BIO's competitive advantage is its focus on drug discovery for diseases prevalent in Asia in the long term” (EDB 2000).
These urban centres of research, in connection with ethno-pharmacology and bio-prospecting, will play a key role in how biodiversity resources will be used and by whom. The commercialisation of bio- and cultural diversity opens up new opportunities for their conservation, but can also produce new threats.
6. “A wild bird found at Guthrie estates”8
Since colonial intervention, spiral waves of forest resource appropriation swept out from Singapore through Peninsula Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo. Each different regime of forest use contributed to the biodiversity crisis, with a tendency towards more permanent damage along the shift from NTFP extraction, timber, and conversion to rubber, pulp and paper, and oil palm plantations. While Singapore has become the regional knowledge-hub (see Evers/Hornidge and Hornidge in this volume) it has also been the hub of successively more exploitative forms of natural resource exploitation.
The impact of the Singapore-driven colonial intensification of resource extraction on forest habitat and related biodiversity, although limited geographically to developing areas around the Straits, was devastating. Large swathes of peat swamp forests and mangroves in the Riau Archipelago were completely logged by the panglong loggers and tin-mining charcoal burners (Colombijn 1997: 327-8). The expansion of rubber and other plantations “encroached on the prime habitat of big mammals in the lowlands”, leading to semi-starvation or to decimation by hunting when herds of elephants or gaur raided the cash crops instead (Kathirithamby-Wells 2005: 195-198).
Sodhi and Brook (2006: 52-96) have analysed a large number of case studies on the effect of logging and forest degradation. In general, although in certain cases selective logging can increase species abundance and/or diversity,
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“there is a strong and consistent effect of deforestation and habitat degradation on abundance, diversity and species-richness, and consistent impacts across different taxonomic groups”.
Even more serious is the conversion of forests to plantations, which, in addition to habitat destruction, leads to the fragmentation of forest ecosystems. According to a study by Vincent and Yusuf on effects of deforestation in Malaysia,
“the species-richness of many of Peninsula Malaysia’s remnant patches of lowland forest has diminished as these patches have become increasingly isolated and reduced in size in a landscape dominated by rubber and oil palm” (quoted in Vincent and Rozali 2005).
The species-rich lowland forests have been most seriously affected, which have “all but gone” on the peninsula (Aiken 2006: 230), are rapidly disappearing on Sumatra and Borneo. Buckland (2005: 20), for example, reports that between 1990 and 2000,
“20,000 hectares of the Tripa and Truman-Singkil swamp forests, which, along with the nearby Kluet swamps, are known to support the highest densities of orang-utan in Sumatra, were converted to oil-palm plantations”.
There are surprisingly few studies of biodiversity loss in plantations. The wide-reaching implications of converting species-rich and complex-structured rainforest into single-storey monocultures of alien species are perhaps too self-evident.9 The combination of rapid expansion of plantations and the general acknowledgement that habitat loss leads to biodiversity loss is usually sufficient. In a comparative study of lowland rainforest, logged forest and rubber and oil palm plantations in Riau and Jambi, Danielsen and Heegaard (1995) found significantly reduced species diversity in the mature rubber and oil palm plantations. Weighted by abundance, species diversity was 61-80 percent less for birds, 94-100 percent less for primates, and 87 percent less for bats. In general, the rarer, specialised species disappear, leaving a small number of generalists:
“The conversion of primary forest to plantations led to a simple, species-poor and less diverse bird community. The plantations held fewer specialised species, fewer arboreal species, and fewer species with small global range, narrow habitat requirements, and low population density. On the other hand, widespread, generalist and common species were much more abundant in plantations” (Danielsen and Heegaard 1995: 86).
The major companies involved in the palm oil business are reacting to criticism put forward by environmental NGOs by taking a reactive approach towards forest burning, biodiversity loss, and climate change. While the latter
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problem is used to argue for an expansion of CPO production (see above), the reaction to forest burning has been the “zero-burning policy”, by which existing plantations are no longer cleared with fire but by mulching old fibre and leaving it to rot. The reaction to biodiversity loss has been to enter into stakeholder-agreements with NGOs such as the WWF to protect some of the remaining pockets of more-or-less intact forests.
The SYNERGY Drive companies are a good example for the strategy thus pursued. All three, Golden Hope, Kumpulan Guthrie and Sime Darby are members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a “stakeholder-alliance” set up by the Malaysian Palm Oil Association and the WWF “to advance the production, procurement and use of sustainable oil palm products”. The RSPO has adopted a set of principles and criteria that include the commitment to take “the conservation of rare, threatened or endangered species into account” in the management of oil palm plantations (criterion 5.2) and the promise not to replace primary forest with plantations after November 2005 (criterion 7.3) (RSPO 2005).
The RSPO is a reaction against transnational campaigns by international non-governmental organisations that have made the connection between the food industry and investment banks in Europe and plantation companies in Indonesia to create pressure via consumer activism. The result is a successful “greenwashing” of the palm oil industry that can now point to better “sustainable” practices. The Malaysian example is now being exported across the Straits, with the establishment of an Indonesian RSPO this year. Unfortunately, the RSPO criteria do not include a commitment to stop the huge expansion of oil palm in the lowlands of Sumatra and Borneo.10
Does the emergence of new strategic groups centred on the life science industry and their new economic interest in genetic resources offer a potential ally for conservation forces in the region? According to the Malaysian firm TPM, bioprospecting could offer a viable strategy for biodiversity conservation and economic opportunities for indigenous communities:
“At TPM we believe that bioprospecting could and should be carried out without destroying the natural habitat and disturbing the immaculate balance of the existing forest ecosystem. Bioprospecting provides the most convincing solution to the ever increasing threat of rampant deforestration and species extinction. This activity also provides the most viable economic alternative to the indigenous population living at the fringes of these rainforests” (Technology Park Malaysia 2007).
Kathirithamby-Wells also suggests that the new interest in forest genetic resources could be harnessed by indigenous peoples:
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“Forest botany has entered a new era of exploration for genetic resources, encouraged by the range of incentives for biodiversity conservation, framed by Articles 8(j) and 15 of the CBD. Apart from national claims on intellectual property rights, indigenous communities stand to gain from ‘benefit sharing’ arrangements where they make available their knowledge for identifying and protecting wild genetic resources for biotechnology. The collection of medicinal herbs and other NTFP to meet rising market demand offers improved opportunities for the survival of the Orang Asli as a discrete component within a multi-ethnic society” (Kathirithamby-Wells 2005: 421).
Although a possibility, this scenario needs to be examined within the broader contradictions of a life science industry that is primarily interested in the appropriation of biological information and its subsequent genetic modification. Biotechnology in agriculture, although dependent on plant varieties created over centuries, is increasingly threatening a total uniform transformation, far surpassing the decrease in biodiversity due to modern agriculture. Similar advances in the production of genetically modified trees question not only ecosystem and species diversity, but also genetic diversity (Lang 2004).
Bioprospecting itself has led to bitter controversies, for example the ICBG project in Chiapas, which was cancelled after criticism that it contributed to the private appropriation of indigenous knowledge (RAFI 2000; Nigh 2002; Berlin and Berlin 2004). And conservation strategies for biodiversity that are favourable to bio prospecting do not necessarily incorporate cultural diversity, as can be seen by the continuing threat of eviction of forest-based people from national parks.
7. Conclusion
A first look at the biodiversity crisis across the Straits of Malacca reveals it as an active, transnational process. Successive corporate groups build strategies of forest resource appropriation that depended on close cooperation with collective groups within the state apparatus. Although an analysis of strategic groups in relation to biodiversity needs requires intensive research, some broad groups and tendencies can be discerned.
The first major phase of resource appropriation was based on the extraction of non-timber-forest-products for industrial demand. This was pursued by a group of European and Chinese trading houses and networks based in Singapore. In the interest of securing a stable supply of fuelwood, valuable timber, rattan, camphor, gutta-percha etc. the colonial state supplanted traditional rights to forest access with a state-controlled forest and land
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development strategy. Collecting “frenzies” led to localised depletion of resources and to habitat degradation in Singapore, Peninsula Malaysia and Sumatra, as well as Borneo. The colonial state was also instrumental in the subsequent drive towards rubber plantations that were established by European and US corporations on the lowlands to both sides of the Straits.
After independence, national-development states nationalised the rubber and oil palm industries, and expanded them together with state-corporate logging and timber processing industry. Rather than being an ineffective conservator of biodiversity, the appropriation and export of timber resources and the conversion of forests to plantations was a key plank of development policy for both Malaysia and Indonesia.
The current situation is characterised by the expansion and regionalisation of the palm oil industry, symbolised by the mega-merger of Golden Hope, Kumpulan Guthrie and Sime Darby to form SYNERGY Drive; and by the emergence of the life science industry, symbolised by the biotech centre Biopolis in Singapore. Both groups consist of a complex web of global corporations, TNCs from Singapore and Malaysia, and formidable groups of state functionaries, science communities and global trade and discourse networks. Both groups are expanding into the region at unprecedented speed and are developing sophisticated economic and political strategies to do so.
The governance of biodiversity around the Straits of Malacca will depend on the interplay between different groups of actors within the context of rapid, trans-boundary social change. In particular, the transition from industrial societies to economies based increasingly on services and knowledge is creating new strategic groups, institutions and regulations. The emerging life science industry has new, economic interests in biodiversity as the source for genetic information. These new players have to operate within a system of governance that is still dominated by modern industries such as logging, pulp and paper, and agro-industrial plantations such as palm oil.
Sequentially, those groups based on the modern transformation of natural resources have already built up an economic and political framework that is not focused on biodiversity conservation but rather the systematic conversion of natural forests. New strategic groups oriented towards the appropriation of biodiversity itself must operate within this given framework and act to change it. Accordingly, the current situation is in part characterised by changing strategies and hybridisation of old strategic groups, by symbiosis and potential conflict between old and new groups.
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At the same time, diverse forms of traditional cultural interaction with natural ecosystems are also adapting to the new challenges of regional and global integration. Traditional management systems, modern and post-modern transformations are therefore operating simultaneously, offering multiple futures for destruction and conservation of biodiversity in the region.
Notes
1 Often, simple correlations between population growth and forest conversion are still stated (e.g. Cincotta et al 2000, McKee et al 2003). Sohdi and Brooks, in their discussion of causes of habitat destruction (2006: 8-16), mention general ones such as “human influence”, “human activity” or “anthropological factors”.
2 On the strategic group approach, see Evers and Schiel 1988, and Evers and Menkhoff in this volume. 3 http://www.goldenhope.com.my/corporate.html. According to the 2006 Annual report, oil palm plantations cover just under 170,000ha, although the total land bank is given as 190,000ha. 4 Tradewinds is also a major player in the oil palm business, with 140,000 ha of plantations (land bank). Major shareholders are Mayban Trustee Berhad, Mayban Nominees (Tempatan) Sdn Berhad and Grenfell Holdings (now owned by Deutsche Bank) (Tradewinds (M) Berhad 2006: 138). 5 Expansion of the industry is supported by international finance institutions, for example with the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group lending to Wilmar expansion plans: Project Number 20348 (International Finance Corporation of the World Bank 2004) the corporate motto of the IFC is “reducing poverty, improving lives”. 6 Although the plans have been stalled after a public outcry, there has been no official statement by President Yudhoyono or by the PTPN taking back the project (Wakker 2006). 7 The term life science industry refers to the fusion of chemical, agribusiness, biotech and pharmaceutical industries. 8 A caption below a picture of an unidentified bird species in the section on “Biodiversity” in Kumpulan Guthrie’s Annual Report 2006: 66. 9 An exception is perhaps a study by Koh and Gan (2007) in which the authors react to “smear campaigns” against the industry and hope that the “project will add more information on the richness of biodiversity in oil palm estates”. The
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survey found 11 species of mammals, but failed to compare the sites with natural forest in the area. 10 For a detailed discussion on the implementation of the RSPO criteria from the perspective of social and indigenous rights, see the study commissioned by Peoples Forest Campaign and Sawit Watch (Colchester et al. 2006).
9
The Dynamics of a Multi-Cultural Society along
the Straits of Malacca
Networking and integration of migrant Bangladeshis in
Malaysia
Nayeem Sultana
1. Introduction
The countries bordering the Straits of Malacca have absorbed many different ethnic groups throughout history. Being a passage way between East and West, many of the large ethnic groups in Europe, the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent, Southeast and East Asia have established their diasporas in the Straits of Malacca region. Some groups, like the Javanese or some Indian Muslims, have more or less merged with the local Malay population in Malaysia, Singapore and Sumatra. Others have only weak or no ties at all with their countries of origin, like the Portuguese of Malacca. Migration to the region is still continuing today. Movement of people outside the state border is, indeed, common in this period of globalisation. At present, there are about 175 million people, three percent of the world’s population living outside their countries of origin (Somasundram 2005). Based on the type of aspirations (concerning their travel to and settling down in different countries) and circumstances of the receiving society, migrants try to adapt to the new environment and form different kinds of communities with different networks within and outside the host society.
