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This chapter examines the political evolution of Malaysia in relation to minority communities, and compares the Malaysian experience to Western liberal theories of multiculturalism. The first three sections of the chapter focus on the important eras in the political history of the Malaysian model: colonization and migration, political independence, and the 1969 ethnic riots and resulting policy initiatives. The final section explores the constitutional and structural opportunities and constraints facing minority groups, and their relation to Western liberal theories. It is argued that Malaysia practices minority rights within the framework of Western liberalism, which is both a boon and a bane for minority communities.

This chapter examines what was described as the worst “ethnic rioting” in Malaysia in decades. In 2001, Malays and Indians clashed in an area known as Kampung Medan. Many analysts, academics, and politicians were quick to ascribe blame, drawing on the ethnic “myths” or stereotypes. Others invoked the purported and inevitable frustrations caused by anomie and squalor in squatter areas. The recounting of the violent events by witnesses and victims demonstrates that the respective figures of the Indian and Malay increasingly silence complex exchanges and intimacies between the two groups. These figures, in turn, are also produced out of a particular developmentalism driven by ethnonationalist impulses. The chapter also studies the symptoms of cultural and ethnic uncertainty generated by the bureaucratization of ethnic privilege.

This chapter examines how payback magnifies and ramifies onto a larger, social canvas. It first makes the case that a solid line—based on the Three Rs—runs through revenge to feuding, through the personal to the social, often mediated by the behavior of unscrupulous leaders and abetted by the poisonous effects of culturally sanctioned rumination. It then turns to what happens when rumination becomes action, such as in the case of ethnic rioting. It also considers the implications of the Three Rs for terrorism and war.

The formation of Northern Ireland is treated in this chapter. Contrary to subsequent misrepresentation, Northern Ireland was not a state, but a devolved government within the UK, with limited powers. Despite Craig’s and the UUP’s pledges of fair and impartial government, Northern Ireland had fiery and partisan beginnings, marked by pogroms and deadly ethnic riots. What follows examines how the UUP improvised amid the constraints of the Government Ireland Act and the 1921 treaty to establish constitutional, policing, territorial, legal, and economic control throughout Northern Ireland. The extensive electoral gerrymandering is explored, as well as its consequences. Cultural Catholics had restricted autonomy in their schooling system, which was not equally or proportionally funded. The chapter addresses what motivated the system of control, and how the British allowed it to develop.