By Wang Gungwu
Nation states tend to stress their cohesion and solidarity. Migrant states, however, where the majority of people are descendants of immigrants, are distinguished by the multiple cultural origins of their peoples. They tend to be organised to accommodate diversity.
Singapore is the only country in Asia that can be called a migrant state. In that context, it is significant that attention has recently been focused on the need to respect diversity. This reminds everyone that modern states in a mobile and globalised world still face questions of plurality.
Diversity in a small state that depends on international networks has to be handled with great care. Such a state needs to know why some kinds of diversity are soft and amenable to producing cohesion while others build hard shells that readily cause serious divisions.
I was reminded of all this when I revisited Singapore`s new Peranakan Museum and when the issue surfaced during last week`s conference on the Peranakan Chinese communities of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Here are resilient communities that, despite their diverse origins, have survived many ups and downs for some 300 years. That Peranakan artefacts have been placed in a museum while a Peranakan culture industry is flourishing suggest that this community deserves closer attention.
Who are the Peranakan? There is no agreed definition of the word. It could be used inclusively to cover all those who stress their local birth, or it could be used narrowly to refer only to those descended from a small number of extended families. The lack of an agreed definition itself implies the presence of continual internal diversity.
But one point is accepted. The communities stem from multiple origins, with the stress on a Chinese paternal line and on miscellaneous maternal lines. Equally important are two other elements: Their linguistic core is based on Malay, the lingua franca of the archipelago; and their identity was designated by the two colonial states that arose from the Dutch and English East India companies.
The Dutch and the British led the way in the 18th century in shaping the modern nation state. Neither the Chinese nor the Malay world had any conception of nationhood. Thus, the allocated place for a “Chinese” identity in European colonies produced something like a proto-national. The mandarins in Qing China knew little about this. When they discovered in the 19th century prosperous merchants in the Nanyang who were called “Chinese”, they were astonished but also impressed.
Soon afterwards, other activists also discerned their own “Chinese” identity, one that overrode the parochial borders that had long divided the peoples of China. By the 20th century, this consciousness propelled a powerful nationalism aimed at saving or reviving republican China. Added to the other nationalisms within Southeast Asia, this overwhelmed whatever sense of identity the Peranakan Chinese might have had. A proto-national position simply could not be defended against the onslaught of passionate national causes.
Nevertheless, thanks to the separation of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965, the Peranakan phenomenon has risen again. From the diversity of the communities of the Straits Settlements, the Malay States and various parts of Java has come the diversity of a new local-born community — the “Chinese Singaporean”. This time, the core elements are different: English is the new lingua franca and a post-colonial state provides the framework for nationhood.
Does this mean the end of the historic Peranakan community in Singapore? As previously conceived, with the community requiring the domestic use of the Malay language and the presence of British authority, the answer would have to be yes. However, if the stress is on how the community negotiates with a new national identity, the answer is not so clear.
Singapore is a state dedicated to diversity, but diversity is not something marked off by official labels alone. What government leaders strongly reaffirmed this past month includes the diversities of values, ideals, beliefs and social and political origins. These are not narrowly confined by national borders but are inspired by reason, knowledge and mutual respect that are transnational.
The population is now largely local-born and educated to share certain public goals. But this is no bar to diversity. For example, the divisions among the Peranakan during the past 300 years are still present among their descendants. These include diversity in the businesses they pursue, in their political roles and, however dimly understood, in their cultural loyalties.
The big difference today is that the diversity now faces four fresh conditions. The first is that the state is something they can call their own. The second is that the archipelago has new national boundaries. The third is that China is now a strong state connected to a system of nation states. And, finally, the lingua franca is English, a language that encompasses multitudes of global networks open to all educated Singaporeans.
The Singapore Peranakan re-emerged from being part of a larger “Straits Chinese” identity and did so despite the community`s internal differences. That experience of soft diversity can surely provide a migrant state with lessons on how to thrive in an ever-changing global environment.
Source: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com (27 may 2009)