This chapter is an initiative to explore the types, causes and consequences of networking of the migrant Bangladeshis in Peninsula Malaysia, who came as a response to the industrial demand of the country. Entering as skilled, semi-skilled and un-skilled migrant workers, they engage in different socio-cultural and business networks (in order to survive) and develop specific types of transnational cultural identities. The question is: what are the ways that bind these migrant Bangladeshis together? Or do they really work as a homogenous
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unit? How do they find and enter networks for their survival in an alien society? On what basis is their networking formulated? How do they integrate themselves into the socio-cultural systems of the receiving country? Which are the most relevant concepts for this migrant community – “nationalism”, “multiculturalism”, “transnationalism”, “homogeneity”, “heterogeneity”, “hybridism”? Though different migrant groups follow their unique strategies of survival and adaption to their host societies, the Bangladeshis of Malaysia may nonetheless serve as a telling example of migration and adaptation in the Straits of Malacca region1.
Writings on globalisation have identified the economic and political demise of national boundaries, as well as the development of transnational cultural formations (Featherstone 1990 and Robertson 1992, quoted in Anthias 1998). On the one side, the importance of national unity through nationalism for socio-economic development can be stressed. On the other hand, the positive and negative impacts of globalisation and the concomitant socio-cultural changes are the issues of long debate in conferences, seminars and papers. Discourses on hybridism, multiculturalism, formation of Creole language and identities (Mandal 2004), diaspora formation (Anthias 1998), processes of cultural assimilation (Gerke 1997) and identification of transnational communities (Basch et al 1994) can be assessed as areas of research closely related to globalisation and migration. Under these circumstances the central question of this chapter is, whether nationalism works as a stimulating force to bind Bangladeshi migrants together within and outside the state border and if “yes”, then what is its actual form? Or, is there a kind of “hybrid identity” being developed through inter-ethnic networking? These points will be clarified in this chapter based on empirical evidence.
The primary and secondary data of this research have been collected from June 2005 until July 2006 through intensive field work and an interview survey (sample size 150 persons) among returned and current migrants in Bangladesh and Peninsula Malaysia. Based on qualitative semi-structured interviews, group discussions and case study methods in-depth information was gathered. Sources of secondary data are literature reviews, newspaper articles, published and unpublished journals, reports and conference papers of several institutions and organisations.
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2. Bangla Bazaar, a case study among the migrant
Bangladeshi businessmen of Kuala Lumpur
9.1 Bangla Bazaar in Kuala Lumpur, photo N. Sultana, 2006.
Death anniversary of a Bangladeshi leader
Speech one: “You see we are living here, but we are taking care of our family and relatives at home. We work here and we send remittances for the well-being of our home town and country. (…) I am rich, but I don’t forget you, my fellow brothers. I do business here, but I sell Bangladeshi food items, clothes, bir’ (cigarette), sayur (vegetables), fish that you can’t get abroad. I recruit not only Malaysian workers, but my brothers are also working here, in my shop. You see, here in the stage, some of my friends are sitting, who bring Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia. Some of you came here through our channel. Please let us know whether you want to bring anybody here. I do take care as you can get Bangladeshi food in my restaurant. My cook is a Bangladeshi man … has prepared a nice daging lembu (beef curry) for you. You will not find it sweet because no santan (coconut milk) and gula (sugar) is added here, you will eat and you will feel that you are enjoying Bangladeshi dish. Please have minum
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(drinks) while you are sitting. I know you have come here after finishing your duties in the factory. So a cow is slaughtered for you. Please don’t go without having makan (food). We will pray in the Bangla surau’ (a Muslim prayer house named ‘Bangla’) for the victory of our party in the coming elections of Bangladesh and we will pray for our great leader, who formed this party. Today is his death anniversary. Maybe, some day some of us will become a great leader like him. After earning a lot, maybe some of us will go back and will take the responsibility of the country.”
Speech two:
“My brothers and sisters, as salamu alaikum. We are here because this is the day when our great leader was killed by few assailants. This is not a celebration; this is a day of mourning for the whole Bangladeshi nation. We are here to make our fortune, but we cannot forget the day. We formulated a branch of that party in Malaysia based upon his ideals. We are here after our whole day working, because we love them. We are here, because we want to make our family happy. Some of us are making so much progress that they can move to another country. Last month, one of our Bangladeshi brothers went to Poland, my friends. He spent 30 thousand RM for it. Here some of us are students, technicians, engineers and some also workers. We sell not only local (Malaysian) items, but also Bangladeshi goods. We don’t have local partners only, but our country brothers also assist us as agents. We have gathered here because we are Bangladeshis. My brothers, a nice meal is prepared for you by slaughtering a cow.”
The above speeches were delivered by two Bangladeshi businessmen named Kalim Miah2 and Dabir Miah, in Bangla Bazaar of Kuala Lumpur, while they were remembering the death anniversary of a national leader, one of the former presidents of Bangladesh. Instead of one gathering, two meetings were arranged. Since without registering in the Registration of Societies Department any kind of association or organisation (of seven or more members) is forbidden in Malaysia (Societies Act 1966 and Societies Regulations 1984) these meetings took place in the name of the religious prayers (Milad Mahfil in Islam). The orators spoke as the leaders of two non-registered political branches that developed, based on a national political party of Bangladesh. In the study area, respondents were divided into members of two branches of a common political party. As the leaders of each branch wanted to be respected by holding posts of the party and found it prestigious for them, they separated into two segments of the same party. In each meeting a stage was prepared for the leaders, while the other migrants, for example the workers and the students, were sitting lower in front of the stage. On the stages were businessmen, manpower agents, lecturers of different private colleges and officials of different organisations. Among them, some were staying in Malaysia as PR (permanent residents)
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holders. Some even had lived there for more than 15 years by managing business or spouse visas. They were affluent; they contributed to the covering of the expenses of the meetings and therefore got the opportunity to sit upstairs on the stages. They were the speakers, and on the other side the general workers and students were the silent listeners. They were honorable persons to the listeners and they were addressed by others as boro vai (Bengali word for “elder brother”), “Sir” or “boss”.
Based upon the above case some questions may arise. Such as: (1) what is the internal relationship among the leaders and members of the same branch? What is the interrelationship among the members and leaders of two different branches? Why do the general workers and students let themselves be divided into two segments following the interests of the leaders? Is it a kind of “patron-client” relationship? Or a specific type of exploitation? (2) Who are these leaders and workers? How do the leaders advance their economic position? In the following parts the answers of these questions will be sought after based upon the research findings.
Homogeneity versus heterogeneity, everyday reality and networking
Bangladeshi migrants in Malaysia form a heterogeneous body on the basis of income (amount, source), education, occupation, area of origin, length of stay, settlement type, as well as internal and cross-cultural networking. The term “gender” is not mentioned here, since most of the respondents of the study were males. In fact, migrant workers are not allowed to bring family members (as stated in the work contract). And in Bangladesh, there are some restrictions concerning certain kinds of female migration, especially the migration of unskilled and semi-skilled workers (Presidential Order 1981 stated in Siddiqui 2001). Consequently, female migration into Malaysia continued mainly depending on personal networks or organised by private agencies. Female migrant workers came from Bangladesh to Malaysia until 1996 and left after the expiry of their job contracts. Male workers continued staying either by renewing their work permits in the same company or by starting to work in another company (converting into an undocumented worker), while waiting for a chance provided by the host government to change their status into a documented worker.
Male and female workers came on a short-term basis, but males could not go back as they were the principal bread-earners of their families. After earning, they had to send money to their families and parents in Bangladesh to help maintain their livelihood. Besides that, according to the respondents, after
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January 2001, male workers entered Malaysia following clandestine ways, while this was impossible for females due to the patriarchal social system of Bangladesh. A female’s decision to travel to another country depends on the male elders of the family. Females were not permitted or encouraged by their male guardians to work abroad, because the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers froze until May 2006. Considering women as the “weaker sex” (Moore 1995) and unworthy of taking risks (like traveling and working on tourist visa), the male dominated society of Bangladesh prohibited them from earning abroad. Furthermore, a certain reluctance to provide data concerning female relatives’ involvement in any kind of unskilled and semi-skilled job in a foreign country could be observed during the field research.
9.2 Bangladeshi migrants in Bangla Bazaar, photo N. Sultana, 2006.
As a matter of fact, among the 150 respondents of the study area, only 1.3 percent workers were females who used to stay as unskilled workers. There were variations among the interviewees on the basis of occupation. The majority (80 percent) were unskilled and semiskilled workers. The others were “pure professionals” (two percent), “professionals and businessmen” (4.7 percent), “pure businessmen” (6.7 percent), “workers and businessmen” (two percent) or unemployed (4.7 percent). Their educational qualification is also very diverse. Professionals came either as experts on respective fields or changed their positions after having obtained higher degrees from Malaysian
The Dynamics of a Multi-Cultural Society along the Straits of Malacca 143
universities. Yet, the living circumstances of workers and businessmen were quite the opposite. Some of them completed their higher secondary or secondary exams before entering Malaysia; others were lacking any kind of education from their home country.
The businessmen, who are now demanding honorable positions to their fellow country mates, have changed their fortune after coming on calling and tourist visa. They managed to do business either by engaging in joint businesses with the locals or by staying on spouse visa. It seems to be assumed as a local rule that foreigners can do business, but they need to have local partners. Local partners will be the owners of 51 percent and the rest belongs to the foreign investors (this situation was found in the study area). They engaged themselves in business by opening restaurants (“Mamu Restaurant” is coined by Tamil Muslims and Bangladeshis, mainly all kind of halal food including cooked rice, noodle, juice, teh-tarik (tea) and curries), call booths, grocery shops and travel agencies along with local partners. The job category of professionals varies from teaching, working as officials or specialists in the IT sectors, banks, NGOs, and others. Those, who are doing business, need to visit Bangla Bazaar almost regularly. There are also variations among the unskilled and semiskilled workers based on their types of activities, educational background, documented or undocumented status, affiliation with locals, length of stay and working areas. In the next section, two tables are provided. The first one presents the diversity of the respondents’ status and the second one depicts the causes and types of networking.
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Table 9.1: Heterogeneous body of respondents
Occupation Status Education Way of immigration
Area of Origin
Unskilled and semiskilled workers (80 percent)
Documented Undocumented Supervisor/line leader/general worker Married with locals
Illiterate Primary level High school level Sec. School Cert. Higher Secondary Cert. Undergraduate Graduate
Bangladeshi relatives& friends Tourist visa Calling visa Student visa
Dhaka Chittagong Rajshahi Khulna Barishal
Pure professionals (2 percent)
IC*/PR* holders Married with locals
Graduate
Student visa
Dhaka Chittagong
Professionals and businessmen (4.7 percent)
IC/PR holders Married with locals Joint business with natives
Graduate Modern technology
Dhaka Chittangong Barishal
Pure businessmen (6.7 percent)
IC/PR holders Married with locals Joint business with natives
Illiterate Sec. School Cert. Higher Secondary Cert. Undergraduate Graduate
Bangladeshi relatives & friends Tourist visa Calling visa Student visa Modern technology
Dhaka Chittagong Barishal
Workers and businessmen (2 percent)
Married with locals Joint business with natives
Higher Secondary Cert. Graduate
Bangladeshi relatives & friends Tourist visa Calling visa
Dhaka Chittagong
Unemployed (4.7 percent)
Married with locals Living underfriends’/relatives’ shelter
Illiterate Sec. School Cert. Higher Secondary Cert. Graduate
Bangladeshi relatives & friends Tourist visa Calling visa Student visa
Dhaka Chittagong Khulna
* IC – Holders of a Malaysian Identity Card, PR – Permanent Residency Source: Prepared from survey data and interviews among the migrant Bangladeshis.
Table 9.1 shows that on the basis of occupation, social and legal status, earning sources, educational qualifications, ways of migration and area of origin, different internal groupings or ties have been formed among the
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respondents. While on the one side, diversities have been noticed on the basis of occupation, social and legal status, homogeneity exists within each group depending upon the same occupational, legal and social status. This study has found potential contributions of these categories and factors for the development of bonds and networks among the respondents. Referring to Granovetter (1983), two types of ties can be mentioned here: “strong ties” and “weak ties”. Several groups of strong ties were found among the respondents who were either homogeneous on the basis of profession and other qualifications or connected with each other by the ways of migration, areas of origin (in Bangladesh) or their social and legal status (documented/undocumented, IC/PR holders, inter-ethnic marital or business bonds) in Malaysia. These strong tied groups were affiliated with “other groups” through networking. The members of these other groups were not in the same position as the strongly tied group. Nevertheless, for adaptation or upward mobility, they contact them and develop a kind of “commercial networking” based on monetary reciprocity. Following Granovetter, this type of networking can be defined as “weak ties”. Since this type of contact is not so common and depends more on mutual demand and exchange than trust, fellow-feelings and nationalist bonds. Hence, the relationship and ties are not so strong. Rather, there exists a hierarchal relationship where power differentiation, discrimination and conflict are very prominent.
