The Plural Society

This book presents an examination on the significance of the political elites’ role in the expansion of ethnic politics to the periphery state of Sabah in Malaysia. Ethnicity in Sabah for generations did not have the significance that it held in the peninsular states, where colonial and post-colonial policies entrenched a sense of indigenous claims by the Malays against other ethnic communities of Chinese and Indians. In Sabah, especially before the Federation of Malaysia, social identity focused more on smaller social groups who needed to find non-ethnic basis for political solidarity rather than construct ethnic differences. Nevertheless, after decades in the federation of Malaysia the political solidarity in this territory became more focused on what Tajfel and Turner (1979) calls ‘us’ versus ‘them’, an activity of constructing and reconstructing ethnic difference as in West Malaysia. The study in which this book is based is explores and explains the reason why ethnic hostilities have more recently become a marker of political activities in Sabah.