Concept of ‘social contract’ has departed from original meaning, says ex-AG

 

Former attorney-general Tommy Thomas said the term ‘social contract’ has been rendered meaningless.

PETALING JAYA: 

The much-quoted idea of “social contract” has departed from its original meaning, rendering it meaningless, says former attorney-general Tommy Thomas.

Thomas said the term “social contract” needs to be understood within the social conditions surrounding Malaya’s road to independence, which have changed significantly since Merdeka.

“What the social contract endeavoured to describe is not static, rigid or fixed. It reflected the political realities of the times, which was the relationship among the three major races in Malaya in August 1957,” he said at the launch of the book “Revisiting the Social Contract” at Gerakbudaya today.

Thomas said the idea of “social contract” was a term not legally existing in the Federal Constitution or the political lexicon during the Merdeka years. The term is often used by current-day politicians to describe the negotiations and decisions made between the Malay and non-Malay communities before independence.

He said a major concern surrounding Malaya’s independence was the question of how to accommodate the Chinese and Indian immigrants into the “new country”.

“Domicile and (the granting of) citizenship were the solutions. The social contract reached by the three communities was that in exchange for full citizenship, and the right to use their language and observe their religion, the non-Malays had to concede special privileges to the Malays to assist the latter in ascending the economic ladder. It was a quid pro quo.

“What was required from the non-Malays at the time of Merdeka was undivided loyalty to the new nation. Diversity was encouraged, and there was no pressure to integrate into one Malaysian race. Assimilation was out of the question,” he said.

Thomas said the agreements under the social contract were also meant to protect the rights of the Malays, who comprised less than half of then Malaya’s population. “The non-Malays had sufficient bargaining power from 1956 to 1957,” he said.

According to him, the Malay demographic was 49.8% (3,125,000), Chinese 37.2% (2,334,000), Indians 11.3% (707,000), and others 1.8% (112,000) in 1957.

However, he said, Malaysia’s social fabric has changed significantly since 1957, which “impacted the meaning of the social contract”.

He cited several critical events, including the formation of Malaysia in 1963, which saw Sabah and Sarawak joining the federation; the May 13 riots in 1969; the New Economic Policy in 1971; the Iranian Revolution in 1979 that led to a worldwide Islamic revival; Anwar Ibrahim’s subsequent entry into Umno and the intensification of Islamisation in the 1980s; the politicisation of religion due to the political contests between Umno and PAS throughout the 1980s; and former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s declaration of Malaysia as an “Islamic country” in 2001.

“The Malaysia we find today is the result of all these steps, each taken separately, seemingly harmless, but have radically transformed the nation into something unrecognisable by our founding fathers.

“It follows that the original meaning of social contract is so divorced from contemporary times to render it meaningless. Indeed, it is legitimate to ask whether the term ‘social contract’ can mean anything today,” he said.

Thomas also said the current polarisation of race and religion is against the pluralistic nature of Peninsular Malaysia as the arrival of immigrants started as early as the 15th century to Melaka.

“It has always been a hospitable land for newcomers, as present-day foreign labour, legal and illegal, will testify. That we are multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural and multireligious have been the cardinal features of Malaya for centuries,” he said.

However, he said, the awakening of nationalism and political consciousness in Malaya after World War II had unfortunately given birth to communal parties, such as Umno, MCA, and MIC.

“When (founder of Umno) Onn Jaafar tried to open up the party in 1951 to other races, he failed and resigned. The formation of the three political parties on ethnic lines (had caused) every public and national issue to be viewed from racial lenses from the cradle to the grave.

“A direct consequence in a plural society that deliberately keeps races separate and apart from each other is the forming of a pecking order, which then begets domination and discrimination,” he said. - FMT