Wawasan 2020: Engineering a Modern Malay(sia): State Campaigns and Minority Stakes

The paper focuses on the media’s role in the “modernization” process of post-colonial Malaysia under the Mahathir regime (1981-2003). It sketches Malaysia’s political and cultural development since its independence from British rule and attempts to locate the “Asian values” debate within the context of Malaysia’s development agenda. The paper critically examines state policies, their impact on cultural production, national identity and cultural rights, and questions the pragmatics of Mahathir’s vision and values. In his engineering of change for Malaysia, Mahathir appears to have “medicalized” the majority Malay-bumiputera, hitherto justifying subsidies to them and in the process denying “amenities”, let alone rights, to those labelled non-bumiputera. Looking at public campaigns, the paper argues that the deliberate un-representation of the “others” tends to reflect the realities of Malaysia’s lop-sided policies. State campaigns seem to depict a polarized Malaysia, a skewed vision and point out how ethnic rights and territories have been neatly staked out. In contesting traditional Malay values and prescribing a set of “new Malaysian values” through Vision 2020, Mahathir succeeded in shifting the Malay-bumiputera from fishing villages to cyber sites, but upon leaving office, lamented having failed to change the Malay-bumiputera