Ethnic Relations—Southeast Asia | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Southeast Asia consists of the ten nation-states of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The people in each are of mixed ethnic backgrounds since they are composed of groups descended from indigenous people as well as migrant Chinese and Indians. These migrant groups settled in the region in large numbers during the colonial administration of many countries in Southeast Asia.

The population in Malaysia, for example, is 58 percent Malay and other indigenous peoples, 26 percent Chinese, 7 percent Indian, and 9 percent other ethnic origins. Similarly, Singapore's 4 million population is77 percent Chinese, 14 percent Malay, 8 percent Indian, and 1 percent people of other ethnic origins. This multiethnic mix is a characteristic of all Southeast Asian countries.

Colonization brought Western political and social influences to Southeast Asia. Western institutions of government and social organization were superimposed on indigenous structures and traditions. With independence from the Western colonial powers, emerging nation-states formed along the lines of the former colonies. The boundaries of these nation-states straddle territories long inhabited by indigenous tribes, migrant groups, and dominant ethnic groups. Even the concept of the nation-state is one derived from the West, and the governments in the Southeast Asian nation-states have faced major challenges in shaping a common national identity among their multiethnic citizenry. Former colonies of European industrialized nations were challenged with what must have seemed like an impossible task on independence—the construction of a national identity that would be simultaneously unitary and racially plural. The birth of the nation-state in Southeast Asia has been associated with ethnic strife and conflicts. These included racial riots in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.

With the assumption of independence and the end of colonial rule, former colonies such as Singapore basically had to shape nation-states out of what were then considered as immigrant societies—different ethnic groups comprising immigrant groups mixed with indigenous and local groups but sharing relatively little apart from the territory on which they had settled. Indeed, many of the immigrants had continued to maintain strong links with kin and family in their countries of origin. In a similar manner, the hill tribes and other such groups residing in the mainland Southeast Asian states of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam have had to adapt to the new territorial identities that the imposition of national boundaries required. What it means to ethnic groups that straddle the borders of several nation-states to be citizens of just one of those states remains in question. Being nationals of several emerging nation-states has meant that ethnic groups such as the Karen, like the earlier immigrant Chinese and Indians, now belong to different nationalities depending on which side of the national borders they are living.

Interethnic differences have been accentuated by the coincidence of social and economic divisions with ethnic groups. In Indonesia as well as Malaysia, the Chinese have been perceived to be economically more successful than the indigenous people. This has led to the imposition of a preferential policy favoring the Malays and other indigenous people in Malaysia. Until the end of the Suharto regime in Indonesia, the Chinese were not allowed the use of their language or to celebrate their festivals.

Interethnic tension runs high in the region, with the Karen waging a separatist war in Myanmar, the Acehnese people in northern Sumatra contesting the legitimacy of the government in Indonesia, and Muslim separatists active in southern Philippines and also southern Thailand. Since 1997 and the onset of the Asian economic crisis in the region, there have been armed conflicts between Christians and Muslims in Indonesia as well as between groups indigenous to the outer territories and other ethnic groups who have been resettled in these territories as part of the transmigration program meant to ease population pressures in and around Java. The growing popularity of an Islamic political party in Malaysia has been of concern given the decades of moderate Muslim leadership in both Malaysia and Indonesia, the two countries with the largest Muslim groups in Southeast Asia.

Given the national policies introduced to manage interethnic relations in the countries of Southeast Asia that have tended to favor one ethnic group over others, stability in these relations has been of major concern. With weakening of the unitary state that had earlier brooked no challenge to its policies on interethnic relations, there is great concern that race and religion will once again become the rallying platforms for the people in Southeast Asia who are discontented with the outcome of development.

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