MALAYSIAN MUSIC AND SOCIAL COHESION: CONTEMPORARY RESPONSES TO POPULAR PATRIOTIC SONGS FROM THE 1950s – 1990s
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Published:
Jun 30, 2020
Keywords:
Malaysia patriotic songs popular music social cohesion focus groups affect
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Abstract
Upon its independence in 1957, Malaysia was in the process of becoming a modern nation and therefore required modern totems to bind together its diverse population. Malaysia’s postcolonial plural society would be brought under the imagined ‘nation-of-intent’ of the government of the day (Shamsul A. B., 2001). Music in the form of the national anthem and patriotic songs were and remained essential components of these totems; mobilised by the state to foster a sense of national cohesion and collective identity. These songs are popular and accepted by Malaysian citizens from diverse backgrounds as a part of their national identity, and such affinities are supported by the songs’ repeated broadcast and consumption on national radio, television and social media platforms. For this study, several focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted in Kuching, Kota Kinabalu and the Klang Valley. This research intends to observe and analyse whether selected popular patriotic songs in Malaysia, composed and written between the 1960s to 2000 could promote and harness a sense of collective identity and belonging amongst Malaysians. There exists an evident lacuna in the study of the responses and attitudes of Malaysians, specifically as music listeners and consumers of popular patriotic songs. The study finds that unlike initially hypothesised, patriotic songs – instead of commercial popular songs – are more popular and wide-reaching in appeal across different professions, ethnicities, religions and geographic locations of Malaysians. Patriotic music provides a means for social cohesion, not via the propagation of dogmatic patriotic content, but through the personal, intimate and affective associations that such songs solicit from individual citizens.
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References
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Shazlin A. Hamzah. (2016b). Penjenamaan Bangsa: Lagu-lagu Patriotik Popular dan Pembentukan Jenama Malaysia. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
Shazlin A. Hamzah. (2018). Negaraku: The National Anthem Binding Malaysians in Integration. In UKM Ethnic Studies Paper Series No. 59. Bangi: Institut Kajian Etnik (KITA).
Shazlin A. Hamzah. (2019). A Malaysian nation brand: The dissemination of it by radio Malaya via the song Tanah Pusaka. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 35(1), 90–102. https://doi.org/10.17576/JKMJC-2019-3501-07
Sia, A. (2009, October). The truth emerges. The Star Online.
Tan Sooi Beng. (1993). Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera. Singapore: Oxford University Press Pte. Ltd.
Stirr, A. M. (2017). Singing Across Divides: Music and Intimate Politics in Nepal. New York: Oxford University Press.
Stokes, M. (2004). Music and the global order. Annual Review of Anthropology, (33), 47–72.
Stokes, M. (2010). The Republic of Love: Cultural Intimacy in Turkish Popular Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Weintraub, A. N., & Barendregt, B. (Eds.). (2017). Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Zawawi, I. (2016). Disciplining rock and identity contestations: Hybridization, Islam and new musical genres in contemporary Malaysian popular music. Situations, 9(1), 21–47.
Anderson, B. (1983b). Imagined Communities. London: SAGE.
Billig, M. (1995). Banal Nationalism. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Bohlman, P. V. (2011). Music, Nationalism and the Making of the New Europe (Second.). New York: Routledge.
Elgenius, G. (2011). The politics of recognition: Symbols, nation building and rival nationalisms. Nations and Nationalism, 17(2), 396–418. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8129.2010.00482.x
Eriksen, T. H. (2007). Some questions about flags. In R. Eriksen, Thomas H. and Jenkins (Ed.), Flag, Nation and Symbolism in Europe and America. New York: Routledge.
Shamsul A. B. (1996a). Debating about ldentity in Malaysia : Analysis A Discourse, 34(3).
Shamsul A. B. (1996b). Nations-of-Intent in Malaysia. Asian Forms of the Nation, 323–347.
Shamsul A. B. (2007). Reconnecting ‘the Nation’ and ‘the State’: The Malaysian experience. In Abdul Rahman Embong (Ed.), Rethinking Ethnicity & Nation-building – Malaysia, Sri Lanka & Fiji in Comparative Perspective (pp. 204–215). Kajang: Persatuan Sains Sosial Malaysia.
Shamsul A. B. (2009). Culture and Governance in Malaysia’s Survival as a Nation. Bangi: Institut Kajian Etnik (KITA).
Shamsul, A. B. (2012). Modul Hubungan Etnik. (A. B. Shamsul, Ed.) (Second edi). Bangi: Institut Kajian Etnik (KITA).
Shamsul, A. B., & Daud, S. (2012). Nation, ethnicity, and contending discourse in the Malaysian state. In State Making in Asia (Vol. 9780203338, pp. 134–143). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203338988
Shamsul A.B. (2001). A History of an Identity , an Identity of a History : The Idea and Practice of ’Malayness ’ in Malaysia Reconsidered. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 32(3), 355–366.
Shazlin A. Hamzah. (2016a). Penjenamaan bangsa: Lagu-lagu Patriotik Popular dan Pembentukan Jenama Malaysia. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
Shazlin A. Hamzah. (2016b). Penjenamaan Bangsa: Lagu-lagu Patriotik Popular dan Pembentukan Jenama Malaysia. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
Shazlin A. Hamzah. (2018). Negaraku: The National Anthem Binding Malaysians in Integration. In UKM Ethnic Studies Paper Series No. 59. Bangi: Institut Kajian Etnik (KITA).
Shazlin A. Hamzah. (2019). A Malaysian nation brand: The dissemination of it by radio Malaya via the song Tanah Pusaka. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 35(1), 90–102. https://doi.org/10.17576/JKMJC-2019-3501-07
Sia, A. (2009, October). The truth emerges. The Star Online.
Tan Sooi Beng. (1993). Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera. Singapore: Oxford University Press Pte. Ltd.
Stirr, A. M. (2017). Singing Across Divides: Music and Intimate Politics in Nepal. New York: Oxford University Press.
Stokes, M. (2004). Music and the global order. Annual Review of Anthropology, (33), 47–72.
Stokes, M. (2010). The Republic of Love: Cultural Intimacy in Turkish Popular Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Weintraub, A. N., & Barendregt, B. (Eds.). (2017). Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Zawawi, I. (2016). Disciplining rock and identity contestations: Hybridization, Islam and new musical genres in contemporary Malaysian popular music. Situations, 9(1), 21–47.