Cheryl [Wan Xuan] Cheah - 'Through the Palm Fronds'

through the palm fronds

cheryl wan xuan cheah history and theory studies 2022/23 ‘ of monsters ’ ( lairs ) with teresa stoppani

Borrowing from Denis Hollier’s cyclical structure of the Labyrinth, the Pyramid, and the Labyrinth, the essay aims to confront the monster of palm oil plantation settlements in Peninsular Malaysia, reading them as a manifestation of Georges Bataille’s concept of le labyrinthe. Not necessarily maze-like in spatial organisation, such contemporary labyrinthine dimensions can be traced back to colonial roots of the British Empire’s control over the Malay peasantry demographic, bounding them invisibly to the domain of subsistence agriculture and subsequently hindering their socioeconomic mobility. Implemented under the veneered guise of a poverty alleviation scheme, namely FELDA (Federal Land Development Authority), this resettlement of rural Malay communities into productive villages that harvested the golden cash crop - palm oil - was a keystone to the wealth of the nation during its first decade as a sovereign state. Despite that, the remnants of colonial control continued to trickle down with time, and the essay argues that its shadowy choke-hold continues to perpetuate the class difference in the Malay demographic to this day. Ingrained societies of control such as restricted educational institution syllabuses, racially prejudiced land reserve policies and the false promise of property ownership exert biopolitical control over the workers, who seem to be offered a silver-lined escape - a ladder up to the pyramid’s summit - only to be faced with an externalised glass ceiling that chains them to the earth in which their livelihoods grow. In essence, the essay puts forward that the settlers in these plantation colonies, unbeknownst to them, are entrapped - within a self-fulfilling working-class prophecy. Yet, to relish in their illusioned autonomy may be the only way for them to traverse the pyramidal hierarchy. To lose oneself in the labyrinth with no ambition for escape would remove the nature of the labyrinth as a prison in the first place.

the labyrinth part i

colonial race relations between british and malays

Phrased isu-isu sensitif an umbrella term demarcating racially sensitive issues1 is a scar almost unnoticeable to the untrained eye. In the lens of conventional media, Malaysia is often portrayed as a unique sovereign state that boasts an unparalleled harmony between three major ethnic groups –the Malays, Chinese and Indians – with a capital city that underpins the melting pot of long-standing cultural traditions with contemporary progress. However, a single motion of unscrewing the lid off this tightly sealed jar of isu-isu sensitif would unveil a volatile and ironic tension: emergency powers put into place after the May 13th race-riots henceforth decried any further questioning of special privileges promised only to the Malays, otherwise known as bumiputra or “sons of the soil”. With all parties involved escaping explicit persecution despite the ethnic Malays’ outwardly violent and provocative actions, the historical event weaponised race into a divisive dagger that was never truly removed from the heart of Malaysia. Anthony Short in his analysis comments that perhaps the most influential consequence of the coup d’état is the fact that Malay status had been cemented to be inalienable “by thought, word, or deed.”2

Yet, the bumiputra demographic itself presents a stark intra-ethnic inequality, an ingrained divide that trickled down from the British colonial rule which spanned from 1826 to 1957. An unmistakable alliance was formed between the royal aristocratic rulers of Malaya when they legitimised the British hegemonic control over the Malay Peninsula. The colonists in fact were in awe of how the wider Malay peasantry would blindly obey their king (raja) and sultans, as evidenced in writings by Sir Frank A. Swettenham.3 Exploiting this unwavering loyalty, a scheme to exacerbate this strict hierarchy between the upper echelons of Malay society and the humble working-class masses, known as the rakyat, came into play. Through actively restricting the rakyat to their traditional role in the industry of subsistence agriculture and discouraging other business pursuits, their social mobility was hindered, and two factions were birthed.

1 Namely, the carnage that engulfed patches of Kuala Lumpur into flames on May 13th, 1969, whereby thousands of extremist ethnic Malays who gathered for a victory rally after the 3rd General Election inflicted vicious attacks on ethnic Chinese passer-by’s on motor scooters and cars. This was a result of the Alliance Party, the ruling coalition at the time, losing seats to the primarily ethnic Chinese opposition party, Democratic Action Party. On the street, triple threats of rioting, looting and killing dramatically unfolded to the backdrop of mosque loudspeakers echoing the venomous sentiments of violence, no longer broadcasting its familiar prayers. Loren S. Ryter, “A History of Race Relations in Malaysia,” Malaysia Today January 10, 2005.

2 Anthony Short, “Communism, Race and Politics in Malaysia,” Asian Survey 10 no. 12 (December 1970): 10819, https://doi.org/10.2307/2643057.