In fact, among my two cases, presented earlier, Kalim Miah is the habitant of Noakhali (Chittagong division) and Dabir Miah comes from Barishal. Both of them are engaged in manpower business and through monetary exchange they assisted their village mates to come as workers to Malaysia. There are also other workers from Noakhali and Barishal who came to Malaysia on calling visa, but their fellow village mates (who came either by Kalim’s or Dabir’s channels) supported them by providing information about better jobs, houses, the foreign language, the working atmosphere, local rules, customs and norms. Thus, two groups of “weak ties” (among different status groups) and several groups of “strong ties” (in the same status) were formed based on the ways of arrival and existence in Malaysia. The other workers and businessmen also joined either Kalim’s or Dabir’s group following their political interests, types of business and work or area of settlement in Malaysia. A worker therefore may come from Gazipur (Dhaka division), but he can be a member of Kalim’s or Dabir’s group depending on his demand and the scope of fulfillment. Consequently, either for renewing work permits, for sending money or to encounter the threats from locals, they try to develop networks with the influential Bangladeshis. Or a businessman from Dhaka can try to become friends with the businessmen of Barishal or Noakhali, because all are foreigners
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and they need to cope with the environment to make their luck. Hence, different kinds of alliances are formed in order to survive abroad as well as for upward social mobility. The question is why wealthy/influential persons want followers? This study has identified two causes. First, it is a business strategy for them. For bringing workers into Malaysia, they take service charges. Considering them as “powerful”, “influential” and “well-connected” people, workers go there either for the renewal of their work permits and passports or to organise a better job. For each type of service, they take money from the workers. The workers also come to their shops as customers. Second, achieving more followers in the political party is a “prestige issue” for them. After reaching a higher position on the ladder, they expect acknowledgements from others. They dreamed to become a leader since their early childhood. Though abroad, it is still the aim to fulfill that desire. Therefore “economic rationalities” as well as “status” and “prestige issues” convince them of grouping and lobbying. These diversified causes of network maintenance will be shown briefly in table 9.2
Source: Prepared from survey data among the migrant Bangladeshis.
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“Integration into the multi-cultural society”, an introduction of hybrid
identities
“As soon as Aneu was brought to her husbands place in Kota Bangun she became a Muslim and married him according to Muslim custom. She is quite amused about the fact that after undergoing the religious ceremony, which had probably no deeper sense for her, she was accepted as a Kutai. This process of “masuk Melayu” is a standard practice of assimilating other ethnic groups. Wee (1984) has described this process of assimilating sea nomads (orang laut) to Malay society in the Riau Archipelago. There are three aspects of this process, namely accepting Islam, Malay custom and Malay language” (Nagata 1974, quoted in Gerke 1997).
Kalim Miah of Bangla Bazaar is now staying in Malaysia after having married a Malay lady. They have two children, one son (five) and one daughter (three years of age). Although in Bangladesh, there is no system of affixing father’s name and title with the offspring’s name, two words have been added to his children’s names. His son’s name is Foysal bin Md. Kalim Miah and the daughter’s name is Ayesha bint Md. Kalim Miah. Here bin means son and bint means daughter. Attaching these two words, states that they are the son and daughter of Kalim Miah. This Malay style of naming is the outcome of Kalim Miah’s inter-ethnic marriage with a Malay lady.
9.3 Malay-Bangladeshi marriage, photo N. Sultana, 2006.
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In order to assimilate and integrate himself into Malay society, Kalim Miah had to focus on two aspects: Malay language and custom. Religion was not a topic, seeing that he already was a Muslim. Through his staying and working in a factory of Kuala Lumpur, he managed to learn Malay even before his marriage. As his wife is a native Malay speaker, Kalim Miah was forced to adopt this language. The following wedding ceremony took place in Malaysia maintaining Malay custom. Due to both being Muslims and sharing the same religious faith, the marriage customs were more or less similar. According to him,
“still a few dissimilarities existed. We could not get married before obtaining a certificate of marriage course. I had to provide the full dower (property/money that the bride receives from the groom in time of marriage as she will be subjugated totally under the authority of her husband) immediately when the marriage was solemnised. Before marriage, representatives from my side, my village mates and brothers went to her parents with hantaran (odd number of gift boxes for fixing the date of the ceremony). A local Qadi (religious marriage celebrant) conducted the ceremony (…). I know my children will be bumiputera, as they contain the blood of a bumiputera, my wife. We are bringing them up following the Malay social system. My son speaks in Malay and when Ayesha will be grown up, we will give her a hejab (a scarf to cover the head) (…) not like ours.”
The statement indicates that Kalim Miah tries his best to adopt Malay custom. His children are native Malay speakers and also with his wife he speaks Malay. Hence, at home, he is totally a Malay speaker and follower of Malay custom. Outside the home, in Bangla Bazaar, among the Bangladeshi friends and brothers, he speaks Bengali. His restaurant’s name is in Bengali and Malay language: “Prabashi Kedai Makanan” (“foreign restaurant”) – and the place where they go for prayer is named “Bangla Surau”. However, a type of hybrid language can be found among these titles, though he is unaware about it. His attempt was to use Bengali vocabulary, but Malay words were added. For instance, the words kedai makanan and surau are collected from Bahasa Melayu (Malay language). The word kedai makanan means restaurant and surau means Muslim prayer house. Even, when he was delivering the speech in front of his Bangladeshi brothers, he used Malay words besides Bengali, such as makan, minum, daging lembu. He feels proud to parent his children following the Malay social system, while at the same time, he has contact with his relatives in his country of origin and tries to proof his “distant nationalism” (Glick Schiller and Fouron 2001) by financially contributing to a meeting for the country mates on Bangladesh’s national day.
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However, the instance of spending money for the get together can also be explained as business strategy to find customers for his manpower business. This argument can be made based on the fact that he is not bringing workers into Malaysia without taking a fee. Rather, “weak ties” are developed here based on commercial networking or in other words, by monetary exchange. Besides, not all Bangladeshis receive his assistance, but only his followers. Stephen Castles’ (1998) arguments can be taken into consideration in this regard. Through the maintenance of social networks and the “migration industry” he thought that migration converted into a “self-sustaining process”. With the term “migration industry”, Castles indicates the flow of migration guided and commanded by “commercial and other considerations”, where agents and brokers are playing important roles. In the case of Kalim Miah moreover, the term “long distant nationalism” can be ignored as well, since in his family life he follows Malay custom. In fact, for his integration into the host society he is trying to assimilate, while for business purpose he nurtures Bangladeshi nationalism. In other words, a kind of “hybridism” is being formed following his adaptation process.
3. Conclusion
Dabir Miah and Kalim Miah are the representatives of Bangladeshi migrant businessmen of Bangla Bazaar in Malaysia who have managed to receive the status of permanent residency. They came as temporary workers looking for economic wealth. Later, through inter-ethnic marriage with a bumiputera lady (Kalim) and friendship with an Indian Muslim (Dabir) they started business. Within a short time span they reached their vantage points and became successful to upgrade their fortune. Instead of cutting the contacts with their homeland, they converted into manpower agents and brought their fellow village mates, family members and relatives to Malaysia. In other words, for upward social mobility, they are nurturing nationalist and multi-ethnic networking pacing the way for a hybrid Malay-Bangladeshi culture in the receiving society.
Bangla Bazaar is a place of Kuala Lumpur, where a type of “transnational business system” has been developed by Bangladeshis. It is an area where the presence of Bangladeshis, from workers to professionals, at any time of the day, for economic, social or recreational purpose, is very common. The phrase “Bangla Bazaar” is framed by the migrants; it indicates the market place of Bangladeshis. In Malaysia, the local term for Bangladeshi migrants is Bangla and in Bangladesh the word bazaar means a hotspot where the flow of people, goods and money is very regular. People visit this place for necessary
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shopping as well as to meet friends. Outside the state border of Bangladesh, in a busy place of Kuala Lumpur, where the local transport and any other kind of communication system is very habitual, Bangladeshi migrants have opened their business centre. Starting from collecting Bangladeshi newspapers to the probability of the withdrawal of the ban on the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers, all kinds of information can be gathered here. The display of Bangladeshi music videos, cinemas or dramas in the Bangladeshi shops is very common. A kind of restaurant business has been developed, targeting at Bangladeshi workers and students. It is also a place of celebration for Bangladeshi national days, religious and other cultural festivals. Migrant Bangladeshis flock together to free themselves from feelings of loneliness, to arrange better jobs, renew their work permits or find a scope for bringing relatives and friends (as workers) through the assistance of their country brothers (businessmen) to Malaysia. It is transnational, because the migrant Bangladeshis have created a social field outside the geographic, cultural and political borders of Bangladesh. Although it is outside the national boundary, the immigrants have formulated a kind of business network and social relationship that binds together both, the country of origin with the receiving country. This process of a two-way relationship is sustained by the regular flow of information, remittances, goods (through business), people (either as migrant workers or through short visits), communication channels (through phone, letters, internet, newspapers) and cultural practices (celebration of Bangladeshi national days like death anniversary of national leader, Independence Day, cultural festivals like the first day of Bengali new year etc). In fact, Basch, Glick Schiller and Blanc-Szanton are the pioneers who have tried to theoretically grasp this process:
“We have defined transnationalism as the processes by which immigrants build social fields that link together their societies of origin and settlement. Immigrants who build such social fields are designated “transmigrants”. Transmigrants develop and maintain multiple relations - familial, economic, social, organisational, religious, and political that span borders. Transmigrants take actions, make decisions, and feel concerns, and develop identities within social networks that connect them to two or more societies simultaneously” (Basch, Glick Schiller and Blanc-Szanton 1994: 1-2).
However, in their transnational networking system a kind of nationalism can be seen in disguise with the accompanying business entrepreneurship. A strand of long distance nationalism may be found in their ideological attachment as well as social, political and economic involvement to the home country. Though they are affiliated to the host country through business partnership with the local, interethnic marriage and the concomitant family
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bindings, they still appeal for the welfare of their country of origin. They don’t have any right for casting votes in Bangladesh, but they are worried about the forthcoming national election in their home country. Weber’s study of the ethnic origins of nationalism is noteworthy in this regard. In his definition of ethnic groups, Weber (1972, 389) argues,
“those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs or of both, or because of memories of colonisation or migration.”
It is stated that a combination of shared customs, similarities of physical type and actual memories of migration can lead to a process of ‘group formation’ even in a new country.
However, the problem lies in the fact that Bangladeshi migrants in Malaysia are not a homogenous body. At least two groups have been found in the study area that developed out of their diversified realities and interests. A kind of combative and collaborative liaison has been developed between and within the groups. Moreover, by showing their eagerness for the well-being of the home country as well as nationalism through selling Bangladeshi goods, they are enriching their business ventures. They are the speakers and their followers are the listeners, who are paying charges for any kind of service. Crossing the border of community cohesion, networking opened up towards the incorporation of multiethnic people of that particular social setting. As has been noticed, the introduction of hybrid identities among the migrants and their next generation is highly plausible.
Notes
1 Research for this study was carried out under the supervision of Professors Solvay Gerke and Hans-Dieter Evers. The financial assistance of DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) is gratefully acknowledged. 2 The names stated in this paper are pseudonyms.
10
Cultural Diversity at the Straits of Malacca
A study of associations of George Town, Penang
Solvay Gerke and Sarah Meinert
1. Introduction
The Straits of Malacca has been and still is one of the world’s most important sea passages connecting Europe, the Middle East and South Asia with the Far East and Southeast Asia (see Evers and Gerke in this volume). The flow of goods has been matched by the flows of migrants, leading to ethnically highly diverse societies along the Straits. George Town on the Island of Penang, a major port city along the Straits of Malacca is characterised by its multiethnic society. The different ethnic groups, indigenous Malays, Chinese, Indians and smaller migrant communities established a wide range of associations already during the British colonial era. The ethnic communities tended to organise their activities and articulate their interests along familiar or traditional organisations oriented towards the respective ethnic and religious communities. At that time mosques, Indian or Chinese temples, clan houses, guilds, economic and welfare organisations as well as religious associations played a significant role in maintaining ethnic diversity.
