Political discourse and pedagogy : the central role of successive Malaysian prime ministers

Abstract

This is a study of the role played by Malaysian leaders in shaping both the political discourse and the pedagogy of their nation. The Malay rajas and sultans of the past were the political, intellectual and spiritual centres of their realms. Today, that role has been largely assumed by nationalist political leaders. Thus, Malaysian political discourse and pedagogy converge in the person of the Prime Minister. He is the discursive agenda-setter, the source of vision and the nation's 'political religion'. He represents a state, which is the final arbiter of knowledge, pedagogy, and cultural norm. Malaysia is a product of a multiplicity of cultural streams has washed over its shores. Animist- deference to (spiritually-) gifted individuals, Hindu hierarchy in relationships and government, Buddhist submergence of the individual in the collective, Islam's Quran-centredness, Western institutional and knowledge forms, and Japanese work ethics and management practices have all left their imprint on the Malaysia of today. Now after some forty years of reinterpreting and sifting colonialism's legacies in the light of local perceptions, Malaysia's cultural distinctiveness is increasingly apparent. Malaysian Prime Ministers have shaped a discourse and institutional structure, which is centred around themselves. Political power is focussed at the centre. Educational practice prepares a "trained" and "disciplined" citizenry, able to participate in the kerajaan order that is the Malaysian state. Under Dr Mahathir and his deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, the nationalist discourse has shifted in emphasis from Malay to Islamic issues. 'Modernity' has been relocated within an Islamic discourse. Similarly, in education there is now a greater emphasis on religious (and morals) teaching and on relocating Western knowledge forms onto an Islamic presuppositional foundation. Thus, Dr Mahathir's claims for Asian (or Malaysian) distinctiveness and Anwar Ibrahim's dreams of an Asian cultural and intellectual renaissance must be given attention. They explode the myth of the universality of Western norms and stake a claim to the individual right to see things differently. Show more