3 Loren S. Ryter, “A History of Race Relations in Malaysia.”

The role of King Minos was played by the urban Malay elites in collaboration with the British colonial powers, to entrap the rural Malay peasants in a labyrinth, characterising them as the entrapped monster, the Minotaur.4 Daedalus5, in this context, was the toil of agriculture.

Another deep-rooted cynicism in the prejudice of the British rulers generalised the Malay peasantry as an unproductive workforce, with a disinclination to strive for higher ambitions, in contrast to the ethnic Chinese, who reached the peninsula from the south of China. The rift between races was particularly reinforced since the Chinaman was universally considered to have a strong “capitalist sense” and “profit instinct.”6 Subsequently, the Malay peasantry was assigned the feminine label of being “kind and hospitable”, with “extreme sensitivity”, and hence shackled to a subordinate position in the paternalistic colonist perspective. Supported by the backbone of bumiputra benefits such as lower land taxes and monetary subsidies, compounded with the forced association to subsistence agriculture – the profitable production of mining left for Chinese taukays7 – a culture of indolence, slothfulness and lack of drive was perpetuated within the rural Malay population. Looped in a self-fulfilling prophecy, at the centre of the labyrinth lies not a monster of character, but a terrifying phantom of a biased system.

“And yet the labyrinth is a place of violent oppositions.”8

4 The Minotaur is described as a part-man part-bull monster. It is ironic to note here, the connotations of ‘bull’ and their association with the field of agricultural production.

5 Daedalus was an architect and craftsman in Greek mythology, credited for constructing the labyrinth under King Minos’ orders to imprison the Minotaur.

6 Loren S. Ryter, “A History of Race Relations in Malaysia.”

7 Chinese merchants in the eyes of the British encompassed the qualities that the Malays lacked: tenure, diligence, conscientiousness. Regardless, this demographic seemed to exist just at the fringes of the British political control, notorious for being conceited and ignorant, yet always one step ahead of the rulers. As a direct dichotomy from the economic interventionism applied to the bumiputra, policies for the Chinese were thus formulated on principles of laissez-faire Ibid.

8 Denis Hollier, “The Labyrinth, the Pyramid, and the Labyrinth,” in Against Architecture: The Writings of George Batailles Denis Hollier (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 69.

the pyramid base part ii

Figure

an act of remuneration, a scheme for poverty alleviation

the pyramid base

Idleness is one thing, but ignorance is another.

Naturally, the racial tension resulting from the interethnic wage disparity between Malays in the rural farmlands versus Chinese in the urban epicentres cycles us back to the bloodshed of May 13th. A New Economic Policy (NEP) was drafted following the ghost of this event, established as a proactive measure towards achieving national unity alongside the Rukun Negara (National Ideology).9 Another major aspiration of the NEP socioeconomic restructuring was to eradicate absolute poverty in the underdeveloped parts of the peninsula, which had been identified as a driving force10 behind the disharmony. A key weapon in bringing this to fruition is the push for the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) to hold more gravity in national development policies. From its inauguration on July 1st, 1956, at the dawn of Peninsular Malaysia’s independence from colonial powers11, FELDA pioneered the resettlement of rural poor into colonies that focused on smallholders growing cash crops for industry exports, namely rubber plantations at the time of its conception.

Eligibility criteria to partake in this resettlement program was rather exclusive; the scheme was only applicable for:

1. ethnic Malays or bumiputra

2. aged between 21 to 50 years old,

3. married,

4. physically fit,

5. and priority was given to those with no land ownership.

9 The Rukun Negara text (National Ideology) is listed and translated as follows.

Kepercayaan kepada Tuhan (belief in god)

Kesetiaan kepada raja dan negara (loyalty to king and country)

Keluhuran perlembagaan (supremacy of the constitution)

Kedaulatan undang-undang (rule of law)

Kesopanan dan kesusilaan (courtesy and morality).

10 Arif Simeh, Tengku Mohd Ariff, Tengku Ahmad, “The Case Study on the Malaysian Palm Oil” (paper presented at the Regional Workshop on Commodity Export Diversification and Poverty Reduction in South and SouthEast Asia, Bangkok, 3-5 April 2001), 1, http://r0.unctad.org/infocomm/Diversification/bangkok/palmoil.pdf.

11 FELDA was introduced to the peninsula as part of the Land Development Ordinance 1956 (Act 474), which fell under GSA-Group Settlement Areas (Act 530). Malaya’s independence from the British rule was officially declared with seven chants of “Merdeka!” (“Independence!”) at Merdeka Square, Kuala Lumpur on August 31st, 1957.