George Town with its 220,000 inhabitants, or about 400,000 including the suburbs, is the largest city in the state of Penang. Because of its multiethnic population and compact structure George Town is an ideal location for research.1 Although the city is largely dominated by the Chinese, constituting the majority of the city’s population, one can also find residential and commercial settlements of Indians and pockets of Malay living quarters within Central George Town. Old colonial buildings are found next to tightly clustered two-story shop houses, old Chinese or Indian temples and mosques next to high-rise commercial and apartment buildings. Despite the structural and ethnical diversity in George Town, the city and its urban structure is strongly influenced by Chinese.
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10.1 Chinatown in Penang, photo S. Meinert, 2004.
The Chinese presence
“is made conspicuous by the mass of Chinese commercial signs announcing the shops, markets dominated by Chinese, Chinese coffee houses and restaurants, cinemas showing Chinese pictures, Chinese temples and associations; not to mention the crowds of Chinese in the streets, where Chinese hawkers and trisha peddlers are a notable permanent feature” (Hallgren 1986: 13).
The many entrepreneurial activities carried out by the Chinese include trade, small industries and handicraft found in the front rooms of Chinese shop houses which serve as places of production and can be extended to the sidewalk or street if necessary. The main Indian centre of commerce and living quarter is situated around Penang’s oldest Hindu temple, the Sri Mariamman Temple, in so called Little India. Malay living quarters, the kampungs2, are found in little clusters all over George Town, but especially on the fringes of the city.
This chapter intends to present an overview of the organisation of ethnic diversity on the basis of associations found in contemporary Penang. We shall pose the following questions:
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1. How important is ethnicity with regard to the formation, activities and membership of associations?
2. Are ethnic-based associations still the predominant form of organisation? 3. What is the impact of religion on the organisational pattern of ethnic
groups? 4. Are multiethnic associations able to cross ethnic and social boundaries?
The case studies of several ethnic-based, religious and multiethnic associations aim to highlight the motivations for establishing the associations in the first place, the motives for membership, their present activities and ethnic orientation as well as the implications which arise from this with regard to the organisation of ethnic diversity.
2. Aspects of ethnic diversity
The active construction of an ethnic boundary associated with determined criteria implies a rigid boundary of ethnic interaction and a specific ethnic identity. But this does not apply to all situations: there are circumstances as shown by Nagata, in which ethnic identity exhibits a great fluidity “in which variables of culture (including religion), social institutions, and identity have different significance in different contexts” (1985: 306). The individuals switch their ethnic identity in various situations and due to different reasons: the desire to show solidarity or social distance from the respective group, advantages which are associated with the group referred to and in regard to social status and social mobility. This switching of ethnic identity implies existing cultural similarities of the different ethnic groups which enable individuals to cross ethnic boundaries. The common identity is based on the Islamic faith and shared values in the form of the adat3 (ibid: 306-307). Ethnic identity is highly situational and applies to individuals belonging to the Muslim community and adhering to some form of adat. Significantly this does not apply to Chinese Muslims, who do not take part in the switching of identities (ibid: 309). This indicates that the Islamic religion as unifying factor is limited through tensions in the broader economic and political field between the Muslim community and the Chinese Muslims in particular. In this context the unifying force of religion and religious associations as well as their significance in regard to the organisation of ethnic diversity has to be challenged and reconsidered in view of the results of the interviews.
Besides numerous ethnic and religious associations we can increasingly notice the emergence of associations which place special emphasis on membership irrespective of race and religion. This phenomenon takes place in
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a changing environment due to Malaysia’s development in economic and social terms. Nation-building and market expansion has changed Malaysia’s pluralistic society since independence. Especially the affirmative action policies in favour of the Malays and the economic growth during the past decades led to a social transformation and increasing social stratification. A growing new Malay middle class pushes aside traditional values and embraces new lifestyles as well as new consumption patterns and constitute a major component in a now multiethnic but still heterogeneous middle class. These processes are accompanied by an expansion of various types of media, especially the Internet, as well as growing self-expression and the awareness of social struggles for social justice, consumer and human rights or environmental protection (Embong 2000: 13). This newly developed awareness of social and political issues as well as growing concern for the preservation of heritage and the environment contribute to the growing number of multicultural associations. But there are still many social, cultural, political, religious and economic processes taking place at the same time which may influence the perception and importance of ethnicity, the composition and the lifestyle pattern of emerging social classes as well as each association’s emphasis placed on their multiethnic outlook.
Consequently, questions concerning the membership structure and organisational pattern of multiethnic associations arise which will be referred to later on: do they reflect the social transformation and social stratification taking place in contemporary Malaysia? And do they cross social as well as ethnic boundaries and unite citizens in the work for the good cause? What is the possible impact of multiethnic associations on ethnic integration or do multiethnic associations merely exist in theory?
3. Types of associations
The first listing yielded 328 associations, organisations and clubs in 2004. The data were subdivided into several categories primarily based on the objectives of the respective association, e. g. sports, health or social issues. In case an association is organised around specific ethnic elements like origin, surname or language or clearly shows ethnic features like its name or the language of its internet page which can be assigned to one particular ethnic group, the association will be categorised as ethnic association. With the help of the following categorisation, first assumptions about the frequency of ethnic-based associations as well as multiethnic associations and the implications which arise from these findings can be drawn.
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Diagram 10.1: Types of associations found in Penang
Most associations found are clearly ethnically based; these form the first and biggest category, labelled ‘Ethnic Organisations’. This category contains only Chinese, Malay and Indian associations; associations with other ethnical backgrounds are not represented. The majority of the 106 associations – 93 in all – are Chinese followed by the Malays with ten associations and the Indians with three associations. Many Chinese associations are organisations based on clan, surname, and place of origin or dialect. The majority of the Malay associations are organised along religious aspects, like the Persatuan Kebajikan (Kaum Islam) Pulau Penang4 or the Acheen Street Mosque Resident Committee. The same holds true for the Indian associations, two out of three of which are organised around an Indian temple.
Associations assigned to the second category “Economy” are for the most part trade unions and interest groups. The 72 associations range from the Fish Wholesale Merchants to the Penang Hawkers Association. From the names of some associations we can deduce that membership in these associations is presumably based on ethnic criteria. There are eight associations which are obviously Chinese, the Penang Chinese Physician and Druggist Association, for example, or the Chinese Commercial Union. Another six associations are apparently Malay like the Persatuan Pemborong-Pemborong Binaan Bumiputera Malaysia Caw Pulau Pinang5; three associations are Indian, one of them being the Malaysian Indian Chamber of Commerce, Penang.
The third category, labelled “Social Issues/Health”, includes 68 associations. Associations in this category are mainly concerned with welfare, education, protection of social rights, heritage, environment and animals as well as leisure activities. To achieve a clearer view these associations can be further
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divided into sub-categories. Five associations, involved in the welfare of women and children, for instance the Women’s Centre for Change or the Children’s Protection Society, constitute the sub-category ‘Women and Children’. 18 associations are engaged in the protection of social rights and heritage, a prominent example in this sub-category “Social Rights” is the Penang Heritage Trust. The “School and Learners” associations consisting of 13 associations, which are mainly school unions, four of them Chinese, are a further sub-category. Foreign associations – five associations made up by foreigners living in Penang like the Penang Japanese Association constitute another sub-category. The sub-category “Health” contains ten associations. Some of them seem to be interest groups working for people affected by a certain disease and their relatives, as for example the Spastic Children’s Association of Penang or the Penang Down Syndrome Association. Others, like the National Cancer Society of Malaysia or the Prevention of Tuberculoses Organisation, are Penang branches of nationwide health organisations. The final sub-category “Others” includes 17 associations which could not be clearly classified according to the other sub-categories, as for example the Penang Press Club or the Yip Yue Musical Association. Two associations within this sub-category are assumed to be Chinese, because the web-pages exist in Chinese only and are not available in other languages. The probability that the audience addressed is Chinese is thus high.
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10.2 The Penang Heritage Trust, photo S. Meinert, 2004.
Religious associations add up to 56 and constitute the fourth category “Religion”. Most of the listed associations, i.e. 43, are Buddhist temples and meditation centres associated with these. Three associations bear Christian names, one temple is a Burmese, one other a Thai temple. The remaining associations in this category could not be clearly classified in terms of ethnic or religious orientation.
Sports clubs and recreational clubs form the fifth and final category of “Sports and Recreation”. Some of the 26 sports and recreation clubs can, like associations in the category “Economy”, be classified by their names as clubs with a clear ethnic orientation. The Chinese Swimming Club and Penang Chinese Chin Woo Athletic Associations are two of the six Chinese clubs in this category.
As shown in diagram 10.1, the analysis of the data reveals a clear predominance of ethnic organisations6, followed by economic associations and associations concerned with social and health issues. A first conclusion which
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can be drawn here is that ethnicity plays a significant role in the formation of associations. These ethnically based associations cover almost all areas of life – from clan associations, temples and business associations to sport clubs. It seems that interests still are mainly articulated through organisations based on ethnicity, and people tend to remain in their ethnic group even in their leisure time.
Of further interest is the frequency of ethnically based associations with regard to each ethnic group. Such a breakdown can give first information about the degree of organisation of the individual ethnic groups and the frequency of associations that place emphasis on their multiethnic membership structure as stated in their information booklets or internet pages.
Diagram 10.2: Ethnic orientation of ethnically based associations
Most of the ethnic organisations are Chinese, followed by Malay and multiethnic associations. The second conclusion which can therefore be drawn on the basis of the data is that in comparison to other ethnic groups the Chinese have a remarkably higher degree of organisation and a wider range of associations, as can be seen in the detailed description of data above. There are almost no associations found which represent any other ethnic groups than the Chinese, Indians and Malays. Only two temples represent ethnic minorities like the Thai or Burmese as the name of the temple would suggest, and it is assumed for now that these temples serve as meeting points or representations of the respective ethnic group. Also noteworthy is the fact that multiethnic associations rank in third place, while most multiethnic associations are to be found in the category “Social Issues”. This leads to the assumption that a
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considerable number of associations are organised around social issues rather than communities.
4. Case studies of ethnic-based associations
In the following paragraphs we shall provide detailed ethnographies of selected ethnic associations.
The Khoo Kongsi
10.3 The Khoo Kongsi, photo S. Gerke, 2006.
The Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi is one of the oldest and certainly the most famous clan house in Penang. The kongsi which is situated in the midst of George Town is made up of a magnificent temple, a performance stage, a public square, and clan dwellings surrounding the temple.
The history of the Khoo Kongsi can be traced back to 16th century China. The progenitor of the Khoo Kongsi, originally known as Chan Chain Eng, was adopted by the Khoo family and thus took the surname of Khoo. Khoo Chain Eng later settled down in the Heng Lin District, Fujian province.
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Even before the British seized Penang, approximately four families of the Khoo clan had already migrated to the island where they were engaged in the trade between Malacca and Burma. In 1835, 102 members of the Khoo clan decided to form an association and to build a clan house in order to look after the welfare of their fellow clansmen. Fifteen years later the clan association purchased the present site and the existing bungalow was converted into a temple for ancestor worship. By the end of the 19th century a great number of Khoo had already arrived from China and settled down in Penang – the clan multiplied and started to prosper. In 1894 the building of a new temple, meant to replace the old one, began. No expenses were spared but the temple was destroyed by a fire shortly after its completion in 1901. After the fire the Khoos started to build another temple on a smaller scale which took four years to build. It was completed in 1906.
The main objectives of the Khoo Kongsi were to look after the welfare of the clansmen, to provide newcomers arriving from China with a place to stay and jobs, to act as a bank, to arrange marriages and to settle disputes among the members of the Khoo clan and the different kongsis. The functions of the Khoo Kongsi were limited by a civil law enacted by the Malaysian government during the 1970s which forbade the kongsi to act as a bank for its members, to settle disputes and to arrange marriages. In 1976 the kongsi was incorporated and thus became the Trustees of Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi. The Board of Trustees is the most important body within the kongsi. It consists of 23 members, including the chairman and secretary, elected by the different branches of the kongsi, e.g. branches for housing, financing, and so forth. The trustees, who are all over 50 years of age, exchange position within the Board of Trustees every year and meet twice a month. The Board of Trustees has an extensive decision-making power, as it has to approve almost all matters concerning the kongsi. The kongsi owns large pieces of property within the inner city of George Town on which the kongsi keeps housing estates. The rental income from the housing estates and property are the main source of income for the kongsi. The donations from the clansmen are another source of income. Donations were much more common in the former days; nowadays only rich clansmen donate larger sums, mainly in order to boost their own image.
