Difficult Synthesis: Recent Trends in Malay Political Sociology and History

Illusions of Relevance? An Australian Encounter with Malay History and Southeast Asian Security

“…14 A little later in academic time, Milner was in print with an important, if polemical, essay which reiterated or elaborated two of the above positions, namely (a) the inadequacy of virtually all historical scholarship on British Malaya, owing to the "enslavement" of the scholarly community: not so much to Western-derived social science approaches as to British archival sources, which have inhibited them from seeing events from a "Malay point of view", especially through Malay texts and newspapers -alone W.R.Roff [37] showing the capacity to read the records "against the grain" ( [26], 9); and (b) (unsuspected by these blinkered scholars and thus 12 The study in Milner's critical sights is Gullick [12]. For the present writer's more positive view of Gullick's work, see Kershaw [17], partly devoted to Milner [1982]. Minor corrigenda to that article are noted in Kershaw ([18], 170) (this being a study of the ideology of the new Malay ruling elite in the democratic era).…”

“…Another critic of Milner, in a robust riposte to the article in question, has firstly denied the charge with regard to historians of Southeast Asia generally, and secondly, suggests that if the "British Malayan historians" have neglected sociological paradigms it is not because of disdain, but perhaps rather because of an intuitive awareness of the danger of falling into the trap of speculative history of the worst kind, unless one is endowed with talent and experience of a very high order [44]. 17 One trap which Yeo avoids is that of diluting his response to Milner by resort to academic circumlocution or any kind of diplomatic evasiveness. The article is a model of just but absolutely cogent excoriation of a critique of questionable justice.…”

“…If it is necessary, in order to understand the significance of the dependence of "British Malayan historians" on British records, "to know more about the intellectual formation of the historians themselves" ( [26], 8), a need is also emerging to understand what it is in Anthony Milner's formation that equips him uniquely to avoid the reputed biases of most other specialists. 17 On "sociological paradigms and jargon" and "speculative history", see Yeo ([44], 4-5).…”

“…On an arcane point of methodology, the present critic has inferred (see previous paragraph) his inclination to see language as a reflection, not foundation, of social structure -so Malay "politics" was not exactly "invented" in the way Milner means; nevertheless, once we start to talk of ideology, we are bound to acknowledge its function in terms of swaying minds and moulding events. 21 The reference to affinities between Milner [28] and Roff [37] in the previous note could be glossed to stress the continuity in elite culture between the 19th and 20th centuries, at least courtesy of British educational policy; while even more indispensable on the subject of continuities beneath a surface of apparent transformation, is to understand how the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) has justified "lordliness" and self-protection by a de facto rule of lèse majesté, by invoking the ethnic vulnerability of the Malays: Muzaffar [31] -also reviewed in Kershaw [17]; see, too, Kershaw [18]. However, Milner [28] is strictly confined to the colonial period before World War II.…”