With this basis, new settlers drawn from the rural poor are then allotted either ten, twelve or fourteen acres of land12 to cultivate, with an additional quarter of an acre provided in the settlement village already pre-designed and built by FELDA where they must reside. Albeit stripped to the basic necessities, infrastructure such as piped water and electricity, and facilities like medical centres, public schools and places of worship were pre-established in the settlements. Funding for these provisions is directly collected from the settlers themselves – not in the form of a tax levy but as a loan repayment (an imposed condition on the settlers); upon agreement into the scheme all settlers must be signed onto a fifteen-year bond with FELDA, and a sum of money is deducted from each smallholder’s monthly income13 as part of the instalment payment plan spanning the entire decade and a half duration.

At the first rollout, the schemes were being administered as co-operatives where all the residents would have shared ownership and profits in their collective block holding.14 However, the tragedy of the commons is a familiar concept: this methodology was ruled out over time as settlers were dissatisfied with disparities and occurrences of freeloading, as some farmers would benefit from earning the same revenue despite working less tenaciously. As a replacement, a phased ownership mechanism was introduced instead:15

1. phase one, co-operative farming

a. settlers can learn the ropes regarding agricultural work

2. phase two, specified plots

a. each settler is given responsibility to tend particular parcels of land, training their self-reliance with smaller areas

3. phase three, land title

a. when the previous phase has been achieved with desirable yield and results, land title to the plot would be entrusted to the settler

b. at the end of the fifteen-year bond, settlers must seek permission from FELDA operative authorities or the federal government if they wish to sell the plot.16

12 Noreen Noor Abd Aziz, Wan Haslin Aziah Wan Hassan, Nur Adilah Saud, “The Effects of Urbanization Towards Social and Cultural Changes Among Malaysian Settlers in the Federal Land Development Schemes (FELDA), Johor Darul Takzim” (paper presented at the ASIA Pacific International Conference on Environment-Behaviour Studies, Giza, Egypt, 31 October-2 November 2012), 911, doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.12.276.

13 Josiane L. Massard, “Are Malaysian Land Settlers (New) Peasants? Anthropological Observation of a Nascent Community,” https://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80636e/80636E0g.htm.

14 Arif Simeh, Tengku Mohd Ariff, Tengku Ahmad, “The Case Study on the Malaysian Palm Oil,” 8.

15 Noreen Noor Abd Aziz, Wan Haslin Aziah Wan Hassan, Nur Adilah Saud, “The Effects of Urbanization,” 911.

16 Ibid., 911.

In the period between the 1960s to the 70s, the government’s focus shifted to crop diversification away from rubber, as prices for the commodity fell sharply in response to the rise of synthetic rubber production. A turn to palm oil became the catalyst responsible for a significant portion of the nation’s wealth post-independence17, and FELDA played a paramount role in gentrifying the villages it had created, acquiring land for monoculture plantations and providing replanting funds and other related financial aid for smallholders looking to shift from rubber to palm oil. On the whole, the poverty alleviation scheme was met with tremendous success, and despite the inability to categorise the direct impact resultant of the NEP, absolute poverty in agriculture within the nation dropped from 68.3% to 11.8% between 1970 to 1997.18

When viewed from a distance, FELDA’s resettlement scheme as an operational strategy can be referred to Bataille’s notion of a “relatively stable whole”, a labyrinth in whose centre lies “a double pistil of sovereign and god”.19 With its own gravitational pull, this centre naturally relinquishes the “existence of peripheral cities, where the organs that constituted the totality of being wilt”20; the Minotaur instils an air of trepidation that pushes the victims of this fear, the Malay peasantry, to the fringes of this system away from the nucleus. This society of control at once morphs from an ambient fluidity into a topdown directional hierarchy, a pyramid, between the authorities and the settlers. Contrary to the veneer of the NEP remuneration ambition, the settlers are to this day bound to a nuanced yet intentional perpetuation of the intra-ethnic class divide between the Malay peasantry at the base and the Malay elites at the summit.

“Icarus, seduced by Apollo’s sunny invitation, took off – up.”21

17 Arif Simeh, Tengku Mohd Ariff, Tengku Ahmad, “The Case Study on the Malaysian Palm Oil,” 1.

18 Ibid., 6.

19 George Batailles, “The Labyrinth,” in Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927–1939 ed. Allan Stoekl (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985).