The Khoo Kongsi is the largest kongsi in Penang in terms of members, finances and property. The clan organisation is based on blood and geographical ties, which must be strictly adhered to: Only Khoos who are descendants of Khoo Chain Eng Kong, Heng Lin District, Ximen, Fuijian Province can be members of the Khoo Kongsi. Approximately 2000 Khoo live in Penang some more in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore – approximately altogether 3000 Khoo live all over Malaysia.7 Today’s function of the Khoo
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Kongsi has shifted from providing for welfare to offering privileges to the clansmen. Among other things the kongsi gives out scholarships, annual payments of schoolbooks irrespective of the school and language of instruction, and a 5% discount on habitation in the kongsis housing estates. The kongsi still provides welfare for older people: they receive a monthly grant from the kongsi from the age 65 onwards, if no family member is able to take care of them. The kongsi is rich enough to afford these privileges, but the privileges are reserved strictly for members of the Khoo clan. Members can register for these privileges with special forms which are available at the kongsi. The kongsi also regards itself as a guardian and mediator of traditions and values passed down by the ancestors. Festivals for instance, are still celebrated the traditional way.
Close contacts exist with the other four great clan houses in Penang.8 Intermarriage between the clanhouses is not common anymore. Instead, the contacts are mainly of economic nature. Furthermore some of the Khoos are in contact with fellow clansmen all over the world, with whom extended business relations are maintained. Intensive relationships continue to the Khoos at the village of the progenitor Khoo Chain Eng, many Khoos from Penang conduct business in China with the help of the Khoos living there. Nowadays almost no money is transferred to China because the Khoos there are comparatively wealthy by now, nonetheless the demand still exists.
A minority of the Khoos are active clan members and visit the temple frequently. These members are usually older than 45 years. The main problem of the kongsi is a younger generation of Khoos who are not interested in the traditions and activities of the kongsi anymore. The name Khoo and the kongsi is just useful to them in regard to benefits provided by the clan, for instance scholarships. Festivals as well are not popular among the youth; the majority of them do not show up. There are of course always exceptions, some young Khoos visit the temple on a regular basis and consider the protection of traditions as very important. There are still members, especially the older and richer ones, who are proud of the well known name Khoo and their membership in the kongsi. The more educated and richer members are interested in the preservation of traditions. These members have enough time and money to develop an interest in the traditions. Thus large donations are common among the richer Khoos in order to gain reputation and a good image among the Chinese community. For members who are not so well off the most important thing is to look after themselves and to make a living. It was pointed out by our respondent9 that the Chinese in general changed during the last decades in regard to their attitude towards traditions and values. New lifestyles and western influences push the long-established traditions and values into the background and create new values among the younger generation which
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constitute destructive influence for the values and traditions the Khoo Kongsi stands for.
The Gujarati community
The Gujaratis constitute one of the various sub-groups of Penang’s Indian Community and in this context provide an illustration of the organisational pattern and ethnic identification of a particular sub-group. The approximately 150.000 Indians living in Penang are divided into eight to nine sub-groups, among others the Gujaratis, Sikhs, Tamils or Chettiars. The Indian community as a whole is well organised with about 400 registered associations, most of them engaged in the social or religious fields. The approximately 150.000 Indian living in Penang are divided into eight to nine sub-groups, among others the Gujaratis, Sikhs, Tamils or Chettiars. The Indian community as a whole is well organised with about 400 registered associations, most of them engaged in the social and religious fields.
The Gujarati community is rather small in comparison to other Indian sub-groups and amounts to approximately 500 members which are in turn more or less evenly divided into two groups of Hindu and Muslim Gujaratis, respectively. The latter because of the religious barrier constitute a group of its own with its own associations and identity. Many members of the Gujarati community are organised in one or more of the six Gujarati associations, which are all concerned with cultural or religious matters. These associations meet regularly and are anxious to carry out Gujarati traditions in form of dances and songs, religious festivals as well as their language which is widely spoken among the Gujarati community. On the one hand, there are many contacts with other Indian sub-groups mainly for religious reasons because it is usual that the various sub-groups carry out religious ceremonies and festivals together in order to share the often extraordinary expenditures of the festivals. On the other hand, the Gujarati community is eager to preserve its own culture, having its own temples and speaking its own language. At this point Gathani explains that
“because of the many different, often mutually unintelligible languages spoken by the Indian sub-groups, English is the lingua franca of the Indian community. Besides the contacts within the Indian community Gujaratis have many contacts to Gujaratis in other Asian countries, especially in Singapore as well as London. Some Gujaratis still have contacts with their place of origin in Gujarat, but this holds true mainly for older Gujaratis, while members of the younger generation frequently are not aware of their roots.”
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Asked after the ethnic self-ascription of the Gujarati community, our respondent Himanshu Popatlal, a third generation Gujarati living in Penang who runs a garment business in the midst of Little India10, emphasizes that the Gujaratis regard themselves not as Malays nor as Indians: “No way, we are still Gujaratis with our own identity”. Even the younger generation regards itself as Gujaratis, despite the many intermarriages between Gujaratis and members of other Indian sub-groups as well as intermarriages between Gujaratis and Malays or Chinese. He guesses that for every marriage within the Gujarati community, there is one marriage of a Gujarati with a non-Gujarati, yet, preferably with an Indian of another sup-group. Inter-ethnic marriages between Gujaratis and other ethnic groups are less common. Half a century ago intermarriage would not have been regarded as a proper thing to do for a Gujarati but because of the small size of the community the marriage choices are limited. According to Popatlal emphasises again that the Gujaratis are proud of their traditions, culture and language and the importance of their preservation is a popular point of view among the community. According to him, the associations contribute to the preservation and transfer of these values to the younger generation.
The Acheen Street Mosque Residents Committee
The Acheen Street (St) Mosque is one of the oldest mosques in Penang. It constituted the focal point for the Malays as well as Arab traders who settled in the vicinity of the mosque. The kampung which evolved around the mosque is the oldest kampung in George Town. The interview with Muhammad, a fourth generation resident in his seventies living in a residential area of the mosque, is interesting in two ways: it provides information about organisational aspects of the Malay community and at the same time shows the close interconnection of the Malay identity with Islamic religion.
The Acheen St Mosque was built on land donated by Syed Sheriff Tengku Syed Hussain Aidid, an Acheen-Arabian merchant, in 1808. The kampung which developed around the mosque was, as compared to the present situation, very crowded, and the mosque was visited frequently not only by residents but also by foreign traders and pilgrims on their way to Mecca. Muhammad is one of the few residents who still live on waqf land11, he guessed that four or five families make up the remaining residents. In the past, the place was very crowded, in every house which was divided into separate rooms to live in, around 15 to 20 families stayed.
The mosque is run by a management committee comprising approximately 13 members whose function is to look after the mosque, its
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residents and their welfare as well as to deal with the Islamic Religious Department of the State Government of Penang. The rules and regulations of the mosque dictate that the members of the management committee have to be elected by, and from among the residents every two years. These regulations, however, are not observed anymore and for the last six years the management committee has been constituted by members who are not residents, and whom the actual residents do not even know. The mosque is financed by government subsidies and donations collected in every Friday prayer. They amount up to approximately US$ 30 a month. The residents have to pay their rent to the Islamic Religious Department; the department in turn handles the administration of the waqf land.
10.4 Acheen Street (St) Mosque, photo S. Gerke, 2007.
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The Residents Committee of the Acheen St Mosque is not an association concerned with resident rights as one could assume in view of the described problems but a committee whose main objective is the preservation of culture and traditions. The 15 members of the committee are all residents living on waqf land, and they see the core function of the association in educating the people who visit the mosque. Muhammad’s porch serves as the “exhibition hall” where old pictures, books and artefacts are displayed. Due to the restoration of the area surrounding the mosque, increasing numbers of tourists visit the mosque as well as the exhibition of the Residents Committee. These tourists, according to Muhammad, are educated people interested in Islam and history. All of the members of the Resident Committee are older than 50 years, proud to be residents and proud of the colourful history and culture which evolved in and around the mosque. They feel that not only tourists but especially the younger generation should know about their own history and be proud of where they come from. Every four or five months a meeting of the committee takes place, more frequent meetings are not necessary because there are not many topics to discuss. Muhammad calls the Residents Committee an “NGO without money” since donations from visitors are the only financial resource and all work is carried out on a voluntary basis. If the committee had some money, they would like to improve the performance of the exhibition for instance with the help of a slide show, handouts and an internet performance.
The Residents Committee has no contacts to other associations. Only the Acheen St Mosque keeps contacts with other mosques in George Town. Unlike other mosques, the Acheen St Mosque has no sub-divisions like a kindergarten or Koran lessons. The reason for this is that there are just a few residents left and the mosque is not frequently visited by many Muslims. The residents who once lived around the mosque have moved out to other parts of the city. Muhammad regrets that not many Malays live in the inner city of George Town anymore; the kampung is dying, where its Malay residents and all its special shops selling Islamic books and items are concerned. People who pray at the mosque are mainly residents and government officials whose offices are nearby. Major celebrations are not organised at the mosque anymore, the residents have to visit another mosque in order to celebrate the festivities there.
Despite its small size and range of activities, the Residents Committee seems to be very important for the remaining residents since it represents a way to carry on their Malay as well as Islamic traditions, safeguarding their history and heritage.
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5. Ethnicity, identity and the formation of associations
A significant feature of Penang’s multiracial society, past and contemporary is presented by the numerous associations organised along ethnic lines which exhibit a low accessibility. Today’s associations and their functions still reflect past needs and interests of the respective ethnic groups even though these interests and needs have changed over the years in accordance with changing political and economic circumstances. The interviews demonstrate not just the importance of ethnic associations in the past but also the prevailing organisational demands of the ethnic groups, a fact already visible from the previous analysis of the data.
Colonial times saw the development of a wide range of communal associations reflecting the diverse structure and organisational patterns of the individual ethnic groups. Immigrant groups arriving in Malaya tended to organise their activities and articulate their interests along familiar or traditional organisations oriented towards the respective ethnic and religious communities. Mosques, Indian or Chinese temples, clanhouses or guilds were among the centres of ethnic-based associational activities. Locality, dialect, clan, religion or economic and cultural interests constituted some of the essential determinants of organisation as can be seen in the case of the associations interviewed. The Chinese community and its interests are represented by a wide range of associations including clan organisations like the Khoo Kongsi, mutual benefit associations, economic organisations as well as cultural associations. Umbrella associations like the Penang Chinese Town Hall, which took also part in our research, provides contacts mainly in the economic field among the Chinese and acts as medium for the settlement of disputes and unification of the community. Like the Gujarati associations, most Indian associations in colonial Penang and Malaya were engaged in religious and cultural issues but were also active in the field of workers’ rights and the improvement of working conditions in the form of trade unions and guilds. Attempts to unify the Indian community in an organisation like the Penang Chinese Town Hall were hindered by differences of language, origin, caste status, educational and occupational background as well as the urban-rural dualism among the Indians (Anbalakan, 2002: 2-3). The mosque constituted the centre of associational activities of the Malay community; here not only religious but also social, educational or cultural activities took place as can be seen in the case of the Acheen St Mosque Residents Committee. Because of the predominantly rural structure of Malay society, hardly any associations for the articulation of economic interests existed: Their place was taken by institutions of cooperation and mutual help within the village (Tham 1977: 16-19).
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In the past the ethnic-based associations constituted the most obvious medium for the articulation and representation of communal interests as well as a basis for re-emphasizing cultural differences and reproducing ethnic identity. The interviews revealed that the situation did not change much up to now, even though the motivation for organisation along ethnic lines as well as the activities changed due to changed political and economic circumstances in post-war Malaysia. Probably the most far-reaching effect in the context of ethnic-based organisations and their persistence since independence in 1957 was due to the New Economic Policy (NEP) – the affirmative action policy in favor of the Malays, implemented in the aftermath of the ethnic riots in 1969. The NEP, its objectives to restructure the Malaysian society in order to correct economic imbalance and to eliminate the association of economic function with ethnicity as well as its implementation “has exacerbated ethnic divisions rather than produced social unity” (DeBernadi 2004: 121). The attempts of the NEP to restructure the economic sector were accompanied by the formulation of a national cultural policy which was supposed to constitute the basis for a Malaysian national culture. This national culture, based on the culture and the religion of the Bumiputera, reserved to incorporate elements from other cultures into the national culture to itself (Loh and Kahn 1992: 13). As a result the NEP as well as the national cultural policy have intensified ethnic consciousness and thus caused a strengthening of communal-based interests and activities in the economic as well as cultural field.