20 As conveyed in the previous section of the essay, the Minotaur or monster in question is the system of resettlement colonies, and those who suffer ironically are the beneficiaries of the poverty alleviation program, the settlers themselves. However, this is a vantage point only visible to the outsider, third-party observer. Ibid.

21 Silver linings in the form of external economic activity, educational opportunities and organised protests against authorities etc. present the idea of autonomy to the particles within this relatively stable whole – in this case to the settlers – even though it may be a mere mirage. In turn, this becomes a biopolitical control mechanism that drives the Malay peasantry back to their original subordinate positions, at the edges of a boundless labyrinth. The following part of this essay delves further into precisely this deceptive sense of agency. Denis Hollier, “The Labyrinth, the Pyramid, and the Labyrinth,” 69.

the pyramid summit part

iii

Figure

an act of rebellion, an illusion of autonomy

Aligned with goals delineated in the NEP that sought to eliminate the compartmentalisation of ethnic groups by economic function, particularly to dissociate the indigenous people and Malays with subsistence agriculture, programs were brought into FELDA settlements to enable participation by bumiputra settlers in economic activities aside from farming. Examples such as the SAWARI program exposed settlers to “agriculture food-based industry and arts and crafts industry”22 allowing them to engage in local shop keeping businesses that provided an alternative income source.

However, it can be argued that these strategically planted programs are an effort to urbanise the settlement communities and rural population. Undeniably, the program contributes to reducing the disparity in education levels and the gaps in opportunities in comparison to those in the city, but it clandestinely devises a biopolitical control mechanism. In offering a taster palette for an urban “modern environment” to the settler community, alongside subsidising funds for business start ups in the local vicinity, the second-generation settlers are discouraged to flee toward the city. 23

These programs are implemented as a preventative measure against the draining of the plantation workforce out of the settlements, resulting in a weakened production line in the palm oil industry. Glazing the illusion to the rural Malays that they are being equipped with skill sets and knowledge comparable to those the “urban people are receiving”24 limits the feelings of imbalance, neutralising their desire to leave the settlement and subconsciously binding them to their assigned role of agricultural production set out all those years ago by the prejudiced colonial policy.

Starting with an even younger age group, nurturing children of the settlements in hyper-local public schools with a non-conventional curriculum enforces the immaterial control over the FELDA workforce. Rooted in the colonists’ fear of the “disruptive potential of English-speaking Asians”, English education was extremely elusive and only offered to aristocratic Malays25 whilst children of farmers and fishermen were given Malay language vocational instruction instead. Vernacular schools implemented syllabuses with an underlying focus on “gardening and handicrafts” as well as basketry26 delivering such skills to the settlement children otherwise not taught in standardised curriculum outside the rural community. In parallel to the special privileges allotted to bumiputra that actually uphold the culture of reliance and indolence, such specific educational strategies perpetuate the class divide between the Malay peasantry with the Malay elites.

Another instance of the settler’s presumed autonomy surfaces in the act of protest, instances where the settlement community momentarily forms a relatively stable whole. In an attempt to rejoice in their transient ipséité27 rebellion against the all-seeing authority at the summit of the pyramid occurs. Initially, this manifested in cases of protests in which hundreds of settlers arrived in busloads from their respective homes and took Kuala Lumpur by storm. Such an event was painted by the government media agency as a grassroots campaign titled Faces of Palm Oil, an attempt to draw sympathy from the wider audience whilst simultaneously demonising the opponent28 – the European Union awaiting to sign a ban on palm oil imports from Malaysia.

25 English language education was offered to the upper-class Malays in the urban in preparation for their undertaking of civil service roles upon entering the workforce. Loren S. Ryter, “A History of Race Relations in Malaysia.”

26 Ibid.

27 The term ipséité refers to a quality in any given individual that is irreplaceable, wholly unique and indispensable to their self-identity. It is argued that durable whole systems of organs are made of fragmented individual components that are still able to preserve this ipséité. This would in fact be in line with the earlier categorisation of the FELDA settlement program as a relatively stable whole. George Batailles, “The Labyrinth.”

24 Ibid.

28 The chairman of FELDA at the time, Shahrir Abdul Samad, authored an article published on News Straits Times announcing that the ban would “cause significant harm to ordinary Malaysians, reducing the quality of life of our small farmers, and taking money out of the pockets of communities across Malaysia.” Though this is true, its timely release a week prior to the vote was a strategic decision to garner supporters for the organisation’s cause. Earthsight, “Scandal-ridden Malaysian plantation firm is the cause of smallholders’ problems, not the EU,” last modified March 1, 2018, https://www.earthsight.org.uk/news/analysis/scandal-ridden-malaysian-plantation-firm-cause-smallholdersproblem.