Today’s function of the Khoo Kongsi no longer lies in providing welfare, which nowadays is only claimed by older people, but in offering privileges and benefits to clansmen. These benefits, for instance, include scholarships for Khoo students who are not able to receive these benefits because of the governmental quota-system which favor Malay students over students of other ethnic backgrounds. The kongsi also sees itself as guardian and mediator of traditions and values which ought to be carried on and preserved because they constitute a distinct part of the Chinese culture and ethnic identity. Associations within the Gujarati community are concerned with religious and cultural matters which still play an important role in every individual’s life. The aim of these associations is to preserve and foster the distinct Gujarati identity through the cultivation and transmission of cultural values and traditions – an ethnic identity which is eagerly maintained by the community. Like the Gujarati community the Acheen St Mosque Residents Committee tries to preserve its distinct culture and history which is closely interwoven with the Islamic faith and the mosque on whose property the members live.
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The NEP not only re-emphasized the role of ethnic-based associations but also furthered the emergence of an increasing number of economic associations, mainly formed among the Malays (Weiss 2003: 28). The membership composition of these associations similar to the earlier established Chinese and Indian economic associations, guilds, Chambers of Commerce and trade unions reflects ethnic rather than class consciousness – a fact which still holds true for the major part of all trade unions, guilds and economic associations. The main emphasis of the ethnic-based associations was and - as outlined above - still is to safeguard the interests and preserving distinct cultural differences which provide a basis for ethnic identity in order to face the challenges imposed by the NEP and the national cultural policy. But even today ethnic interests and culture seem to be regarded as imperilled by contemporary political strategies. Especially the high degree of organisation among the Chinese community is a reflection of these political strategies which question language, culture and local histories of the individual ethnic groups.
Ethnic-based associations and preserved cultural differentiations between ethnic groups still play a crucial role in its member’s lives but differentiations within the respective ethnic community and associations play an important part as well. This became apparent in the course of the interviews, viz the distinction between the younger and older generation within these associations. All interviewed associations place special emphasis on the importance of passing on traditions and values to the younger generation. In some cases the associations are split up between the older generation, who are in general traditionalists and the younger generation who are exposed to other influences and values due to changing lifestyles in the course of modernisation and globalisation. Especially the Khoo Kongsi apparently faces a serious image problem.
The present challenge to the kongsi and other associations is how to make a traditional institution more attractive and ‘trendy’ for younger people in order to recruit prospective new and active members. The associations which value traditions and history very highly have to recognise the change taking place and incorporate this change into their activities and image in order to stay connected with the younger generation. The Khoo Kongsi is just one example of these image problems of ethnic associations which are eager to pass on values and traditions. Apparently these cultural determinants become less important or replaced in some of the younger members’ life and do not constitute a binding force anymore. Furthermore the kongsi is probably seen by some younger members as an old-fashioned institution in which, for instance, all members of the Board of Trustees are over 50 years of age and who do not represent the interests and concerns of the younger members. The younger
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generation often comes to the associations in case they need assistance, for instance scholarships, economic contacts or a burial ground for their parents. Institutions like the Khoo Kongsi which once played an important part in the economic and social life of its members lose its significance and become obsolete for the majority of younger members. The associations thus have to face a generation growing up with modern lifestyles and their incorporated values and have to develop strategies in order to successfully compete or integrate these new values in order to pass on traditions and values and to prevent their slow decay.
6. Case study of a religious association
The Dhammikarama Burmese Buddhist Temple
The Dhammikarama Burmese Buddhist Temple has a history of more than 200 years to look back on in which the small attap hut that served as a temple developed over time into a large temple including a main shrine hall, a Sunday School, a library as well as a lecture hall and monks’ quarter.
10.5 The Dhammikarama Burmese Buddhist Temple, photo S. Meinert, 2004.
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The Dhammikarama Burmese Buddhist Temple was the first Buddhist temple to be built in Penang in 1803. By this time the temple was known as Nandy Moloh Burmese Temple, later it was renamed the Dhammikarama Burmese Buddhist Temple. There is no information on the earliest arrivals of Burmese in Penang, but the Burmese community in Penang existed even before the British seized control of the island and it is estimated that the community was made up of a few hundred Burmese. Because of the growing community, the Burmese, who in majority were Buddhists, decided to purchase a piece of land which was turned into a place of worship in order to meet the religious obligations of the Burmese community.
Nowadays the former wooden temple has developed into a conglomerate of magnificent buildings and serves as a place for many Buddhist celebrations and activities. The most popular and significant Buddhist religious festivals carried out by the temple are the Wesak Day Celebration, and the Kathina Robe Celebration.12 Besides these and other Buddhist festivals celebrated, the temple also carries out wedding ceremonies, weekly meditation lessons and Sunday School for children as well religious training for adults in order to learn the right understanding and practice of the teachings expounded by the Buddha. These activities and festivals are the main source of promotion for the temple and help to attract new devotees and potential donors. The temple is financed solely by donations and volunteers who, for instance, help to organise festivals. In this context tourism is regarded by the president of the Temple Management Committee Theam Sim Chye13 as very important to the temple. Tourists – often bus loads of people – frequently donate larger sums of money and tend to buy souvenirs and snacks sold for the benefit of the temple. During festivals the temple is very crowded with devotees and visitors whose donations amount to a large sum of money and other requisites like oil and candles.
All monks at the temple originate from Burma.14 In former days the monks did not speak English and did scarcely know anything about the customs and life in the country they intended to stay. In order to meet the differing ethnic structure of the devotees, different languages spoken and to avoid a culture shock, the monks receive English language teaching and sufficient information about life in Penang already in Burma. The chief monk at the temple is appointed by a council of monks back in Burma. The present chief monk is the Venerable U Pannyavamsa who assumed the post of the 7th chief monk of the temple in 1972. Next to the Venerable U Pannyavamsa there are three more resident monks at the temple, two monks came from Burma, one is a local Chinese one.
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The organisational structure of the temple is made up by a management committee whose members are appointed by the chief monk. The president of the management committee is in turn elected by the members of the committee. The management committee carries out activities which are suggested by the chief monk, for example the planning and organising of the Grand Temple Bicentenary Celebrations in honour of the 200 year anniversary of the temple in the year 2003. The members of the management committee work just as the other people at the temple, e. g. people responsible for catering or souvenir sale, on a voluntary basis. Small salaries are given to some of them which enable them to make their living. The temple has widespread connections on a local as well as on the international level. There are close connections to temples in Burma, most of them near Rangoon, because most monks originate from one of these temples. The various Buddhist temples in Penang also are in close contact with each other, regardless whether the temples are Thai, Indian or Sri Lankan Buddhist temples: “it makes no sense to fight each other; the common religion is our main link”. Because of the well-being of the Dhammikarama Burmese Buddhist Temple and influenced by the wish to help not so well-off temples and monks, the temple every year donates robes and traditional requisites to needier rural Buddhist temples in Penang and on the mainland.
On the subject of ethnicity Theam emphasized that despite the name and history of the temple its devotees are ethnically mixed. This statement has to be modified in view to the fact that most of the devotees are actually Chinese. Theam gives two reasons for this: George Town’s mainly Chinese population and the high degree of intermarriages especially between Burmese and Chinese. The motives for intermarriages are the limited marriage choices offered by the small size of the Burmese community. As a result the Burmese community is assimilated into the other ethnic communities in Penang:
“The Burmese community is absorbed by other cultures ... there does not exist a Burmese identity anymore and the Burmese community and traditions are fading away... they have lost their Burmese roots.”
Only a few older devotees of the temple whose parents are Burmese and who are still able to speak Burmese are considered as “real Burmese”. The younger generation speaks Chinese, English or Malay depending on the intermarriage of their antecedents. Due to the multilingual character of the devotees and visitors of the temple and the fact that most resident monks do not speak Mandarin, English is the language of instruction in meditation lessons, Sunday School, and other activities. Buddhist Books, which are given away for free, are available mainly in English.
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Despite the previous assimilation many still call themselves Burmese because of their ancestors’ origin. They participate in the celebrations and activities at the temple but do not organise themselves on the common ground of their Burmese descent and identity. The temple is not frequented by Chinese only but also by Indians, Sri Lankans and Thais, not to mention the devotees coming for a visit from surrounding countries. The openness of the temple in regard to its devotees is repeatedly emphasized by Theam and is seen as a contribution to national unity.
“The temple is open to everyone ... you know, especially the Chinese and Indian worship at many temples – Buddhist temples, Indian temples, Taoist temples – but this does not matter, because its about worship, praise and unity and not about ethnicity.”
7. The impact of religion on ethnic organisation
In the case of Penang’s religious and ethnical diverse society, religion constitutes an important factor for the maintenance or crossing of ethnic boundaries which in turn influence the ethnic composition of the various religious communities. Religion can on the one hand serve as a unifying force, on the other hand constitute “an essential symbol of the ethnic boundary” (Nagata 1978: 103) – both alternatives have significant impact upon the organisation of ethnic diversity.
The Dhammikarama Burmese Buddhist Temple and the other Buddhist Temples which took part in our research may serve as examples of the apparently unifying force of religion seen from the ethnic point of view. All temples are clearly multiethnic as regards their devotees composition even though the number of devotees from each ethnic group differs, a fact mainly due to intermarriage, the majority status of Penang’s Chinese population as in the case of the Burmese temple, or the ethnic communities gathering at a certain temple as we noticed at the other temples, for instance at the Thai Wat Chaiya Mangalaram. The festivals celebrated at the temples are not just Buddhist celebrations like the Wesak Day, the Kathina Robe Celebration or the Water festival, but celebrations like the Chinese New Year are also highly popular among the devotees. The celebrations of strictly speaking non-Buddhist festivals like the burning of joss sticks in a Buddhist temple – a Chinese tradition according to Theam – are concessions to the many Chinese devotees of the temple. These traditions are widely accepted by the monks because they do not lead to the breach of any Buddhist rule and contribute to the integration of the large number of Chinese devotees into the temple community. In the same way English as the medium of instruction provides an
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essential foundation for inter-ethnic communication and understanding as seen in the case of the Burmese temple. Many contacts to other temples and joint festivals, irrespective of the name of the temple or the structure of the devotees, are established and conducted on the common ground of the Buddhist creed.
Religion itself as well as the temples thus provides a space for multiethnic interaction. Despite the original motive of erecting a place of worship for the Burmese and other ethnic communities like the Thai ethnicity apparently recedes into the background because religion – in this case Buddhism – provides a common basis for inter-ethnic contacts. The shared Buddhist identity constitutes the crucial factor for multiethnic organisation and activities of the devotees of different ethnic background within the temple. Religion can therefore be considered as an important medium for fostering the reduction of ethnic boundaries and uniting the devotees in the exercise of their religious belief, as Theam aptly puts it: “...it’s about worship, praise and unity and not about ethnicity”. The first conclusion which can therefore be drawn on the basis of the interviews is that the integrative factor of Buddhism and the temples may be evaluated as positive in regard to multiethnic organisation and interaction within the temples.
It has to be taken into consideration, however, that the temple is not only a possible place of multiethnic worship but at the same time may turn out to be an important place for the organisation of ethnic communities. In the case of the Dhammikarama Burmese Temple, the temple no longer serves as the organisational basis for the Burmese community which no longer exists. Due to the small size of the community, intermarriages with other ethnic groups took place resulting in the total assimilation of the Burmese community. Buddhism thus plays a dual role where the organisation of ethnic diversity is concerned. On the one hand it provides the basis for multiethnic contacts, interaction and organisation as already pointed out. On the other hand Buddhism is considered to be an essential part for social organisation and serves to construct ethnic identity as seen in the case of the Thai community. An important point that should be stressed here is the fact that multiethnic interactions and potential organisation within the temple does not necessarily imply that this is automatically transferred to the social level outside the temple as well. The ability of Buddhism to unite members of the different ethnic groups not only on the religious level but also on the social level outside the temple also is in doubt. But the question whether the fact of being Buddhist is sufficient to foster multiethnic contacts and interactions outside the temple cannot be answered in this context and requires further research.
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The present discussion of the impact of religion – Buddhism in this case – on the organisation of ethnic communities did not take Islam into consideration, though it makes a significant contribution to ethnic differentiation as well as organisation. Islam not only is the state religion in Malaysia but at the same time constitutes an ethnic marker which is closely connected with Malay history, customs and identity. To be a Malay is to be a Muslim as stated, among other characteristics that should identify a Malay, in the Constitution of Malaysia15. The close interrelationship between “Malayness” and Islam is exemplified in the saying that “to ‘enter Islam’ (masok Islam) is in fact to ‘become a Malay’ (masok Melayu)” (Nagata 1978: 103). Islam thus constitutes a central attribute of an ethnic group – in this case the Malays – and plays a crucial role in regard to Malay identity, culture and social organisation the way Buddhism does for the Thai community.