22 Noreen Noor Abd Aziz, Wan Haslin Aziah Wan Hassan, Nur Adilah Saud, “The Effects of Urbanization,” 912. 23 Migration to urban centres in pursuit of higher social status, derived from increased salaries and individual autonomy, is a prospect second-generation settlers tend to foster. Ibid.

the pyramid summit

A further inspection would reveal that the entire operation is in fact orchestrated by FELDA and other government bodies, to redirect the negative press attention surrounding the questionable sustainability methods practiced by Malaysian smallholder palm oil plantations; a lack of transparency from the managing agency wound up placing the settlers under the limelight of global scrutiny.

Collectively, these separate contexts share an underlying common (Ariadne’s) thread. Whilst the smallholders may believe they are exercising their ipséité – through endeavours into side businesses, excelling in their vocational programs or educational career, and at times even aggregating into a stable whole29 – they are in fact just working at the fringes of a “another more powerful pole”, namely FELDA’s choke-hold on the Malay peasantry demographic. The settler’s perception of the pyramid summit is in fact a descent and spiral back between the very walls of the labyrinth.

Perhaps, they never left.

“In spite of their opposition, one is not faced with an alternative between labyrinth and pyramid. Each implies the other.”30

29 Settlers may congregate under the impression they are “societies of individuals whose bodies are autonomous.” George Batailles, “The Labyrinth.”

30 Constant fluctuations between the state of labyrinthine space and pyramidal space creates a unique condition whereby the settlers are suspended in a limbo between two polarising tensions. Denis Hollier, “The Labyrinth, the Pyramid, and the Labyrinth,” 73.

Figure 6

the labyrinth once

to be lost and not found

the labyrinth once more

“The labyrinth is not a safe space, but the disoriented space of someone who has lost his way.”31

In another sense, the FELDA labyrinths are the manifestation of Bhabha’s interstitial Third Space, a hybrid between the system of reproduction (settlement scheme) with the spaces of production (agricultural plantations). At the cusp of this no man’s land, there exists a subtext negotiation between colonizer and colonized, birthing a new cultural identity32 - no longer just peasants, but no more than the unfairly treated rakyat When faced with this uprising of postcolonial resistance, the traditional colonial narrative does not fail; in fact, it is transformed into something politically meaningful as a compromising promise to the colonized and their destabilising outburst. Then again, in our case of palm oil settlements, this only occurs once every blue moon.

Perhaps, we should abandon Ariadne’s thread in the midst of the gridded palm oil plantation, for perceiving the labyrinth as a condition that requires emancipation from would imply its intrinsic nature as a prison. Perhaps for the settlers, the mere enjoyment of ipséité in their illusioned autonomy is enough to “transform the steps he is taking into a dance”33; there is no sense of ensnarement if one does not recognise a cage. As Bhabha outlined, agency is unpredictable, but it is agency that the colonized can use as a retaliating weapon. Are they not already traversing the pyramid by letting their acts of laughter ring through the grapevine and echo within the labyrinth?34

When push comes to shove, “the labyrinth is a drunken space”35, and if the banality of life in the settlements is occasionally punctuated by moments of agency that allow for a sinful sense of intoxication, then why should the settlers not raise their glasses?

31 Bataille in his essay The Labyrinth describes the condition he named the universal night in which “everything finds itself – and soon loses itself – would appear to be existence for nothing...” As a prerequisite, should a situation call for a solution, an inherent problematic is presented. Similarly, should a space yearn for an escape, an innate confinement is delineated. Denis Hollier, “The Labyrinth, the Pyramid, and the Labyrinth,” 58.

32 When the colonized resists enslavement through acts of rebellion, the disparity between the colonizer’s expectations and such unexpected response stimulates an ambivalent gap. Herein lies the Third Space of liminal “in-between”. Homi K. Bhabha, “The Location of Culture,” 7.

33 Ibid., 58.

34 “The difference in levels that provokes common laughter – which opposes the lack of an absurd life to the plenitude of successful being – can be replaced by that which opposes the summit of imperative elevation to the dark abyss that obliterates all existence. Laughter is thus assumed by the totality of being.” George Batailles, “The Labyrinth.”

35 The critique this essay aims to pose does not encourage the escape from the labyrinth; in fact, it suggests that perhaps the only way out is to embrace being within it. At the end of the day, “one is never either inside or outside the labyrinth.” Denis Hollier, “The Labyrinth, the Pyramid, and the Labyrinth,” 59.

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