The mosque is very important in a Muslims’ life not only in regard to religious concerns but also in view to social contacts and organisation – a fact which is confirmed by Muhammad, a member of the Acheen St Mosque Residents Committee: “...the Malays meet their friends in two places: the mosque or the hospital.” Within and around the mosque various associations engaged in all parts of the religious and social life of Muslims like Koran lessons evolve, as do associations providing social welfare or dedicated to the maintenance of mosques. These Muslim associations next to their primary objective contribute to the preservation, promotion and imparting of traditions and values which are of a religious nature but at the same time part of Malay culture and identity.
Despite being an ethnic-based religion closely associated with the Malay community, Islam also constitutes the most important medium of integration for many Arabs, Indonesians and Indian Muslims. Additionally the Islamic faith provides the basis for a common identity which permits the situational change of ethnic identity between the different ethnic groups. Acceptance into the Malay community is fostered by the common religion or the conversion to Islam which is often combined with intermarriage (Nagata 1978: 113). Converts and Muslims with other ethnic backgrounds are widely accepted within the Malay community and integrated in the religious and social life. Nevertheless some Muslims with a different ethnic background have their own associations, like the Penang Indian Muslim League or the Butterworth Indian Muslim Association (Mohamed 2001: 4), but most Indian Muslim associate themselves with the Malay community by now.
Despite the smooth integration of members from other ethnic communities, members of one ethnic group – the Chinese Muslims – are
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excluded from this integration along religious lines. In the past most Chinese converted to the Islamic faith because of Malay-Chinese intermarriages. Nowadays in an political environment, where being a Muslim is equated with being a Malay, an increasing number of Chinese convert because of the economic advantages and privileges available for Malays as, for instance scholarships, licenses or loans (Nagata 1978: 106). Although the Chinese convert to Islam they are not considered by the Malays as members of their community and do not participate in Malay social life and the easy switching of ethnic identities. As a consequence Chinese Muslim associations emerge which accommodate the special needs of Chinese Muslims, for example lectures in Islam which are translated into the respective Chinese languages or cooking lessons without the use of pork. Even Muhammad of the Acheen St Mosque Residents Committee emphasized the easy integration of Muslims with other ethnic background and the separation of Chinese Muslims:
“There is no separation between us, the Indian Muslims or the Arabs, they have the same religion and should be treated like brothers...no, there are no contacts to Chinese Muslims, they pray at the mosque but they are another ethnic group and there is no mixing of ethnic groups.”
An explanation of this disparity can be found in the ethnic relations between Chinese and Malays in contemporary Malaysia which are influenced by the history of the Chinese in Malaysia and their economic position which is still perceived as a threat by the Malays. The Chinese attempt to gain access to advantages and benefits reserved for the Malays through their conversion to the Islamic faith is seen as infringing on Malay privileges and is answered by the Malay community with the tightening of ethnic boundaries (Nagata 1978: 113). There also exist divisions within the Malay Muslim community to a large part caused by the Islamic revivalism in the 1980s. While Islam constituted and still constitutes an integrative stronghold of Malay identity, Islamic revivalism in Malaysia as a part of a global Islamic movement which started with the Iranian Revolution, triggered off a wave of Islamic reformism with corresponding associations (Ackerman and Lee 1990: 57). These dakwah16 organisations primarily foster Islamic traditions and a life according to traditional Islamic law and tenets (Hassan 2003: 103). The organisations are often associated with a fundamentalist Islamic revival movement opposed to the modern and moderate Islam propagated by the government.
The conclusions which can be drawn in regard to the influence of Islam on ethnic organisation are varied. On the one hand Islam, its traditions and values, are closely associated with Malay identity and serve as a basis for organisation within the Malay community on a religious as well as social level despite the division among the Islamic community due to the dakwah movement. In this
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context it is essential to point out the integrational factor of Islam in view to Muslims with other ethnic background and their involvement in the religious and social associations with evolved around the Islamic faith. On the other hand membership in the Muslim community does not automatically imply membership in the Malay community as can be seen in the case of the Chinese Muslims. Common religion cannot abolish the existing ethnic boundary and thus provide a common ground for social organisation.
Religion plays a vital part in the life of many Penangities as elsewhere in Malaysia not only in regard to the exercise of the respective faith but also in view to the organisation of ethnic diversity and ethnic identification. The result of the religious diversity is a multiplicity of religious associations which represent the various concerns of the respective religious communities. Whereas the Buddhist associations and temples emphasize their multiethnic outlook, the Muslim associations represent the Malay community and constitute an exclusive religion including many but not all Malaysian Muslims.
8. Case studies of multiethnic associations
The Consumers’ Association Penang
The Consumers’ Association Penang (CAP) is the oldest multiethnic association engaged in social issues to be found in Penang. CAP was founded in 1969 by a group of professionals who in the fore run organised a public forum over one weekend with speakers addressing the rights of Malaysians, for instance the right to decent products at fair prices or the right to a safe and clean working place. The public forum was a success, and within three weeks CAP had been established. The president of CAP was and until today is Idris, a prominent community leader and long-serving Municipal Councillor.17 The objectives of CAP in the past as well as today are to create critical awareness and to make consumers think and question their behaviour. In Idris’ opinion people should think more critically and have the strength to resist popular trends and practices like smoking or gambling.
In order to carry out its various activities, CAP is divided into different sections. The Research Section focuses on specific issues such as health and nutrition, unethical advertising practices, culture and lifestyle and women’s issues. The Community and Rural Section works with rural and urban communities such as fishermen, farmers or squatters in order to help them articulate their problems. Consumer education for many groups like school children or students, women or youth groups is carried out by the Education Section. Complains from the public concerning issues of all kind are handled in
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the Complain Section, and the Legal Section deals with legal cases possessing public interest. Every month CAP sends a couple of memorandums to different government departments arguing for legislation changes which can be repeated over and over again, depending on the issue and reaction of the government department. CAP also publishes a news magazine in four languages: the English edition is the one with the highest sales, followed by the Chinese, Malay and Indian editions respectively. The books, booklets and reports published are also available in different languages. Sales of the news magazines, books and booklets as well as donations are the main sources of income for CAP.
All major ethnic groups, religions and social levels are represented except for rich people because they often constitute the typical example of big business CAP despises. A council of ten members, including the president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer is elected every three years by the members of CAP. The council meets every second month. Around 40 people work for CAP in its different sections, administration and library, some on a voluntary basis, some as full-time or half-time staff. People who work at CAP are multiethnic in their composition with all three major ethnic groups represented. The language of communication is English but people of the same ethnic group also speak their respective own languages among each other.
The Penang Heritage Trust
The Penang Heritage Trust (PHT) is one of the most prominent and outspoken association in Penang, integrated not only in local but also in international networks, it plays an active role in local as well as state government. Among other interviews with members from the PHT one was conducted with Dr. Lim Gaik Poey, the president of the PHT who explained not only the history and the objectives of the PHT but also the problems of the PHT in regard to its ethnic composition18.
The PHT was founded in 1986 by what Lim calls an “elite group of architects and artists” who were interested and concerned about the architectural heritage of George Town. At that time it was more like a “looking at buildings and discuss about its value and cultural heritage” association which also tried to raise money from the government and individuals in order to preserve the building heritage of George Town. In its beginnings the PHT proved not to be very successful in raising awareness and money. It was this lack of awareness which according to Lim during the economic and building boom in the 1990s caused the demolition of many buildings in the inner city of
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George Town and the construction of high rise buildings to replace them. It was at this time that the members of the PHT realised that the association had to change its strategies in order to effectively preserve the heritage of George Town. To attain this goal the PHT needed many allies with different backgrounds. The people and communities who actually lived at the endangered sites had to be involved and the PHT itself had to open up to members with other educational and social backgrounds. Today the PHT focuses not just on the endangered buildings but also on the communities living at the sites and their cultural heritage as well as on the economic sustainability of the projects. People oriented development is now seen as one important part of the PHT strategy which includes the revitalization of almost forgotten traditions and the creation of awareness for the communities’ own cultural and historic background.
The objectives of the PHT are to promote the conservation of George Town’s heritage, its historic architecture and enclaves but also the maintenance of cultural diversity. Additionally the PHT fosters education concerning the history, heritage and cultural diversity of George Town. The preservation and restoration of the actual buildings is not the main function of the PHT. The PHT sees itself as a promoter for the preservation of heritage through the media, conferences or public auditions with the aim to raise awareness and to find financial supporters for the actual renovation of a building. The choice of the building to undergo renovation depends on the significance of the building in view of its history, its residents and the community affected. The first step taken by the PHT is to inform the public about the decay of this particular site and the reasons why it is to be considered as important architectural, cultural as well as social heritage site through press conferences and public hearings. The residents are involved in every step taken by the PHT because the residents themselves have to support and actively work for the preservation.
The activities of the PHT are numerous, among others monthly heritage site visits for members to private and public sites, designing corporate-sponsored heritage trails within the city centre, publishing regular newsletters, and organising street parties as fund-raisers, involving local residents and street hawkers. The PHT has approximately 400-500 members of which not more than 20-30 are active members. The remaining members support the PHT with money and important contacts which are necessary to carry out its work and activities. The structure of the PHT is similar to many other associations. The ten members of the management council will be elected every two years by the members of the PHT. The management council in turn elects the president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer and meets once a month. It is difficult to find people who are willing to be elected to the management committee, Lim
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says, because it takes a lot of time and is completely voluntary. The only two full-time staff members are responsible for administrative matters and run the office. The PHT is wholly dependent on sub-subscriptions, donations and grants. The income from membership fees and heritage tours is minimal; the amount of money at the disposal of the PHT approximately covers the running expenses of one year. In terms of contacts the PHT is an active member of local as well international networks. Contacts on the local level not only involve associations like the Consumers’ Association Penang but also many clan associations, mosque communities as well as cultural and social associations of various ethnic communities. On the international level the PHT for example was a founding member of the Asia and West Pacific Network for Urban Conversation and collaborates with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and various foreign universities.
Despite the aim to broaden the spectrum of the members the PHT still is an association in which the upper middle class and professionals constitute the majority of members. The ethnic composition of the PHT shows that Chinese make up the majority of members. The PHT emphasizes its multiethnic character in its projects and wishes the same for its membership structure. Not just the PHT as a multiethnic association has to face an unbalanced membership structure in regard to its ethnic composition, but this according to Lim constitutes a problem for all multiethnic associations in Penang and Malaysia.
9. Multiethnic associations in theory and practice
Multiethnic associations promoting a wide-range of social, environmental, cultural or civil interests and agendas are a relatively new phenomenon in contemporary Malaysia. The Consumers’ Association Penang founded in 1969 is considered the first modern multiethnic association in Penang and all of Malaysia (Weiss 2003: 198). But as the data analyzed already suggested, a considerable number of associations is organised around social issues and many of them claim to be multiethnic in their outlook. In their ideal form multiethnic associations are associations with a high accessibility and are expected to cross social as well as ethnic divisions and unite citizens in the work for the good cause. In practice the multiethnic associations rather resemble monoethnic associations in their membership structure: most members of the Penang Heritage Trust are Chinese, and all members of the Penang Consumer Protection Association, another association we conducted research at, are Indian. The only expectation seems to be the Consumers’ Association Penang with a real multiethnic membership structure. As it seems even supposedly
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multiethnic associations are organised along ethnic lines, a fact already pointed out by Weiss: “while advocacy NGOs are usually open in principle to members of all races, most are segregated in practice” (Weiss 2003: 41).
The questions that arise now are why these associations which particularly emphasize their multiethnic outlook in practice are still ethnically segregated and what distinguishes the Consumers’ Association Penang from the other associations. Before turning to the discussion, a first general consideration has to be taken into account: because of the diverse and multilayered social structure found in Penang as well as in most of Malaysia, many social, cultural, political and economical processes take place at the same time, and this may influence the membership structure of the associations. The following points under discussion therefore can be regarded as tentative assumptions only which need further research for verification or refutation.
The interviews with the Penang Heritage Trust (PHT) showed in the first place that the members consist of the elite, professionals and members of the upper middle class. The second observation is that most of the members are Chinese. The PHT is well aware of the socio-economic background of its members and is eager to attract people with other economic and educational backgrounds in order to broaden its spectrum of membership. In spite of various efforts this has not proven successful. As it seems there is a division along social classes which can be explained to some degree by the fact that individuals belonging to the lower classes lack the time for voluntary work because their economic situation does not allow spare-time work on a voluntary basis. The obvious upper middle class membership structure of the PHT as well as the fact that most members are Chinese now requires a closer look at the middle class membership in general and possible interrelations between middle class, ethnicity and the membership structure of multiethnic associations.
The emergence of a “new Malaysian middle class [which] is multiethnic in composition, with the new Malay middle class constituting a major component” (Embong 2000: 12) was one lasting impact of the NEP and its reconstructing programmes. This new multiethnic middle class is seen as a catalyst for change and initiator of new forms of associations and articulation addressing social issues, consumers, human and women’s rights as well as of greater democratic liberties and space beyond ethnicity and religion (Embong 2000: 13).
For a further discussion two aspects have to be taken into consideration: the – despite the NEP – in terms of members and income still
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strong Chinese middle class as well as the partly demobilized Malay middle class regarding social movements.
Data reveal that despite the successful efforts of the government to raise the income of Malays and Malay middle class membership, the Chinese still have on the average a higher income and a higher percentage of professionals in comparison to the Malays or Indians (Jomo 1999: 136-137; Schwinghammer 1998: 102-125). Despite the NEP non-Malays, especially the Chinese, made progress in economical terms mainly because not only Bumiputera but also the non-Malay communities benefited from the overall economic growth, which took place during the last two decades in Malaysia (Liew 2003: 96). Especially small and medium sized industries largely owned by Chinese that supply materials and components to international companies in Penang’s various industrial free zones and export zones benefited from the economic growth. The same is true of Chinese businessmen who got involved in the booming construction and property development taking place in Penang (Kahn 1997: 66). It therefore seems reasonable to suppose that the Chinese still make up a considerable part of Penang’s upper middle class which mainly constitutes the members of the PHT. In addition we have to bear in mind the fact that the Chinese are the largest ethnic group in the State of Penang, especially in urban George Town where the activities of the PHT are concentrated.
In contrast to the Chinese middle class, the new Malay middle class emerged mainly with the help of governmental affirmative action policies and is as a result loyal and supportive to the government. The new Malay middle class thus developed a political conservatism which “has left the emergent middle class largely demobilized and loath to be too involved in activities that might challenge the smooth implementation of development plans” (Weiss and Hassan 2003: 6-7) like critically minded social movements. Additionally with the expansion of a new Malay middle class, new consumption patterns and consumerism also expanded as an essential part of a new lifestyle (Talib 2000: 56). This is particularly apparent within the new Malay middle class which is primarily occupied with the fulfilment of consumption desires – a lifestyle in which is hardly space for social concerns. This of cause can not been generalized in regard to all members of the Malay middle class but constitutes a visible trend as regards the engagement of Malay middle class members in social movements. The Indian community benefited least of all three major ethnic communities from the overall economic growth. Their economic starting position was not as strong as that of the Chinese and they did not receive government support like the Malays. Membership of Indians in the middle class therefore is due to their relatively small population size and economic position
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more limited in comparison with the Chinese or Malay middle class membership. It can be assumed that these circumstances influence and limit the number of Indian in the PHT, too.
It seems that membership in multiethnic associations which are made up of members of the middle call is significantly influenced by social classes and their composition. Because membership in the middle class still correlates to some extent with ethnicity and is influenced by politics and lifestyles which can be assigned to special groups within the middle class as outlined above, the present membership pattern as found in the PHT clearly is an obstacle to the integrational factor of the association as Lim pointed out:
“In regard to the integration of the different ethnic communities, I have to admit that the PHT as a multiethnic association failed. The PHT should be multiracial not only in theory but reflect multiethnicity in its membership. Our interests and projects are multiracial but not our membership structure.”
Furthermore the PHT has to struggle with the prejudice that the projects and the work of the PHT in general concentrates on the preservation and promotion of Chinese heritage only, and this could discourage potential members of other ethnic background to become a member. There were efforts made by the PHT to involve the Muslim community, one of the current projects is engaged in waqf revitalization, for instance, in order to promote an awareness of the Muslim heritage and the historical legacy of waqf. But according to some informants there is no wide range of support within the Muslim community for this project and similar projects undertaken in the past.
More intensive contacts of the leader or members of multiethnic associations with members of the respective ethnic group may constitute a further possible reason for the organising of multiethnic groups along ethnic lines. This is certainly true for the Penang Consumer Protection Association (PCPA). Here it was emphasized that many contacts within the Indian community are used to recruit new members. The supposed openness of the PCPA to everyone refers to members of the Indian community with different economic and educational backgrounds rather than to individuals of different ethnic backgrounds. In contrast to the Penang Heritage Trust and the Penang Consumer Protection Association, the Consumers’ Association Penang seems to be the only association the membership structure of which is actually multiethnic. CAP which was also founded by professionals is today regarded as an association the members of which are recruited among the non-graduates and non-professionals and to a lesser extent among the educated middle class (Weiss 2003: 38). CAP thus recruits its members in the more ethnically mixed lower class and appears to be more mass-based. As a result the news magazines
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and other publications which are published in four different languages are aimed at a broader multiethnic readership. The news magazine of the PHT in contrast is only published in English which leads to the assumption that it aims at a specific English-speaking or English-educated readership mainly to be found in the middle and upper class. What is interesting though is that the English edition of the CAP news magazine is the most sold of the four editions which imply that a large English-educated or English-speaking circle is interested in consumer rights. Another characteristic of CAP is the strong identification of the association with its leader Idris (Weiss 2003: 38-39). This popular leader might constitute a unifying force for its members across all social and ethnic differences, but this is only a preliminary assumption that needs further verification.
Theory and practice of multiethnic membership diverge significantly. Even if the associations particularly emphasize their openness for members of any ethnic background and social class, only a few multiethnic associations may claim this name. The larger socio-economic, political as well as religious processes taking place in Malaysian society may cause social as well as ethnical cleavages which turn out to be indirect or direct obstacles to the formation of multiethnic associations.
10. Conclusion
In Penang’s multiracial society associations played, and still play, a significant role as regards the organisation of ethnic diversity. As it turned out formation, motivation, activities and membership structure of the associations is highly influenced by present social, cultural, political and economic processes, and religion also has a remarkable impact upon the organisational pattern of ethnic groups.
Organisation along ethnic lines is still the most common feature of associations in Penang. As in the past, today’s ethnic-based associations constitute a medium for the articulation and representation of communal interests. Furthermore, the aim of many associations to preserve distinct cultural differences as embodied in language, culture and traditions contributes to the maintenance of ethnic boundaries and the reproduction of ethnic identity. This can be seen as a reflection of the challenges posed to culture, language and traditions of ethnic groups in the course of government strategies and programmes which find their expression in the still existing organisational needs of ethnic groups.
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A further visible trend is the emergence of a considerable number of associations that are organised around social issues rather than ethnic communities. Many of these associations emphasize their multiethnic outlook which should ideally overcome ethnic and religious cleavages in the work for a common goal. In practice however, the multiethnic membership structure in most cases turns out to be monoethnic rather than ethnically mixed. It became apparent that membership in multiethnic associations is influenced by various factors. Divisions between social classes and within a social class – in this case the middle class – and its composition may cause the domination of one ethnic group within the association as seen in the case of the Penang Heritage Trust. On the other hand, the recruitment of members who are predominantly non-graduates and non-professionals as shown in the case of the Consumers’ Association Penang may contribute to a more multiethnic membership structure. A popular leader like Idris of the Consumers’ Association Penang, intensive contacts of the leader and members of with one ethnic group as seen in the case of the Penang Consumer Protection Association or the question who shows interest in the issues addressed by the associations are further aspects that may have an impact upon the membership structure of multiethnic associations.
As it turned out, religion as well plays a vital part where the organisation of ethnic diversity is concerned. On the one hand religion, here Buddhism and Islam, serves as an ethnic marker, essential part of ethnic identity as well as social organisation and constitutes a significant symbol of ethnic boundaries. On the other hand Buddhism and its places of worship create a space for multiethnic organisation and interaction. The Islamic faith in turn fosters the smooth integration of other ethnic groups into the Malay community and provides the basis for a common identity which permits the situational change of ethnic identity.
Obviously associations not only have a significant impact on the organisation of ethnic diversity, but also influence integration of ethnic groups into Malaysian society. Ethnic-based associations in particular and their aim to preserve distinct traditions, language and cultural features may lead to the assumption that their contribution to ethnic integration is relatively low or contradictory to national unity. But especially the integrative factor of ethnic-based associations cannot be evaluated as low or high per se but has to be considered in view of wider political, economic, social and cultural processes taking place in contemporary Malaysia. The essential question regarding the integration of ethnic groups which is either based on the recognition of cultural, religious and linguistic pluralism or assimilation into a national culture dominated by one ethnic group has to be solved first before an united and
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ethnically integrated Malaysian nation as envisioned in the Vision 2020 can come into existence. As long as ethnic communities nowadays feel the need to articulate and safeguard their interests, because these are seen as imperilled by political and economic strategies, and to meet the challenges posed to their ethnic identity and culture by the cultural hegemony of one ethnic group, ethnic-based associations will constitute a stronghold of ethnic communities and their identity and a hindrance to ethnic integration. However, in a national culture which is not equated with Malay culture and fosters cultural pluralism, ethnic-based associations would make their contribution to a common culture as an expression of cultural diversity.
From the point of view of ethnic integration most multiethnic associations clearly failed to cross ethnic and social cleavages. A closer look reveals that only a few multiethnic associations, for instance the Consumers’ Association Penang, may claim the name and foster closer ethnic interaction. Ethnic interaction and integration based on a shared faith appear to be more common in contemporary Penang. Nevertheless it has to be bore in mind that because of the exclusive character of Islam, closer interaction between Muslims and devotees of other religions seems to be impossible in the religious field.
In general it can be said that closer interaction between ethnic groups has to be reinforced on the level of the associations but also by larger social, economic and political processes. Especially contacts among ethnic-based associations are rare and selective. Mutual visits of representatives of larger associations on occasion of major celebrations like the Chinese New Year, Hari Raya or Deepavali are merely a beginning rather than the final contribution to integration. Frequent contacts and cooperation including members on all levels have to develop in order to foster interaction and integration in the long run. Political parties that are established along ethnic lines and represent communal interests, the still existing quota-system in favour of the Malays or the question of integration or assimilation into a national culture are examples for the ethnic principles and unanswered questions underlying Malaysian society which have a decisive impact on national unity and ethnic integration. Given the location of Penang at the Straits of Malacca, contacts and migration across to Sumatra and along the Straits to Thailand, Burma and beyond to India and the Middle East will continue with the further economic integration of the Straits region. Diversity will probably be maintained and associations of various types will continue to play a major role in structuring the multi-ethnic and multi-religious society of Penang.
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Notes
1 Field research in Penang has been carried out by Sarah Meinert in 2004, and by Solvay Gerke and Hans-Dieter Evers frequently, while serving as visiting professors at the Science University of Malaysia, Penang. We are grateful to Hans-Dieter Evers for valuable inputs and suggestions in carrying out field research and data analysis. 2 Kampung literally means village, but in the urban context is also used for Malay areas which maintain “a typical rural appearance” within Malaysian towns and cities (Evers and Korff 2000: 109). 3 Adat is the oral tradition of a special code of conduct and law which determines all areas of social and ceremonial life (Siebeth 1990: 238). 4 Penang Muslim Welfare Association (translation by the authors). 5 Penang Bumiputera Building Contractor Union (translation by the authors). 6 In Diagram 10. the category “Ethnic Organisations” does not include only those of the corresponding category but also trade unions, economic interests groups, religious associations and sport clubs obviously based on ethnic criteria. 7 The numbers have to be handled with care because a brochure issued by the Khoo Kongsi estimates the number of Khoo living in Penang to amount up to 8000 (Kooh and Khoo 1998: 4). 8 Next to the Khoo are the Cheah, Lim, Tan and Yeoh the four large kongsis in Penang which are also based on surnames (DeBernadi 2004: 28). 9 Interview with Cheoh Tam Cheng, 28.10.04. 10 Interview with Himanshu Popatlal, 01.11.04. 11 The term waqf describes a religious endowment in Islam which should serve the communal interests. This mainly implies the devoting of a building or plot of land for Muslim religious purposes (Nagata 2002: 5). 12 On Wesak Day the devotees commemorate the birth, enlightenment and demise of the Buddha at one day. During the Kathina Robe Celebration devotees offer robes and other requisites to the resident monks of the temple. 13 Interviews with Theam Sim Chye, 24./27.10.04. 14 Theam used the name Burma exclusively instead of the now official name Myanmar. The name Burma is often used by individuals who wish to express their disapproval with the ruling military regime who renamed Burma in 1989. 15 A Malay, according to definition, is a person who is a Muslim, speaks the Malay language and follows Malay customs (Weiss and Hassan 2003: 204). 16
The term dakwah “is derived from the Arabic da’wa, which literally means an invitation to become a Muslim” (Ackerman and Lee 1990: 176). 17 The interview with Idris took place, 02.11.04. 18 Interview with Dr. Lim, 02.11.04.
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